"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live." Marcus Aurelius

Being in a big family isn't easy and Jaune Arc is able to prove that.

Little Jaune Arc had fair skin, blonde hair and dark-blue eyes. He was the youngest of seven sisters. And while his days should be full of love, for him they were full of loneliness. He learned to cook himself at the age of five, as everyone had to cook on his own due the diferent schedules. His parents were Huntsmen and always left early and arrived late, and even if they arrived early they would be too tired to interact with him. Each sister had a different profession, so they never talked to him unless necessary. He was far too young to try to talk to other childs, as other childs around his age were still being coddled by his parents, and he didn't had any way to survive against other children. And thus he was alone.

Though that would change after another birthay forgotten, his seventh one to be precise. He was sitting alone on a bench park, when an old man got close to him. The man was withered by time, but even then he still carried himself with strenght and grace, like a dancer. He had a hair as white as snow. He had an atletic build and a face that while stained by age still hinted the handsomeness that he had in his youth. He wore a dark green with brown yukata making it resemble a forest growing in earth.

"Hello little kid, what are you doing in here all alone?" The old man asked.

Sure Jaune was cautious at first. He read a lot, and knew not to trust in strangers, but as a lonely kid - lone enough that he usually talked to himself to dispel his sense of loneliness - he warmed up pretty quickly. That moment was always remembrerd with fondness, it could had turned pretty wrong and he knew that. He was lucky that the old man was so kind.

The old man presented himself as Asterios. Asterios was a huntsman until he retired. He lived alone as her wife died and his children went away in search of their dreams forgetting him. So at the end he was lonely. Jaune, knew what was to be alone, so he decided to stick with him. Jaune talked about anything, knowledge, stories, the weather, and his dreams of being a Huntsman, to be in a good team and be of use. Asterios asked if he was ready for the hardship he would face, as the life of a Huntsman isn't easy, but Jaune never faltered. And seeing his resolutions Asterios decided to train him.

First of all he needed knowledge and physical strength. The first part of his day always consisted in swimming around in a nearby lake, to increase his stamina and shape, weights to increase his strength, laps, to increase his speeds, among other things. In the afternoon he learned, about anatomy, precise points were the body is at it's weakest, where to inflict mortal hits and where it only incapacitate the target; basics of first aid; and about weapons, how to maintain them, to sharpen them, the diferent weapons and his uses. He learned the name of the sword he was going to practice with, a katana, used for agile fighters. Jaune was told that he had to be like water, to be impredictable, and to be able to adapt to the situations he was put into, and when the opportunity arises he had to strike like lightning, fast and powerful. At night he was asked to meditate before he sleps. One day Jaune asked.

"Hey old man, why do I have to meditate?"

"Jaune, in a battle having a calm mind is always necesary, to be able to see and understand abilities, attack patterns, or notice habits. To do that, you shoud have the ability to calm yourself anytime. That's why we meditate at night, so we are able to control our mind in a time when we are resting as it tends to be more active at that time. It also give you patience, always needed on a fight, and discipline, because even as we are tired, we continue to persevere. And lastly due to having a clear mind, you would be able to focus more and have better memory."

Days passed and Jaune started his training with the sword. He started with a bokken, a wooden imitation of a katana, to learn the postures, and how to react in most situations. How to fall and recover quickly, to read the oponent looking things like the intention, the movement and habits, and to use the most efficient route to do everything from using the enviroment, taunting, and approaches.

But there was a glaring hole in the training and Jaune was quick to point out.

"Old man, what about ranged weapons, like guns?"

"About that... I'll be honest. I suck at marksmanship. The best I can give you is knife throwing and you won't use it often"

"Why?" Jaune asked tilting his head

"Our style of swordmanship is based in deflecting to get close, to capitalize the oportunity in the shift between the ranged weapon and the melee weapon. Because, let's be honest. A lot of battles are started with the ranged weapon making the pace, unless either the gun is close ranged, like a shotgun, or use dust as a ranged weapon, wich will be used when necesary. In the rare case that you can't ger close, you throw a knife to distract, and rush to the oponent. The reason why this is so efective is the training we have on our reflexes combined with the enhancement that aura gives us"

"Oh, okay then. Thanks old man"

And that way passed five years. Jaune's family never noticed the fact he was outside training. In those years, Jaune frame became lean but strong, years of training made it durable, he also became rather observant and with a calm disposition due the meditation, which enhanced his memory and focus. Asterios never knew but Jaune's aura was never activated, an yet he had enough reflexes to deflect a hail of bullets. And of course his lack of activated aura was something that almost brought tragedy.

Jaune and Asterios were hunting Grimm for training when they were attacked by a group of Beowolfes. Nothing that they couldn't manage, and until the pack was dead Asterios didn't noticed that one circled around the battlefield and was about to attack Jaune. He expected Jaune's aura to block the hit, but since it wasn't active the slash connected, and Jaune was sent to the floor with a large scratch on his back. The beowulf was going to finish him when he was decapited by Asterios sword.

Inmediately he started to give him medical care, as the nearest doctor was too far away and he would bleed out before arriving. After managing to heal Jaune, Asterios brought him to his house, as he didn't know where Jaune lived. Days passed and Jaune didn't woke up, thae wound long since healed and left a huge claw scar on his back. Soon two weeks passed, and Jaune woke up, disoriented. Asterios inmediately arrived and started asking questions taking note that the dark blue color that his eyes had were replaced with a rare sigh. Jaune's eyes had central heterochromia, with a impressive light blue and in the central zone it had an impressive shade of red. But Jaune was kind of distracted with the red lines he was seeing everywere, he touched a line that a flower had and traced it, inmediately the flower died, and he passed out freaking Asterios out. The days passed, and Jaune was rejecting touch. Asterios didn't know that everytime he touched him, Jaune saw him being torn to pieces. That continued until Asterios saw Jaune about to rip off his eyes.

Asterios stopped it, and made Jaune talk. Jaune told him about what he was seeing, the lines, how when he touched a line over something alive it died, and in an object it was destroyed, and about the visions. Asterios, said one thing after knowing all this.

"Don't bother taking them out, even then you will see the lines" said Asterios nodding

"Why is that?" Jaune tilted his head

"That is because the ability to see those lines don't comes from your eyes, but from your soul, that's your semblance kid. By the way that reminds me. Why you didn't had your aura active?"

"Isn't always active?" Jaune sounded genuinely confused.

"Who exactly awakaned your aura?" Asterios asked slowly dreading the answer

And Jaune didn't disapoint "The aura has to be awakened?"

Asterios facepalmed "Then how the hell do you know at all about aura?"

"Oh, all the members of my family work in something related to the battlefield, so aura is usually mentioned"

"On that note where is your family? While you were knocked out I never heard anyone looking for you..." Asterios asked

"Is that so..." Jaune sounded disapointed but then shruged "I guess I never talked about my family, huh? Well the first thing you got to know is that I have seven sisters, besides the point of my parents needing a new hobby, all seven are older than me, already work, have great salaries, and all live with my parents. That means that besides their job as huntsmen they have to bear with the antics of eight childrens. Because I'm the youngest, usually my sisters tend to have the upper hand in th attention of our parents, and after a while seeing them wearing down I decided to be less of a burden, so I don't try to take their attention, and help my sister as much as I can to ease their weight. That was two years ago. And because of that unless I am in front of them they tend to forget about me. And don't worry I don't resent them, rather I feel sorry for them, and I'm amazed that they haven't turned crazy by the sheer pressure"

It seems that talking themes that Jaune was familiar with managed to calm him down

"Okay, first of all we have to deal with the visions. Using meditation you should help you to reduce them until you are able to completely push them on the very back of your mind. Now however, I'll explain you the aura and everything that it entails. Aura is the manifestation of our souls. To activate it you have to either have a lot of training focused on activate it, or having an experienced aura user to activate it for you. After that the aura can be turned on and off. And because you didn't had your aura active it is amazing that you have this level of reflexes, endurance and strength"

"Why?" Jaune asked proud of his achievements.

"Aura is a natural booster. With it you have enhanced senses, strength, reflexes, a shield, passive regeneration, is a reinforcer for weapons, protect for the weather and the most important one, allows you to activate an special ability called a semblance"

"But... Old man, then why can I use my semblace even if I don't have my aura active?"

"Well..." Asterios started "It's rare, but with special conditions a semblance could be forced awake before the aura, but it's always a little bit off. The perfect example would be Qrow Branwen. He is a huntsman, and has the semblance called Misfortune. You can guess what it does by it's name. It brings misfortune to everything around him, even himself. Now that would be it weren't that a rather persistant media asked him why his semblance is always active. He said that after some bad luck when he was a kid, he was surprised by some grimm. As he was surrounded he wished to be able to escape from them, and all grimm started to die in ways that could be considered as bad luck, were not for the fact that there were 10 grimm, and statistically that was imposible. That happened before he awoke his aura, and he couldnt turn off his semblance even if he wanted. People starting to compare people that awoke their semblance before their aura with people that awoke their semblance normally. All seem to have some kind of flaw, but were stronger than normal. A person that awoke a semblance of strength before their auras, had them always active, and thus that semblance was above average when strength semblances were involved. So if Qrow had awaken his semblance normally he maybe be able to manipulate probability in a small scale, no events as extreme as those that happens around him, like increase the posibility to evade a hit and even then you could be hit, or the posibility for an oponent to fail an attack and lose balance but only increase, not make the posibilitiy absolute, so he could turn the bad luck off, but since he awoke his semblance before his aura, he now brings bad luck to others and to himself, in a way that it would be pretty hard to fight him as the fight would depend on luck and skill. In the end that means that your eyes probably will always be active"

Indeed Jaune tried to turn them off before, but couldn't.

"So let's think what your semblance is capable of. You told me that when you trace the lines that you see, the object is broken to say it in a way. Alive things are easily killed, and when you trace a line in an object you break it." Jaune nodded.

"With only that information you could say that you see places were the object could be dealt critical damage, were not for what happened with the flowers. When you traced the line, the flowers withered and die, it wasn't cut. Also the images of me being torn into pieces tell me something. You see death. When those lines are traced they cut off the target from life. That would mean that it would ignore any defence, because you attack at a flaw, a weak point. But that needs to be proven. That also would mean that theoretically it also ignores regeneration, as it says to the body when you trace a line that nobody is wrong, this was always like this, you never had an arm, or a leg, or anything, making regeneration useless. It also theoretically deals with inmortality and reincarnation, as they impose life in a target, and in the second one it would also mean that you are alive, even after death. Because of that, if you trace a line in an inmortal, it would impose death on him or her, killing them, making their inmortality useless. As with a person able to reincarnate, happens the same thing. Because of they being alive even after death, when you impose death on them they don't reincarnate, because they stay dead. Ilusions would be useless as you 'see' with your soul, and not with your brain and because illusions happen when the information going to your brain is mixed up."

Jaune was shocked by this information. And Asterios continued.

"The interesting part of it is other than that doesn't give you anything different, so you still have to get close to the target and be skilled enough to trace a line, if an enemy is stronger than you it wouldn't matter that you can see death, you still are unable to trace a line to kill them. With that being your power now that you have awoken it before aura, if you had awoken the semblance after aura, probably you would be able to turn them off, but instead of imposing death you would see critical points, so they would still be covered by defence, and regeneration, inmortality and reincarnation would still work."

Jaune then asked "But, why awakening a semblance before aura is so rare, if the effects are much better than awakening them usually?"

"Well..." Asterios answered "All cases told us that they were in mortal danger, and had the strenght to overcome it, but there are people thet being in the same situation aren't so strong, or lucky, killing them. So people don't want to take the chance and play it save"

"So no pain no gain essentially" Jaune resumed

"Yep. Now, I want to prove the teory that it ignores defenses with my left arm. I lost it some time ago, so it's fake" Asterios let Jaune touch his left hand, and Jaune made sure not to trace any death lines.

"Really! I didn't notice..."

"So let's start" With that Asterios suddently shone a rusted brown and took out his scroll, the way that the people in Remnant comunicated. It had an app that showed the actual aura "Okay, my aura is active. Try tracing a death line on my arm. I will monitor my aura" Jaune tried to do that, with his finger he got close, but he couldn't bypass the aura "...Didn't work, huh?"

"Well, maybe is because of the width of the line" Jaune commented

"Huh?" Asked Asterios

"The width of the lines of your arm is smaller than the ones on the flowers for example..."

Asterios gave Jaune a wakizashi "I was going to train you with this later. It seems I'll have to change the training regime."

Jaune tried to trace the line again again and to his surprise, he managed to cut through Asterios aura, and when he traced the line, the arm was swiftly cut off.

"Amazing" said Asterios "And the aura level never went down! Okay definitively we have to change the training regime. For now let's activate your aura..."

After a chant, and some moments of discomfort, the aura of Jaune was active. It was special, as it seemed that it was fluctuating between black and white, giving him an ethereal appearence, besides he had a lot of aura.

"So old man, this reminds me... Why didn't you noticed that I didn't had my aura active?"

"Well Jaune... It is because I thought that you had it turned off to prove yourself. As you know aura is a shield, so you were challenging yourself to be better as you endured lot less hits that with aura activated. Besides, aura makes you feel pain, so that way you would feel pain, and that would be a reminder of your failures"

"Fair enough."

"So... we have to name your semblance, any name comes to your mind?" Asterios asked

"The reaper?" Jaune offered

"Too pompous"

"Azrael."

"Mhmm, has a nice ring, but again something is missing..."

"The grimm reaper"

"You are going to fight humans too you know"

"Well, give names too old man."

"Ummm, Zabaniya"

"It happens something similar with Azrael you know? The name fits, but it lacks some 'je ne sais quoi'"

"Okay then. Let's be direct Mystic Eyes Of Death Perception"

"Why Mystic? I mean I see where you are going with Death Perception, but why mystic?"

"I mean, mystic is similar to enigmatic, and we don't have any clue as why you can see death besides of your aura, but well there are a lots of things that we don't know about the aura so we are in the same spot."

"Sure then, the name is a little bit long, but why not, I like it" Jaune concluded

"And now, how will you 'reveal' the mystic eyes"

"Huh? Why would I reveal them?"

"Intimidation, think about it. We have to see what the eyes can do, but we know that it can pierce trough almost anything. The enemy would be panicked as his attacks would be inefectual, and then you reveal your abilities in a cryptic but understanable way, that reveals that any defence would be futile, but keeps hidden everything else, the enemy would abandonany sense of rationality, and try to flee, or make a suicidal attack. And you capitalize. To resume, reveal the superficial aspect of your abilities, and let them draw conclusions, that would lead to the oponent either overestimating or underestimating your abilities, and you capitalize. Later you have to tell to your team, you'll be stuck with them for four years, so knowledge of the abilities will allow you to coordinate better."

"If I have to, but that's for other time, I still have five years for that"

From there they talked about other things, ending with the design of the Jaune's simbol. It would be the taijitu. The ying and yang, representation of the duality. After replacing Asterios arm, they started the new training. Aura had a big deficit and it was that for all the things that it provided, it had to be activated, meaning that you lower your guard, and you are death. Something he noticed too is that his aura didn't protect him from poison. He ate food in bad state in the middle of his practice to keep his aura active most time possible, and well, let's say that those were two long hours. His training changed radically. Now in the morning he practiced with two wakizashi, because the katana couldn't be used in all fights, whether for the space, or the enemy that is used against. In the afternoon he precticed hand to hand combat, as with bladed weapons he invariably went for the death lines, which would kill his oponent, and in a spar that would be counter-productive. In his free time he practices with the katana and his aura, and finally meditates before sleeping.

Due to the fact that his semblance was always active, when training his aura he centered himself in making it more efficient. He asked Asterios to hit him, and made his aura redirect the hit, rather than absorbing it, so it could last more. It was a work in progress, and the results weren't as good as he'd like. When training with the Mystic Eyes Of Death Perception he worked on what he could see, as he already could cut ice dust, fire dust, rock dust, the steam dust, and wind dust (that one was hard, as he had to 'see' the shift on the air, and things without form were hard to see). The ones he couldn't cut, were lightning, as it was too fast for him to cut, and gravity, as he couldn't see it. The amazing part is that anything thin enough to penetrate the death lines ware able to, ignoring the sharpness, like a ruler, or a piece of paper. And so another five years passed. The time has arrived, and a trained Jaune was days away from being a huntsman in training. Now though he was going to Asterios's house. The old man was nearing his last days, as he was seen more pale, less energetic, and weaker then usual. The night was shining, and Jaune found Asterios outside, watching the moon. Wordlessly, he sat down next to him waiting for Asterios to start talking.

"I'm going to die today you know?" Asterios bluntly stated

Jaune could only nod.

"The doctor already declared that I'll die, so I decided to give you this as a parting gift." Asterios took out a katana. It was plain, but beautifully crafted,with his symbol on it's base "I dont have a name for it, will you name it?"

"Monohoshi - zao."

"Really? Why that name?"

"Besides that it sounds good? Nothing"

"Hah as straight foward as always." Asterios laughed "But that's not all, here are two wakizachi" And Asterios gave him two wakizachi. One was as black as the night with red hexagonal pattern, and the other, as white as the haze of a cloud "I named the black one Ganjiang, also known as Kanshou, and the white one is called Moye or Bakuya, the story is quite interesting, let me tell it." And he told him the story of the name. And finally the time came from the final gift "This is my last gift, a hakama." Indeed, Jaune had took a liking to wearing hakamas for battles, and kimonos for dairy stuff in the ten years he passed with Asterios. "Really, the only special thing it has is the fact that is tear resistant, made to resist in the cold, and has a pretty design, because armor doesn't do that much when aura shield the hits, and you'll probably be dead if it gets empty, having armor or not, so... that" A beautiful thick hakama was given to him. It was mostly white, with a design of the taijitu (ying-yang) all over it. Jaune was speechless, for a few moments.

"But why give me all of this?"

"It's my money, I do whatever I want with it, besides it's time you own your own weapons" Asterios shruged and then sighed "Look kid, the Huntsmen not only fight grimm, but also have to look great doing it. We are beacons of hope for the people, and to keep things as smooth as we can, people have to look at you, dancing through the grimm, making things look easy, to give people hope, that we have a chance against grimm, and that's double for aura users, as they literally wear their hearts on their sleeves. Always remember that and use those gifts to be the symbol of hope that people need. Because if huntsmen fail, well, humanity is over"

"I'll remember it"

"Jaune make sure that you end up being a damm good huntsman, or I'll go back from the death and haunt you"

"You bet old man, I'll be a great huntsman"

"I hope it, see you in another life..." And with an smile Asterios took his last breath

"See ya old man." Jaune shed some silent tears for the man that was like the grandpa he always wanted. His weren't so fond of him.

The funeral was a quick affair, and Jaune knew that this was the day were he left his house to the initiation test of Beacon. He packed his bag, said goodbye to his parents, that wished him luck, and went to the bullhead without looking behind.

So forget about the BNHA reacts, I made a RWBY x Kara no Kyoukai (The Garden of Sinners).

I loved the The Garden of Sinners, the structure, the battles, the story, all of it!

The title of the story 'Boundary of Emptiness', is translated as Kara no Kyoukai in japanese, and is also the noble phantasm of void Shiki in FGO. So I guess I have lost points for originality there.

By the way, the names of the two wakizashi, 'Kanshou and Bakuya' are references to Archer from Fate / Stay Night - Unlimited Blade Works. I'll tell the story were they are based from in another chapter. The same thing about monohoshi-zao, that one is inspired by Sasaki Kojiro / Fake Assassin. Gotta love Ufotable and their fights.

As for RWBY... Well I have only seen the first episode, when I wrote this February 3 of 2020, by the time I've published this, I'll be more on tune with the series - Probably.

And by if I take too long, sorry, I got hooked on FGO, anyone who would want to be my friend, send me a request on the ID 014,217,986.

See ya.