The chapter's finally done!

Before I start I want to say that this chapter might be of a little bit lower quality than usual since for some ungodly reason writing this thing has been a nightmare. There practically wasn't a single fragment of it that I didn't have to rewrite at some point or another and I had to write almost the entire middle of the chapter three times as the first time my electricity broke in the middle.

So you know, I'm sorry if it's not up to my usual standard.

Reviews:

BrainWork27 - Nice idea for team RWBY and Nora though I probably won't be using, or any other way fro them to see ghosts, until next arc. As for the Furyoku of team ARCS I will write it down for all of them in the afterword of the chapter to not take too much space in here.

dragonslayerajahn - I'm aware of the power some late-story Over Soul can have but it was something really only deserved for the absolute end of the series, in the original shaman king things like rebirth or armored form were only introduced for the last one, maybe two depending how you count them, arcs.

Gamelover41592, X3runner - Thanks :)

The arena was burning.

With the average power level of the combatants in the consecutive fights steadily rising since the very beginning of the third round of the tournament, it wasn't difficult to assume that the strongest of all the current competitors, who at this moment was widely known to be Hao, would only fight after every single other team had finished their first fights.

As it turned out in the mare fifth day since the round began, their assumption was far from correct and at this very moment most, if not simply all, of the shamans present in the village were watching the 'fight' between Hao's team 'Team Star' and some poor souls that were chosen as their first prey. In all honesty however, nobody was considering the slaughter before their eyes as anything other than a slow execution of the unfortunate people who were facing Hao.

Just like any other qualified team, 'Team Star' was made out of four shamans yet unlike many of the other competitors it might have just as well been Hao alone who was on that team as his Spirit of Fire was more than enough on its own to butcher anyone who stepped on the arena with the intention of fighting him.

"Dear gods, it's terrifying." Summer said with a gasp as she witnessed the body of one of the shamans being turned into a hot charcoal from the flames under Hao's control.

Summer's reaction wasn't an outlier as almost everyone in the audience could only barely watch what was happening below them without fainting or vomiting from the gruesome scene.

Among them, Chocolove in particular looked like he might lose consciousness from watching this as his entire body was shaking and covered with cold sweat. Seeing Hao burn people alive was really doing a number on the comedian shaman.

Aside from the unimaginable power of Hao however, one of the things that really made the scene before them horrifying was the indifference to the sight before them all of that immortal monster's followers were showing. It was especially daunting when one of those three people behind Hao was a person who had once swore to kill that heartless monster.

Jaune gritted his teeth in anger and despair, the more he saw how cruel Hao could be the more he couldn't believe how Luchist could have joined such a monster. He didn't even want to guess what the X-Laws were thinking at seeing one of their previous teammates acting like that, they probably no longer saw him as a human.

The other two of Hao's teammates were even more worrying to look at however, especially when one of them didn't look a day older than four years old and the other was covered in their entirety with the traditional clothes used in certain areas of Vacuo while having an eerie feel of death around him.

Jaune shuddered a little when he noticed the Vacuoan shaman glance at him in response to his stares. If it wasn't for that team having Hao in it, he would have certainly thought that he was the most dangerous out of all of them.

"A-Are we really going to fight that monster in the future?" Oscar asked with fear as he watched the ashes of another shaman flying through the wind after said shaman was crushed by the Spirit of Fire.

It didn't take a psychologist to notice that the younger boy was terrified of even thinking about approaching such an ungodly monster like Hao. To be honest Jaune wasn't sure if he could really claim to feel any different at the moment.

"Unfortunately yes." Sadly, even though he felt just as terrified and weak as all of his friends, it was his job as a de facto leader of this shaman group to make sure that they had their goal always in view.

"If we do nothing then that person is going to merge with the Great Spirit and become the next god responsible for the entire Remnant and even if we, or someone else, manage to defeat him without killing his soul, like we are planning to, that monster will just come back in the next five centuries to kill the generations after us. At this very moment we are the only ones who can actually stop Hao."

During his speech, Hao had already killed the last of his enemy shamans and had his Spirit of Fire devour all of their guardian spirits. There wasn't even ashes left after those poor spirits to give them a proper burial.

Almost everyone looked equally uncomfortable as the last remnants of Hao's opponents disappeared in the wind. Most shamans looked remorseful and afraid while thanking the Great Spirit that they weren't the ones who were the ones to die that day but there were a few exceptions.

All the X-Laws teams stared at the arena with such intensity that there was absolutely nothing they would miss from that fight and even though the fight was as good as finished they didn't stop watching as they hoped to find even a single weakness in the unreachable impossibility that was their goal of killing Hao alone.

Teams that looked like they were following the teaching of Sati Saigan, Jaune had met back in the Brunswick Farms, appeared to be praying and maybe crying as their leader could only watch the souls of the innocent people vanish from the world. For people as benevolent as they were, that cruel fight was worse than any hell they could think of.

The last outliers were, unsurprisingly, those who could barely witness the fight in the first place, team RWBY and Nora, who only gulped a little as they saw four people evaporate into thin air from far away.

Jaune was almost jealous of them for not having to actually experience watching that slaughter.

Just before Radim could say anything or ring the bells to signal the end of the fight, Ruby quickly snatched one of their oracle bells to check Hao's Furyoku levels and at the very least gain something from that tragedy.

Considering that Hao was the only person who was floating on his Over Soul, it wasn't hard to zoom their oracle bells on him and get a reading. The number they got from doing that however stunned them so much that they had to wonder whether getting that information was even worth it.

"HAO PINE 1 248 358/1 250 000"

It was the first time they saw someone have their Furyoku counted in millions, having more than ten thousand Furyoku was already beyond impressive for ordinary shamans yet compared to that it wasn't even worth mentioning.

Before any one of them could react to that in any way however, loud bells echoed through the arena.

The fight was over and the deafening silence was the only thing that could be experienced in the audience.

Since the beginning of the Shaman Fight's third round, it was the only fight that didn't receive any shouts and cheers at the end of it, after all it would have been considered an insult to cheer on the funeral of others.

...

The next day...

...

For the first time since their training under Summer's and Ruby's guidance started, it was them who insisted on having harder exercises. Laps around the village were multiplied, the push-ups became harder as they began using weighted bags, and the time they were sacrificing for training increased as well.

To say that they were affected by learning of the sheer amount of Furyoku Hao had at his disposal would be an understatement. They, quite frankly, changed their entire perspective on their future fights because of that.

The unimaginable amounts of power that Hao had became even more grim when they compared it with their own Furyoku.

Based solely on the amount of Furyoku, the strongest one of their entire team was Jaune whose Furyoku didn't reach one hundred thousands yet, in fact it wasn't even close to that.

"JAUNE ARC 41 021/41 021"

That number might have been impressive, when compared to an average competitor it was impressive, but when faced with Hao, or any other of the tournament's top dogs for that matter, it was simply insignificant. Ten of him wouldn't have been enough to equal half of Hao and he was the strongest of their team with the rest of his friends having their Furyoku at somewhere around twenty or thirty thousand units.

If there was any advantage they currently had over Hao at all it was solely because that monster wasn't thinking of them as equals to him and didn't bother to learn too much about them because Jaune highly doubted that an immortal monster like Hao didn't know about the Furyoku reading function of the oracle bell after centuries of living.

"Guys?" Ruby called out in concern as she saw them once again doing her exercise command twice as hard as she intended to. "Maybe you shouldn't push yourself so hard? You all look like you are about to die."

The silver eyed huntress's in training plight fell on deaf ears however as everyone pushed themselves further and further in the smallest hopes that they would improve by even a little bit.

"That's good." Whitley grunted in response while throwing the heavy bag full of stones and rubble from his back on to the ground. "Furyoku only really increases when close to death, if we look like we are dying then we must be getting stronger."

The Schnee shaman's explanation was met with looks of concern from team RWBY who, despite knowing that shaman training could be intense, still weren't used to the sight of their friends constantly working themselves to near death like that. If such dedication to training was expected from them as huntresses in training then they probably wouldn't have chosen to become huntresses at all.

"You really are going all in on becoming stronger, aren't you?" A familiar voice called out from next to them as Sharona came by to check on them.

Even though they were friends and cheered each other on during their fights, team ARCS and The Singer's Revenge didn't actually train together. It wasn't for a lack of trying though as at the start of their training in Tribes Village Sharona's team was more than eager to practice with them and only after they've felt first hand how brutal Summer and her daughters could be with their training did they decide to opt out of that.

They still practiced on their own however, which was quite easy to see from how more confident in themselves they appeared to be every time they had the chance to see them.

"We are planning to win the tournament and get rid of Hao for good, of course we must get as strong as physically possible to have a chance at that." Jaune huffed from exhaustion while stretching a little to alleviate the pain from training. "I'm honestly quite surprised that you aren't training like crazy to become stronger as well considering your stated goal of taking revenge for what happened to you, Sharona."

The mere mention of the past event seemed to make Sharona uncomfortable so Jaune waved his hand dismissively a little to signal that he didn't mind getting an answer from her.

In the end she was just yet another one of countless people who had been unimaginably hurt by Hao.

It was strangely comforting to know that among all the shamans present in this very village that still were taking part in the tournament, a vast majority of them had some reason to hate Hao. It was also dispiriting to remember that despite almost the entire tournament working against him, Hao still seemed like an unapproachable mountain that couldn't be scaled by any of them.

In a single moment of lost focus born from his wondering, Jaune made a mistake in his exercise causing him to slip and fall down.

As the ground was coming closer to his face he couldn't help but to feel annoyed, he would survive that, of that he was sure, but the damage from that fall would certainly sting for quite a bit making it harder for him to focus on training afterwards.

Luckily, before his body met the ground in a painful fashion a feminine and gentle hand managed to catch him.

"Self improvement is good and important but if it's going to cause you nothing but pain and exhaustion then is it really worth following such a path?" Sati Saigan, one of the tournament's favorites to win, said with a kind tone as she lifted Jaune back to his feet.

Jaune's friends looked towards her a little bit wearily but nobody acted too aggressively. Although they didn't know much about the elegant woman who sneaked up on them, they were aware that she wasn't an enemy.

"You promised that you wouldn't sneak up on me anymore." Jaune grumbled tiredly as he got back on his footing.

"I'm sorry." From the honest tone of voice and the way Sati looked a little bit bashful about that, they could easily see that she meant that. "When I saw you fall down like that from exhaustion, I simply couldn't afford to announce myself before helping you. I hope you can forgive me for that."

Jaune looked at the beautiful woman in front of him with a tired gaze from all the training before sighing a little in response.

"It's alright." After a moment, Jaune said before sitting down to rest a little. "May I ask what is the reason behind your arrival? I sincerely doubt that you came here to say hello."

"Did I really need a reason to help you?" Sati asked with genuine confusion and kindness.

"No, you didn't but if you didn't have a reason to come here then you wouldn't have noticed me falling down in the first place." Jaune said with a huff while extending his arms towards the ground to have something to lean on.

Sati sighed as she watched Jaune doing everything in his might to stop himself from collapsing.

"I guess you are right about that." Sati glanced at Oscar and team RWBY. "Although, I'm here more for the immortal reincarnating friend you have over there than for you and these non-shaman friends of yours also gather quite the attention for me to be interested in."

Team RWBY and Oscar shifted defensively a little in response. One of the main reasons they could walk out and about in the United Tribes Village was because nobody really knew about their different circumstances so when someone figured them out so easily it immediately made them anxious.

"Wha-" Ozpin, who was controlling Oscar at the moment, tried to say something before being pushed aside by an overly excited Sharona who was looking at Sati with amazement and excitement.

"Wait, you personally know the Sati Saigan?! She's one of the main reasons most of the shamans even passed the second round of the tournament!" The older blond shaman of their group asked loudly as her eyes filled with stars.

Jaune, who only knew Sati as the woman who's words had somewhat helped them back on the Brunswick Farms, had absolutely no idea what Sharona was talking about so when the stary eyed woman focused on him he could only say one thing.

"W-What?"

His reaction must have really been abnormal because the moment he voiced his confusion, Sati started to giggle a little.

"Don't worry too much about that." The elegant woman said while trying to hold her laughter. "I only helped some of the lost shamans I met along the way as a way to offer them a little bit of kindness, it wasn't anything significant nor a reason to look up to me."

Jaune looked at the kind woman with newfound respect in his eyes, he already knew that she was considered to be one of the three strongest shamans to participate in the Shaman King Tournament but he certainly didn't know that she helped out other shamans as well.

While it might not have meant much, considering that one of those three shamans was an immortal monster that let his guardian spirit devour other ghosts and the other one didn't mind killing basically innocent people to accomplish her goal, but he was slowly starting to consider her to be the most worthy shaman king candidate out of that three strongest shamans. That didn't mean that he would be willing to give up the tournament for her, of course.

"I will make sure to follow any information about you or your team more closely from now on then." Jaune stretched his head a little. "But back to the topic, what is it that you want from Ozma here?"

"Probably the same thing that you want, I assume." Sati said softly before taking a step closer to Oscar. "I want to use his divine spirit given powers to destroy Hao's soul. From what I know it is one of the only two different ways we have a chance at defeating that monster."

"Two different ways?" Jaune asked quietly but his question wasn't answered.

"If you all have the same goal then does it really matter whether I work with you or team ARCS?" Ozpin said a little snappily as he thought of what the powerful shaman had said.

Sati smiled at Oscar's body that was currently being controlled by Ozpin, her smile looked kind yet admonishing almost like a smile of a gentle mother.

"It does matter if you get to the final round or not." Sati said before pointing somewhere in the direction of the arena. "As you have probably realized by now there won't be many, if any, chances to attempt absorption of Hao's soul with your power in this village and only after this round ends will we leave it for an island where the Great Spirit is located. Tell me, how confident are you that you are going to get through this round?"

While this question wasn't really brought from any malicious intent, it still cut them quite deep, especially since they were currently training so hard to narrow the gap between them and Hao by even a little.

None of them seemed to consider Sati's idea seriously however, and Whitley in particular looked appalled at the idea of someone else doing their job for them.

"We will get through this round with no problem, just you wait, we will even be those who will be the ones to eliminate you during the next round, you will see." The young Schnee said with a small scoff.

Weiss scolded her younger brother in response before anyone could reject or support Whitley's idea. They have enough enemies as it was already but it didn't mean that they would just be willing to give up their greatest advantage for their goal to someone else though.

"Now, we are not enemies here." Sati said with a smile and a slow step back. "How about I just offer you a chance to save Oscar's soul instead?"

At the mention of helping Oscar everyone quietened down at once. Before now they all thought that Oscar would have to be a necessary and tragic sacrifice, whether simply to Ozpin or to Hao in their fight for their souls, so a chance to avoid that certainly came as a surprise.

"Y-You can do that?" Jaune asked with a shaking breath. If they could spare Oscar from having his soul devoured then obviously they would do everything to do that, nobody wanted to see one of their friends be completely gone after all.

"Yes, I would just need to kill him." Sati said with a kind expression, not seeing anything wrong with what she had just said.

"What?"

The confusion and ire on their faces was easy to see as none of them even bothered to consider the idea of killing one of their friends. Most of them might be shamans and capable of talking to the dead but they would still prefer for their friends to be alive.

"Don't worry too much about it, for sufficiently capable shamans death is only a temporary problem, especially so if it's the death of others." Sati explained calmly.

"You can do that?!" Most of their non-shaman friends called out in awe and surprise at once.

Jaune and his friends however only gulped a little in response. If someone like Sati was capable of bringing people back from the death, and even she wasn't actually considered to be the strongest shaman in the tournament, then what sort of heaven defying abilities did Hao possessed.

Reincarnation for one, but it was always easier to view it as the strength of his soul rather than pure capabilities as a shaman.

"Yes, and in death Oscar's and Ozpin's souls will be separated because of lack of the single body keeping them together." Sati turned towards Jaune. "The moment that happens however you would have to make sure to catch Ozpin's soul before it's sent towards his new host. We wouldn't want to search entire Remnant for that one person serving as Ozma's body again, would we?"

"No, we wouldn't." Jaune easily agreed with that opinion.

That warning however led him to question himself whether they would even be able to catch Ozpin's soul after it left Oscar's body. They might have been somewhat capable shamans but none of them were really comparable in strength to divine spirits that were the brother gods.

Jaune's hesitation was either completely ignored or simply unnoticed by Sati though. Sati Saigan might have been the kindest out of the three favorites to win the tournament and a great shaman on top of that but even she was willing to risk quite a bit if it meant a higher chance to deal with Hao, then again there was no saying that their plan would even work against that monster.

"So, what do you say about separating your souls?" Sati asked Oscar and Ozpin, turning her head towards them to look them straight into the eyes.

Ozpin, for all of his knowledge and experience, could only stare at the beautiful woman who offered him a chance to, at least temporarily, deal with his god given curse. Of course he, like Jaune, was also aware that Sati's help might just as well end up being a disaster for everyone involved with him being simply sent towards another host and all the people here left with no solid plan to deal with Hao.

The old immortal was about to open his mouth and immediately refuse the offer, as in his opinion it was far too risky, but before he could say anything Oscar, who just saw a perfect way to regain his free life, took over them.

"Will everything be alright with me after the rebirth?" The young boy asked with his voice full of almost desperate hope.

Everyone looked at Oscar and Jaune instantly wanted to heavily berate himself. How could he hesitate to accept Sati's offer when it would basically mean having to sooner or later sacrifice Oscar's soul?

Even if Ozpin wanted to slow down his assimilation of Oscar's soul as much as possible it was still slowly eating at the boy's life and if they didn't get a chance to execute their plan soon then there wouldn't be much of Oscar to exist.

"Think of it carefully before accepting her offer, Oscar." Whitley chipped in with a forcefully cold tone. "If anything goes wrong we not only might lose our only good chance to deal with Hao but you might be hurt as well."

The young Schnee's word reached Oscar's ears but the boy was too focused on Sati at the moment to bother with answering it. For him there wasn't anything more important than that chance at the moment. If it was successful and there weren't any too terrible side effects then it would mean that he would be able to happily return to his parents and live with them again, even if they would still be unable to interact in any meaningful passion due to them being already dead.

"As far as I'm aware, there shouldn't be any side effects to reviving you after separating your soul with Ozpin's." Sati informed Oscar helpfully although some of them were getting a little bit suspicious of the powerful shaman because of her overly nice tone and attitude towards them.

Oscar's eyes lit up with hope and energy making a few of his friends worry a little.

None of them would forbid him from taking that offer nor would they try to dissuade him from doing that, as the decision concerning his life should be made solely by Oscar alone, but they certainly weren't going to let him go with Sati alone. While the stronger woman probably wasn't going to hurt Oscar intentionally, they couldn't be quite so sure whether her claims about being capable of separating the souls bound together by the brother gods were fully honest.

"If what you are saying is really true, then please help me with that issue." Oscar said humbly and Sati's face instantly brightened a little.

"Good, if you are really sure about that then meet me and my team in the northern border of the village at night and we will help you with that."

With her last words said Sati turned around and left them alone, knowing fully well that she would be probably seeing them in a couple hours. Her steps were graceful, almost entirely quiet, and every single one of them could only stare in silence as she disappeared into the stone maze of buildings that was the United Tribes Village.

...

In the evening...

...

The cold air of the night left many of them shivering, doubly so when the northern border of the Tribes Village turned out to be right by the ocean.

Out of all the places they could have me at to perform a ritual that would separate Oscar's and Ozpins's souls from each other, a beach certainly wasn't the first place that came to mind. It probably wasn't even the second or third they thought of actually.

If it was solely up to them then they would have likely chosen some ancient temple or an old thick forest that would hide them from curious onlookers for an operation like that. Of course, if they were the only ones responsible for that then they wouldn't have known how to separate the soul of their friend in the first place so there wasn't much they could do to actually complain.

At least the sight was beautiful.

The stars in the sky reflected off the water so clearly that it was hard to precisely tell where the sky ended and the ocean began. On top of that somewhere far in the distance a long line of light was gracefully dividing parts of the sky from each other.

None of them really knew what was that line however as no known to them natural phenomena could have explained it in any satisfactory way.

That line seemed to be somewhat spiritual in nature though as no one among team RWBY and Nora could clearly see the beautiful line and instead the only image they were getting was a really unnatural and subtle light distortion connecting the ground to the sky way above them. Depending on preferences, that sight might have even been considered to be more impressive and interesting to look at than what the shamans were seeing.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" A familiar voice called out from behind them.

They didn't need to turn around to know that it was Sati, she was the only person who knew that they would be here and it was her who they were supposed to meet right here.

"What is it?" Jaune asked without taking his eyes of the huge pillar of white light.

"It's the Great Spirit." Sati answered honestly. "The collection of every spirit that moved to the afterlife and the being that's ultimately responsible for this tournament we are taking part in. Although, I guess you probably know that."

Jaune lowered his eyes a little to see if he could see the exact place that the Great Spirit connected to Remnant but he found out that a huge part of the Great Spirit was hidden from him by the horizon and he could only really see the very top of it.

It truly put the size of the Great Spirit into perspective, they were so far away that the entire landmass on which the spirit was located was hidden over the horizon yet they could still easily see the majesty of it reaching the stars.

"I chose this place to separate Oscar from that soul parasite because it's the closest to the Great Spirit we could get. Now, even if Oscar went directly towards the afterlife after dying we would be able to catch his spirit rather easily." Sati explained her decision patiently after seeing them stare at the Great Spirit in awe, she didn't want to drag them away from the magnificent sight just yet.

"O-Okay..." Jaune answered to show that he paid some attention but one didn't need to be an expert on psychology to know that his mind wasn't quite in it.

If it was up to them then Jaune was sure that he and his entire team could waste their entire night just standing there and staring at the majesty that was the Great Spirit in the distance. In the end it was their goal after all, there wasn't a shaman who joined the tournament and didn't have the slightest desire to meet the Great Spirit themselves, even Jaune, who only joined the tournament in the first place to meet more shamans like him, became mesmerized when it came to the Great Spirit.

All of them stood there in silence for a couple moments as team ARCS and Oscar were content with simply watching the Great Spirit in its glory.

"Guys, I know that it's beautiful and important for you but we came here to help Oscar, not to gaze at the pretty sights." That situation had to be interrupted sooner or later however and it was Ruby who finally broke that silence with a cough.

Ruby's interruption seemed to be enough to break them away from their stupor and with a quick movement everyone turned towards Sati before getting ready for the attempt to begin.

"Well, if you are done marveling at the Great Spirit in the distance then we can finally begin." Sati took a couple steps back to make some place for Oscar to stand at. "Separating your souls isn't going to be any complex ritual, we are simply going to pull your souls out of the body, killing you by doing that, and Ozma's soul should instantly lock onto the next host. The only thing that we will need to do at that point is to grab it before it can escape and everything should be fine."

Sati reached into her robes and pulled out something that could only be described as a miniature grave before giving it to them.

"You will also make sure to bind the grabbed soul to this small tombstone to make sure that he won't be thrown to another host after you stop holding him. It shouldn't be a tiring or hard ordeal so don't worry about it too much." Sati added as Jaune took the tombstone from her hands.

Sati once again took a step back and faced Oscar directly.

Unlike Sati Saigan and Oscar who were glad and excited to do that respectively, Ozpin was as nervous as he could be. They didn't know what would be the consequences of any failure and just because Sati had already revived people before didn't mean that she had ever had to work on an immortal soul that stuck to others like him. There were countless things that could go wrong but sadly his nervousness was ignored entirely by Oscar who only saw hope at the moment.

"Are you ready?" Sati asked in a calm, reassuring manner.

"Yes." Oscar slowly nodded his head.

With a brief nod of confirmation and reassurance, Sati Saigan moved a little to the side before a giant spirit appeared right next to her. Despite its rather large size, the spirit itself looked like a young child wearing loose robes that wouldn't be out of place in the more desert areas of Vacuo or Mistral. Divinity and a feeling of peacefulness was exuding from the spirit and everyone, even the ones of them who weren't shaman, could feel it.

"If that's the case then please relax a little, I will make sure that your death and revival will be as painless as possible." Sati said as the spirit entered her wooden staff and suddenly changed its form completely.

What once looked like a young child now appeared like a massive adult man with long hair and dignified appearance that wouldn't look out of place on a king.

Oscar gulped a little in nervousness as the giant of a spirit came closer to him and started to cover his entire body with its huge arms. It almost looked like he was about to be hugged, the only difference was that he would die and separate from his body because of this contact.

The entirety of team ARCS slowly encircled Sati and Oscar, if Sati's plan worked and Ozpin was about to be launched towards his new host then they would have the biggest chance at catching him in that formation and if it didn't then they would surround the person who likely would then become their enemy, or at least someone who had hurt one of their friends for no reason.

Some incomprehensible chanting left the mouth of the beautiful shaman and the giant spirit started to glow with a gentle yet strong light. Whatever was about to happen, was about to begin.

The spirit enveloped Oscar completely and after a couple seconds of nothing but slow, and almost sedative, chanting the light suddenly shined way brighter than before and Oscar's soul began floating out of his body.

Jaune and his friends quickly nodded to each other, if everything was going correctly then they would soon have to catch the soul of Ozpin.

In a complete silence Oscar's soul floated higher and higher until it reached the point where it was above both his body and the spirit who dragged his soul there. It was easy to see the fear on the boy's face who for the first time in his life experienced the feeling of being a ghost.

Oscar opened his mouth as if to say something but then before he could get a single word out, Ozpin's spirit, as if it was dragged by a divine force, escaped from the boy's body as well, only instead of instantly launching towards the next host like they thought it would it went directly to Oscar's soul above him.

"Wha-!" Oscar screamed in fear as his soul collided with Ozpin's.

The very next moment after these two souls met, Ozpin's ghost began to assimilate Oscar on its own. It wasn't done consciously because Ozpin's spirit looked barely aware at the moment but the curse, or whatever weird spell the guardian spirits of the previous shaman king put on him, appeared to be forcefully moving his soul to devour that of his current host.

There was no escaping it by trying to kill the host before the complete assimilation.

As if to solely make matters worse, it looked like the speed at which Ozpin's soul was assimilating others was somehow faster when they weren't bound together by the body.

"Stop that!" Jaune quickly pointed at the two souls above them in a hurry. "Bind them to Oscar's body again, it's not working!"

Sati, awoken from the trace she was put in by doing her ritual, immediately stopped dragging the souls out of the body and instead ordered her spirit to forcefully grab them before pushing the back. Luckily for them the spirits were close enough to the body that it wasn't an issue to get them there.

"Shield your eyes!" Sati commanded as she began the hastened process of bringing someone back from the dead.

Strong wind blew around them forming a miniature tornado, earth shook a little as the guardian spirit of Sati hurriedly slammed Oscar's and Ozpin's souls to the ground into their body, and a blinding light began to shine from the body that suddenly began to regain its life.

After a few tense seconds of turmoil from the unsuccessful attempt at separating two souls, everything calmed down and Sati let out a breath of relief.

"H-He's safe." Sati said with a tired huff.

Safe didn't mean awake and conscious of course, as the boy looked as if he was just knocked out by a very powerful attack from an enemy shaman, but at the very least nobody had died.

They would have to check for any side effects in Oscar after he woke up however.

"Let's never do that again." Jaune said with tiredness and weariness that came with the situation like that.

Nods and 'ayes' of agreement were the responses from his team and friends as nobody wanted to go through something like that again least of all the currently unconscious Oscar who couldn't really answer in any way.

"I'm sorry." Sati said earnestly as she looked at them with guilt in her eyes. "I thought that getting around that curse of brother gods would have been easy with Danichi Nyorai at my side since he was the divine class spirit just like them. As it turned out I was mistaken."

The apology for all of its honesty was only met with a couple sighs from them as they were far more worried about their friend to really listen at the moment. Of course, it wasn't like they completely ignored it.

"It's alright." Jaune said with a sigh.

"I-I will make it up to you." Sati said with uncertainty in her voice before regaining the confidence and elegant posture that she was known for. "You currently lack strength, right? I know of a way to increase your Furyoku beyond any scope you might have right now, it involves training in hell after dying before getting brought back to Remnant. I promise that I will lend you a hand in training the moment you have free time and come by."

The offer was met with only a couple passing glances of interest from them, considering they just saw how dangerous involving a real death might be, but since it was rude not to accept an apology offer they answered her with a couple nods.

The night was far from over yet all of them had more than enough excitement for now so with a silent agreement and some tired goodbyes everyone moved to their own ways.

Sati's offer was certainly an incredible chance for the future but with the first fights of the third round slowly coming to an end and their second battle getting closer and closer they could only wait for a better moment to accept it.

And cut!

I think I'm going ot have nightmares about this chapter, ughh.

Just as promised here's the current Furyoku of team ARCS:

Jaune: 41 021

Ren: 22 930

Chocolove: 28 203

Whitley: 36 540

See ya later!