After everyone helped to free Jaune's body of Void, they all had a small celebration at his place and just enjoyed their time together. Enjoying the fact that Jaune wouldn't be dying anytime soon. The small party lasted until almost midnight before they all had to go back to their respective dorms. Jaune went to his own bed and fell asleep easily with a grin on his face. He felt like a man that was trapped in a dark cave and finally broke out and could bask in the light of the sun.
Jaune then woke up at around five and felt more rested than he had over the last few months. He came to the conclusion that Void's presence over his body never allowed him to fully relax and sleep deeply. With it gone, his body was getting to that state much easier. It wasn't too hard to believe since Void was literally breaking his body constantly for over a year.
He grinned and got out of bed. He did his usual light morning work out before stretching and grabbing an early breakfast. After that, he grabbed his cloak but left this armor and went into the Emerald Forest to train and see what his Semblance was like now. He made sure he had one of each Dust crystal he used to use just to be sure.
When he found a suitable clearing he took off his cloak and mask to place them on a boulder at the very edge of said clearing. He was confident that no student would be out here at this time in the morning. He left all but one crystal with his cloak and walked into the middle of the clearing with the lightning crystal. He tried to absorb the energy form it, something he knew to do out of reflex. But he couldn't.
He looked down at the crystal and tried to do so again. Again, it didn't work. His aura was refusing to absorb the energy. That worried him so he went over to the other crystals and tried to do the same with each of them but had the same results. His aura couldn't absorb the energy from any of them.
Jaune started to pace around the clearing, panicking. 'Did breaking Void somehow purge me of the Fall Maiden's power? That shouldn't be possible, it was too ingrain into my aura for me to not notice that. Or just straight up kill me.' He stopped and started to slowly run a hand through his hair, 'This is bad. How the hell am I going to fight now? Especially with the Drakes running around. I've always had my Semblance to back me up, Void or not.'
His frustration started to build up until he started grow angrier and angrier. 'How am I supposed to be there for them now? I couldn't with the Ultimate Element and now I have none! I'm going to fail them all over again!' Those thoughts lead to him shouting, "Damn it!" With those words, fire erupted from his entire body before it dissipated. Jaune just stood in shock and looked down at his hands before deciding to try something. He held up his right hand and focused on the heating the air around it with his aura like he used to do with his fire enhanced aura. He was shocked when a fireball manifested in his open palm, "No way…" He walked over to his scroll and looked into it and noticed his eyes were now crimson.
After an hour or so of trial and error, Jaune had found out he no longer needed to absorb Dust to use his Semblance. The excess amount of the Fall Maidens power must've caused his Semblance to evolve to the point where he didn't need to anymore. That's when he started to keep training to figure out the ins and outs of his Semblance once again. Or more precisely, to knock the dust off using the five elements and working on how quickly he can swap between them. He no longer had to purge energy from his aura to absorb another one. Now it was more like pulling different liquids from separate 'pools' of already existing energy in his soul. Also, it was much harder to use more than on element at a time, so he decided to leave that for another day.
That was why Jaune was standing in the middle of the clearing around midmorning after a few hours of almost nonstop training. He had thrown his long sleeve shirt over with his cloak to help him cool off quicker. His body was drenched in sweat and he was breathing heavily. He was currently hunched over with his hands on his knees. With a groan he walked over to his gear and drank from a water bottle he brought with him, draining what was left of it. He pulled it away with a sigh, "One more." Was all he said as he placed the bottle down and walked back to the center of the clearing. He took several deep breaths and when his breathing was normal, dropped into a runners stance: fingers on the ground and his left leg back. His eyes shifted to yellow and he took off in a surge of lightning.
At his top speed, he made it to the edge of the clearing and to a tree before running up it. He then kicked off it and started to jump from tree to tree, not slowing down for a second. As he was doing this, he was firing bolts of lightning at targets he had carved into specific trees around his 'course'. When he got back to the first tree, he jumped off it towards the center of the clearing. He released a large amount of lightning into the air as he was flying before he took back control and brought it back down directly at himself.
He landed in the center of the clearing and crossed his arms as the massive bolt struck him. The force of nature kicked up dust but as it cleared, Jaune was standing in the same position, no worse for wear. He lowered his arms and opened his now brown eyes.
Jaune took a deep breath before he swung his left arm upwards, bringing up an uneven stone column five feet to his left before he sent his right palm towards it, shattering it with his control. He slid his foot across the ground before swinging his right arm up and shattering the next column with his left palm. Jaune just kept pacing in a small circle, bringing up columns of stone before shattering them, using his hands and feet to do so. Finally, he pointed both palms at the ground below himself before swinging them to their respective sides and above his head, bringing up eight columns around him but now ten feet away. He threw his arms out and clenched his fist before pulling them back to himself, shattering the columns and sending the debris at himself.
When the stones were half a foot away, his eyes shifted to dark blue before he started to weave and maneuver through the storm of rocks. Most of them didn't even touch him and the ones that did, just harmlessly scrapped off him. Once the rocks had all landed on the ground, Jaune took a second to take a breath before he slowly started to concentrate on the water in the air. With several slow hand movements, he had collected enough water to create a water whip. He started to slowly walk in a circle as he maneuvered the water around himself, forming small orbits.
At random intervals, he would lash out with the water before he would have it wrap around him once again to orbit again. He would do one to as many as five lashes before he would pull it back. When he was done, he threw his arms forward to send a pressurized stream of water at one of the many trees. He took another deep breath before his eyes shifted to green and easily jumped to the tree he just hit.
When he was in the branches, he jumped from it to about halfway across, he had to release a gust of wind to carry him the rest of the way to the tree across. He kept this up for a few minutes, never staying on a tree any longer than to reorient himself before going to the next. While he constantly had to use gusts or blasts of wind to clear the distance, not relying on his aura in the slightest. When he was done, he flipped from the tree he hit with the stream of water at the beginning and landed gracefully in the center of the clearing. He concentrated air around his hands before he slashed with them, sending two wind blades at it.
The blades cut mostly through the tree and its own weight caused it to tip forward and break before falling towards him. Jaune's eyes shifted to red and he ran towards it. When it was about to land on him, he slid to a stop and went for an uppercut. The force of the hit broke it further before he kicked the bigger pieces out of the clearing. As he stood tall, he heard the logs slam into the undergrowth and other trees. That's when he started to pace around the clearing again, sending off blasts of fire and throw fireballs. When he could feel his stamina running low, he stopped in the center of the clearing and took a deep breath. Then he threw his hands out and looked to the sky as he breathed fire and shot a stream from each hand.
He did this until his eyes shifted to his usual eye color and he doubled over again. He was breathing raggedly but was satisfied with his progress so far. He went rigid when he heard someone clapping immediately after though. He slowly turned around but relaxed when he saw Blake walking out to him in her uniform and a smirk on her face, "Not too shabby. Is that what you've been doing all morning?"
He tilted his head back and forth, "More or less. How long have you been there?"
She started to walk closer to him, "I saw the lightning as you were running around and decided to stay out of your way while you kept working on your other elements."
Jaune nodded and looked down at him hands, "It feels great. Not just being free of Void but just being able to use the five elements again." He smiled, "It's hard to describe the feeling, honestly. Not invigorating but pretty close."
She nodded and she just stared at his smiling face, glad to see the smile she knew so well was back. She smiled and her eyes slowly panned down to look at his bare chest. It wasn't the first time she had seen him like this but she always appreciated the view. She liked how he was muscled but not overly so and all the sweat he had accumulated was causing him to shine a bit. His scars took nothing away from it either but seemed to accentuate him more.
She swallowed unconsciously and she blushed when her mind went to more erotic ideas. Her eyes slowly focused on the bullet scar and the tattoo he had gotten around it. The fact he went so far to mark himself with their emblems just made her heart soar. Her smile became a bit bigger too.
"You enjoying yourself?" Blake pulled herself from her thoughts and focused back on his face. He had his eyebrow raised and a very familiar smirk on his face. She looked away sheepishly and her blush deepened. Her ear wilted the slightest bit from getting caught. Jaune's eyes focused on them with that and his smirk turned into a gentler smile. "You really stopped wearing it." He said just above a whisper.
She heard him and looked back up to see him looking at her ears. She gained a small smile, "Yeah. After… Everything… It seemed wrong to keep wearing my bow. I was tired of hiding and decided to stop." She looked into his eyes and gave him a loving smile, "To be the real me."
His eyes widened slightly and her turned to the side. "I'm sorry."
She raised an eyebrow and took a step closer, "For what?" she asked but knew what he meant.
"I should've been here. To be there for you all. For you." He looked down. "I wasn't."
"I forgive you." She said simply.
He froze and looked back at her in confusion. He had to have misheard her but the look on her face told him he didn't. "How can you say that so easily? After I lied to you all. I abandoned you. How can you all just forgive me like what I did is anything but unforgivable?"
She closed the space between them so there were only a few inches between them and looked into his eyes. "Simple. Because we love you. I love you."
She gently took his right hand and placed it on the left side of her chest. "Do you feel that? My heartbeat?" He slowly nodded, "That's because of you. Since the day I fell for you and you fell for me, I have only been yours, Jaune." Her hand went up to his chest and gently caressed his tattoo as she looked at it, "I understand, you ran away to protect us. Hell, if it wasn't for you and your mother, I probably would've done the same after what Adam did to Yang." She looked up to meet his eyes once again, "That's why I can forgive you so easily. Why we all can. Because we'd all do something stupid to protect the people we love."
Jaune just stared at her in shock. He just had no words. She saw this and leant up to kiss him and it took only a second before he returned it. They separate for a few seconds before his eyes stared into her amber ones and they came back together. They introduced their tongues but instead of it being fueled by passion, it was more sensual. They just wanted to enjoy this moment. She wrapped her arms around him to pull herself close and he did the same since she just ignored all the sweat.
The two pulled away again and they just looked at each other as they tried to reclaim their breath. She gave him a loving smile and she placed her head on his chest. He smiled in return and gently raised his hand to gently rub one of her cat ears. She shuddered slightly and cuddled up to him more as she purred in happiness.
The two stood there for a few minutes before Jaune broke the silence, "Not to ruin the moment but I would really like to shower."
That caused Blake to giggle, "Yeah, you could definitely use one."
"Hey, you were the one that hugged me. You knew what you were getting into." He replied as they pulled apart. They walked back over to the boulder he left his gear on and pulled his long sleeve shirt back on. He threw his cloak back on as well and hung the sunglasses off the neck of his shirt by the arm. He pocketed his Dust crystals and the two made their way back to his dorm in a comfortable silence as she held his hand in hers. "So, is there any other reason why you were spying on me? Don't you have class?"
She shrugged, "My class got done early and Miss Goodwitch asked me to come get you sense the others still had class and you were ignoring your scroll."
Jaune looked at her, "Why does she want me?"
"She has a first year class and she wanted you to help her out with it. There's a… Problem child and she thought you'd be best at helping deal with them." She told him vaguely.
He nodded, "Alright, I'll shower and head there afterwards." They were now standing in front of his personal dorm. "And you should probably head to class. Last thing you need is Weiss lecturing you about skipping." He said with a smile.
She looked conflicted, probably wanting to spend more time with him but she sighed, "Fair point. I'll see you later then." She gave him another chaste kiss before she started to pull away with a smile, "I love you."
He just smiled back, "I love you too, Kitten." She smiled more at her nickname before she started to head back to Beacon.
Jaune just smiled and went inside. He went to his bedroom and grabbed another set of clothes before going into his bathroom. After his quick shower, he redressed with his light armor this time. He pulled up the hood on his cloak and expanded his sunglasses into his mask before he left.
As he was making his way through Beacon, he garnered the attention of many students that weren't in class. Most were just whispering to each other but he ignored that. The ones that stared at him were different though. He would turn to them and give them a respectful nod before continuing on his way. Every time he did, they were shocked but a few of them would gain nervous smiled and either wave or nod back. When he finally made it to the combat classroom, he walked in to see a good portion of the first years talking amongst each other before the class actually started. He saw Miss Goodwitch in the arena on her scroll, probably taking care of a few things before class began.
Jaune started to make his way down there and that's when the students started to notice him and whisper to each other. He wasn't really paying attention until he saw a familiar head of blonde and green hair in his peripheral. He looked and nearly froze when it turned out to be Olive talking to her friends or possibly her team. His heart seemed to clench before he quickly shook himself of it and kept making his way to the arena.
Miss Goodwitch finally looked up from her scroll when he just stepped foot into the arena. It was probably from the usual chatter of pre-class turning into quiet murmuring that got her attention. She put her scroll down and had an almost nonexistent smile, "Ah, Rien, good to see that Miss Belladonna was able to pass my message onto you."
Jaune just nodded, "That she did, Miss Goodwitch. Sorry about that, I was working on something important this morning and was nowhere near my scroll."
Goodwitch raised an eyebrow, "I thought we had talked about this? If we are going to be colleagues, you should call me by my first name."
Jaune just looked at her, "I don't know about that Ms-" He stopped when she gave him a glare. He held her gaze for a bit before he sighed. It was just easier to give in. "Fine, fine. You win, Glynda."
That near nonexistent smile was back with that, "Good to hear." She turned her attention back to the students as she stood next to her, "Students, if I could have your attention." All the first years stopped instantly, they seemed to all know of the wrath of Goodwitch and Jaune had to stop from chuckling. "As you've all noticed, I have asked Rien here to come and assist me with evaluating your fights. Even though he is not an official professor, I expect you to give him the same respect you give me."
None of the students argued with her and she quickly called the first fight on the class. As the two students were fighting, Glynda started to quietly speak to him, "So, how is your Semblance?"
Jaune reached up to his mask and turned off the voice modifier and played it off as scratching the side of his face. He couldn't whisper with it on, the voice would carry too much. Besides, with the sounds of the fight, no one would be able to her him anyways. "It's better. I can use the five basic elements once again but no longer have to use Dust as a catalyst."
She nodded as her eyes never strayed from the fight. "Have any issues come up?"
"No issues per se." he started. "I'm having difficulty using more than one element at this point. So any Advanced or Exceed elements are out of my control. Plus, I can't send my aura into the elements either."
Glynda went to looking at her scroll to check their aura levels, "How serious of a problem is that?"
He gave a half-hearted shrug, "Honestly, not really bad. Looking back on it now, pushing my aura into the elements wasn't really worth the strain on my body. The strain was probably a warning of how dangerous the technique was and my body was trying to stop me. So, if giving that up for using elements without Dust is the cost, I'm fine with it."
She gave a quiet sigh, "Ozpin was also wondering, what about Void?"
That made Jaune freeze for a second, a part of him tried to combine the elements of instinct but he quickly stopped himself. He took a steadying breath before he spoke, "I don't know. And I'm afraid to find out if I'm being completely honest. After finally being freed from it, I'm not too eager to use it and possibly being stuck like that again. Maybe permanently this time."
She couldn't ask anymore because the fight had just ended. She then gave her full attention to the students and was giving them advice. As she was doing that, he turned his voice modifier on once again. He didn't want to risk anyone asking him something with it off. Besides, he didn't want to keep talking about Void any longer.
Glynda called several more fights and they watched them in a silence and he would give some advice to them. Not as much as Glynda but enough. The final match was one that he wasn't expecting. "The final fight will be between Olive Arc and Grey Lupine." Glynda announced and the two students entered the arena. Olive was on his left and she pulled her spear off her back before she spun it in her hand and held the head so it was pointing at the ground.
Grey was on his right. He was a tall, black haired teen with yellow eye. He wore a sleeveless black shirt and grey cargo pants that let his wolf tail stick out easily. His weapons were a pair of knuckle dusters that had a point on each knuckle and a six inch blade in a reverse grip. He also wore metal reinforced boots with armor that covered his shins.
"Are both fighters ready?" Glynda asked and both nodded, "Begin!"
The two charged each other and when they were close, Grey went for a right hook. Olive spun her spear like a bo staff to stop it before she swung her leg to catch him in the ribs. Grey took it in stride and held her leg as he went for his own kick. Before he could, she spun her spear and caught him with the pommel on the side of the head. They broke apart and she quickly charged him, spear-point forward. She caught him on the shoulder before she pulled back and went for a slash across his chest.
Grey managed to catch the head with his blades before pushing her off balance and delivering a thrust kick to her stomach. That sent her flipping through the air. That's when his aura condensed around the blades and grey colored aura blades extended from them, most likely his Semblance. He went for a cross slash to her exposed back. But she was able to block it by repositioning her spear to lay it across her back. It would've been impressive since she couldn't exactly see the attack, but he knew why she was able to do so. Her Semblance: Radar.
Her Semblance allowed her to form an almost invisible bubble of aura round herself. So if anything entered it, she would know it and could act accordingly. She used the impact from his attack to gain distance and flip back to her feet. When she stopped moving, she charged forward before using her spear like a pole-vault to close the distance faster and for an aerial strike.
Jaune kept watching his sister fight in silence. She had definitely improved since he saw her last fight but he was concerned. When she was on the defensive, she was very complaisant, probably due to her Semblance giving her an edge. And when she was attacking, you could see the anger in her eyes, but unlike if someone usually lost their temper. She didn't even seem to notice it. She was releasing suppressed anger during her fight. And by looking at Glynda, he could tell she knew it too. This wasn't something knew.
Olive eventually won the fight with eighty percent of her aura, the loss from using her Semblance so much. "Good fight you two. Mr. Lupine, you did very well but are still focusing too much on offense. Sometimes you must go one the defensive until a better opportunity arises." He nodded respectfully. She then turned to Jaune. "Rien, did you notice anything about Miss Arc's fighting?"
He sent her a mild glare through his mask, "Actually, yes. There are two things I noticed." He turned to her and he could see her giving him that angry look. "When you are being defensive, you are too complaisant. You should stay on guard during situations like that, in case anything gets through your defense. And while you are attacking, you use your anger while doing so. And I don't mean sporadically, but constantly. Fighting angry is a reckless way of doing so and can do more harm than good."
What shocked him was when she rolled her eyes and turned from him slightly, "Thank you for your advice but I fight just fine."
That was definitely something new and by the look on Glynda's face, she had never done so prior. "Miss Arc." She started. "That is no way to speak to him. I made it clear that he deserves the same respect as me."
Olive turned to her, "Excuse me, Professor, but I can't do that." That shocked her and everyone in the room. He turned back to him, "He has done nothing to earn it my respect. That is something earned, not given. And just because he works for the Headmaster, doesn't mean he has earned it."
Glynda was about to say something before he laughed through his mask. Shocking the class and Olive seemed to grow slightly angrier. He looked at her, "You may have a point." He started to walk to where Grey was standing. "Why would I know anything about fighting? Not like I lived in the badlands for six months, fighting a new species of Grimm." He replied sarcastically and was now standing where Grey was. "If you think you know best…" he raised his right hand and formed a fist, the knuckles cracking from doing so. "Why don't you see what you can do against a real Huntsman?" That shocked everyone.