Best possible version of yourself, part 2

AN: And here is part 2, I hope you have fun reading it, though it will be a fairly short chapter this time around since I want to put the start of the journey and the early obstacles encountered in its own chapter, while when writing the end I felt it was the most natural place to stop this chapter.

Arc mansion, next morning

''Huh, so that wasn't a dream, good to know.'' With these first words Jaune Arc, who had been in the process of standing up after waking sat back down to think while the older version of himself was watching, seemingly searching for something in his appearance. 'Okay so it seems you have at least a few questions, since you humoured me last night, I'll let you ask first now.'

'Good, good.' The spirit Jaune said, before he stepped closer and tried to grasp at Jaune's collar only for his hand to slip through. He stepped back, somewhat embarrassed and any intimidation factor associated with the earlier movement fell flat. 'Okay forget that. Now the reason why I'm so stupefied is that I know your aura wasn't active before yesterday?' Although the words imply a statement the tone is more that of a question so the younger Jaune nods.

'And I know that I most certainly didn't activate it. Despite this somehow after that proclamation of yours last night, your eyes glowed, in a similar fashion to what a lot of people's eyes do when they use their semblances… wait a second you said you had the ritual from a book, maybe the ritual automatically also activates your aura and your semblance changed because of it. I'll test if your aura is active now, I'll need to take control for a second for that to work.'

After getting affirmation from the younger Jaune the spirit focused on internal and managed to get control of the body, quickly standing up and stretching for a bit 'Huh after spending the past while as what is essentially a ghost it feels strange to have a body again. Anyways lets see if I do this my aura should appear to defend us.' As he focused on finding and using the familiar warmth of his aura, he couldn't find it. No matter how hard he tried it just didn't appear. 'Okay so it didn't activate your aura…' then he slapped himself in the face, getting a pained look and an internal curse from his younger self.

'You performed a ritual from a magic book yesterday that brought about a strange form of either time travel or alternate dimensional travel, of course magic is somehow involved, why didn't I think of that. Possibly awakened some latent magic in our bloodline or something or the other. I'll give you back control so you can get it and we can figure out how this works, don't want to take away your body for too long.' As the younger Jaune took back control of his body he walked over to his dresser, opened a drawer and took the book out of it.

Upon opening it he flipped to the page about the ritual and reading through it the younger Jaune didn't see anything special but the spirit realised something 'Jaune this ritual should never have worked.' As the younger man made to protest he held up his hand 'not in the -it's magic, that can't be real way- I can actually believe a ritual like this working, I think Ozpin might have even used something similar, though with only the object and not blood, to call up a crystal clear version of information from one of his past lives that he couldn't easily remember anymore, but in the -we should lack the magical power to actually activate this ritual- way.

With this small an amount of ingredients and neither active aura nor your own magic there should be nothing to power it, especially not something powerful enough to call back somebody with full memories of a potential future. It's like trying to power a dust generator that's empty simply by shaking an almost empty container with only a few tiny fragments of dust crystals over it while chanting. Something else somehow supplied enough power for this to actually work, which combined with me joining you then awakened either magic or some other supernatural power inside of you.'

The younger man thought it over for a moment before he got an idea 'What if we test that with one of the previous rituals, like the one where you can make sticks as strong as iron? We wouldn't need anything that isn't in abundance around here, and with me consciously performing the ritual while you pay attention it should give at least some results.' The spirit looked at him for a second and thought it over before agreeing.

'Let's read it first to see if it isn't something overly complicated, if not we can try it. Would also be an at least somewhat useful thing in the long run, our sword really isn't suited very well to hunting animals, being able to make a semi decent spear just by turning the end into a point and then using this ritual to strengthen the thing would be a great help.' Upon reaching the page and actually reading it the younger Jaune gets a bit morbidly curious.

'Spirit?' the older Jaune looks back at him, both a bit confused by the new name and what his question is. 'We need a name for you other than Jaune so I can use it to indicate who my source of information is when I need to refer to you without sounding crazy.' The older man shrugged, not too miffed about the new nickname 'But also what I wanted to ask, is magic in your experience usually reliant upon blood or was it just one of our ancestors that is fascinated by blood magics?'

That question actually made Spirit turn pensive 'I'm going to be honest, there where very few times that I've seen Ozpin and Oscar actually perform magic. I saw it enough to know that it actually existed and he possessed it, but most of the things I saw where the results of spells and enchantments, usually not him actively performing one. Though as far as I know he never needed to use actual blood, though that might also be because he was a more powerful wizard, even as reduced as he is now, than any other mortal on Remnant and as such didn't need such a thing while others did.

That or the fact that he had a new body every reincarnation meant that a lot of the blood related spells didn't work, simply because he wasn't the original inhabitant of the body. Could even be a combination of factors. But no as far as I know neither he, Salem nor the Elemental Maidens need blood for their magic to work.' As he finished the both of them turned back to the page. 'However I also never saw him have to do what seems like mathematical calculations to perform magic, so it might just be that this book contains a type of magic he just straight up didn't use.'

On the page a recipe stood almost reminding more of a question out of a chemistry book rather than a magical ritual, if you discount the blood mentioned. -If you re-enforce a stick, be careful with the measurement, as too little will cause the enchantment to be too weak and too much will cause the stick to explode. For a stick that is about 5 centimetres in diameter and a meter tall, use 50 millilitres of blood, for a stick 1 metre in size but with a 10 centimetre diameter, use 100 millilitres of blood. Do not go more than 25% above or below the suggested recipe, if you do so one of the previously mentioned failure conditions will occur. After this call upon the strength of iron with the chant -I call upon the might of metal, change this humble stick into a powerful spear so that victory might be near.-

After Jaune had changed into fresh clothes and grabbing the same measurement cup from yesterday, he sneaked out of the house, careful to not wake up his sisters, before going into the nearby forest and picking up a stick a bit less than a metre long that, after making a rough measurement using his hand, seemed to be between five and six centimetres wide. Giving himself a small cut and draining the small amount of blood he then replaced the bandage over the small cut again before sprinkling the blood over the stick and performing the chant, he could now feel a sizable amount of… something, he couldn't accurately describe what, leaving him while the stick gained a metallic sheen. He drew his knife before trying to cut through it with a heavy slash, only for it to bounce off with a slight clang. While the stick now sported a scratch, it was otherwise just fine.

'That should have at the very least cleaved into the branch if it was still normal wood, let alone the noise it gave off. Okay so that ritual works, it seems to drain about a fourth of your magical energy. Okay this is also a nice place to awaken your aura, let's see if I can somehow manage it.' He holds his hand on the younger man's shoulder, focusing on the point where they would meet and feels himself almost grabbed by an otherworldly sense ''To defend the weak, to fight for those you love, awaken warrior, for you will be the shield that protects them and the sword than vanquishes their enemies. May you rise to greatness through the light of your soul.''

Upon finishing Jaune shone brightly for a moment with the aura giving a large flash outwards almost as if a flashbang had been lit, before dimming again. ''That is not supposed to happen. Though to be fair this time it is more to be expected since I've never actually seen somebody with both magic and a second consciousness inhabiting their body get their aura unlocked, but still not what's supposed to happen when you get your aura unlocked. You're supposed to glow slightly for half a minute or so, not act as a flashbang for five seconds before it immediately becomes dim again.''

He shakes his head after a moment 'Whatever, go find another branch, I'll instruct you in how to carve a spearhead out of it. Afterwards I'll give you some basic tips on how to use a spear to hunt that I learned from my team both at beacon and while we travelled the wilds.' As he is looking through the small forest for a good branch, the young man starts thinking of his future, of the possibilities and the hardships, before concluding that he will have to see things and deal with them as they arise, for now pondering will not have much of any effect on them.

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That evening

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After having found a spear and getting basic instruction in it Jaune went back home to ask more questions of the spirit and get a crash course on the theorical subjects huntsman students are supposed to know by the time they enter Beacon Academy, after a few hours of which they return to the book written by Jaune's ancestor, for more information on the water that can damage Grimm, only for the both of them to deflate upon actually reading it.

'Okay that is pretty much useless, because unless you became religious in between now and when you died, I don't think either of us has enough faith in anything to be used in this spell' as the younger Arc says this, the spirit shakes his head while snorting.

'If anything I became less attracted to religion, what with how I learned that the brother Gods, one of the few enduring religions of Remnant, was real, but its gods where childish pieces of shit that tried to wipe out all life on a planet just because they couldn't admit to their own mistakes regarding a curse they placed on somebody.'

The younger nods 'Yeah that would kind of ruin your belief in anything related to them. Though it is interesting to know that this spell relies on a combination of the power of your faith in a religion and the supernatural power of that religion itself to work to then turn bottles of water into an anti-grim variant of Winchester- cocktails. However this 'our Lord and saviour' figure Jeanne apparently believed in doesn't seem to have an active following or large religion behind him anymore here on Remnant.'

The spirit now perks up 'That brings me back to some information that might be useful, you're going to have a Winchester in your class at Beacon, if he tries anything against you stand up to him and don't back down, he'll probably respect that enough to not try much of anything. Also, something I learned later, he's slightly above the average for a first year huntsman student while his teammates are a bit below average but far more cowardly than a huntsman student should be, so comparing yourself to him and them gives a good idea of how good you're supposed to be when entering a place like Beacon Academy.'

The spirit then shakes his head 'But now back to history, honestly I don't actually get why we didn't get taught any of this at school, we had history for eight years and the teachers only handled the Faunus revolution in the sense of ''it existed, Faunus won, the end'' and the great war in ''art is good, destroying it is bad''.' As the younger man looked at him he shook his head before continuing.

'I understand not going into how the specific battles where fought and won, unlike at huntsman academies we're unlikely to ever get into the situation where we need to take command of groups of soldiers or militiamen, but still, we're a town in Vale's frontier, an old and well protected one, but still in dangerous enough land that we might need to know of some basic tactics and strategies to survive, like an explanation how Faunus features can help with scouting, how barbed wire and spike traps can slow the advance of Grimm allowing you more time to fire at them, how a foxhole or trench can help in protecting you from the bullets of bandits, andsoforth.'

As he shakes his head and the younger man is writing down some of what he just said in his notes, he readies himself to go back to the subject 'Okay, so more on point, one of the main things you'll have to know is the thing that most of the victories for the Faunus during the Faunus revolution where decided by a combination of overconfident officers on the enemy side and their overall above human standard sensory capabilities, which made them usually able to counter-ambush hostile ambushes and turn hostile night raids into an opportunity to capture a number of the opponents light infantry before a major battle was fought, while their own night raids where usually far more effective than they should have been. To read about more specific parts, if you've got time to spare before Beacon read the 'Modern war, the horror, the greatness, the tragedy'.

While it's a fairly large book it gives a decent amount of insight into both the Great War and the Faunus Revolutions, in addition to giving fairly indepth explanations of the various strategies and tactics that where most common during these wars. Though most of these are more useful for soldiers and militia rather than huntsmen and huntresses, it'll still come in handy especially if Salem falls back onto a more full on frontal war plan with hordes of Grimm ramming themselves headfirst into the defences of the kingdoms rather than the infiltration assaults and lightning strikes she preferred during my time around.'

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Town blacksmith the next morning

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As the tall older man hears the chime of his doorbell he looks up to see a young recognizable blond walking into his shop ''Well let's see who's there, the young mister Arc himself, still wanting to go to Beacon? If yes I'll have you know I finished the armour you ordered, it is fairly basic due to being a rush job but it should protect you from the claws of younger Grimm and most forms of shrapnel. Don't test it out on a Deathclaw or something like that though, while it will keep you alive the chances of you getting up on your own strength afterwards if you don't have your aura unlocked are pretty low.''

Jaune nods his thanks and hands over the portion of the money that hadn't been paid in advance. ''Thanks for the quick work, one question, I know you bought a shipment of old Valean military surplus from back in the Great War years ago, you still have any of that left? You're the only person in town that I know I can go to for supplies other than old Johan that won't tell my parents about it the moment I leave.''

The man thinks for a moment, going over his stock in his head before nodding and going to the back storage, coming out a while later with a crate ''The militia bought up most of it last year when trying modernize and regulate their equipment, and yes before you start some of what they where using was so outdated or disparate that even Great War equipment was modernizing, but I still have this crate with things that you could use.''

As Jaune walks over to look at the crate he sees half a dozen packed but dust covered shirts, two packed greatcoats, some combat boots, a combat knife, some old Valean flags, a bedroll and a carbine rifle. ''Oh hell yeah this will be useful, I'll take three of the shirts, a greatcoat, the combat knife, a pair of boots, the bedroll and the carbine rifle. You got any ammo for that as well?''

At this the man's face pulls into a grimace ''Sadly enough, no. It used a fairly specialized type of ammo that is only really produced in large numbers by Atlas nowadays and the militia weren't willing to pay the delivery costs for the ammo for a single rifle.'' In response to Jaune's saddened look he claps the young man on the shoulder ''I won't be able to sell the thing to anyone anyways so I'll give it to you for half the price, once you get to Vale you should be able to find a shop selling this stuff, while the ammo for bolt action rifles of this calibre is rare it's still in use by more remote Atlesian and SDC postings, especially in Atlas itself, as such you should be able to find either somebody selling it or at least be able to order it online to come along with the monthly dust shipments from the SDC.''

At this Jaune perks up and he thanks the man with a hug before grabbing more lien and handing it over. ''I'll come pick up everything Friday evening before leaving town, I should have a horse and saddlebags from the pony express then. Though a question about the rifle itself, how good is it in a fight?''

''It's nothing great or innovative like those mecha-shift weapons the youth is obsessed with today, but it's reliable, needs very little maintenance and is essentially a shorter barrelled version of the Valean V36 bolt action rifle, which means that though its effective firing range is shortened by quite a bit, only 500 meters effective firing range outside of when aiming at a horde instead of the normal 1000 meters, it is at that shorter range far easier to keep on target and more precise when aiming at individual targets while on the move, and a very good rifle for horseback shooting. When firing at a large horde of Grimm though, like almost all bolt action rifles of the time its combat effective in open terrain for up to 2 kilometres. Damage output wise it's decently powerfull enough to kill a Beowulf in 2 hits, sometimes 3, depending on both distance and where you hit the beast. Usually three or four hits on an Ursa, for everything else it really depends on the situation.''

As Jaune nods at this he starts walking away while exchanging a ''See you on Friday'' With the man. As he walks out into town he heads over to the Pony express, where he rents a horse for the journey to Oakville, to be picked up Friday in the early evening. No questions are asked, as Johan the old stablemaster owed him a favour from past assistance with his house.

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The day after, a clearing in the forest a few kilometres away from the Arc mansion

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Jaune is going through basic sword and shield stances, trying to copy them from the spirit in front of him ''Good and stab forward, no don't put your right leg forward that much while using the shield this way it will unbalance you, yes that's better. Now back to your starting position.'' Even with only a few days of actually adequate combat instruction, Jaune can already tell and feel that he's doing better, having somebody who knew exactly how to motivate you and explain things to you as your teacher probably helped a lot in that regard. ''Okay now I want you to assume a defensive stance, we're going to spar for a bit.''

At seeing his younger self confused by the answer, the spirit starts glowing more while slowly becoming more solid, before hitting the tree next to him with his sword, causing a small sound ''While due to only having aura to use and not actual physical strength my attacks are far weaker than when I was alive, they'll still have enough presence physically to actually hit you. I figured this out after awakening your aura, apparently if I use a mixture of my aura, your aura and my semblance I can strengthen myself just enough to be present in the physical world. In an actual battle it'll only be useful for scouting and as a distraction what with it using your aura as well while not causing any more damage than a child hitting somebody with a stick would, but in a spar like this it will allow me to keep you growing fairly fast, especially if the mental connection works in the way I think it does.''

Jaune nods and takes his stance again upon which spirit nods back and charges in, feinting a slash at the younger mans lower legs, which he moves to defend against, only to turn the blade upward at the last second and hit his upper arm instead, all the while pivoting away from the counter stab, followed by a light hit in the face with his shield. The spirit stands back again and Jaune checks himself over, as promised he barely felt anything, which is a relief to him as he'd heard enough stories of trainers beating their students black and blue in the name of learning to never want to experience it himself.

As they go back to their starting positions a similar scene repeats though this time he sees that it is a feint coming aimed at his centre but actually going to his upper right arm this time, he reacts too slow though and the sword hits in just above the edge of his shield, which while only lightly touching him before he managed to hit the sword away with his shield, a hit remains him being hit.

Then he saw the spirit assuming a stance he hadn't used before but somehow in the back of his head he realized that the man was going to jump to a tree on his left and use that as leverage to push himself off and fly over him trying to hit down before going to land behind him at which point he'll take a stab at his back… why would I know this?... as he's thinking this to himself the spirit starts doing exactly as described, allowing Jaune to react in time, crouching down with the shield raised over him taking the downwards slash, before managing to turn just in time to hit the spirit's sword out of the way with his own.

''What was that? I somehow recognised what you were going to do before you did it, despite never having seen it before? Can I somehow read your mind now at any moment and we're getting connected more closely through magical energy?'' At this to Jaune's surprise the spirit starts chuckling before giving a moment of full blown laughter, causing Jaune to be annoyed ''Are you going to take this serious or do you just find my confusion funny enough to keep using it to get some laughs out of everyday situations?''

With a shake of his head the spirit stops laughing, calming himself down. ''No it's not that it's overly funny in and of itself, its just that this situation has started giving you overly complicated idea's to fill in every situation due to the whole magic thing, the transition of which I find somewhat hilarious. The actual reality is fairly simple, we are two versions of the same person inhabiting a singular body and you've even seen some of my memories. Several people, both friend and foe, have used this and attack patterns similar to it in the past during both spars and actual fights. I simply brought a very basic image of something one of those friends did during a spar in a forest to the forefront in a similar manner to how we talk mentally, allowing you to pick it up and translate it into a move that you roughly recognize from my talking about our various adventures, in addition to having a rough idea on how to react to it from my talk on the same and you just filling in the rest with the most logical actions you could think of.''

While the younger Jaune is pondering that, a girl several years younger than Jaune comes running up to them ''Jaune! There you are, mom and dad said you had to be back for dinner already you….'' She stops as she looks between the two blondes, one her klutz of a brother, the other looking like a more heavily built, slightly taller version of him, a younger version of their father if anything. Then she realizes the man is glowing a bright yellow and seems to become slightly see through after a moment. ''Jaune who is this?''

After a moment of thinking Jaune goes down to kneel before her ''Jade, you know how I want to go to Beacon right?'' she nods at this ''Part of the training for huntsmen is finding out what special power they have, and I finally found out mine: I can project my aura out of my body, however after doing it for the first time I found out that it gets its own personality while doing that.'' His sister looks at him uncomprehendingly trying to process this while the spirit thinks it over for a moment.

''What he means is that he was angry and annoyed at not having a sparring partner and when gathering that anger to hit a tree with it, he instead managed to push out the emotion amplified aura into creating what is essentially a smarter, more handsome version of himself, my fair lady.'' While he says that he bows for her, takes her hand and kisses the top of it ''A knight at the service of you fair lady. Please do keep this quiet from his parents though, I'm pretty sure they would prevent us from going through with your brothers dream. Can you do that for us?''

Jade nods while giggling slightly behind her hand at the spirits antics ''I'll keep quiet, this is too funny not to.'' After a moment she sobers up though and turns to Jaune ''But Jaune?'' as she does so her voice turns small, weaker than it usually is ''I know being a huntsman means a lot to you, and I think you can do it, but please… stay safe. I wouldn't know what I would do if I lost you…''

As the girl looks almost ready to cry Jaune walks over before kneeling down and hugging her to him ''You're not going to lose me that easily sis, I'll always come back home, if only for you. Don't you worry about that. Who else would read you stories before bed?'' at this she turns red slightly and hits her teasing brother in the back before stopping as he whispers ''I'll make it up to you, I'll tell a few of your favourite stories about Jeanne D'Arc tonight, how does that sound?'' He gets no reply other than a nod in his shoulder, at which he picks his sister up and starts walking home with her in his arms hugging him, both knowing that this might be the last time in years where he can hold her like this and both making the most out of the moment.

Now invisible to the mortal eye the older Jaune watches on with a saddened smile, loving the moment but knowing he'll never have such a moment with his own younger sister again. A small tear falls from his eyes onto the ground as he thinks of the last time he saw her all those years ago, in these same woods, the night before he left. ''I'm sorry I failed my promise Jade, I'll make sure this Jaune can keep his own, no matter the cost.''

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Arc mansion, Friday early evening

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Shortly after dinner Jaune went up to his room and changed into a clean set of outdoors clothes before checking his pack one last time ''Okay a flashlight, check, several filled water containers, check, the clothing I need for at least a few weeks, check, first aid kit, check, scroll, check, MRE's and other travel food, check.'' As he closed the bag he heard the spirit reminding him of something.

'Don't forget, you've got that spear you made this morning in the corner, while its fairly small and thus not great as a regular spear, it is going to be useful as a javelin if you encounter younger Grimm, those are usually not smart enough to do anything besides charge at you headfirst.' Good point, he grabbed it before looking around his room one last time to see if he hadn't forgotten anything, before sobering a bit and looking around again drinking everything in. It would likely be the last time he'd see the place in quite a while.

As he carefully opened his door, checking if the coast was clear before going downstairs as silently as possible, he saw Jade, Saphron and Terra sitting on the couch. The three sisters he loved most, two by blood and one by marriage. While all four of them where silent, not one of their eyes remained dry as he gave all of them fare-well hugs and kissed the top of Jade's head before Terra handed him the last of his papers while Saphron attached the sheathed form of Crocoa Mors to his belt. After they were done Jade walked up to him and gestured for him to crouch. As he did so she gave him a small locket, which he opened to see a picture of the entire family on one side while the other was a small compass. ''So that you can always find your way back home to us once you've become the greatest huntsman there is.'' She whispered.

He grabbed her in another long hug before standing up and nodding his thanks to all of them, opening the door as quietly as he could and walking away, turning around once he was a short distance from the house and waving goodbye to the three of them, with all of them returning the gesture. As he turned his back to the house he somehow felt a new different chapter of his life was going to start.

AN.

Thanks for reading everyone, I hope it was a nice chapter, see you all next time.