Here it is!
Reviews:
X3runner - Sassy Whitley being sassy does sound funny (and thanks for the names).
Gamelover41592 - Thanks, like always.
dragonslayerajahn - My mistake, though it doesn't change the fact that they still aren't useful in a shaman fight (It only means that they are more useless than I thought). It does mean however that my idea of them sneaking into the spirit bullhead is completely off-canon for standard Shaman King. :( Oh well, at least I hope it was funny.
The Black Wolf of the Arks - Thank you for understanding and liking that chapter (and for the names).
It was dark outside. It had been like that for the last hour or so and normally they would have already started a camp or at least found some trees they could use to safely spend the night on like they had the previous night but they wouldn't do that.
The village that they noticed earlier while following the path Lyserg's pendulum pointed them towards was right before team RWBY and they weren't about to sleep on the ground when they could be sleeping in a perfectly affordable room in some tavern inside the village where they could even find the people they were looking for at the same time.
Their motivation was at an all time high and everyone was full of energy.
"Are we there yet?" Ruby asked with a yawn while rubbing one of her eyes.
Well, the motivation alone wasn't enough to combat the limitations of a human body it seemed. She was way too tired from the day-long journey they had to go through for that.
"We are finally here." Blake mumbled with her eyes half closed before moving towards the gate. "I can't wait to find a bed comfortable enough to sleep in and rest until tomorrow."
A small and tired whine escaped her and her sister right after they heard Blake say that.
"And look for your mother the moment we are able to, of course." The faunus of the group added with a small roll of her eyes before trying to enter the village.
"Hold it right there!" Two voices shouted from their sides before they heard two basic weapons shift a little as they suddenly found themselves being aimed at by two people from both of their sides.
Knowing that they were in a potential danger she and her entire team instinctively reached for their weapons in case a fight was about to start. They might not have been very useful in the fight against shamans they had yesterday but they were more than capable enough to deal with some random bandits.
"Please, calm down." Lyserg said while lifting his arms up. "We aren't here to cause any trouble. We are simply looking for someone, after spending the night here and asking around for a bit we will be on our way."
After she heard what Lyserg said, she looked at the people that were pointing their weapons at them only to see two members of a local militia reasonably being suspicious of someone fully armed entering the village in the middle of the night.
With an awkward laugh she then shifted her weapon into more compact form before putting it away while her teammates followed right after. Fighting against local militia the moment she entered the village certainly wouldn't make the best first impression.
"Good." One of the guards nodded stiffly. "State your business here and show us your ID's."
All of them blinked in confusion at that before reaching into their pockets for their Scrolls with ID's on them. It wasn't rare for kingdom capitals or bigger cities to ask for documentation when entering, nobody wanted to let a dangerous criminal enter the city full of innocent and untrained people, but villages and small towns seldom asked for that.
There wasn't a point in that when everyone knew everyone and strong people, even if they were bandits, were always useful when everyday a grimm attack could happen.
The fact that the guard also asked for their purpose here right after Lyserg had explained it to them a few seconds earlier was also unusual.
"Our friend already told you why we are here, buddy." Yang said while showing the militia man the Beacon ID on her Scroll. "We are team RWBY from Beacon and we are looking for someone, for personal reasons."
Her sister's answer got a laugh out of the other guard who leaned back a little while watching the embarrassed expression on his colleague's face.
"Sorry for that." The other guard said. "There was a certain nasty occurrence earlier today and now our boss is on our backs because of that. Not to mention how everyone became extremely tense after learning how close they were to dying."
These words easily got their attention, it wasn't because of any reason that people become worried for their life and remembering how destructive the fight between Jaune and Weiss's brother had been made her immediately think that the people they are looking for might be related to that.
"Did something happen?" She asked.
"Nothing that you have to concern yourself with anymore." The man waved his hand dismissively before elaborating after seeing her curiosity. "Just some rogue Huntsman with a weird semblance fighting against a team of Huntsmen in training and everybody thinking it was some form of performance."
The man then grabbed his chin and looked upwards as if to remember something before looking at them again and adding.
"I think their team name was January?" The guard more asked than stated before mumbling under his nose. "At least I'm pretty sure that's what that energetic red haired girl said it was."
Her eyes widened when she heard that. That description sounded exactly like Nora and if she was traveling with a team of people then they had to be Ren, Jaune and Whitley!
"Are they still here!?" She quickly asked while coarsely grabbing the guard who looked a little uncomfortable by being shaken around by a fifteen year old girl.
The guard that asked them for their identification earlier took a step back after realizing that he wouldn't have been a match for any of them while all of her friends beside Lyserg leaned forward with expectant looks on their faces.
Her team was about as excited to know where the people they were looking for were as she was.
"No, they aren't." The guard shook his head. "They left the village around the morning. If you really want to catch up to them then you better hurry since they are about twelve hours of walking away from here."
The disappointment on their faces must have been easily noticeable because even the guard who asked them for their ID's earlier looked awkward after looking at them.
"I don't know if this will help you or not but I saw them leaving through the northern exit so if you go there you should meet up with them sooner or later." The militia man said awkwardly.
"Thank you." She answered with a sigh. They didn't need information about where to go because Lyserg could simply use his Over Soul to point them in the correct direction but the fact that the guard wanted to help was good enough.
She slowly turned around to face the rest of her team before nodding with determination and saying.
"Alright team, all of you have heard the kind guard here, haven't you. We are passing through the village and immediately go north, there's no time to waste here!"
A tired shout of affirmation could be heard from Yang, who was as determined to find a lead on their mother as she was, while groans of tiredness echoed from the rest of her friends.
"I suggest we spend the night here instead of rushing forward through the night." Lyserg said while grabbing her shoulder and pointing at a tavern in the middle of the town. "Traveling during the night will not only be exhausting but also dangerous and I doubt that Jaune and the rest are moving forward during the night."
Lyserg's words made her look at the faces of her team to see all of them barely being awake.
"Yeah, or we could do that." She laughed with a bashful expression before turning toward Weiss. "Hey partner, I kinda didn't bring a lot of money for this family searching trip. Would you mind paying for a room for me?"
"Sure thing, Ruby." Weiss said with a groan before wobbling forward towards the center of the village.
...
A couple of days later...
...
It was the middle of the night. Everybody was sleeping and the only things that were lightening the cliff next to which they decided to camp were the stars and a half-lit campfire Jaune had started.
The leaves on the trees around rustled and the branches swayed as wind gently flowed towards a single location a few steps away from their camp.
A little over a week has passed since their fight against Tyrian had happened and since Ren formed his new Over Soul. Yet despite such a relatively long time passing, he still couldn't replicate it.
His attempts at doing so were the reason behind those unusual wind movements that made the branches sway towards him.
"Urgh." A quiet yet frustrated groan left his mouth as the wind before his hands yet again dissipated. He just couldn't understand what he was doing wrong, when he first learned how to form an Over Soul it didn't cause him any issues to form it again after creating it for the first time.
It wasn't like he couldn't form his Over Soul either but whenever he did that it would always be the same one he had earlier and not the wind bow that had won them the fight against Tyrian.
He tried to manually command the wind around him to form a shape of a bow like it had during that fight but, even if he could do so after a few days of practice, it never had the functionality of that wind bow. Instead it always was just air concentrated around his Storm Flower that would dissipate if he were to pull his weapon back.
Why couldn't Over Souls be as easy to use as his Semblance was? After using it for the first time he always knew how to use it without much of a training yet whenever he trained with Over Soul he never was sure what was going on.
"Maybe we should stop the training for tonight, son. It's getting us nowhere." His dad said calmly after he unknowingly broke his Over Soul because of the irritation.
"You know we can't do that, dad." He answered with a huff before grabbing his father's spirit ball form.
"Our last fight was against a rogue shaman who wasn't even a part of the tournament yet we still almost lost. Our opponents from the tournament are going to be way more powerful than Tyrian was, you've heard how Jaune described Hao and the Iron Maiden, right? If we want to survive, we have to use every power we can have."
A solemn sigh was the response he got from his father because there was no argument to be had on this instance.
They really were too weak right now.
Just as he moved his hands to form his Over Soul like he had done many times before a loud jeer from behind made him stop.
"Are you an idiot?" A regrettably familiar voice mocked him from outside his vision. Of course it had to be Whitley of all people to come across his training and not Nora or Jaune.
It would have been so much easier if the person who spoke to him was someone he actually enjoyed being around.
"You aren't sleeping." He chose to ignore the rude question by stating the obvious while sighing in annoyance and slowly turning around to face his conversation partner.
"Of course I'm not. Do you know how hard it is to sleep while multiple currents of wind are constantly blowing over your head?" Whitley answered with an annoyed scoff before adding after a moment of consideration. "If you are wondering whether or not you caught anyone else's attention then don't worry, Jaune and Nora are still asleep while grandpa and Summer are keeping watch."
It wasn't his intention to interrupt anyone's sleep with his training but if the only one affected was Whitley then he was pretty sure he could live with that. It was a pity that Whitley's natural reaction was to inspect what was going on but there was nothing he could do about that.
"Good, I wouldn't want to inconvenience them after a long day of traveling." He said with a nod.
"You don't mind that I had to wake up because of your stupid nightlong experimentation though, do you?" Whitley complained loudly only to receive an unconcerned shrug from him in response before sighing. "You still didn't answer my question though."
Was Whitley talking about that idiot question before? If the young Schnee was really looking for a fight then he wouldn't mind teaching the younger shaman some lessons on respecting his companions.
He would just have to make sure to not wake up Jaune or Nora because these two would end the fight before they could hurt each other in any way. And how much he wanted to hurt that elitist shaman brat now.
"I assumed that there's no reason for me to answer such an obvious question. I think we can both agree that starting a pointless fight in the middle of the night would have been stupid of us." He answered with a frown instead. A fight between them would only be a waste of energy for the next day anyway.
If Whitley apologized right now then he might even forgive him for that jeer earlier.
"You are actually right about that." Whitley said with a mocking smirk before sitting on the ground in a comfortable position. "It's obvious that you are stupid if the last three hours of you needlessly wasting your Furyoku were to indicate something."
Okay, now that elitist brat was asking for it.
He hastily formed his Over Soul using the Storm Flower before quickly making the currents wind weave themselves into the shape of a bow and trying to shoot somewhere next to Whitley with it to scare the younger shaman a bit.
Unluckily, or luckily depending on the perspective, his attempt at forming the bow Over Soul failed like it had always failed before, leaving him in a quite an embarrassing state with his Storm Flower pointing at Whitley and a small vortex of wind swirling right before his hands.
Knowing that there was no way for him to regain any image after such a situation anyway, he launched a small gust of wind forward to at least make Whitley wince a little.
"Aren't you going to use your new bow that won us the fight against the crazy scorpion guy?" Whitley said while covering his face from the wind with one of his arms. "I must say it would have been way more threatening if you did so."
He clicked his tongue in irritation at Whitley's statement before stopping with his wind push. Whether the younger shaman was doing it on purpose or not, every single one of the young Schnee's was infuriating him way more than usual.
"Or maybe it's because you don't know how to do that?" Seeing that the assault stopped, Whitley asked with an aggravating smile on his face.
When he heard Whitley say that, he immediately narrowed his eyes. Despite not having the best relationship with the young Schnee, he knew that Whitley wouldn't bring the fact that he couldn't form his new Over Soul up if he didn't know what he was doing wrong.
"You know what I'm lacking in order to create that Over Soul again." He said with an accusatory tone. His father meanwhile merely looked with curiosity while also wondering what they were doing wrong.
"Of course I know. It's quite obvious really." Whitley said with a roll of his eyes as if to say that the thing he was missing was common knowledge. The worst thing about it was that from Whitley's perspective it actually might have been a common knowledge since unlike him the young Schnee had been taught the shaman ways a long time before the Shaman King Tournament started.
He was going to hate that but it seemed that asking Whitley for help was the only sensible option for him. The conflict they had between them couldn't get in the way of their journey as it would lead to their deaths.
The young Schnee most likely was aware of it as well considering the fact that he was talking with him right now. Whitley wouldn't waste his time solely on irritating him either so the reason for him being here was obvious.
That elitist brat could be a bit less smug about helping him though.
"Will you help me with my new Over Soul?" He asked through the gritted teeth to the enjoyment of the younger shaman.
For some reason he thought that he saw his father smiling as well but after a quick look he realized that must have been a mistake. His dad wouldn't take pleasure in seeing him having to interact with Whitley.
"Sure, I can do that." Whitley answered with an arrogant smirk and a shrug. "It wasn't that difficult to ask me for help, was it?"
I can't punch him right after asking him for help. It would be counterproductive to my goal. He thought to himself while strongly tightening his fists in an attempt to not start another fight.
"Just tell me what I'm doing wrong." He said before explaining the issues he was facing while trying to form his new Over Soul. "I'm sure that I'm putting in enough Furyoku and the Over Soul is always created but it's never the one I try to make."
After saying that he expected Whitley to scoff while calling him a fake before explaining something obvious that he was missing or laugh mockingly while pointing out a single easy to notice mistake, maybe even insult him before showing him what he was doing wrong first hand.
Instead the response he got from Whitley was a loud sigh and a slow shake of his head.
"Normally I would call you a fake shaman that doesn't even know the importance of a medium in the Over Soul but considering the fact that Jaune is running around using a walking stick of all things as a medium, this knowledge doesn't appear to be as obvious as I thought it was." Whitley said while carefully unsheathing his saber.
With how slowly Whitley was pulling out his sword it was clear that the weapon was being used only for presentation purposes.
He never noticed it before because the only times he had the chance to look at his traveling companion's sword was during combat but the saber Whitley used looked particularly old and worn out.
Almost like it had been used constantly for the last decade or so.
"Is the item you use for the Over Soul really important?" He raised his Storm Flower a bit higher so that Whitley could see it better. "I've been using my weapon as the medium and it had always worked."
The expression on Whitley's face right after he said that practically screamed at him that what he said was supposedly dumb.
It made him wince a little. He didn't say anything wrong. No Over Soul he encountered up until now made it apparent that the medium used for it was an important part in forming it.
"Of course it's important, you dimwit! If it wasn't then what would be the point of requiring it for an Over Soul in the first place?!" Whitley shouted in irritation while wildly swinging his weapon before clarifying what he meant after calming down a little.
"You can form many different Over Souls with a single item as a medium but you cannot use multiple different items and expect that they all would result in the same Over Soul. It just isn't how it works."
Hearing that, he frowned a little, already having a good idea why he couldn't form the new Over Soul earlier.
"So different items result in different Over Souls, it's understandable, but why was the one I made with the dagger my father gave me so much more powerful than the one I made using my Storm Flower?" He voiced the question that immediately entered his mind after thinking about the idea he had.
"It's because one item isn't equal to the other." Whitley answered modestly but, after seeing that he didn't quite get it, expanded on it.
"Shamans don't care for the physical aspects of an item they use as a medium since it doesn't affect the strength of the Over Soul. What we place importance on is the item's history and spiritual connections, some random weapon you used for huntsman training would never compare to the old knife used by a previous shaman that was gifted to you in his final moments. I'm honestly surprised that you could form an Over Soul using that lousy item at all."
"As if you're the one to talk." He pointed at Whitley's saber with his Storm Flower. "Aren't you also using an ordinary sword as a medium?"
"I will let you know that the sword that I'm holding isn't some random weapon that could be bought in any arm's store." He could practically feel the egoism Whitley was exuding while saying that. "This saber was used by my grandfather when he first explored the caves, where now Schnee's most profitable mines are, with the help of the dead explorers' spirits."
If one were to look more carefully at Whitley after he said that then they would be able to notice that the young Schnee was currently straightening back and smiling with a proud smile.
Meanwhile Ren simply rolled his eyes at that. He didn't particularly care about the history of Whitley's weapon.
"Alright, I got it." He said before hiding the Storm Flower and reaching for the dagger. "You are saying that in order to form that new Over Soul I have to use this dagger of mine as a medium, right?"
"Yes." Whitley answered shortly with a small pout because of how Ren dismissed the story about his saber. It was a hidden relic of the Schnee family! "If you don't believe me, you can try creating it right now. You should have enough Furyoku for that."
He quietly nodded in response before turning in the other direction and pushing the spirit of his father towards the dagger so that the Over Soul could be formed. That was going to be his last try for tonight because, even if it worked, he wouldn't have any more Furyoku for anything more.
A familiar sensation of wind gathering right before him made his arms shiver a little. It wasn't the first time he felt this type of sensation, he wouldn't be able to tell how many times such a thing happened this night alone, but it was one of the very few times when the wind wasn't moving by him because of his commands.
Instead, just like it had done about a week ago, the air was gathering in the form of a bow on its own. Small currents and strands of flowing wind moved past him from every direction, gracefully aligning themselves in a bow-like shape with his dagger at the center.
A content smile appeared on his face. After days of failed attempts and wrong ideas, he finally managed to form it again and it only took a little help from Whitley to do so.
"Congratulations, you managed to finally do something you shouldn't have struggled with in the first place." He heard Whitley say sarcastically from behind him before a slow clapping echoed from the same direction.
Sadly, he couldn't turn around and fire a single arrow towards Whitley to shut him up because it would kill the boy.
With that in mind he decided that the best way to deal with the irritation filled within him was to fire the dagger into one of the trees. A light pull on the wind string was enough for him to launch the dagger he previously held in his other hand through four different trees only to stop at the fifth one.
He had to do something about the firing of his knife. Losing his weapon after a single shot wasn't something he wanted to deal with in a shaman fight where one mistake could lead to dying.
Hopefully with enough practice he would find a way to fix that.
"Impressive." Whitley said while looking at the fallen trees that failed to stop Ren's dagger. "Let's hope that we didn't wake the rest up. There are still about three hours until the sunrise."
Somehow he doubted that would be enough to wake Jaune and Nora up. While falling trees were certainly loud, they were nowhere near as loud as Nora keeping the night watch. He still wasn't sure whether the explosions he heard back then were only in his dream or was it Nora who was throwing her explosives around because of boredom.
Either way, Jaune should already be used to sleeping through loud noises around him thanks to Nora and Nora was capable of sleeping through anything as long as she considered the people around her to be her friends.
A tired yawn resounded from behind him, making him turn around to see Whitley stretching his arms while facing away from him.
"Anyway, since it appears that you finally know what you are doing, I will go back to sleep." Whitley said before starting to walk away.
"Whitley, wait!" He called before the younger shaman could make more than a few steps.
"Is there something else you want my help with?" The young Schnee said curiously without turning around.
A few seconds of an uncomfortable silence occurred as he thought about what he really wanted to say. In the end he gritted his teeth lightly before sighing loudly and saying what was expected of him.
"Thank you for your help, Whitley."
Saying that almost physically hurt him. He could already imagine Whitley reminding him of this moment for the next couple of weeks while looking at him with a constant smug smile on his face.
"Good to know that you at least know how to show your gratitude." Whitley said with a shake of his head and a shrug before sighing wistfully. "I have no idea how Jaune would have survived without me if the only companions he had were a fake shaman and a possibly crazy huntress in training. Sometimes I'm truly too charitable for this team of ours."
Honestly, he didn't know what answer he expected from Whitley but the one he got was certainly nothing unexpected.
"You could have just said 'You are welcome' or 'It wasn't a big deal', You know?" He said with an annoyed sigh.
"Despite not having the best relationship with the rest of my family, I'm still a Schnee. We do not give false courtesy when we know that what we did was worth the recognition." Whitley arrogantly shook his head. "There's pride in being one of the greatest."
"You could lower that arrogance of yours." He said with a frown of irritation before smirking after coming up with an idea. "Although, I guess it does say a lot about our team when the weakest one of us is so proud of himself."
"Oi! Who are you calling the weakest, you fake shaman!?" Just as he expected, Whitley didn't even think once before taking the bait.
Now that he had the perfect chance to poke a couple of jabs at Whitley, his small smirk turned into a full wide smile as he leaned back a little to make sure that Whitley's shouting wouldn't hurt him so much.
"I'm referring to you of course." He said with a sly smile before explaining. "After all, you were defeated by Jaune during the first round of the tournament and now that I have a new and more powerful Over Soul I'm rather confident in defeating you as well. Not to mention that you had the worst win-lose ratio out of all of us with you single win and a draw."
Before he even finished his argument, he could already see Whitley fuming with anger making him giggle a little. There weren't many things that could make him show his emotions, his semblance made hiding them and becoming a lot less expressive too easy, but for some reason Whitley was among the few things that could do that.
Even if most of the times the emotions he showed because of Whitley weren't exactly the positive ones.
Just like that with no more than a few short exchanges of words between them another fight started. There weren't any Over Souls used in this one and they were trying to keep it mostly quiet to not wake up the rest of the team but the fight was heated and would last until the morning.
In the end, regardless of finally achieving the goal one of them was trying to reach for the last week, there wasn't much sleep for these two shamans that night.
At the same time when the fight between Ren and Whitley began, a pair of guardian spirits that were tasked with keeping watch over them throughout the entire night were watching the two young shamans bickering with fon expression on their faces.
"It really is a heartwarming moment to be able to see my grandson having such a good relationship with a friend." Nicholas Schnee, Whitley's grandfather, said to his night watch companion for the night while looking at his descendant.
"It is, isn't it? I must say, at first I was a little worried about those two traveling together, especially considering how they met, but it looks like my worries were unfounded." Summer nodded with a content smile.
A short but healthy laugh escaped Nicholas after Summer said that. While he and Summer weren't the closest of friends, his age and difference in how they lived through their lives made it difficult for him to fully sympathize with her, they had found a few topics on which they often conversed.
Parenthood, family, and children were one of them. He shared many of his experiences of watching his grandchildren grow up while not being able to interact with them in any way or of him teaching and helping Whitley with the life of a shaman. Meanwhile Summer told him practically everything there was to know about her two precious daughters, Ruby and Yang.
"I'm surprised that you can see their fights and call them close as well. I'm not sure I would be capable of doing so if I didn't know Whitley for the boy's entire life." Nicholas said.
"I've been team leader of Raven and Qrow Branwen. Trust me, if there's anyone who can see a fight between two people and judge whether those two people are friends or enemies then it has to be me." Summer said while trying to hide a small giggle.
Nicholas let out another hearty laugh after hearing that. With the relative peace in the area around them and two of the shamans having a friendly fight between them, it truly was a joyful night.
They could only hope that the rest of their journey to Argus would be like that.
...
A few days later...
...
It had been around two weeks since they had gotten their temporary goal of reaching Argus. Their journey has been rather peaceful compared to how the first two days of the second round turned out and for the last few days the fights between Ren and Whitley were slightly less frequent than before as well.
There were some Grimm encounters along the way of course but with three of them being capable shamans and the last one of them being a powerful huntress in training the danger they faced was nearly nothing.
Jaune almost couldn't have asked for a better trip. It seemed as if their terrible luck of stumbling onto incredibly dangerous situations and individuals had finally passed. There was even some skip to Nora's walk as she had pretty much forgotten about the tournament entirely.
Although, lately some weird sensation was making him strangely nervous.
Jaune wasn't a fighter so his instincts couldn't compare to those of an experienced huntsman but, because of spending his childhood on traveling through the kingdom of Vale, he was rather adept at noticing if something wasn't quite right.
There were many signs to clue him in on what was happening. Some unnaturally rustling leaves here, a weirdly attentive hamster there made him immediately think of one possibility.
They were being followed! Or at least someone was keeping an eye on them while also traveling in roughly the same direction.
While normally it wouldn't have been a big deal since he was rather confident that they would be easily capable of defeating any random bandit or even a rogue huntsman if they really had to but the fact that none of their spirits noticed that they were being followed meant that the people observing them were highly likely to be shamans.
At least that was the only thing that made any sense as Summer's daughters wouldn't hide themselves if they caught their trail and Summer was experienced enough to know what to look for if the people following them were some random bandits or huntsmen.
Honestly, he was actually quite surprised that nobody else noticed any of those weird signs that something was going on like he did. Maybe it had something to do with that unnatural smoke that sometimes would appear near them when he was looking at something suspicious.
"Jaune, are you sure you're alright?" Summer asked with clear concern in her voice. "You've been looking around as if you are expecting an ambush for the last two days. I don't think it's healthy to be that paranoid."
All of his other friends nodded at what Summer said as well, the clear concern in their eyes didn't make his staying vigilant any less awkward. Especially since he didn't really have any proof that some shaman might be following them.
"I'm alright, guys." He sighed. "I'm just not comfortable walking through this forest with countless trees to hide behind. It feels as if at any moment a competitor might jump out of them and attack us. The fact that we didn't meet any other shaman for the last two weeks or so despite there being a bunch of them in Mistral because of the tournament wasn't helping either."
"You are worrying too much Jaune." Summer shook her head. "I already told you after I went scouting ahead that I didn't see anyone who could be a threat to us nearby. Besides, the next village we can spend the night at is just around the corner."
Maybe they were right and he was just worrying about something that wasn't even there. After all, when he had pointed out the things he saw earlier none of his friends saw anything. It's possible that he was just stressed because of the tournament.
With the village being just behind the huge stone cliff they were currently going around they would be able to call it quits for today and have a chance to sleep in comfortable beds for once.
After a good night of sleep that weird feeling would for sure go away. And if they really were being followed then their hidden stalkers would have to stop hiding if they wanted to attack them in the middle of a village.
A tad bit shorter chapter than usually because of the same reason the previous one was later than normally.
Not much had happened in terms of action and plot development but I really wanted to write that middle scene and if I forced myself to make this chapter move story forward more then it wouldn't be out for quite some time with how busy my days were lately.
Think of this chapter as your typical: "We are just traveling and some time passes chapter."
See ya later!
Emergency Edit!: AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH! I was so busy this week that I completely forgot that since Chocolove met with team RWBYL in chapter 16 he should be present or at least mention here! But the chapter's already finished and out! I can't change the entire thing! Quick! An Omake!
...
Omake!
...
Chocolove McDonell was a man of many flaws. He wasn't the strongest of shamans, he had been a criminal and some people even said that his jokes weren't the best.
There truly were many things that could be said about him.
But no one, and he meant no one, could say that he was forgettable.
So why?
"Our friend already told you why we are here, buddy."
Just why?
"Did something happen?"
Were his new friends ignoring him?
Was it because of something he did?
"Are they still here!?"
That couldn't be the case. Not even an hour ago he and Yang were trading jokes with each other while having the times of their lives. Even that little red hooded girl that resembled the grim reaper a bit too much to his liking had sometimes laughed with them.
"Guys, maybe I could use my Over Soul to go scout if they didn't set up a camp somewhere nearby the village? You know I'm pretty fast and could probably cover enough ground for it to be worth it." He said only to be ignored by everyone.
What was going on?!
"I suggest we spend the night here instead of rushing forward through the night."
Was he forgotten by the reality itself?
"Hey partner, I kinda didn't bring a lot of money for this family searching trip. Would you mind paying for a room for me?"
They probably didn't even think of him.
Was he going to disappear?
Unknowingly to Chocolove he was a victim of the most cruel condition any fictional character could have. It was so bad that no medicine or retcons would help him recover for now.
He had been forgotten by the author...
Emergency Edit End... The situation has been salvaged... I think.