Here's the chapter!
Reviews:
Guest - Thanks, and here's more!
X3runner - At first I wanted to make them meet and maybe fight Faust somewhere on their way to Argus where they would make him angry because of how shallow their reasons for entering the tournament seemingly were (There would probably have been a scene of Faust hearing about the Jaune's goal and relpying with something like: "Is this a joke?! You became one of the competitors, my opponents, poeple who stand between me and reviving my beloved Elisa, to meet more shamans?! To make more friends!?" and a fight would start)but with how I wrote everything I ended up ommiting it.
Gamelover41592 - Thanks as always! :)
Life on a farm wasn't among the most interesting lifestyles one could have. Everyday one would wake up early in the morning to plow the fields or take care of the animals with barely any breaks until the evening.
There were hardly any things to diversify such a life. Some trades with nearby villages here, some rare grimm sightings there, maybe meeting a wandering huntsman if one was lucky but aside from that there wasn't much to make the farm life entertaining.
Many people would often leave their lives on farms in search of adventure and glory by becoming a huntsman or any other more thrilling occupation as well so there weren't that many people to talk to either.
Yet despite all of these flaws of living on a farm, one young boy named Oscar Pine didn't mind his current lifestyle.
Sure he might not have been going on many adventures like the huntsmen were nor was he interacting with a bunch of different people like traveling merchants were but he had a relatively calm life and what more could he want.
His parents were young, healthy and always at home. They might have been a little bit too lazy for their own good by making him do literally every physical activity there was to do in their house but he couldn't really complain too much about that.
His aunt that lived nearby usually helped him with those tasks as well, often praising him for being so independent by doing them and being able to take care of himself on his own.
He never understood why she was doing that though. It wasn't like he was choosing to do them by himself, all that he was doing was following his parents' requests.
It was possible that it had something to do with the strained relationship his aunt had with his parents.
There weren't any fights between them and it wasn't anything serious as his parents always allowed and encouraged him to spend more time with his aunt but whenever she was visiting they would always completely ignore each other for some reason.
It made any family meetings or his birthdays extremely awkward.
He had tried to learn from where that animosity between those two parts of his family came from but whenever he asked his parents for an answer they would always dodge around the issue.
At least they acknowledged that the issue existed without breaking down emotionally.
When he had asked his aunt the same thing she had started loudly crying before wrapping her arms around him in a hug and apologizing for not being there for him when it was truly necessary.
Needless to say he didn't try broaching that topic ever again.
Discounting that little issue his family seemed to be having however. Oscar's life was truly fulfilling and he never thought about changing it in any way let alone about becoming a huntsman.
That was at least before he started hearing voices in his head.
At first he thought that his imagination was simply going rampant from all the tiredness he felt after working harder than usual because of the sudden increase of demand for everything in bigger cities.
That thought was quickly proven wrong though when the very next day after a whole good night of rest the voice not only didn't stop but even started to try to convince him to leave his farm life behind and run away from home.
He wasn't going insane!
Or at the very least he tried to think he wasn't. The voice, despite being only in his head, had some solid evidence for being the dead headmaster of Beacon.
When the voice shared with him the direct recounting of the recent event known as the fall of Beacon despite Oscar himself barely hearing about such a thing before it was hard for him to think about the voice as of the figment of his imagination any longer.
"That is why we have to leave as soon as possible to look for one of my many associates in Mistral." The supposed dead headmaster in his head said after explaining to him how he was killed by a half maiden in a rush attempt to get the other half of the maiden power before it left for Atlas in the middle of the Vytal festival.
Honestly, Oscar wanted to say that this story sounded less real than the drunk ramblings he would hear traveling merchants spur when they stayed at his small village for longer periods of time. The only reason he stopped himself from doing that was because of the respect for the deceased his father had drilled into him.
"Even if you really have so many friends who are aware that you possessed someone, like you said. Who's to say that we would be able to find anyone of them?" Oscar said with a small grunt as he stabbed his hoe into the ground move the dirt a little. "Mistral is a huge kingdom, finding a single specific person in it is almost impossible."
The adventure Ozpin wanted him to go on sounded so difficult that it might have as well been impossible.
It wasn't the only reason he didn't want to leave though. Before all of that, he didn't want to worry his parents. They already were reclined from anyone, with him being the only person who regularly talked with them, so if he were to leave without a warning they would have been both heartbroken and lonely.
He couldn't do that to them.
A sigh escaped the young farm boy as he thought about that. He didn't even tell them about the voice he had in his head and he could only imagine how worried they were going to be once they learned about that.
"Do not worry about finding my accomplices too much." Ozpin reassured him, ignoring the real issue he had with leaving his home. "I got some news that one and a half of the first year teams from Beacon are already traveling through Mistral as we speak."
Oscar raised one of his eyebrows in confusion at that.
Did Ozpin order some of the huntsmen in training he had under him to search for him before he died?
"Although I still have no idea why they are here in the first place." The old headmaster murmured in their mind.
Apparently the old man did not do that. It did lead to him questioning the supervision the future huntsman of Vale were getting if the entire team could just waltz into a different kingdom to go on an adventure without anybody knowing why.
It really wasn't reassuring.
"Alright, I will go on that little adventure of yours." Oscar sighed knowing that unfortunately for him something had to be done about the whole situation. "At least let me inform my parents about what's going on before leaving. I don't want to worry them too much."
"I can't forbid you from doing that. Family is the most important thing you can have." Ozpin said in a calm manner before adding. "Though, I'm not sure if they are going to believe you."
Yeah, it was a good point.
Remnant might have been a strange place where countless unbelievable things could happen but learning that your son was possessed by a late headmaster of the greatest huntsman academy was probably among the few things that were simply too hard to believe.
"We will think of something on the spot and if they truly won't believe anything we say then I will still feel better knowing that I didn't try to hide this from them." Oscar said reassuringly before leaving his hoe in the ground and turning towards his house.
"It's your choice." Ozpin said in his head as they left the fields.
The path to his parents was surprisingly calm. As Oscar slowly walked he expected that the nerves from being about to deliver the outlandish news would make him too scared to move or at least make him uncomfortable.
In reality though nothing like that happened. He didn't know if it was because the soul of an experienced huntsman was residing in him or if it was because he couldn't comprehend how his lovely parents wouldn't believe him but he barely even thought about any issues that might arise in telling them that.
A loud creaking sound echoed through his house as he gently pushed his doors open.
There was no way his parents didn't hear that. A frown appeared on Oscar's face, he was sure that he had repaired those old door hinges not too long ago so the creaking shouldn't have been so loud.
In the end the young farmer boy could only sigh at that. These doors did have about fourteen years and he was the only one taking care of them so it wasn't weird if they simply became too rusty for his small repairs to help much.
He couldn't remember how many times he asked his father to replace them with new ones only for him to decline, saying that it would require help from too many people for him to be comfortable doing that.
"Oscar?" His mother called out from the back of their house. "Did you finish working on the fields already?"
"No mother!" He called back. "But I have something I need to talk with you about, it's important!"
"Really?!" His mother sounded surprised. It made sense, he rarely brought up any issues and was almost always content with how everything was going. "Wait there for a moment! I'm coming!"
A comfortable silence followed his mother's declaration as he waited in patience knowing that she was coming to see him. There were no footsteps, there never were, his parents were always quiet like that not even making noise when going somewhere.
It was also how his mother knew that it was him who entered and not his father. His father would somehow manage to enter the house without making the door creak.
Oscar shook his head at all the situations where his parents were so quiet and unassuming he almost mistook them for ghosts. To this day he had no idea how they were doing that.
"I'm here!" His mother said in a hurry while barging through an open door to one of the rooms near the entrance.
A genuine smile appeared on Oscar's face as he saw her. It was easy to see a resemblance between them, their eyes and freckles on their faces practically mirrored each other and while his mother did have a lighter and longer hair it was clear that they were related.
That resemblance was multiplied by how youthful his mother looked. Despite being well into her forties, she looked no day older than when she was twenty something years old, it was like she had stopped aging right after giving birth to him.
He and dad always liked teasing her by saying that all of her friends would probably be willing to die to learn the secret for her seeming youth.
"Now, what's that important thing you wanted to talk about?" His mom said with a kind smile.
That was the question, wasn't it? How was one supposed to broach the topic of needing to leave your home at the young age of fourteen because some apparent headmaster reincarnated into you?
Should he just lead with 'I started to hear the voice of the dead Beacon headmaster in my head'?
Of course he couldn't! She would first take him to the psychiatrist before listening to anything else!
"Any idea on how to start?" Oscar thought to himself in his mind, knowing that the old reincarnate would be able to hear him.
"You could just start by saying that you need to leave." Ozpin said and Oscar swore that the old man in his head was raising his eyebrow at his blunder.
Meanwhile during the time their little conversation took place, Oscar's mother tilted her head to the side in confusion. Her son was really taking his time deliberating on how to handle that important issue he had.
"Mom, I know it will sound crazy but all the things I'm going to say are the truth." Oscar said as seriously and solemnly as he could. If the content of his words wasn't going to make his mother understand the situation then the tone of these words would.
It appeared that his idea was working because just after he said that, his mother looked at him intensely with a frown on her face. The worry on her was easy to see but for some reason Oscar was almost certain that along with that worry there was a fear of something as well.
"Don't worry sweetie, I've seen some unbelievable things in my life. There's no way that I won't believe what you are about to say." His mother said with a strained voice. It was almost as if she was already expecting something and greatly feared what it would be.
Oscar took a deep breath in preparation. He would have to word it correctly if he didn't want his mother to freeze from worry.
"I need to leave the village." Oscar said plainly before quickly explaining without giving his mother a chance to ask any questions.
"Ozpin, the late headmaster of Beacon, reincarnated into me right after dying in the fall of his school that recently happened. At the moment he exists only as a voice in my head but from what he told me in a couple of years it could change. And I need to leave to find some of his colleagues before the people who killed him start targeting me or try to bring the destruction of the entire world through unknown to me means."
Those words left Oscar so rapidly that he wasn't sure if his mother understood everything he just said. And even if she didn't, he couldn't help but to wince a little right after he said all of that.
He expected either a solid scolding or a loud laugh in disbelief to be the reaction of his mother so when the only thing that met his words was silence and he received neither, the only thing Oscar could do was to slowly look up at his mother in a slight confusion.
Even if neither of the reactions he expected from his mother happened, he still believed the silence from his mother to be born from bewilderment or from trying to process everything he had said.
Oscar certainly didn't think that after looking up at his mother he would instead see her in panic and anger.
His mother's eyes were diluted, her breaths quick and shallow, and if she was right next to a wall then she would have probably leaned on it for help. It was the first time he saw her like that, even when he almost destroyed their entire house back when he had been a young child she wasn't that emotional.
"Mom, are you alright?" Oscar asked while extending one of his arms forward in case his mother would need to hold onto something.
"Why!?" She screamed loudly as tears fell from her eyes.
"I'm sorr-" His attempt at apology was cut short by a loud scream from his mother who looked at him with a pure fury in her eyes.
"Why did it have to happen again!? Was taking the body of one of my sons and killing me and my husband too little for you parasites?! All I ever wanted was to have a family and see my children grow while slowly dying of old age! Did I do something wrong by trying to take care of the only child that I had left despite being dead?! Is me doing that too much for you cursed creatures?!"
Oscar winced with every sentence shouted. The noise from his mother was so loud that half the village probably heard them have a fight already, at the very least his father heard that if the familiar silhouette he saw in one of the doors meant anything.
"I certainly didn't expect such a strong reaction." Ozpin remarked in his head. The old headmaster was no doubt as confused at the reaction of his mother as he was, if not more. "I do wonder what she meant by 'being dead' however. Most people do not get the chance to interact with their children after dying at all so what makes her special?"
"It's not the time to be thinking about those things, Ozpin." Oscar mumbled to himself, knowing full well that the old immortal heard him well.
The screams continued for quite a while but after a few minutes it was clear that the rage Oscar's mother felt was quickly weakening only to be replaced with a simple despair.
"P-Please..." Oscar's mother begged through her pitiful tears. "Please, at least tell me that you won't end up like Hao."
With those words said the entire house fell into silence. Oscar's father arrived at the scene to comfort his crying wife but even with him there nobody wanted to make any loud sound.
A deep frown appeared on Oscar's face as an inner conversation was held in his head about that Hao person. Neither he or Ozpin had any idea about what his mother was talking so their confusion only grew.
"I don't want to sound completely heartless." Ozpin said after taking over his body as he didn't have the strength in him to say anything. "But who's this Hao you are talking about?"
Silence once again spread through the building as Oscar's mother looked at the old immortal inhabiting the body of her son in exasperation. Upon seeing the stare that woman was giving him, Ozpin half expected her to go insane in a mad laughter.
"You don't know him?" The freckled woman asked despite knowing the answer. "You are not related to that body monster yet you did the very same thing. Am I simply cursed by the gods for such a thing to have happened to me twice?"
The frail woman quickly devolved into mumbling something under her nose in the madness the situation wrapped her in.
A fake cough from Ozpin quickly brought her out of it.
"While I know that what you are going through is terrible and unfortunate, you still didn't answer my question." The old headmaster could hear the accusation of being a heartless monster in the back of his head that Oscar was giving him the moment those words were spoken.
"I-I guess, I did not." Oscar's mother said shakily before sighing. "Sit down, I might as well tell you. There's no point in hiding it away from my son anymore if he isn't going to be around for much longer."
"Hm." Ozpin frowned without revealing his thoughts.
Oscar obviously would be assimilated into him sooner or later exactly like all of his previous iterations had but it should take at least a couple of years before that fully happened. The thing that concerned him however was the fact that his new host's mother somehow knew about it before anyone told her.
The old immortal knew for certain that nobody from outside his inner group was aware of the possibility of people reincarnating like he was doing.
Could it be that there was someone else aside from him and Salem who was cursed by the gods?
Ozpin slowly dragged a chair from Oscar's house's kitchen before sitting on it. If the explanation for this Hao person was really going to take so long then he wouldn't mind taking the woman's offer and sitting down.
"You even know where everything is in this house." The freckled woman whispered to herself before shaking her head and raising her voice a little. "Tell me, is it from my boy's memories that you stole?"
Ozpin raised one of his eyebrows at the woman.
Was she assuming that he had already taken over her son despite being reincarnated into him for less than a single week?
He doubted that even while fully utilizing the gods' power would he be able to do that.
"Rest assured, your child is still there. It won't be until at least a few years pass that Oscar's soul would be absorbed by mine." Ozpin said while raising his hand. "Although if we are asking questions now then I would really like to know how we are able to talk despite you clearly being dead."
The woman and her husband tilted their head a little and looked at the old headmaster in confusion. Awkward silence quickly spread between them for a few short seconds. It was almost as if they didn't understand what Ozpin was talking about.
"What are you talking about?" The frail woman asked, without trying to hide her confusion. "It's not us who are being noticeable by normal people, it's you who's able to see the ghosts instead."
"Come now." Ozpin rolled his eyes. "Do you really believe that's the truth?"
"It is the truth." The woman insisted. "Oscar's always been able to see spirits, not only the two of us. Do you know how sorrowful we were right after dying and before we learned about this ability of his? We thought that we would never be able to interact with the only child we had left throughout their entire life."
Ozpin frowned once again they didn't appear to be lying but when he asked Oscar in his head about that he had no idea what they were talking about. The revelation about being able to see spirits was as much of a surprise for the young boy as it was for him.
"Let's just assume that what you're saying is through for now." Ozpin said doubtfully. "Can we go back to the Hao issue?"
"O-Of course." The woman said with a stutter. It was like Hao's name on its own was making her terrified. Whatever that person had done to her it must have left a deep mental scar.
To be fair, considering that she was a ghost, it most likely damaged her physical body much more than her mind.
"It all started a year or two after our marriage. I-I was in my eighth month of pregnancy when I first learned of that monster. One day, out of nowhere a wandering shaman visited our village, I think she called herself a member of the Branwen tribe, and the very first thing she did was using her spirit magic to foretell something. Upon doing that, she immediately came over to our house and told us that she would need to be there when I would give birth in order to kill my children because I would give birth to a monster who would lead to the destruction of the entire human and faunus race."
Ozpin frowned in silence as the dead woman took a short break in recounting the past events and started sobbing. The tribe of Branwen was known well by him as two of his greatest students in the recent years were from that tribe but it was the first time he ever heard of them offering to do such a despicable thing.
"I-I declined of course. What sane, soon to be, mother wouldn't? We notified the village chief about that later and he increased the village's militia but that's beside the point. About a month later when it was finally time for me to give birth, everything went fine at first. I gave birth to healthy twins, there weren't any birth defects or complications and we were about to chuck that shaman off as a crazy lunatic. Sadly, the moment we were about to name the first of the twins that happened."
Ozpin and Oscar were silent, both entrapped by the story of how the farm boy's parents died.
"Just as I was about to name my first boy, the baby that I was holding flew up and using some sort of telepathy called himself Hao. I was terrified, through the tears in my eyes I barely saw what happened next but it felt as if the entire world was burning around me. Our death was quick and the only one who survived was Oscar, leaving only one small child to be left alive and himself in our entire family. Later the entire event was called to be the cursed fire of our village. To make matters worse I vividly remember that monster saying that we had to take care of our only child well because he one day might come back for him."
"That's why you reacted so strongly when you learned about me." Ozpin said with a realization in his voice. "You thought that I was Hao and was about to take the body of your second son away."
The freckled woman sniffled loudly before looking at the body of her son with tears in her eyes.
"I-Isn't it what's going to happen?" The woman asked, her voice cracking from emotions as she said that. "You might not be Hao but my son will still be gone. I won't have the chance to have him as a ghost either. The only difference is the person who takes him away."
Ozpin couldn't say anything. All the things that his host's mother said were true, he would have to take her son away and he would absorb his spirit robbing the young boy of the afterlife.
There weren't any thoughts about that from Oscar at the moment either. The boy became completely silent somewhere in the middle of the retelling of his parents death and the old immortal couldn't really blame him.
If he wasn't in the middle of such a mournful situation, Ozpin would have laughed hollowly at his fate.
The gods' curse which they called blessing was once again causing more harm than good to both him and his respective hosts. Sometimes he could do nothing but regret his past decision to accept that single deal he had made with the god of light.
The lack of answers from the immortal was enough for the sorrowful woman to know she had been right with her accusations.
"Please, at the very least before you take my last son's body completely, allow him to live his life to the fullest with us here." The woman begged. "There literally won't be any other chances for that."
"Mom..." Oscar thought sadly in his and Ozpin's mind, making the old immortal sigh wistfully.
"After hearing your story I realized that there is something important that I have to do as soon as possible." Ozpin had to wince after seeing the despair his words left in the freckled woman. "But after we are done with it, I promise that I will allow young Oscar to live with you for as long as possible. Sooner or later I will be forced to take over his body for sure but I will try to postpone that moment for as long as I can."
The immortal's words brought little happiness to the despairing mother but at least they reassured her a little as her sobbing slightly halted and was replaced with a quiet sniffling.
"Make it quick." The woman mumbled under her nose.
"I'm sorry?" Ozpin asked, not being able to hear what the frail woman was saying.
"I said to make it quick!" The woman shouted angrily. "If you are going to take my boy away for some time now either way then make sure to return him to me as soon as possible!"
"Of course." The old headmaster said with the smallest smile he ever had before quickly turning around and leaving the house.
Across the countless years he had to live through, Ozpin went through almost as many farewells and separations with the families of his many hosts but it was the very first time he had to go through something like that.
After the old wizard closed the doors of the Pine household behind him for the last time before beginning his journey with Oscar, all the spirits and the spiritually aware people were able to hear quiet cries of sadness coming from the abandoned house.
"I'm sorry Oscar, if I could stay in the back of your head for your entire lifetime then I would. Sadly my current duty is truly too important for me to waste an entire lifetime on a farm." Ozpin whispered to himself as he left the garden belonging to the Pine family.
"I-It's alright." Oscar answered, though it was clear that his emotions weren't in line with the contents of his words. "Where are we going to start looking for your colleagues?"
"We won't be looking for them yet." Ozpin said with a heavy frown. "There's one other place we will have to visit in order to get a couple of my questions answered before all of that."
"And that is?" Oscar asked.
Ozpin hummed lightly at the question, he might not have any idea who that Hao person was or why he and Oscar could see spirits of the dead but there was a single name from that previous recounting that he recognized quite well and he would be a fool not to ask them some questions.
"A certain small bandit camp that I just learned is actually a place of great importance, called the Branswen Tribe."
With their goals set Oscar through Ozpin's command for the first time in his life left his home village for a trip longer than to the next bigger town. He might not have any idea what he would encounter on his way but he knew one thing for certain.
He would return to his village in no time.
...
At the gates of Argus...
...
The walls of Argus stood before them.
After roughly a month of traveling they were finally here. Their journey was far from over as it wasn't the Tribes Village yet but the first major step to passing the second round of the tournament was done.
Sadly the atmosphere around them didn't accurately represent how they should be feeling upon finding their first clue to finding their goal.
They might not have been in as terrible a state as they were when passing through the Brunswick Farms but it was easy to see that they were far from their best.
Cheers one would expect from them were replaced by wistful sighs or small huffs of relief. They certainly were glad to reach Argus but that joy was nowhere near enough to make them forget about the fall of Beacon and their encounter with Hao.
"We are here." Jaune couldn't help but state upon seeing the giant entrance to the port city they were walking towards for the last couple of weeks.
"That we are." Whitley rolled his eyes. "Now let's get going and find that Lilirara girl, Maria told us about, there are only about two months left before the second round's end so we might have to hurry in case the Tribes Village happens to be at the other side of Mistral."
"Relax a little, Whitley." Jaune said with a small smile. "What's the chance that's the case?"
They've been stressed for the last two weeks, there's no way they weren't going to unwind a little after reaching a bigger city for the first time since arriving in Mistral. Jaune knew for a fact that at the very least Nora would kill for a chance to visit any restaurant where she could eat pancakes.
"Quite high actually." Ren answered his question. "It is a port city at the edge of Mistral, if there's a place which could be too far away from our goal then it would be it. I sincerely doubt that the Tribes Village is somewhere nearby."
Well, at worst they still should be capable of reaching the other end of Mistral in a bit less than two months so they would have the time to search. The only thing they had to worry for now was finding Lilirara.
"Let's just enter the city for now, alright?" Jaune said with a huff. Standing just outside its gates wasn't going to help them in any way and would only waste them more time instead.
"You got it, team leader!" Nora said with a smirk. Somehow after the whole Brunswick Farms fiasco, she was the one who ended up in the best position out of all of them. It might have something to do with her usual cheerful personality, though.
Entering the port city was surprisingly easy. There weren't any extensive background checks or questions asked, the only thing they had to show in order to enter were their ID's and even that was forgotten the moment Whitley showed his identification.
Apparently when you were a confirmed heir to the world famous Dust refining company your words carried as much weight as any official documents you would need for minor issues.
Once more, Jaune felt grateful for his friend's family connections. If the young Schnee didn't help him with the entrance to Argus there might have been some issues with his ID.
Since running away from his home it had always seemed to be an issue for him, it wasn't that he didn't have it as he quite quickly had made himself one in one of the villages he had visited across the years after learning from many of the spirits he had helped along the way about the importance of it.
The issue was that it most likely had become outdated at some point when they were still in Vale. He hadn't really thought about it too much since he rarely needed it when visiting villages anyway.
Although, finally arriving at Argus might be a good moment to take care of it as well.
"So where do we start looking?" Nora asked all of them loudly as they still walked on the road that was connected to the city's gates.
While that question was asked loudly so that all of them could hear and answer, everyone present treated it as a question for Jaune specifically, practically cementing his position as their team leader in stone to the blond shaman's exacerbation.
"I honestly have no idea." Jaune shook his head. "If this was a small village where everyone knew everyone then I would suggest going to a tavern or any bar to ask its owner for the person by name but it wouldn't work here. Unfortunately, my track record of finding specific people in bigger cities isn't very impressive."
Not impressive was an understatement as well, he tried looking for a secret tournament only a selected few people were aware of by asking a barely legal information broker about it. Not to mention how his search for Chocolove back in Vale had ended.
"We could still try that." Whitley remarked. "It might not be as effective here but it should give us some information. But before all of that I think we should start by exploring the city, it would be embarrassing if we learned where Lilirara might be but we didn't know how to get there."
"Good idea." Jaune nodded. "Shall we start from the city center then?"
A couple of nods and a small cheer from Nora met his suggestion. It looked like they had a direction to go towards, with their minds set the entire group marched forward to the biggest open space in the port city.
The walk to the city center wasn't eventful and they calmly made their way through the port city while passing by a couple of irrelevant locations like restaurants or shops. All of them were so distracted by the calmness of their travel that none of them realized that they weren't exactly the only shamans present in Argus.
If one were to look closely and knew what to look for then they would realize that, while not being full of shamans, Argus was receiving a surprisingly significant number of spiritually aware people.
It might not have been as big a number as it was back in the Bullhead docks in Vale right before the second round but it was still a large amount compared to how many there usually were in cities like these.
Unfortunately for a certain group of traveling shamans, none of them really bothered with looking for anyone aside from Lilirara, the person they were in Argus for in the first place.
Arriving at the city center didn't take them too long, with Argus being a rather tightly built city and with them not wandering through it aimlessly there wasn't really a way for them to waste any time on anything.
"Woah!" Nora awed at the scale of all the architecture around them upon arriving at the large city square surrounded by solid buildings. "This place's so big compared to all the towns we visited along the way here!"
Jaune smiled lightly as he heard that. He had to agree with his orange haired huntress friend on that, compared to all of the villages they stopped at in Mistral this place was massive.
"It's almost like we are back in Vale." Ren reminisced lightly before immediately turning a bit somber after reminding himself of what happened at Beacon.
The blond shaman wanted to reach out to his friend and reassure him a little but before he could even think on how to do that a loud sigh from his other friend beat him to it.
"Are you seriously going to become all wistful again just after we reached our first goal?" Whitley scowled before shaking his head. "Come, Jaune. Let's explore this city on our own while these two start moping again."
A wry smile appeared on Jaune's face as he saw his friends start another fight in the middle of the city center. It wasn't a full hour since they entered Argus. Was it really too much to ask for a single day without any fights or squabbles?
He could only hope that none of the pedestrians would be stupid enough to try getting in between those two this time. Thankfully, considering that he just heard a thump noise of something hitting the ground there probably were some normal people who saw this happening and decided to run away.
"J-Jaune?" A quiet and choked voice called from behind as Ren and Whitley reached for their weapons.
Following the natural human reaction to being called out, Jaune slowly turned around to see if someone was calling to him only to instantly fall as something tackled him to the ground the moment he faced the other direction.
As Jaune felt and saw that the thing which tackled him was actually a young blond haired woman, a single thought went through his mind.
Huh, that hair looks familiar.
And cut!
One boy has to say good bye to his family, the other gets a crash reunion with his and Ozpin is being a heartless immortal.
I know it might seem that I have written him to be way more heartless here than he was in cannon but come on this guy's millenniums years old and at this point have probably been through situations just like these at least dozens of times. Not to mention how in cannon we got literally nothing about how Oscar left his farm so there probably wasn't even any good bye at all.
Sidenote: In the beginning I wanted to make the Oscar segment a short around 2000 words start of this chapter before spending the rest of it with Jaune and the crew but I got so into wiriting that segment that it turned out reverse of how I planned.