Update time!
Reviews:
Reader - I don't think I will have Jaune using Crescent Rose as for the other question, you will have to find out by reading the story.
Guest - You win this round Guest reviewer but I will get you next time.
X3runner - Good to know that you've enjoyed it and thanks for the review.
Gamelover41592, NinjaFang1331 - Thanks for the reviews. :)
Clement's reaction to the news of Jaune and his friends leaving, despite the initial outburst, was surprisingly tame.
It was nowhere near the loud questioning and forceful demands for them to stay that Jaune had expected to receive after realizing what he had said. The Arc patriarch's actions were quite the opposite actually, there was no anger or surprise at the news instead the main emotions Jaune could see on his father was reclined acknowledgement and a small bit of disappointment.
It was almost like the old Arc expected such a thing to happen from the very beginning.
"Can you at least wait a single day before leaving?" Clement asked his now sitting son with a sigh. "You said that you need to get to the easternmost border of Mistral in the next two months, right? While there aren't any direct train lines to there from Argus, there should be some that would take you to the halfway point."
Jaune winced a little at the pleading look from his father.
He wanted to leave early as a precaution since there was no telling what they would find along the way but it was true that if they were to take a train for half of the way they should have enough time to comfortably find the Tribes Village. A quick look at the rest of the people in the house told him that none of his friends would mind staying in Argus for one more day either.
"Fine, we will wait until tomorrow before we leave." Jaune said.
Clement put his hand on Jaune's shoulder and smiled kindly before saying.
"That's all that I'm asking of you, son."
Jaune shuddered a little at his father's words before remembering that he still had his family heirloom strapped on his belt and reaching for it to give it back. Keeping his family's treasure even after leaving them again so quickly would leave him with nothing but a feeling of guilt.
"Keep it." Clement said sternly while moving his hand from Jaune's shoulder to his arm in order to stop him from returning the Crocea Mors.
"What? But-" Jaune wanted to argue but was stopped once more by his father who raised his hand calmly.
"Crocea Mors will still be in the family even if it's you who's using it." Clement said affectionately. "Besides, you will give it back the moment you return to our home. You do remember where we live, right?"
Jaune slowly nodded with some tears in his eyes. It was hard to argue that Crocea Mors would be of use to him when he had just lost his wooden staff somewhere on the battlefield and didn't have any replacement for it yet.
It was a pity that he didn't really know how to fight with swords though.
"I will make sure that this sword's legend isn't going to be wasted on me." Jaune declared with determination. He would need to actually learn how to use it but he was sure that with enough practice using a sword was going to become as easy for him as using a staff.
"It already isn't." Clement said with a proud smile.
"Uhm..." An awkward sound from one of the guests in the house interrupted the Arc father and son bonding moment as Pyrrha stepped forward.
Everyone turned towards the invincible girl at once and the shamans out of them immediately widened their eyes in realization. They weren't the only ones here who had a difficult situation to deal with.
"I don't want to be rude." Pyrrha shifted a little as she started and everyone who saw what Hao did earlier began to feel bad. "But I would really like to know if Miss Lili is safe. From what I've seen from here the entire commotion happened somewhere around her home and I'm worried about her."
Jaune opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out of it as he guiltily closed it and turned his head away, unable to tell the red haired girl the truth.
"Your teacher is gone." Whitley said shortly with his eyes cast downwards.
"What do you mean? Did she die?" Pyrrha asked shakily as she took a step back and everyone looked at her in pity.
Whitley didn't answer those questions and instead only looked at Jaune in hopes that their leader would explain what had happened to Pyrrha.
"Worse, she's gone completely." Jaune said through his gritted teeth. "There isn't even a ghost left of her as even it was devoured by the fire spirit that Hao uses. All of her guardian spirits ended up the same way."
"No." Pyrrha refused to believe as she took another step with tears in her eyes. "No, this can't be true. There has to be something left of her, someone's soul couldn't have been just eaten like that!"
The red haired girl rushed towards the door but a stern grip from Jaune stopped her from moving further before she could even leave the living room. The only thing that was stopping her from breaking that grip and throwing the blond boy to the other side of the room was knowledge that he could very well die if she were to do that.
"You can't go there yet!" Jaune said without looking at the person he was holding. "I promise you that we will go there to properly bury her later but the area around there is still filled with dangerous people wary of anyone after seeing Hao leave."
They wouldn't stand a chance if a fight between them and the X-Laws were to break out which would likely happen if Pyrrha were to rush towards Lilirara's house while so emotional and angry. Most X-Laws wouldn't think twice before killing a furious looking person charging at them right after they fought against their mortal enemy.
Pyrrha wasn't convinced and the hate in the glare she focused on Jaune would make anyone shiver.
"We will go there tomorrow or even in an hour or two but not now, I promise." Jaune said pleadingly. "Please, don't make it hard on any of us. I wouldn't want to talk to a ghost the next time we have a conversation."
A frown appeared on Pyrrha's face as she looked at the blond shaman before snapping her arm out of his hand and sitting down after relenting and giving in.
"Alright, I will wait." Pyrrha grumbled. "But if there won't be anything left to find of my teacher then I will be angry."
Jaune sighed in response, it looked like it was the best agreement he was going to get. To be fair he had no idea how he would have reacted if their positions were switched and it was his family supposedly dying and him being unable to go and check what happened so he couldn't be too harsh on the red haired girl.
"Okay, how about we stop being so antagonistic to each other and take our mind off the heavy issues for a while?" Saphron broke the tension with a clap. "Jaune said that you guys are staying until tomorrow and I don't want to waste the short amount of time I have with my brother at being needlessly angry."
"Yeah, let's do that." Jaune answered with a huff and a wry smile.
...
A few hours later...
...
As it turned out, it didn't take long for them to start keeping themselves busy with different activities and conversations.
It was almost jarring how fast they had stopped moping around and started enjoying simply being together. Although it could have something to do with how little time they had for each other and that they couldn't afford to waste it.
Just like that, in the last few hours Jaune and his friends recounted the entire tournament to the rest of their friends and some of them had even shared different stories of their lives from before the Shaman Fight.
Surprisingly, Clement Arc didn't need too much convincing to believe in the spiritual side of the world but it probably was related to the fact that the old Arc was willing to trust his son blindly after not seeing him for over a decade, the fact that Saphron had also helped with proving the existence of ghosts and spirits to the Arc patriarch helped a lot too.
For some reason, despite more than two hours passing, Lyserg didn't come back to their household in Argus yet.
At first Jaune had thought that the young dowser simply didn't remember where the Cotta-Arc household was but the idea was quickly shut down as the dowser could simply find them with his crystal pendulum.
A passing thought was telling Jaune that Lyserg might have decided to take the offer they were given during the fight against Hao and join the X-Laws. With no news from the green shaman and with knowledge of the boy's character, Jaune was inclined to believe that.
It wasn't all that bad however and Jaune couldn't really make decisions for the younger shaman so the issue had been quickly dropped in favor of spending time with his family.
Sadly that time had to be briefly interrupted by the promise they had made to Pyrrha and that was why right now she together with all of their friends were carefully walking through the streets of Argus in the direction of Lilirara's house where their fight happened not too long ago.
Upon arriving in the alley in which Pyrrha's teacher had lived, she instantly froze in place after seeing the scene happening there.
A bunch of police vehicles were parked around the area on which Jaune and his friends had fought as a group of policemen was keeping a small curious crowd away from the crime scene. Yellow tape was hung around the place where Lilirara's body lay and a proper investigation appeared to be taking place.
Jaune sighed as he saw police's attempts at figuring out who the culprit was. The investigation would lead them completely nowhere.
"I'm sorry! Can I go through?! Please, that person was really important to me!" Pyrrha's voice spread through the crowd as she slowly moved past the crowd of onlookers.
It looked like Pyrrha's fame was greater than Jaune thought it was because the moment someone heard her voice everyone dispersed to make a room in an instant. Some people stayed closer than others to take photos with their Scrolls or ask some questions to the celebrity but Pyrrha ignored them all as she focused entirely on the burnt body of her teacher she saw in the middle of the crime scene.
"Miss we can't let you through, the investigation is still taking place and if you were to touch the body you would only make it harder for us to identify the suspect." A policeman stopped Pyrrha from going further.
Jaune grumbled when he heard that as he knew that the police would not only find nothing about Hao but they wouldn't be able to actually do anything to apprehend him even if they knew who it was.
Tears started to slowly fall out of Pyrrha's eyes as she started sobbing in the law officer's arms.
"C-Can I at least enter her house to see if she was alright before dying?" Pyrrha asked through her sobs.
The policeman awkwardly looked at another law officer with a questioning look on his face and after seeing the officer nod sternly they sighed in relief before grabbing Pyrrha with both of their hands and speaking.
"The house was already checked and it isn't a part of the crime scene so entering it should be fine, especially if the victim was a person you knew. Just be sure to not stay there for too long, it might end up hurting you more than it helps."
"T-Thank you." Pyrrha said quietly while crying before gently pushing herself out of the policeman's hand and going back a bit to grap Jaune's arm. "Come with me, if there's anything that Lilirara wanted to be found then both of us will find it."
Jaune nodded subtly in response while letting himself be dragged by the red haired girl. As they passed by the crime scene he glanced at it for a second to see his wooden staff, which he always used as a weapon, burned and broken in half, likely sometime by the Spirit of Fire when he dropped it during the fight.
They stopped right before the broken doors to the building and Pyrrha instinctively moved her hand to knock on it but after shakily stopping herself from doing that she carefully opened the door.
The inside of the house was almost entirely clean and fine. The only damages one could really find there were as a result of Lilirara hurrying to leave the house to face Hao and her living there.
It still meant that it was more messy than an usual house though.
Pyrrha instantly rushed off to one of the smaller rooms as if in search of something.
Jaune on the other hand decided to use this occasion to look around since there wasn't quite the time to do that back when Lilirara was still alive and seeing a house of a real and competent shaman would certainly be an insightful experience.
All the other shamans that he had met until now were wanderers without any stable home to return to like him, or like he used to be at least because he liked to think that after his reconciliation with Saphron and his father there was a home for him to go back to.
He shook his head slowly with a wistful sigh before leisurely observing all the different items that Lilirara had randomly thrown around in her home.
There were a couple of wooden dolls, tucked in the corners and on many different shelves, not too different to the ones that the late shaman used to show them the visions of the previous Shaman Fight. They were probably the replacements for a situation when the usual ones would somehow break, which considering that they were made out of ordinary wood could have happened at any time.
It was a pity that there wouldn't be a chance to use them anymore since Lilirara and all of her five spirits were already gone.
Jaune sighed as he turned his gaze away from the wooden dolls and entered the room in which Lilirara had put them into that weird dream earlier.
He knew that Pyrrha wanted him to look for any ghosts or spirits that could have been still here but it sadly was a fruitless task. If there truly were more spirits than just the five great warriors Lilirara had to protect this house and her before Hao had attacked then they would have been turned to ashes as well after the attack anyway.
From his experience Jaune could tell that Hao was anything but fierce. If that monster came here to kill Lilirara and her spirits then there wouldn't be a single chance that there could be any survivors.
He supposed he could still try to look for something though.
...
A short while later...
...
True to his expectations, even after carefully searching through the room three times with the intent on finding any ghosts or spirits, he hadn't seen anything but dust and some old tools Lilirar might have used at one point in her life.
This building was more abandoned than any abandoned building Jaune has heard of. At least in those ruins and haunted sites there still were some ghosts and spirits to converse with.
Here, there wasn't even that.
"Huh, what's that?" Jaune asked himself as he grabbed something from behind an old wooden desk.
Whatever it was, it appeared to be stuck behind an old desk. Though less because someone trapped it in there and more because it was hastily thrown away and landed in an incredibly tight spot that he couldn't quite reach properly.
"Come on, why are you so tightly stuck in there?" Jaune grumbled in annoyance as he pushed and pulled on the item behind the desk.
If Summer was here with him then she could have helped him quite a lot with this, sadly she and all the other of their spirits stayed back with the rest of his friends. It might not have been practical but it did give the deceased at least some respect to not allow a curious spirit to rummage through the entire house of a person who didn't even have a ghost of them left.
Finally, after putting some effort into his pulls and carefully raising the item up, Jaune managed to pull a familiar looking wooden staff from behind the desk.
It didn't look anything like his wooden staff since his medium looked way more like an ordinary walking stick compared to this almost traditional shamanic staff that looked remarkably similar to what normal people would have imagined if someone were to mention a shaman or any other prophet.
Not a word left Jaune's mouth as he quietly observed Lilirara's wooden staff. The deceased shaman most likely thought that it wouldn't matter whether she used that weapon of hers in a fight against Hao or not anyway so she simply threw it away in a hurry while quickly collecting five dolls for her guardian spirits.
A conflicted look appeared on Jaune's face.
On one hand if he were to take that staff then it would solve his immediate issue of not having a weapon.
On the other hand, he didn't want to entertain the thought of grave robbing someone who not only didn't even have a ghost but also died not even half a day ago. It would make him feel too much like he was taking advantage of the deceased.
A creaking sound of the door startled the blond shaman and made him quickly turn around in panic.
"Take it." Pyrrha said from the door. "Miss Lili won't be needing it anytime soon anyway and you need a proper medium for your shaman powers, right?"
Jaune nodded slowly while looking at the red haired girl in pity. Her eyes were dry and red from rubbing, she must have spent the entire time he was looking through this room crying.
"Just promise me that you will use this staff to stop her killer from doing anymore harm." Pyrrha added coldly after seeing the blond shaman nod.
"Don't worry that's the sole reason I'm still continuing with this tournament." Jaune answered.
"Good, now let's get out of here. There's nothing to find here and I don't want to spend more time crying."
Pyrrha turned around and started walking directly towards the exit, Jaune followed her not a few seconds after. They could have stayed here to look for any clues or notes that would help them with the Shaman Fight but in the end it thankfully didn't appear to be necessary.
...
In the evening...
...
The sun had begun to set and the air was getting cold. Less than ten hours were left until Jaune and all of his friends would leave since they would be taking the morning train.
Normal family would have been talking, relaxing or maybe playing board games together, the father and son duo from the Arc family on the other hand were swinging at each other with training swords.
"Stop dodging! You have a shield! Use it!" Clement shouted with every swing as he hacked with his dull sword at Jaune.
Jaune, despite stopping for a moment and acknowledging that he has a shield, chose to dodge.
After gaining all the muscle memories of a huntress trained to always dodge out of the danger's way through his spirit integration and later being taught by her personally after forming his Over Soul, it was near impossible for Jaune to actually follow the advice of his father.
If he would have tried to block an attack when he had been trained by Summer she would have scolded him for putting himself in an unnecessary risk.
"Arcs don't dodge around during the fight, we are the ones who block all the strikes before defeating our foes with a single well placed counter attack." Clement said with a grunt after his sword returned to his guard from the previous missed swing.
A loud and tired groan was the only response that met the old Arc's teachings.
Jaune was aware that he was the one who had asked Clement to teach him how to fight with the Crocea Mors but he certainly didn't expect the training to look like this. Apparently his father couldn't train him properly in less than a day and resorted to simply having an intense spar against him during which they were allowed to use exclusively swords and shields.
Supposedly it was to let him get acquainted with the usage of a sword by having him not only use the weapon but also see how trained fighters used it.
Suffice to say, after a couple of short minutes of sparring, Jaune was more tired because of those few minutes than he was in the last couple of weeks because of any fights against shamans during the second round of the tournament. The only thing that had ever gotten him to the same level of fatigue was the hellish training Summer had given to him back in Vale.
A shiver ran down his spine as he remembered the tiring exercises his guardian spirit had him go through. Thankfully since the second round had started, he didn't actually have the chance to go through all of them again.
A quick and purposefully simple sword thrust from his father brought Jaune out of his musing.
Unfortunately the training was far from over.
"You know, after witnessing Jaune defeat half of a small gang back in Vale it's hard to believe how bad he is at fighting with a sword." Yang mused to herself from the audience, because of course a spar between Jaune and his father would gain the audience made out of their friends.
"It's even harder to accept after seeing him win against Whitley in that Shaman Fight of theirs." Weiss nodded slightly while carefully watching the fight with a tense body. She had already almost died once while watching the blond shaman fight, there's no way she's going to not be wary of everything when the shamans fight anymore.
"It's because Jaune doesn't actually have any training as a huntsman." Whitley gestured with his head towards Summer that was floating nearby although none of the team RWBY was able to see her. "Summer here is the only reason he can fight at all. He trained to be a shaman not a huntsman or a fighter. If not for the Shaman Fight then I doubt he would have trained how to fight at all."
Everyone in the audience nodded slowly to show that they understood. It wasn't like Jaune was weak or anything but compared to the skills he had as a shaman his fighting skills were simply unimpressive.
Especially if he wasn't using a staff as a weapon.
Jaune barely rolled out of his father's downwards swing's way, accidentally dropping the expanded sheath of Crocea Mors while doing so.
If any professional fighter or an experienced huntsman who trained to fight against living opponents saw that spar they would have been groaning in either annoyance or embarrassment the entire time.
Thankfully, Pyrrha wasn't there with them to witness this travesty.
After they have checked the aftermath of their fight against Hao and confirmed the death of Lilirara, the invincible girl kindly apologized and separated from them to return to her home. Nobody could blame her, expecting someone to keep helping them even after someone close to them had died would have been unreasonable.
Hopefully she would move on from that one day. Though considering how there was no way for Pyrrha to ever see Lilirara again, even after she herself would die it might take a while.
"Let's finish it already." Clement said with a grunt as he saw his son without the shield part of Crocea Mors before stretching a little. "Even though it's clear that you know how to fight somewhat, it's clear that you have never held a sword in your hand."
"Yeah, that's what I told you when I asked for training." Jaune said bashfully with a little bit of annoyance at his father.
Clement laughed a little as he saw the look his son was giving him before sheathing his practice sword. While it might not have been the most productive spar they could have, it still should have shown Jaune exactly what he was lacking in his sword handling.
"Just remember that sometimes it's better to block an attack and stand your ground rather than dodge it and you should be fine." Clement gave his last piece of advice before turning towards a big wooden table."Now, how about we eat something for supper? I'm starving and certainly wouldn't mind listening to another one of your many adventures while eating."
"Sure." Jaune said with a tired huff before picking up the sheath of his Crocea Mors and walking up to the table.
...
The next morning...
...
Argus's train station was as packed as ever, which considering that it was possibly the biggest port city in Mistral meant that there wasn't a single place where one couldn't find a crowd moving by. People were rushing from one side to another and if you weren't in a big group then the chance you were going to be devoured by the crowds was almost a certainty.
It was a lucky thing that they were a rather huge group then.
With just nine of them that were about to leave Argus they would have likely been considered the biggest group in the station and it wasn't taking into the consideration Jaune's family that came here to send them off and the spirits that weren't visible to normal people.
There were so many of them that they hadn't even bothered with buying train tickets and instead let the Schnee siblings buy a whole train car for them to travel in.
After living in relative poverty for almost his entire life, Jaune's brain simply couldn't comprehend how someone would be willing to spend so much money for a train ride yet it appeared that to the Schnee family it was nothing too extravagant.
He certainly knew he wasn't going to complain about it.
"Well, five minutes of delay has already passed, your train should be here any minute now." Clement remarked while looking at the railroads in silent hopes that the train would be delayed just a bit more.
"I still can't believe how they would allow the train in which dozens of people would travel to be late." Weiss scoffed. "Don't they have even a little bit of discipline here? A minute of delay should have been the most they could allow themselves to have."
Everyone who wasn't from a rich family chuckled a little at Weiss's reaction. For people like Weiss or Whitley, transport not being punctual might have been unusual but for everyone else it was commonplace.
Few people would expect perfection from a place as bustling and crowded as Argus, especially when the port city wasn't particularly known for its railways.
"Honestly, I don't see why you are so bothered by it, Weiss." Blake rolled her eyes at her teammate's complaints. "We ourselves aren't really in a hurry to go anywhere and the ones of us who actually have a goal in their journey still have two months to reach it."
"Yeah, you don't have to be so impatient, Weiss. Even if the wasted time somehow becomes important later, Renny and Jauney should be able to make up for it rather easily." Nora added with a lazy nod.
Whitley faked a cough to get the attention of everyone but he went completely ignored.
"It's the matter of principle!" Weiss raised her arms in anger. "Every passenger is a paying customer that should be treated as good as possible. If they're not then some other train line will rise and take them away."
Whitley coughed again to the same effect as the last time.
"You are being too harsh, Weiss." Blake frowned slightly. "The workers are allowed to not be perfect, you know?"
Another of Whitley's fake coughs went ignored by almost everyone, although this time he was patted on the back by Clement who realized what the youngest Schnee meant.
"Don't you start with it, Blake!" Weiss pointed at her faunus teammate.
"How about instead of talking about how bad this train service is, you enter the train that has just arrived?" Clement asked before pointing at a huge train that was waiting for them with his head.
Weiss and Blake turned around to see the train and Weiss's head turned red from embarrassment.
"Yeah, let's do that." Jaune said lightly since it looked like the Schnee heiress wasn't about to.
A quiet and annoyed mumbling was heard from Weiss as every one of them started walking towards the train. The rest of team RWBY actually patted her on the back a little in comfort while Nicholas Schnee chuckled heartily as they walked.
Before Jaune joined them and went towards the train however, he quickly looked at his father before smiling a little and wrapping him in a tight hug.
"After the tournament ends, I will return home and tell all of you about it." Jaune whispered quietly to his family before pushing himself back with some tears in his eyes. "I promise."
"I know you will." Clement answered with a kind smile upon seeing his son turn around and go to the train.
As he was entering the train, Jaune didn't dare to turn around to look at his family once more. He wasn't sure if he would be able to leave them without crying this time.
"Make sure to kick their butts little bro! By the time I see you again you better be that next shaman ruler or whatever! You represent the Arc family so give your very best, you hear me!?"
Jaune became slightly startled at Saphron's loud encouragement but he only acknowledged that with a raised arm and a thumbs up on it before the doors to the train closed and he once again separated from his family.
"Is everything okay?" Summer asked him as he entered the train car that legally belonged to them for their entire trip.
"Yes." Jaune said with a confident smile. "It couldn't be better."
...
On the other side of Mistral...
...
In a thick green forest of central Mistral, a young freckled boy with eyes that spoke of experience way beyond his age was walking with a definite goal in his mind.
"We should be almost there." The boy murmured to himself in a voice of an older man.
His journey to find what he was looking for took a bit longer than he was expecting when he started it. Not only the size of Mistral made it hard to accurately tell where their objective was but the always changing location of his goal didn't help either.
"You said the same thing like four hours ago, Ozpin." A more childish voice complained in the boy's head. "Just because I'm not in control right now doesn't mean that I don't feel how tired my body is, you know?"
Ozpin in Oscar's body hummed quietly in acknowledgment as he pushed a long branch of a tree aside to clear the path before him.
They've been traveling and searching for Branwen's bandit camp for quite some time now. There were situations when they had almost reached the camp but, almost as if Raven and her tribe were hiding away from them, every time they arrived at the place the locals from around the area would tell them that the bandits had already relocated a few days prior.
Of course whenever they asked if they knew where those bandits were relocating to, the only answers they received were shrugs of unconcerned people who didn't care where the bandits were as long as they weren't nearby.
It was honestly starting to get annoying.
"Please, hold on for a little bit more, Oscar." Ozpin pleaded to his host. "The information we got this time seemed to be trustworthy and I don't believe that the Branwen Tribe would be capable of relocating from a lush forest like this so quickly."
"Didn't you say that their leader knew magic?" Oscar asked and if he wasn't currently trapped inside his own body he would have tilted his head slightly. "You said you taught her it and that it's actually quite useful."
Oscar felt his body roll its eyes as he said that and he wanted to grumble at that, Ozpin could have at the very least pretend to be interested in the conversation.
"Yes, I did give her a magical power to turn into a raven but unless literally every normal bird has some magical property that allows them to move entire villages with them while flying, I don't see how it would be useful for her." The old immortal remarked.
"I guess they really don't have a way to run away from us this time, huh?" Oscar asked.
"Quite." Ozpin answered briefly before stopping right next to a tree and smiling a little at what he saw in the distance.
A rather large camp made out of more than a dozen tents and a wooden wall stood in the middle of a clearing in the forest, surrounded by the trees from all its sides to hide it from any passing travelers.
"Looks like we've found it." Oscar said in their head.
Ozpin nodded silently before tensing their body a little and crouching down to reduce the amount of his body that could be seen. Even though they didn't have a weapon and Oscar's body was far from being comparable to that of a huntsman, or even huntsman in training for that matter, he should still be able to put up a fight against some common bandits if he was prepared.
Walking up to the bandit camp was a difficult endeavor, they could be neither unprepared for battle in case someone attacked them nor too prepared for it to not provoke anyone into a fight.
If it came to worst, Ozpin could still manage some simple spells that should allow them to run away, unless Raven's shamanic abilities could somehow counter his magic, that was.
The world of shamans was still as new for Ozpin as it was for Oscar if not more.
A loud screeching echoed through the forest as the duo came closer to the wooden walls of the camp but Ozpin decided to ignore that, some random bird must have hurt itself somehow. The sound didn't match a raven or a crow so it couldn't have been anything important.
"What are you doing sneaking around here you brat?!" A loud and brash voice called out to them from the camp's entrance.
Well, they've certainly been found way quicker than Ozpin had expected. Was he not careful enough when sneaking around? Most of the times he had to hide or avoid being detected he did it just fine.
As if to answer his unasked question, two caws resounded from behind him before flying up to the person who had found them and landing on her shoulders.
The girl with two birds on her shoulders that stood in the entrance looked weirdly amused while looking at them, almost exactly as if she was laughing at their incompetence in her head.
"It looks like there's no point in hiding anymore." Ozpin coughed into his hand to hide the embarrassment from being found by someone so much younger than him. "I'm here to meet with Raven, the leader of your tribe, I hope that you won't mind me coming in."
The short haired girl with two birds on her shoulder narrowed her eyes at them before shifting a little to cover more of the entrance. Of course meeting with Raven wasn't going to be that easy, it never was.
"And why should I let you talk with Raven, you parasite?" The girl asked with a snarl.
Ozpin recoiled a little in surprise. That was a very specific insult to be directed at him. Was Raven spreading around his secrets without him knowing? Or was it yet another one of those shaman things that he has yet to grasp?
"I'm aware that I might not be the most welcomed guest here but I would really insist that you let me in." Ozpin stepped forward a little, if there was a single thing he knew about the Branwen tribe from Qrow it was that they respected strength beyond anything else.
The short haired girl was not impressed and the moment she saw him coming closer the two birds on her shoulders suddenly turned into two small balls of spiritual energy before flying into the weapons on her belt.
Sweat ran down Ozpin's back, he might not have had any idea what those birds had done but the instinct he got from countless years of experience told him that those weapons of the short haired girl were likely more dangerous than anything he had dealt with, aside from the brother gods themselves.
"I'm not here to fight. I just want to talk with Raven, please let me do that." Ozpin raised his arms defensively and stopped in place, he couldn't afford to be seen as dangerous by that girl.
"Get lost!" The girl spat.
Ozpin frowned and began contemplating wasting some of his magic to get through when loud footsteps resounded from behind the short haired girl and a familiar masked woman walked up to them.
"Now, we shouldn't be treating our guests like that, Vernal." Raven said as she grabbed one of the short haired girl's shoulders from behind. "He said that he's here only to talk, didn't he? Besides, we actually might have some use of him this time."
A frown appeared on Ozpin's face as he heard Oscar whimper in fear at the back of his head the moment they saw the Branwen tribe leader arrive.
He could only hope that this meeting would really end with a simple talk.
And... Cut!
Hey look, It's a transition chapter with a lot of different scenes that have roughly thousand or more words each. It's been some time since the last time I wrota a chapter like this.
I always find writing chapters like these really enjoyable since they work well with my writing schedule (I write one segment of the chapter for every time I sit down to write) but I'm aware that they can be awkward to read sometimes.
Anyway, see ya later!