With not much else to do, Jun and Jane were happy to just lounge around and watch some shows while cuddling on the couch. Well, he didn't cuddle with Jane, that would have been weird, but Jun was perfectly content to snuggle with him. Not because cuddling with beautiful women was weird, but because Jaune had effectively just met Jane for the first time that day, and they were family.

He'd gotten used to rather needy children coming to him for their daily snuggling requirements purely because he had nothing better to do. He certainly didn't have a normal job after all he'd done, and while mundane life called to him, mundane jobs most certainly did not.

So he was perfectly happy having another younger sibling who wanted some basic physical comfort. Although it had been a long time since he'd had a lover, having another warm body to hold close to oneself was always a nice feeling - whether that be a lover or a dear family member. Both offered comfort and a rush of dopamine, knowing someone he loved and trusted was close by and wanted to be close to him.

Being totally honest, Jinwoo hardly paid any attention to the movie. Watching the two redheaded sisters out of the corner of his eye took up some of his time, but they were both fairly engrossed in the movie. The rest was used sharing his senses with his shadows. Watching the land flow by as his various shadows swarmed from spot to spot was cathartic - he hadn't had a chance to fly on Kaisel recently, and it was something he missed.

It was something he was known for, back home. His near daily trips out on the old wyvern often had people standing by, waiting just to take a photo or a video of him as he flew by. He never quite understood it, after the first several times at least. It wasn't like Jinwoo showed off, each video looked virtually the same - it was just him flying away.

Ironically, despite all the power he'd gained, and all the creatures in his possession that could fly, Jinwoo himself could not. Perhaps he could alter his shadow armor to have wings? At that point he might as well just keep using either his dragons or Kaisel, since his ability to just jump around a battlefield would far outstrip his flight speed.

Refocusing on the senses of his various minions, he listened to Bellion recount a summary of what had been done so far. Persons of interest they were watching, landmarks they'd discovered, Grimm they'd fought.

Nothing off hand required his attention, so he left his commander to continue his oversight. Beru was sad he hadn't been allowed to explore, but ironically, the perfect killing machine ant of Jeju Island was his best healer, so he was kept close at hand in case something happened.

That was his excuse and he would die on his hill.

Thus far, everything was panning out. Nothing unexpected had been discovered, at least nothing so unexpected it required his personal attention. Jinwoo allowed his focus to return to the movie, which was wrapping up. Which also meant it was nearly time for dinner!

If he hadn't learned to appreciate the little things in life, Jinwoo expected gaining immortality would have been more of a curse than a gift. Of course, he was fairly young in his new unending life, but he thought he was doing alright so far.

Plus, it turned out there were entire other worlds! Which he vaguely knew about before, but actually visiting one was a nice confirmation to have. The original Monarchs had to get their monster armies from somewhere, and Ashborn's memories plus the outright statements from the Rulers indicated that what happened to his world was hardly the first incident.

Unfortunately his method of worldly transportation would tend to default to a colossal gate, likely startling the local population something fierce, unless someone actually chose to host him. Or something like Jaune's situation happened again.

But those were thoughts for the future - he had mouths to feed in the now.

[Family Matters]

Talking with Jane had been interesting, in the fact that whether she intended to or not, Jinwoo could practically taste the exhaustion and deep-seated malaise that seemed to be affecting her. It was never one thing in and of itself, but the occasional reference she would use regarding huntsmen and huntresses and the work they did was never done with any sort of enthusiasm. It was hardly like she was screaming out her dissatisfaction, but it was also different than simply merely being tired of work.

There was something more, and Jinwoo wouldn't have found it surprising in the least that she didn't want to say anything about being done with huntress work when that was all their entire family did. That and the lack of parental presence would have made things either better or worse, depending on what said parents actually implied or did when they were around.

It's a lot harder to say 'Hey, I'd like to do something other than our familial career' when the only times she sees the parents they mostly acknowledge her work and how good she's doing. He obviously didn't know what the case actually was, seeing as to how he'd just arrived recently and had no memories, but what else would they talk about after not seeing each other for a month at a time?

Humans tend to discuss commonalities between them, as they have the most to actually talk about rather than listen to. Being frank, he had no clue what else they would talk about anyway. Did they share hobbies? Likely not, since the parents were so enamored with working. Would they talk about the family? Maybe, but that was more along the lines of catching up.

'Oh, what have you done lately?' 'How's school been?' 'How's work going?'

And then they get into the whole work thing since it's the only thing they all actually share outside of being related. Sadly, shared blood did not make a great conversation starter. Jinwoo would have had many significantly less awkward and stunted conversations if that was the case.

Which meant that if she was having problems, was tired of the job, or a million other things pertaining to not being a huntress, she likely would never, ever approach the family about it. The sisters included, since they were all invested in the same thing.

Hive mind was unfortunately a thing, whether people intended to ostracize those different from them or not, it happened, and it hurt when its family.

He still had several days to observe her, so he would decide what to do before she left.

Jinwoo let out a sigh as he stretched, letting several of his muscles extend to their maximum reach before slowly releasing them and repeating the process until his body was properly loosened from his daily rigors. Since he didn't sleep, he was prepared to play around on his scroll all night and interact with his shadows during their exploration.

As he walked over to his desk lamp to turn it off, however, his door slowly creaked as it was gently pushed open from the outside. Of the two sisters in the house, Jinwoo couldn't have guessed who would be entering his room, but the lack of a knock had him leaning towards the younger redhead.

His guess turned out to be accurate as the much smaller profile of Jun slid into his room, dressed in her cute chibi-grimm pajamas, clutching a pillow to her chest. Jinwoo observed her as she glanced around his room, not having spent much time in it after he cleaned the whole thing out and decontaminated it. Teenage boys were gross, who knew?

Jun's shadowed eyes and dark look gave him a few guesses as to what had happened.

"Nightmare?" It was a look he'd seen many times before, and even if he wasn't the closest, for some reason knowing that their uncle was the biggest baddest man around often meant he was the target for receiving comfort after a particularly nasty dream.

The sleepy redhead nodded. "Can I…" She stopped and started a couple times, but she couldn't seem to force the rest of the words out. Instead, Jinwoo decided to do what he always did. Turning her away was simply not an option.

Walking over to his carefully made bed, he untucked one corner of his sheets and held them up, before nodding his head as if to say, 'Well, what are you waiting for?'.

Jun understood and plodded over before throwing her pillow down and crawling in. She shimmied over to the far side before rearranging their pillows to be 'just right'. Which meant as close as physically possible, with some overlap of pillows included just to be safe. Jinwoo wasn't surprised.

He'd already changed into what counted as his pajamas these days, namely a pair of comfortable shorts. In his experience, sharing skin contact often made people feel even more comfortable than not. More heat was shared and it felt closer together, even if the only thing that would separate them was a slip of fabric.

As he went to lay down, he decided to adjust their arrangement for maximum cuddle potential, since clearly Jun had yet to experience the most optimum position for being glomped on for sleep. Jinwoo blamed the old Jaune, who undoubtedly wouldn't have been as much of an ass as he supposedly was if he knew the joys of holding one's family tight and the light and warmth and love he would get back if he did.

If there was one thing Jinwoo was going to achieve with the Arc's, it was getting the sisters to love again. Sure, they undoubtedly felt love for their family, but Jinwoo, having never been married or in a serious long term relationship, had learned to subsist on making his family happy. Sure, it was a different kind of love, but… It made him happy and it made his family happy, so he couldn't find it in himself to complain. Part of that was physically and verbally expressing that love. Want to know why communication was so important?

Well, excluding the million and one reasons including battlefield awareness, tactical advantage, and combat-related issues, expressing how one feels so that nobody is confused on the matter was just as vitally important for a whole slew of reasons. Obviously there are times where just spouting off how one is feeling is a mistake, but when it comes to family… Honesty and communication are some of those things that are absolutely vital.

Case in point - Jaune was confident that the mothers of the Arc family at least expressed the fact that they loved their children. However, turning around and leaving them for up to months at a time sends the exact opposite message. After all, one of the important things about being a family is simply being there for your family. Sad to say, it's not really possible to 'be there' if the family members are gone for most of the year. Especially when they still have children growing up!

Jinwoo tamped down on the fiery rage that thoughts of the inconsiderate and utter failure of parents his new family had. There was a time to deal and vent those thoughts… All in good time.

Now, he was here to support Jun, in place of the parents who weren't.

Shifting her pillow down, and getting a giggle when he simply lifted her entirely to move her and the pillow at the same time, he bumped his up a tiny bit, so he was going to be laying with one heads-worth of space above her. He lifted the sheets again and laid down behind Jun, taking care to move her hair out of the way so she didn't get any of it pulled.

She hadn't questioned his decision to move her, implying a certain level of trust which Jinwoo took an inordinate amount of pride in, so he gently scooted towards her. Once he was settled and in position for optimum cuddling potential, he reached out with both arms to wrap around her stomach, earning himself a soft squeak, before quickly reeling her in like a fisherman who'd just gotten the catch of a lifetime.

Pulled flush against his frame, Jun seemed to relax and melt into a puddle of goo the moment she realized what was happening, shifting only to ensure they shared as much contact as possible. He curled his legs up slightly because of their significant height difference, and she immediately molded hers against his, matching positions.

When they finally stopped moving, they ended up with her effectively sleeping on his arm with a mere few inches of pillow remaining to support her head, which was tucked up directly under his. Jinwoo's other arm was still curled around her protectively, keeping her pressed against him while their legs shared space, his knees tucking roughly into the area where hers were thanks to the difference in position.

Jun let out a sigh of utter contentment before closing her eyes and 'turning out the lights' as it were.

Damn, and he'd meant to ask her if she wanted to talk about the nightmare! Oh well.

Happy as it made him to see his littlest and cutest sister this satisfied, the slight flinch, squeak, and general air of unpreparedness for the sudden cuddles implied that this really wasn't a usual occurrence, yet another strike against their family. Likely more Jaune, in this case, but also attributable to the lack of parents in the picture.

Fucking Arc parents. What were their names even? Bah, it didn't matter. The ass-reaming he was going to give them whenever the hell he saw them was going to be so legendary names weren't going to be required. It would simply be victims one, two and three.

Oh well. As the only brother in the entire family, regardless of their physical ages, if it wasn't already the case it most certainly was now, he would simply have to be everyone's big brother, whether they realized they needed one or not.

He settled in, gently resting his chin atop Jun's head, and let his conscious control go as he focused on his shadows.

[Family Matters]

Jinwoo heard Joan arrive at some point late in the night, huntress work apparently keeping her schedule incredibly busy, far more than a traditional job would ever be allowed to do. Did making sure his sister's working hours were reasonable count as a reason to eliminate the Grimm? He would use it even if they weren't murderous creatures hellbent on ending humanity, just to make sure they got enough time off, if it was too much, he decided.

More importantly, he had an interesting thought while he was observing his shadows throughout the night. While he was no Architect, he'd learned over the many years of time he'd had to experiment, and his own personal experience with a System, to use it to a limited extent (as shown by Jaune's bodies rapid development).

Just as he'd used it to enhance Jaune's ability to hold his true self, and just as his original body had grown significantly in size and muscle mass mere weeks into having a System of his own, he could use it to bolster others by effectively 'giving' them a fraction of his power. The reason for his tremendous growth, going from E-Rank to well past S-Rank in such a short period of time was because he was inheriting the entirety of Ashborn's power.

Hell, even then, it was far from all of it - it was only once the Architect was slain and the System was effectively unchained that his fastest development occurred, followed shortly by the time he actually died and met Ashborn and fully merged to become the second Shadow Monarch.

Based on his original bodies growth, it would be fairly easy to implement a small system with an infinitesimal portion of his power and allow Jun to regain her diminished size through strenuous effort, to at least make it appear that he wasn't merely giving her something, but that she earned it through blood, sweat, and tears. It seemed fitting, in this family, to make it something earned, but Jinwoo thought she would appreciate it more if that was the case.

Although she seemed to like acting younger than her actual true age was, so maybe she wanted to stay small? Well, all he could do was ask. After making sure such a thing was properly feasible. Working with the System was never easy… Kind of like trying to mold wet sand into a solid, durable structure then turning it into a mechanical system that needed to move to function.

Or, that's what happened when he tried recreating something anywhere near as complicated as the original System had been. Doing simple things like a straight up infusion of power into a body was more like working with particularly obstinate legos that didn't quite fit right together.

Speaking of the little devil, the mass of red hair that had shifted around throughout the course of the night to be facing him began to stir. A particularly cute sigh escaped from her lips, until she briefly tensed. Glancing up, Jinwoo shifted some of her hair out of the way so she could actually see his face, and gave her a wide smile. "Morning sleepyhead."

The tension melted from her body like water down the drain, and she promptly glomped back onto him, her once loose arms rapidly encircling and pulling her as close to him as possible. Their legs were already entwined from all her shifting and moving during the night, but he felt her thighs clamp down on the leg of his they were wrapped around regardless.

He felt like a giant teddy bear, to be honest. Not that he minded, it just wasn't the expected reaction.

A few moments passed and she finally released her death grip from his midsection, opting to look back up at him and make eye contact. "Good morning Oppa! Thanks for letting me sleep with you!"

… Sometimes he couldn't tell if Jun's affectation of being younger than she actually was was all simply a ruse so she could say things like that and have it all be chalked up to 'Oh, she just doesn't understand what she's saying yet!' or something like that. Jinwoo lightly bopped her on the head with his one free arm. "Don't say things like that."

She gave him a painfully innocent look. "I'm not sure what you mean, Oppa?" The slight twitches of her mouth told him a different story.

"Yeah yeah, you know exactly what I mean you little minx. Now, why don't you tell me what scared you in here last night?" Jun's mirth fell away quickly at the reminder of her actual reason for waking up in his bed.

"Do I have to talk about it?"

"I'd like it if you did, Jun, but you don't have to if you really don't want to." He wasn't a monster, but he couldn't murder the demon's that were scaring Jun if he didn't know what they were.

She paused for a bit, seemingly deciding on what exactly to say. Her mouth opened and closed a couple times, as the words fought to come out and failed, until they didn't. "It was a nightmare. I… It was the day you went missing. You'd been a bit mean to me, but you also gave me a hug. You almost never hugged me before, at least in front of the others. I could tell something was wrong from that moment onward… But I didn't know enough to guess what was going to happen."

Jinwoo could only nod, not having actually been there but doing his best to understand what that situation had been like. "You were shiftier than usual the entire morning. I didn't know what was wrong with you, but it was pretty obvious you were stressed out. I decided I'd try and talk to you about it later at night, when the others were busy or in bed. Right after everyone ate lunch, though, you went to your room and didn't come back out. You were trying so hard to become a huntsman, you would come down and at least try and train each day since you were kicked out of Signal… But you never appeared. I waited and waited for you, but after a while I decided to check on you."

Jun's eyes were shadowed as she recalled what was undoubtedly both a nightmare, and partially something that had actually happened. Which was the worst - a nightmare born from the truth.

"You weren't there. You'd left the window open though, so I figured you'd run off to do some kind of training and were embarrassed or something." Based on what he'd heard, it didn't surprise him that Jaune was weird about… Well, literally everything. "But… I didn't try to find you right away. Instead, I waited. I played around with Jean for a while. When nobody saw you after a while longer, I went out to try and find you. This time though…"

Tears bloomed in her eyes, giving them a watery sheen, and her breath started to come out in choked hiccups. The sheer despair he saw reflected in her blue eyes hit him like a punch to the gut and inflicted more damage than Antares had ever managed to do to him. It was one thing to understand how important someone is to another - it's entirely another to be that person and see their reactions.

She really didn't need to say more for him to know either - in fact, what became her nightmares was likely what would have happened if Jinwoo had ignored Jaune's plea. Instead of his new System integrating and saving his body before preparing it for his entrance, Jaune would have simply perished.

Jinwoo chose to reverse the glomp and attack her instead. He sat up, pulling Jun with him, shifting her around until he was sitting with his back against his headboard, and Jun was in between his legs, her back flush with his chest. His arms encircled her waist pulling her tight against him, after which he released one to come up and begin gently stroking her hair.

Though she was old enough that, on average, she shouldn't like being treated like a small child that needed comforting, but then he couldn't think of many people who would mind being cared for in such a way when they were distraught, so maybe that was an incorrect assumption. It was more a matter of being close enough to someone to have them share physical comforts in such a way. He supposed it was more like a case by case basis per relationship, to see if it would help or just make someone uncomfortable.

To add yet another tally against the Arc parents, Jun's more child-like personality was very like a carryover from her (by his guess) poor childhood. Not in terms of intentional harm, or abuse, but as the saying went about the road to hell and good intentions… Love didn't necessarily mean neglect wasn't happening. Family was not an invincible aegis that being a member of one protected someone from being hurt or damaged by their fellows.

But if Jun had missed all of those important moments children share with their parents as they grew up… It would make sense why she clung to a child-like persona to try and reclaim something of what she'd missed out on. Worse still, the Arc parents were still effectively missing from the picture, so she wasn't really getting the experiences she was looking for. Was it a call for attention? He didn't know.

He wasn't even entirely sure how to fix it. He wasn't a psychologist or a therapist or anybody remotely trained to heal wounds of the mental variety. His only redeeming quality in this front was being the indestructible bastion which they could rely on, forever and without fail. Jinwoo would still try his utmost to help - whether that was hugs or being the step-in patriarch for a family whose current one was… unworthy of the title.

Her sniffles grew into sobs, her small frame racked with cries of anguish for a future that almost was. He did everything in his power to offer her what comfort he could, gently rocking her in their close position and stroking her hair while whispering calming nothings into her ear. Things like 'I'm right here' and 'I'm not going anywhere'.

His own sister, even after nearly dying to the orc gate that spawned in her school, had remained stoic to the best of her ability, choosing to express her emotions by asking him to stay and just be with her. He hadn't held her, and didn't need to comfort her beyond providing his presence, which he'd done his utmost to deliver until the next cataclysmic gate appeared… and he'd been forced to choose between saving countless lives, or staying to protect his traumatized sister.

It was one of the many things he would never forgive the Monarchs for. Though the Ruler's were responsible for the normal gates that appeared, they didn't seek to end the world, merely to give humans a fighting chance. They would not have caused a gate of such power to appear, that was certain.

Jun held onto his hand like a lifeline, as she slowly calmed herself, the gentle back and forth motions hopefully bringing her racing heart to a more normal tempo. Eventually she separated from him, her face an absolute wreck of snot, tears and red-rimmed eyes, before launching herself at him with a fierce hug.

She thanked him, and though they remained like that for a short while, they both eventually agreed they needed to get up and begin their day, much to Jun's grumblings.

Jinwoo's mental tally book for Arc parent's sins increased yet again, and his fury grew slightly more.

He also spent some time that day figuring out how to configure a system to do what he'd thought of earlier - buffing her 'Strength Stat' without going overboard. Also, he'd have to make some sort of pseudo-dungeon and have her fight some shadows there. The Architect had somehow built life-like versions of Ashborns old commanders and foes for some of his System-based dungeons, but that was beyond him as far as he was aware. Awarding her for combat was simple enough, however, so simply placing her in increasingly difficult scenarios with either numbers or stronger monsters was his next best option.

She'd likely agree to silence, if he asked her as the best Big Brother in the whole wide world. Jinwoo also assumed she'd agree to his proposed plan, but also acknowledged he didn't really know the mind of a 12 year old girl who'd grown up with the Arc-style parenting. Which is to say, none at all.

It was still something nice to do, and the system could be adapted for others if need be. He doubted he'd encounter such a unique situation as this again, but he never knew. If he ever encountered something that Beru couldn't heal, then he could certainly use it. After all, the combat wasn't strictly necessary, just easier to parse for normal humans, and made it less likely for their mind to reject the sudden changes to their physical form.

Jun began training after breakfast, Jane was content to watch her and give her some advice as she saw things that could be improved on. Shadow-based combat training was once again a very useful tool to train with, as the Grimm often swarmed in large numbers and had various different types of combat style that needed to adjust to.

The nearly identical pack-hunter behavior of the beowolves, the walking tank ursa, and the shield-breaking boarbatusk charge were all fairly predictable, but in combination could be deadly.

Especially when you account for their varying sizes and intelligence - it could be a nasty surprise to find an alpha hidden amongst the rabble that slips through a huntsman or huntresses guard in a fatal moment. The shadows had no such issue - while his basic units weren't the most intelligent, they displayed something akin to a human's ability to adapt and learn, so they actively discouraged using the same trick over and over again, while encouraging creativity and the need to always be on the lookout for danger, even when in the midst of combat, or especially so, as it happened.

Jun had already improved remarkably against a decent number of shadow soldiers, and just as she learned and adapted, they too changed tactics to better suit their foe. Not anywhere near as fast as she did, but enough to ensure combat never grew stale, like fighting a robot who only knew certain tricks.

It would hopefully ingrain the idea to never underestimate the enemy, and to always be wary, as Jun had 'lost' many times. Jinwoo ensured the challenge she faced ranged from 'fairly winnable' to 'barely winnable' to 'get incredibly lucky and you might win'. Far from doing it to make sure she knew what eating dirt tasted like, he ensured each situation she encountered was unique enough to require a new assessment each time, which he had her give him.

He would correct her thought process if she did something wrong, like dismissing certain foes as unimportant, or overly prioritizing something meant as a distraction, all with the end goal of making sure she could dynamically assess threats and strategies on the fly in any situation she happened to find herself in.

It was, amongst the shadows that lived in her own, his own way of helping her gain independence. Sure, she was training at a combat school and her sisters helped her, but fighting the Grimm their entire lives left them with an… Odd disposition. It was sort of like a… Everyone does this kind of thing so it should be obvious? Maybe they all learned through osmosis by watching others? In the end, certain things simply weren't explicitly stated that were vitally important for any combatant.

Namely, utilizing a strategic mind to its maximum potential. Sure, his sisters were great fighters and they could likely annihilate just about anybody else in a one versus one. But if he asked them to, at a glance, determine the threat of a group of people they'd never met or seen before, then figure out how to take them out in the most economic way possible, they'd simply laugh and opt to charge straight in.

Obviously they weren't idiots (most of the time) but fighting the Grimm for as long as they had had stained a certain amount of their perception of how fighting goes. It wasn't even necessarily a terrible thing - maybe it helped them keep themselves sharp while grinding themselves on the unending stone otherwise called the Grimm.

Despite the massive amount of combat experience he had, Joan could very well have faced as much, if not more than he had, purely because it was a never ending struggle for them. If he discounted the whole '27 years of fighting in a row', that is. Seeing as to how that was only a couple years shy of how old Joan even was, it felt unfair to include that metric.

Either way, he pounded the idea of tactical awareness and strategy into Jun's mind. Jane watched us with a sort of focus he hadn't expected, but either she was learning something new or wondering who the hell had replaced Jaune.

A most excellent question, sister, but one you don't get to know for a week or two yet…

The weekends often hosted several of the sisters as they got together for dinner, and that seemed like the ideal time to share his… News.

Jinwoo wasn't looking forward to it, and he hoped they would accept him all the same afterwards but… He really didn't know how things would go.

Time would tell, he supposed.

His only hope was that he got to stick around for Jun's sake. The poor girl needed some kind of male figure in her life, and whoever the Arc-father was simply wasn't going to be it.

Stupid bastard.