Chapter 5. Fitting In.
To Yang, being Huntress was awesome, you got to learn how to fight and go on adventures. The only terrible part…was the studying for it… it was the worst. She got why they had to, but it still sucked.
Right now, she was working on the history report that Dr. Oobleck assigned last week. Despite looking like a dumb blonde and being the top student in combat at Signal, Yang wasn't a meathead, Yang was smart. She had to do well in school or else her dad would be giving her crap every day. Because of that, Yang wasn't really that worried about her grades, if there was any worry for schoolwork it would be for Ruby. Her sister was a bright girl, granted she was a bit unfocused at times, but moving ahead two years had been rough on her.
"You dolt, Goliaths don't exist in Solitas, those are Megoliaths."
"I'm sorry ok! I didn't know there was a difference!"
Looks like Ruby was working on Grimm Studies with Weiss right now. Man, Yang hated that class, she didn't know what Professor Port's semblance was, but she was pretty sure it involved making something awesome into something completely boring.
Still, it was good that Ruby was making an effort in the class. Yang wanted to be the one to help Ruby out, but Ruby needed to branch out more and connect with other people besides Yang. Thankfully, Weiss proved to be quite an effective teacher, helping Ruby really start to catch up for the two years she was behind.
Yang really did not like Weiss at first. When they first met she was bossy, and was mean to her sister. Those were extremely high on her list of things that made her mad.
That first day Yang was tempted to blow the heiress out of the building when she heard that Weiss said Ruby didn't deserve leadership. Like yeah, Ruby was young, and Yang felt it was a bit weird to have her younger sister be team leader, but that girl was going to ruin Ruby's confidence. It was hard enough trying to get Ruby to open up to other people in normal circumstances, the girl had a scythe for a best friend for god's sake…not that there was anything wrong with that.
Thankfully, that wasn't going to be the case as it seemed like whatever issues Weiss had with Ruby were resolved, as the two had been getting along a lot better. She was still bossy, but less mean.
Yang wasn't quite sure what happened, but she didn't care, as long as Weiss treated Ruby nicely, Yang would do the same to Weiss.
While continuing to work on her paper, Yang noticed that there were some facts stuff she was missing.
"Hey, Blake?" Yang called out to her partner.
"Yeah?" Blake casually responded, engrossed in one of her books right now.
"Do you remember what the original landing points on the invasion of Mantle was supposed to be?"
"...I'm not sure, you may want to check the library,"
"Do you want to come with me?" Yang asked, not wanting to go alone
"Nah, I already have my reports done and want to take a break," Blake declined as she turned a page.
Heh, looks like she was reaching a good part in her book. Blake may try to hide it from her team, but it was a well-known fact that the girl was reading smut.
Yang didn't judge, everyone had their hobbies, as long as said hobbies didn't corrupt Ruby, she was fine with them. Granted, they had a couple of close calls but thankfully Weiss of all people came in the clutch.
"Well I guess I'm going by myself then, don't enjoy yourself too much Blake," Yang teased as she walked out of the room.
"It's not like that!" Her partner responded angrily
"Bye Yang" Ruby cheerfully waved.
"Why did you put a comma there, you're supposed to put a semi-colon," Was all that Weiss said.
"Why does that even make a difference?" Ruby complained back.
Yang could only chuckle as she left to the library.
As she made her way to her destination, all Yang could really think about was her current experience at Beacon so far.
It had been about a month since the school year started at Beacon and Yang was loving it. She was on a team with her sister, and she got to fight strong people, what more can you ask?
Her partner was also cool, she was quiet, but it wasn't because she was shy, she just chose to be silent. When she talked, it was always something that was interesting, that or being snarky.
Sadly all her friends from Signal failed initiation. Thankfully, none of them died, but they did fail in retrieving the relic, and it looked like none of them were able to qualify for the new substitute student criteria. But she was able to make new friends in her team and Team JNPR.
Speaking of the substitute student though, Mori once again shattered Yang's expectations of normal during combat class.
First day of Combat Class
"For the second half of combat class we will have one on one matches." Professor Goodwitch announced at the end of her lecture on the syllabus of combat class.
"This will be important for you, as while your main enemy will be the Grimm, fighting others will allow you to sharpen your own skill and give you new insights on how to get better."
Yes, Yang couldn't wait, this was the best part of Beacon, the fighting other strong people, there were plenty of people she wanted to fight, the big prize in her mind was fighting Pyrrha, she couldn't wait to take her on.
"Our first match will be Jaune Arc vs Mori Jin."
Murmurs started to fill the arena, as everyone wanted to see how the newly made substitute student would do.
Apparently, you had to fill special qualifications to qualify, so people were wondering what he had that allowed him to do so. Man were these people in for a treat when Mori shows off his semblance.
Mori was up there as well, in terms of people she wanted to fight…sadly that was not the case for Vomit Boy, sorry Vomit Boy.
Even though she wasn't as bad as her sister Ruby, Yang felt sad when it looked like their strange friend would not make it into Beacon, so hearing that he made it into Beacon as a substitute was awesome!
The substitute student thing was weird, but ever since they met the guy Yang had learned to just live with it. Based on what she had seen so far, his fighting style was pretty raw and he didn't have a weapon, but he made up for that with his amazing semblance, that was the main reason she wanted to fight him, Yang wanted to see if she could actually damage him.
She had to admit, Mori's semblance was probably one of the strongest semblances she had ever encountered, not only was he super durable, but he was also super fast. She did not see him coming when he surprised her during initiation, and she was used to Ruby's speed. Then, apparently, he threw a death stalker in the air! What were the limits of this guy?
There were a couple of a things that Yang thought Ruby was a little naïve on, but she had to agree with her sister's assessment that the dude could become an amazing huntsman if he was properly trained and equipped.
As her two new friends approached the stage, Professor Goodwitch continued her instructions.
"You will fight until one of you surrenders, or your Aura has reached insufficient levels" The Professor then pulled up something on her scroll and displayed it to the class. "On the screen it will display your Aura levels, once it has reached 15% that would be considered critical."
"Now gentlemen, activate your Aura's and when I say start, begin"
And the match between the two friends began.
Or it should have…but Goodwitch never said start,
"Mr. Jin, I know you are only a substitute in this school; however, in my class you are still required to activate your Aura and fight, It is not good to look down on your opponent like that. So, activate your Aura" Professor Goodwitch spoke in annoyed voice.
"Oh, uhh ok… AURA ACTIVATE!" Mori yelled out with a first in the air.
At that everyone in the class started laughing, Yang was on the ground, pounding her first on the floor, Ruby was full out giggling, Blake was just chuckling to herself, and Ice Queen had a disapproving look but you could tell she was stifling a smile. The guy was really screwing with Prof. Goodwitch on the first day of school…that was amazing!
"Mr. Jin," Goodwitch began as she rubbed her head. "While I appreciate the theatrics, I recommend you do not do that in battle, and you also still have not activated your aura,"
"I uhh, don't know how to." Mori sheepishly responded,
"There is no need to know how to do it, you just do it."
"Like do I feel it inside me and pull out?"
"No, you don't; you just activate your aura,"
"So, when you say activate…"
Mori, please…stop; her sides couldn't take it anymore.
"I see you seem to be a fan of detention, Mr. Jin." Prof. Goodwitch was furious as she pulled her scroll on Mori, "The only way you wouldn't know how to activate your aura is if…" Goodwitch's voice suddenly trailed off.
What she said next completely defied everyone's expectations.
"Mr. Jin… You haven't unlocked your aura."
"Uhhm, Yes?"
At that everyone immediately stopped laughing, Yang included.
Wait, did she just say his aura was still locked?
"Uhhm Professor," It was Pyrrha raising her hand, "What do you mean by he hasn't unlocked his aura."
"I am not getting any reading of Aura from Mr. Jin, Miss Nikos, he still has his Aura locked,"
Wait, wait, wait, if he didn't have his aura unlocked that means he shouldn't have a semblance, if he didn't have a semblance that meant—
"What kind of body do you have!" Weiss screamed out, unaware of what she was saying.
Oh, Ice Queen; phrasing was a thing. No one made a comment about it though because people were too shocked at the earlier revelation.
But the heiress had a point, if Mori really had his Aura locked then that meant everything he had done, from his freakish durability, to his speed, and his monstrous strength…that was all with his own physical abilities.
"Can anyone unlock Mr. Jin's aura before we start?" The Professor said as she recovered from the revelation.
"I can do it" Ruby cheerfully cried out as she zipped her way to the boy.
And with that Ruby started her chant.
Once she was finished, she had a confused look on her face.
"Uhhm, did I do that right Professor Goodwitch?" Ruby asked with a confused look on her face. "Because I didn't feel anything?"
"You said it correctly, did you activate your Aura to help unlock his, Miss Rose?" Goodwitch responded slightly annoyed.
"Yeah I did...I think I did."
"Let me do it then,"
And with that Prof. Goodwitch made her attempt to unlock Mori's Aura.
She too had a confused look on her face when she finished.
"Mr. Jin…your aura…I can't seem to unlock it."
And with that the room exploded with sounds as people were talking about Mori not being able to unlock his aura.
"So, should I still fight Jaune then?" Mori asked oblivious to the confusions he was causing.
"No, for now as we try to figure out how to unlock your aura, I'm not going to have you spar." Goodwitch replied.
Just as Mori tried to argue Goodwitch continued.
"Now, I know this may upset you Mr. Jin, but if you don't have an aura we wouldn't be able to properly decide who would win. You'd technically already would be at zero and your opponent would be just hitting away at nothing trying to hurt you. That and if something does hurt you, it may be fatal, so for now we will play it safe and have you wait on sparring."
At that Mori sullenly agreed in defeat and left the stadium with Ruby trying to cheer him up.
"Due to default, Jaune Arc is the winner of this match." Professor Goodwitch declared,
That seemed to set Mori off.
"What!" The boy yelled. "That is not a loss! Get over here Jaune, we are having this match!" He comically shouted as Ruby tried to hold him back.
"Mr. Jin, like I said before, we cannot have you in matches so this will be a win on Mr. Arc's record."
And with that the boy went back to his seat with a dead look on his face.
"I can't believe I lost to Jaune," Mori whined as he sat down.
(Jin Mori Win-Loss Record (on Remnant) O wins 1 loss (default))
Present
That was the talk of Beacon for a while, the substitute Huntsmen-in-training who couldn't unlock his Aura. Mori would go to Prof. Peach's office to see what was wrong but so far nothing had popped up.
Just who was Jin Mori?
Like he had his strange moments, but all those could be hand waved with his amazing semblance, except it wasn't a semblance…
Yang couldn't help but shiver though, if Mori combined his amazing physical abilities with aura and then added skill…How much of a monster would he be?
When she first got to know the boy, Yang thought he was nice, but was a little uncomfortable with him because of his background, or lack thereof.
As she got to know him she started to generally like him, he wasn't like most guys around her age, who just wanted to know her because she was hot, he genuinely seemed to be interested in Yang as a person and their friendship had reached the point where they could snark at each other without any hard feelings.
Granted her relationship with Mori wasn't anything as close to as her sister's relationship to him, Ruby dragged the boy around everywhere, from showing him dust shops, to weapons and comics.
To be honest, initially Yang was a bit worried about how close their relationship was. But, now his presence was a relief for Yang, she loved Ruby, more than anything in the world; but, sometimes Yang needed a break and it seemed like Mori seemed to have stepped into the role for watching over Ruby and making sure she was ok.
Mori was definitely better than those boys in Signal that went after Ruby…What? Did people really think that Ruby wasn't popular with boys in Signal? They shared the same genes, of course Ruby would be popular…she was adorable!
The only reason Ruby didn't know about that was because Yang, her dad and Uncle Qrow would have a system where if a boy showed interest in Ruby they would test him, just to see what kind of person he was…they generally failed… but some passed…but then they would just give up because the girl showed more love for weapons then people.
Mori was a good dude; he not only passed the being a good person test, but was also a positive influence on Ruby, as he not only listened to her rambles but offered advice to her as well. Ruby seemed to have toned down her recklessness since meeting him.
As she entered the library, she noticed the subject of her thoughts was there. He seemed to have short-circuited around a mountain of books.
"You look dead, what's up porcupine?" Yang asked she casually walked up to him
"Do you really need to call me that Yang?" He tiredly answered back.
"Of course, I do, it's a way I show affection." She replied with a smile
"You didn't even come up with it!"
"Yeah…but I still like it."
With that Mori could only snort as he went back to the books.
"You working on your history paper right now?" Yang decided to ask
"And Grimm Studies, and Dust Studies, and Aura applications, which is dumb because I don't even have Aura right now." He complained. "But, Dr. Oobleck said, 'Amnesia is not an excuse to not know history,' all I want to do is just sleep though."
Ouch…yeah Ruby had it pretty tough as is, being 2 years behind, Mori was 16…17? Years behind, they weren't quite sure of his exact age. Still, she could not help but feel sorry for her friend. He was sort of just thrust into Beacon without memories, and he didn't even get to do the best part of fighting. But like she said before, Yang liked Mori and wanted to help him out, so what she was going to do next was the least she could do with all the help he'd given Ruby.
"Would you like help with your work?" Yang asked.
"You want to help me with my work?" Mori responded back with a look of skepticism
"Look buddy, I know that look on your face and despite having all this going on for me" She gestured to her body. "I still have this." She then pointed at her head. "I did graduate from Signal at the top of my class. I know, life is unfair, deal with it."
Mori responded at her show of confidence with a chuckle
"If you can help me out that would be great," He replied with a small smile,
"Great, let's see what you're doing wrong." Yang then took a seat next to Mori, looking at his Grimm Studies paper. "You uhh do know that Megoliaths are different than Goliaths right?"
"They're both elephant Grimm! What's the difference?!"
"Ahh that was a good read." Blake thought to herself as she finished her book. "It was so satisfying seeing Saru overcome his problems and trust again."
Blake just finished her recent book and it was absolutely amazing, the plot was great, the characters riveting and the ending just plain satisfying, and no, despite what her partner Yang said, this one was not smut.
Like she'd be dumb enough to pull out a mature book in front of her young team leader. There was a time and place for that, and a 15-year-old that was studying across from you was not the time or place. Granted, Blake had a couple of close calls, but Weiss of all people came in the clutch.
Blake was initially worried about being on a team with a Schnee, and on the first day the heiress her biases were just confirmed, Her bad attitude was probably because she was jealous of the 15-year-old being made into their team leader, but to Blake's surprise she got better and despite the Faunus dislike of the Schnee's she honestly didn't hate Weiss. She felt like a voice reason for the group at times. She liked Ruby and Yang; but, they could be a bit crazy.
Blake's stomach suddenly started to rumble, oops look like she was so engrossed in her book that she forgot to eat.
"I'm going to grab some food in the cafeteria, is there anything you guys want?" Blake asked her teammates while getting off her bed.
"Ohh, strawberry milk and cookies!" The red head excitedly replied.
"I said no cookies until you finish your homework." Weiss butted in.
"But Weiss—"
"nuh uh uh, I don't want to hear it. Remember, we made a deal that you wouldn't get cookies until you finished your homework." Weiss said with a glare in her eyes. "If you are going to be my partner, I refuse to have you be as dumb as the buffoon."
"Don't insult Mori like that, he just has amnesia!" Ruby argued back.
Blake decided to leave before the argument got worse. The two's relationship had improved but there were things Ruby was stubborn with, defending Mori whenever Weiss insulted his intelligence was one of those.
Honestly, Blake found that adorable coming from the girl.
It was just so fun to watch this tiny girl push around a guy that can throw a Death Stalker in the air with just his physical abilities. Honestly, Blake was a little jealous about how close their friendship was. Though there was that moment where they didn't talk to each other for a day because they got into an argument of Bananas vs Strawberries.
Blake couldn't help but shiver remembering that.
Speaking of Mori, he was probably the most confusing person in this school to Blake.
People at Beacon seemed to have a negative opinion on the boy, he was derogatorily called "the replacement" a lot, the name calling got a lot worse when the news of his lack of aura came out. The worst offenders were from that disgrace of a team, Team CRDL. They seemed to have a bone to pick with Mori and also Jaune.
Those people were idiots if they looked down on Mori. They hadn't seen the physical abilities the guy showed during initiation. When he suddenly appeared during initiation, Blake's well-honed instincts couldn't even sense him.
Honestly, it scared her the potential the guy had, if he added any skill and aura, he would be a bigger monster than…him.
Despite her fears of his potential, Blake wasn't quite sure what to think of the boy. When she first heard the story of the boy's amnesia, she thought it was bs. He remembered his name, and the fact that it went last name, given name. Amnesia obviously didn't work like that.
But then there was the first day they went over the Faunus Revolution in History.
He was sitting next to her team leader, when all of a sudden he turned and asked Ruby what a Faunus was. Blake couldn't believe what she was hearing; he didn't know what a Faunus was? That was absolutely absurd. What kind of backwards place was he from? Suddenly, amnesia made a lot more sense, he obviously lost his memory if he didn't know such basic info.
What he said next, really caught her attention. When Ruby said that they were people with animal traits and asked if he'd never seen one before, he responded with:
"Honestly, I thought they were just people,"
Those words really made Blake happy, here was a person that had the mindset that she was trying to strive for, Faunus are just people. At that moment Mori was good in Blakes mind.
…At least it should have, but then she caught a look of him without his shirt on. No, despite what Yang said it wasn't on purpose, and she wasn't trying to peep, it was just that Mori had a whole room to himself and because he didn't have much stuff, he let both Team JNPR and Team RWBY use it for their extra stuff.
The incident in question happened because there was a book that Blake really wanted to read, But the problem was she kept it in his room, obviously it wasn't a smutty one, why would she keep a smutty book in a boy's room?... Except that one time she screwed up.
The problem came from when she went to go grab her book, just as she entered the room and was going through the romance pile, the boy immediately came out of the shower. Now thankfully he was wearing a tower but, there was still a lot that was being shown.
Blake's first thoughts were that he was quite built. She didn't have any interest in the guy, but she could still appreciate what he had going on.
But what really caught her eye, was his scars. His body was covered in them and there was also a massive one on his head that his sleeping mask usually covered.
She would have tried to look for more, but the boy expressed clear discomfort and Blake realized the situation she was in and left quickly with an embarrassed face...She still wanted to read that book.
But those scars really bothered Blake, they were not from accidents, they were scars that came from an intent to kill, she only had seen those of types scars come from one other person. Whatever Mori was… in his past, it involved intense combat.
That should have solidified Blake's opinion that she should be wary of Mori. But then Mori would once again flip her expectations of him when he would prank Weiss, the most infamous being when he replaced her shampoo with green hair dye. It took a while for Team RWBY to calm the Heiress from going on the warpath against him.
It really was quite funny, just no one said it when Weiss was around.
Either way, he was so mysterious, but at the same time, so easy to get along with.
The biggest thing that made Blake worry about Mori though, was that every time he was around her, she couldn't help but feel uncomfortable. Not in the normal way of people gawking at her. The boy was clean and did not seem to have much interest in romance in general.
And it was not because of the shower incident either, because that feeling of discomfort came before that, all that did was make the uncomfortable feeling more awkward.
No, there was just something about Mori that made Blake scared; every time she was around him, her instincts would cry out, run away, don't go near him, and don't piss him off.
She wasn't quite sure what those feeling were, but it was definitely not helping her make her decision on how she felt about the boy.
Just before Blake got to the cafeteria, she walked past the gym. As she was passing through, she noticed that Mori was in there.
Just staring at a punching bag.
Curious at what he was doing, Blake suspended her quest for food and went into the room.
"Hey, what are you up to?" she asked.
"Oh...hey Blake, I was just studying with Yang, when we both got hungry and wanted to get something to eat." He answered back, as his concentration on the punching bag broke. "We had a game of rock paper scissors to decide who would get the food, and well...I'm now the pizza delivery guy."
"So why are you in the gym, just staring at a punching bag?"
"…I honestly don't know…" Was all the response he gave.
An awkward moment of silence filled the gym as the two just shuffled in silence. Then Mori dropped a bomb.
"So…you're a Faunus, right?"
Yeah, of course she was Faunus. Wait…HE KNEW SHE WAS A FAUNUS!
"Wha—" Was all Blake could let out.
"I've been meaning to ask you about it in private, but well…the only time we've been the only people in the room was…" He sheepishly looked to the ground.
UGHH DO NOT BRING THAT UP.
Blake was now in a panic. What should she do? She could lie but that looked like that was not going to work; killing him wasn't an option, not only was it because it was wrong and she was at Beacon to get away from that stuff, but also with the limits of his durability he'd survive pretty easily.
With her limited options, there was only one thing to do…do what she did best…Run Away.
"I'm only asking because I was curious of why you were hiding your ears." He spoke up interrupting Blake's plans for escape.
"How… did you know?" Blake quietly asked after a couple of seconds of silence.
"It is… kind of easy to see," He replied apologetically.
Damn it.
"If it makes you feel better, I don't think many people have noticed, I don't know why though." He quickly added.
What should she tell him? That she was an ex-terrorist hiding to atone for her past? Yeah that answer would work…in getting her thrown into jail.
"Well, the reason why I'm hiding them…It's a long story that I really don't want to get into." Was the answer she decided to give, praying that he would take that.
"OK,"
Wait that worked? Maybe Blake needed to pray more often.
"OK?"
"Yeah, if your uncomfortable talking about it, I won't ask any more, and if you want to keep it a secret, I will respect that." he said. "Well, I'm going to get that pizza, because Yang is going to get mad if I make her wait any longer."
And with that he was gone.
At that Blake could only stare at him as he left. She…didn't need to run away?
That was it?
Loos like there was one more thing to add to her ever confusing feelings on Mori.
Her Stomach suddenly rumbled again, oh shoot she was still hungry.
Mori groaned as he staggered back into his Room, finally finished with all his schoolwork. Despite what Weiss kept on saying, he was not dumb, he was actually smart. He only got the dumb moniker in high school because he just only focused on main courses and fighting; however, he could not do that here.
Even though he didn't want to be in Beacon, he still needed to learn about Remnant. Based on his research, a way off here was not possible unless he regained his powers, even though Remnant's technology was higher in some ways than Earth, space travel was still far off.
If he was going to be stuck here, he better learn as much as possible. It was just… there was just so, so much to learn, enough to overwhelm him. Thankfully, Yang helped him out today with making it easier to understand, and pointing out the more necessary information, getting rid of what wasn't as needed. It was so helpful that Mori decided he was going to be in charge of the next Ruby sugar rush, to thank her.
Back to the studying though, he initially thought if he could just fail all his classes, he could just flunk out of Beacon. But coasting on the amnesia excuse to fill critical gaps in his knowledge on Remnant would start to lose its effectiveness. That and even if he did fail, Ozpin would probably come up with some BS to keep him here.
That incident with the team ceremony made Mori livid, was the man no longer trying for subtlety?
At least he got his own room though, that was nice. He was sure that Ozpin was going to screw with him and put him on Team RWBY and have him live there.
If that happened, he was sure Brother Bai Jie would rise from the grave, just to cry tears of blood.
As Mori, opened the door to his room and entered, he almost tripped over something lying on the ground.
"Damn it, Nora," Mori thought to himself, "If you're going to keep your dumbbells in here, don't keep them near the door."
Mori didn't have much…obviously, so when he got a whole room to himself, he was done unpacking quickly. The room was bare, like his home on earth.
When he went to go check Team RWBY on the first day after he finished unpacking, he came upon a site that was just screaming future disaster. It was the girls making the worst bunk beds he had ever seen; they were held up by ropes and books. He had an idea of who's idea those bunk beds were, he just never got around to confronting the red-haired culprit.
Apparently, they were doing that because they didn't have space. So, since Mori didn't want to lose new friends to bunk beds, he offered to let them keep any extra stuff in his room, he also made the same offer to Team JNPR as well.
…That was a big mistake. Suddenly his room that had nothing, was just filled with stuff. Ren and Pyrrha declined but he still had all of Weiss's extra dust and some dresses that she couldn't fit in her room, Yang's music and another wardrobe, Jaune's comic books and video games, Nora's workout equipment, Ruby's cookie stash and her own set of comic books as well, and finally the biggest of them all… Blake's books.
Ahhh Blake, that incident with the shower was his fault, he should have locked the door. Instead, he re-enacted a scene from one of Blake's smutty books.
The girl had the decency to usually not leave her porn in his room, but she once accidentally left one of her more risqué collection. Mori was curious to see what it was about, after reading a couple of lines he immediately closed the book, walked to Team RWBY's room and publicly shamed Blake in front of her teammates for having that filth.
He didn't mind what she read; he just didn't want to see it.
There were also the close calls with Ruby, but Weiss of all people came in the clutch. It made him feel bad about that hair dye prank he pulled on her, not enough to make him regret it, but enough to make him think he could've used a different color.
His relationship with Weiss was a bit of a rollercoaster. He was about to tell the girl off for saying Ruby didn't deserve leadership, in Mori's mind despite his dislike of Ozpin, he made the right choice for the team leaders of RWBY and JNPR. Thankfully, they were able to resolve their issues and Weiss was generally courteous with everyone now. She still insulted him, but her insults had less bite in them now. He didn't help with all the times that he pranked her. But, he had a good reason, his pranks on her were just to lighten the girl up, she was too tense and strict at times.
Back to Blake though, that recent conversation with her was enlightening. Even though not much was said, Mori was able to confirm a couple of things.
One, that Blake was hiding her identity, because the disguise was pretty poor, he wasn't quite sure if she was or was not hiding, but that conversation confirmed it. Mori didn't really have much room to criticize, considering the giant lie he was living.
Second, she was not a threat. When he mentioned that she was a Faunus it looked like her first instinct was to flee. If she was an enemy, she would've tried to silence him or at least consider it, even though she might have gotten questions if he went missing, there were a lot of viable answers to those questions. The hard part would have been killing him of course. But the girl at least didn't have any fatal intentions towards him or Ruby and Yang. He didn't think she had it in her, based on the past month, but it still was a nice confirmation.
Either way, he didn't really care about Blake's secrets, as long as she didn't harm the sisters and Weiss, he would consider her a friend and respect her privacy.
As he made his way past Jaune's video game plateau, and Mount Ruby's cookies he was finally able to reach his bed.
He then closed his eyes, but his mind did not fall asleep, instead it was thinking of his first month at Beacon.
That first day of combat class was interesting. When Ruby and Goodwitch were unable to unlock his aura, he wasn't surprised.
Based off his readings it seemed like it was a gift for the people on this world, and well…he wasn't part of this world. It may also have to do with the fact that Mori was not whole, it had been a month and he still hadn't been able to use of any of his powers, the gourd was not recovering and Ruyi Jingu Bang was still giving him weight problems. The holy grail really did a work on him.
But honestly, Mori didn't mind not getting an aura. So far, nothing here really seemed to hurt him. The only thing that pissed him off about not having an Aura was that it made him lose to Jaune of all people! Jaune!
His loss record now had Jaune on it! Dammit!
No, no he was over it, he was not going to complain.
Still, it was probably a good thing that he did not have to fight, he could keep his fighting style secret.
Is what he told himself anyways.
It was a new experience being called weak and the replacement. He was so used to being strong and feared. Now everyone looked down on him, he was the boy with no aura in a school of Huntsmen-in-training… the subsitute student. That Team called CRDL really seemed to enjoy rubbing that part in. They were jerks to everyone, but they seemed to focus on Mori and Jaune especially.
Mori did not really care, he just ignored them; Jaune however, was taking it less well. In fact, this whole month he had been struggling in general.
Outside of his win against Mori, "Dammit", he had not won a single match after that. He had been struggling in combat class and school in general. Pyrrha would try to help him. But there was something bugging him, holding him back.
Mori wasn't sure what it was but…Well, Jaune needed to overcome his own problems if he wanted to be strong.
Speaking of the blonde, Jaune had introduced X-Ray & Vav to Mori and he had just finished another volume. Jaune said Mori he could borrow the next one anytime he wanted, and Mori really liked the series.
As he got up from his bed and made his way past Blake's romance genre forest, he headed to Team JNPR's room.
When he knocked on their room, Ren opened the door.
"Hey Mori, what brings you here," The boy asked.
"I'm looking to borrow the next copy of X-Ray and Vav from Jaune, is he here?"
"No, I think he's on the rooftop right now, I think Pyrrha is with him as well."
On the rooftop? Hopefully Jaune was ok.
"Ok, well see you later Ren," As he waved goodbye
"See you Mori," Ren replied back as he then shut the door.
And with that Mori made his way to the rooftop.
Mori liked Ren; he was quiet but thoughtful. Though initially Mori did think that their names shared the same quirk, because his name was Lie Ren and he went by Ren. But no, he just went by his last name. There was something about the boy that Mori felt connected to, but he wasn't sure what it was.
Ren's partner Nora, Mori liked a lot more, she was a bunch of fun, Mori knew if he was ever bored, just find Nora and they'd do something crazy. Like that time they did rocket locker racing. That look of anger on Glynda's face will forever be treasured in Mori's mind.
Mori generally hated school and he still did, and he wanted nothing to do with whatever Ozpin had planned, but his new friends on Remnant were pretty great!
He felt guilty leaving his friends on earth, but hopefully they were doing well and there really wasn't much he can do to help them right now. If he remembered correctly there was something going on with his friend Yoo-Mira, but Daewi probably had it under control… Man did he miss those two…
Either way school had generally been free of drama…except that time Ruby expressed the clearly wrong opinion of Strawberries being the best fruit. He thought she was a friend… but turns out she was the enemy…It took a while for him to forgive her for that.
As he finally got near the rooftop, he noticed Jaune and Pyrrha were talking about something
Well, hopefully it wasn't too serious,
"Hey Jaune, I just finished the late—"
"I mean I didn't go to combat school, I didn't pass any tests, I didn't earn my spot at this Academy, I am a Fraud!" Jaune bursts out.
"st Volum…This looks important… I think I'll ask later."
Dammit, he had to jinx himself by saying there had been no drama.
Whew another chapter done. I hope you guys like this chapter, because this was one of the funnest chapters I've written so far of Journey to Remnant. It's a bit shorter than the last two but I still think it has some important points. I've gotten some criticism that the story was essentially copy and paste Mori into Rwby, and it's something that I can agree that's a weakness in the story. Right now there are story reasons for why I'm keeping close to canon so far, but rest assured that won't be the case in the future. But, I get not wanting to read essentially RWBY volume 1 plus the occasional mention of Mori, so I hope this chapter is able to fulfill my purposes of maintaining Canon early and your guys' want to read something interesting. Now onto the reviews.
I'm happy with all the feedback you guys gave regarding if Mori should or should not get aura. It seems like the in general you guys thought that he shouldn't and like I said last week I already made my decision regarding on what to do. This week showed my decision seemed to be the consensus. That Mori with Aura would be way too busted, especially this early in the story even with it's drawbacks like DescendantYI2 mentioned it would make him too powerful. He already is broken as is no need to make him more so.
Yhwachtheirregular: I can't wait to write those parts as well! It's going to be a lot of fun.
Ilanddubbrovski: Your welcome!
Andielgranrayo: Glad to know that you think the story is getting better that makes me happy.
Momentei: If Mori had a semblance the best option would be to make it non combat based to make a more interesting story. I think your dust idea could be pretty good. But in regards to being a continent buster, we are talking about Mori after Ragnarok right? Because peak Mori has feats that put him at least in the planet busting level, maybe solar System busting level. Though I'm not too sure about power calcs.
DivineWhiskey: He really is freaking durable, I think it can be debatable if god's can have aura or not. I think it's vague enough where a writer can reasonably put that in.
Guest 1: Yeah he didn't really change much this time, I have a purpose for that but I agree it could've been more interesting.
Nox Deus: Yeah I love Mori's reliance on only fighting with techniques and it makes him up there with some pretty broken characters.
Guest 2: I hope that someone could make a fate story with Mori, I'd be interested in writing it but because this is the first fic I've written I don't want to overextend myself. But if someone wants to do it I'd be interested in Beta'ing for it. Granted my knowledge is mostly based on the Visual novel anime adapations and parts of Zero.
Netapel: Your servant comparisons make a lot of sense.
Asno Lover: Glad you love it, hopefully you will continue to like it.
DescendantYI2: I'm glad that you find the personalities are spot on and that you can agree with my interpretation of Mori after Ragnarok. His strength is still crippled but it's hard for people to see it. About the strategic mind and wise, I think he's always had that since he regained his memories we just didn't get to see it, because he was gone for a long time. That and he doesn't really need to use strategy as well when he can instantly blow people away. Why make a complex plan when a simple one can easily work? We can debate about that if you want but that's just what I got from the WebToon. My understanding of Aura can be better but based of what I know I think even though it has drawbacks the benefits out way them especially because Mori wouldn't need to train it would probably just be an upgrade for him. It would be interesting to see what kind of Semblance Mori could have. They seemed to be based on the users personality or character origins. Based of Mori's origins he would probably have a combat semblance, but since he isn't in RWBY a writer can put anything they want to make it interesting. Hopefully I don't rush the story, but if you think I am please tell me your opinion.
Gen2324: That could be an interesting idea but that would probably be best for the future or a different Fic. If I use it though, I will make sure to credit you and descendant.
Ken: Glad you love it :)
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