"How exactly have you been working as a Huntsman without a license?" Blake asked, smirking at the way Jaune jumped as he suddenly became aware of her presence.
"You do that for fun, don't you?" Jaune grumbled as he threw a glare her way, lowering the hand that had dove under his cloak, presumably reaching for his weapon.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Blake replied, returning her expression to one of practiced neutrality.
"Sure, you don't," he groused. "What are you doing here, anyway?"
"I figured you could use some help," she replied nonchalantly, refusing to meet his eyes as she watched the crowds around them and the way they watched him with an understandable wariness. Jaune, however, seemed completely oblivious to the unease with which the people of Kuo Kuana were regarding him as he looked down at her with narrowed eyes before facing forward with a sigh.
"No thanks."
Blake's eyebrow rose as she turned to stare at him questioningly. "Excuse me?"
"I dunno why you followed me, but it wasn't to help me," he declared. "You nearly took my head off when we ran into each other on the boat, meaning you wanted to be alone. I might be the last person to reject a genuine offer of help from someone of your skill level - if for no other reason than whatever issues I have aren't worth people's lives - but that was anything but. That means you either want to join the people observing me, or you want an excuse to not be at your place."
Blake stopped and stared at him, dumbfounded. Jaune had been so far beneath everyone else at Beacon in terms of skill that, even with his remarkable rate of improvement while at school, it completely blew her away that he could so easily analyse and deconstruct her actions and potential motives behind them without batting an eye. She looked into his hard, blue eyes and found no trace of the loveable goofball she had known at school, or the nervous teen she had seen less than an hour earlier before her and her mother. There was a calculating intelligence in his gaze that, with the new haircut and light dusting of stubble made him look much older than she remembered and had her wondering just what he had been through since the Fall of Beacon to end up like this.
"You're right," she admitted, filing away everything he said for analysis later. "I am using you as an excuse."
"Do you wanna talk about it?" He asked, and part of her did.
"No," she said instead, her instincts flaring at the idea of opening up to someone else and filling her head with images of golden, blood-stained hair, and fading rose petals.
Jaune shrugged and the easy, youthful smile returned to his face. "Okay."
"That doesn't mean my offer wasn't genuine, though," Blake added a soft smile finding itself afixed to her lips at his own infectious expression.
"Well, in that case, can you tell me anything about what I'm likely to run into here?" He asked.
"From what I've read, nothing like what we encountered on the boat," Blake replied. "Menagerie is mostly desert and jungle, so the really nasty ones to watch out for are Deathstalkers and Beringels. There are a decent number of lancers as well, but they rarely grow to be too big to handle, as well as Taijitu."
"All right," Jaune said, nodding his head to psych himself up as they approached the sprawling jungle surrounding Kuo Kuana where a guard station stood with a man and a woman standing outside, their spears at their sides as they kept watch for any threats within the dense foliage. "Excuse me!" He called, grabbing their attention. Blake noticed the way they looked him up and down before frowning severely when they saw no obvious traits denoting a faunus heritage.
"What do you want?" The woman asked, her large mouse ears twitching in irritation.
"Ghira... er, that is, Mister Belladonna, sent me out here to help with the reports of Grimm being sighted in the area."
"No thanks, Human," the man snapped, his large ram horns hiding his face. "We don't need your help."
Jaune frowned and was about to speak when Blake stepped forward, her patience waning. "My father hired this Huntsman to help us keep the Grimm away from the city."
"But, Miss Belladonna," the woman replied beseechingly, "he's..."
"A friend," Blake interrupted. "And the former leader of his own team back at Beacon. I'd appreciate it if you showed him some respect."
"Y-yes, ma'am." The woman bowed her head and backed away, raising an arm to allow them to pass through into the jungle. The two guards led them deeper into the jungle for about five minutes before coming upon a large open space filled with what she knew used to be rice paddies, but now looked like little more than a muddy field pockmarked with small ponds and fallen trees around the perimeter. Standing in the center of the destruction was the remains of a small wooden house in front of which stood a family of faunus consisting of two men, one of whom was nearly as large as Blake's own father, with large antlers sprouting from his head, and stood with his head buried in the neck of a slightly shorter, leaner man with a horse tail sprouting from the base of his spine. Clinging to the men's legs were three children, two boys with equine ears on the top of their heads, and a girl with patches of scales on her exposed arms and legs.
The guards left them and Jaune took off to go speak with the family while Blake followed a few steps behind, anticipating trouble.
"Excuse me," he said softly, drawing the family's attention.
"What do you want, human?" The slimmer of the two demanded, taking a step forward to place himself between Jaune and his family, and Blake's eyes narrowed as it looked like he was preparing himself for a fight, spreading his feet and shifting his weight on to his front leg.
"Can you tell me what happened here?" Jaune asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" The horse faunus snapped, his fingers twitching. "Our entire crop has been destroyed! First humans treating us like trash, now monsters are coming and destroying what little of our lives we've been able to scrape together."
"Gerard," the man's husband admonished softly, nodding towards Blake as he wiped his tearstained cheeks. "That's enough."
Gerard looked between her, Jaune, and his family for several seconds before sighing and seeming to deflate in front of them.
"My name is Jaune Arc. Ghira sent me to deal with the reports of Grimm in the area." He held his hand out and Gerard looked at it warily before his husband stepped forward and shook it with a watery smile
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mister Arc. My name is Gabriel, and these are our children: Gustav, Gavin, and our oldest, Gillian," Gabriel rumbled softly. "Please forgive my husband, his time in the Fang has made him distrustful of humans on occasion."
"Apology accepted," Jaune replied, smiling comfortingly at the large man before turning it to the children hiding behind their fathers, making Gillian blush, her entire skin turning a vibrant crimson hue as she buried her face in her Gerard's pant-leg. "I know this can't be easy, but I need you to tell me everything you can remember about what happened so Miss Belladonna and I can make sure it doesn't happen again."
"They came last night," Gerard spat. "We heard them before we saw them. Managed to close up the cellar behind us just as the destruction started. Ruined our entire harvest."
Blake watched Jaune speak with the grief-stricken family, impressed by how he continued to shrug off the distaste the people of Menagerie held for him. He didn't even seem fazed by Gabriel's open admission of his husband's membership in the White Fang, instead nodding along and listening to everything the family, a sympathetic expression on his face the whole time. It was while he was kneeling in front of the twins, Gustav and Gavin that Blake felt the presence of several people watching them. She turned to investigate, but was distracted as Jaune walked over to join her.
"Does your dad have some place where they can stay while we investigate?" He asked.
Blake nodded, turning to face him, only to find him already walking off, his eyes scanning their surroundings. She watched as he carefully picked through the remains of the paddies, slowly spiraling around the house towards the edge of the field as he went. Every now and then, he would crouch down to look at something in the ground more closely. The way he carried himself and expected the area spoke of quite a bit of experience dealing with this sort of situation, and Blake found herself wondering just how he had managed to improve in the little under a year since she saw him last.
"Find anything?" She asked when she noticed him stop and begin carefully examining something on the ground about thirty feet from the house.
"Maybe," Jaune replied. Blake stepped forward and looked over his shoulder at the patch of dirt that was a slightly different shade than the rest. Taking a sniff, she detected a familiar, metallic scent and scrunched her nose in distaste as she rose an eyebrow in confusion.
"It was a Grimm attack," she said. "What's so special about a bloodstain?"
"Was anyone dispatched here to fight off the Grimm?" Jaune asked.
"I don't know, why?"
"Just curious," he said vaguely, standing up and continuing to inspect the area. He stopped near the edge of the treeline and pointed to a tree that looked like it had been stabbed right through. "This puncture mark looks kinda like the ones a Deathstalker leaves behind, but I don't see any tracks that would indicate one was anywhere near here. There are tracks that show something with four paws was here as well, but they start and stop suddenly all over the place."
Blake looked where he was indicating, but could only see wanton destruction indiscernable from the rest of the farmland. "Are you sure you're reading them right?" She asked skeptically. Jaune had never shown this kind of deductive reasoning before, so to see him sleuth about the aftermath of a Grimm attack, reconstructing it from marks on trees and supposed tracks in the mud was more than a little unbelieveable.
Jaune nodded as he crouched near a puddle filled with the remains of the rice Gerard and his family had been growing. "I used to hunt with my dad all the time, learned how to track things pretty well. Took some time, but I was eventually able to use it when it came to Grimm as well. For instance, these," he waved his hand over a part of the puddle near the edge, "are boot marks."
Blake narrowed her eyes where he was pointing and, after focusing for a moment, could indeed make out the rounded indent of a heel on the edge of the puddle. "It's a farm," she deadpanned. "Gerard and Gabriel probably walk over the ground everywhere."
"These prints are from combat boots," Jaune countered, standing up. "I've seen enough of them to know what they look like. On top of that, these particular prints belong to a woman."
Blake watched as he walked over to talk to the family once more before returning to join her and indicating they should return. Together, they made their way back towards her home, picking their way through the jungle back towards the guard outpost.
"You never mentioned you knew how to hunt," she said once they had broken the treeline and walked past the two guards, both of whom still watched Jaune warily.
"I grew up in a family of ten," Jaune replied with a chuckle. "How else were we supposed to eat? Granted, my dad did most of the hunting. I just followed along and tried not to mess up."
"I guess I never really thought about it," Blake admitted. "None of us knew a lot about anyone before Beacon." Her thoughts once more turned towards her partner, and the time she told Blake about what growing up had been like for her and Ruby. About how Weiss had admitted to the difficulties she had faced growing up under the constant threat of the Fang. Beyond that, she didn't really know anything about any of her friends from before they met during initiation.
"I can only imagine what Yang would've said if she knew you were the daughter of the leader of Menagerie," Jaune said, grinning.
"Yang finds enough ammunition to tease us with on her own," Blake replied feeling herself smile slightly before her mood fell. "Of course, I doubt she'll even want to face me now."
"Why is that?" Jaune asked.
Blake looked up into his eyes, and shrunk away from the genuine conern shining within them, despite wanting nothing more than to simply reach out and accept the comfort she knew Jaune would be more than willing to provide. "Nothing," she said, forcing herself away. "We should just get -"
She was interrupted by a grunt and a yelp, followed by the sound of something crashing to the ground and whirled around to find Jaune tangled in a heap with a faunus boy with a single, small bat wing protruding from his back. He had a large wicker basket covering his head, and produce was strune all around them, making Blake wish she could simply melt into the ground as people stopped and turned to watch.
"I'm so sorry!" Jaune exclaimed as he hurried to extricate himself from the boy, helping him to his feet before crouching down and gathering the various fruits and vegetables he had dropped when they crashed into each other. As he did so, Blake noticed the arm band the boy wore on his exposed bicep, displaying the familar emblem of the Fang and felt herself tensing as she prepared for what could quickly escalate into a violent situation. "I really should be more aware of my surroundings. You're not hurt are you?" He stood up and handed the basket to the boy, looking him up and down for injury, pausing briefly on his armband before focusing instead on the small drop of blood oozing from a scrape on his knee.
"What are you doing?" The boy demanded and the entire crowd tensed as Jaune crouched down and reached for her knee.
"You hurt yourself," Jaune said simply, placing his hand over her knee before a small flash of white erupted between his palm and her leg. When he removed his hand, Blake's eyes widened as he revealed the boy's knee to be completely healed, with no evidence of the injury whatsoever. Gasps filled the crowd as the Jaune stood up and the boy turned around, revealing to Blake that a second wing had also grown out of his back, tearing a hole in his shirt.
"W-why would you do that?" The boy stuttered.
"Because you hurt yourself," Jaune replied, tilting his head like a confused puppy before suddenly looking terrified. "W-was that offensive or something? I'm sorry, I should have asked permission before just grabbing your leg like that, that was super rude of me to do."
"Jason!" A woman shouted from within the crowd, pushing her way to the front. "Oliver, honey, are you there?!" The woman had bat wings protruding from her back similar to her son's, only hers were much larger and wrapped around the boy as he ran to hug her legs.
"Mom! Look, look! My wing grew back!" Blake watched as the boy described, in detail, every event leading up to Jaune healing him, and had to stifle a laugh as the only human in the crowd became increasingly red in the face as he was forced into the center of attention.
"Is what my son said true?" The woman asked. "You restored his wings?"
"Yeah, sorry," Jaune chuckled. "I saw that he had scraped his knee, and went to heal that, but then I noticed that he was feeling pain around his back, so I went to heal that and ended up going a little overboard. I don't really have any money, but I'm sure I can work off getting him a new shirt, or -"
He was cut off when the woman leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him tightly.
"Thank you," she muttered, her White Fang armband clearly visible as she held him close. "I never thought my son would be able to have full use of his wings again."
"It was my pleasure," Jaune said softly, returning the embrace before pulling away and crouching in front of the boy. "When you first try flying, make sure to have a running start, and to begin with gliding."
The boy nodded his head, and Blake watched as Jaune smiled at him and ruffled his hair before straightening up and returning to her side, his cheeks still pink from embarassment. Endless questions zoomed through her mind as the crowd slowly dispersed and the two of them continued to walk back towards her home. How did Jaune manage to heal the boy's injuries? Was that his semblance? When did he acquire it? How did it work? If his semblance could regrow entire limbs, what else could it do?
"I want to do a bit more asking around concerning the Grimm attack," Jaune declared interrupting her thoughts. "Why don't I meet you at your house later?"
"Sure," Blake replied quietly, shocked at being so handily dismissed. "See you then." Jaune nodded, threw the hood of his ragged brown cloak over his head, and strolled off into the crowd. Blake watched him vanish between the people bustling back and forth, her mind swimming with questions to which she could find not a single answer. Jaune had been nothing more than a loveable goofball back at Beacon, but now... there was something about him that scratched at the back of her mind, and that made her insides curl up uncomfortably. The last time someone had made her this curious, he wound up cutting the arm off of Blake's best friend.
A/N: So, not a ton of action but hopefully this is starting to give an idea of where Jaune and Blake both are mentally. As I'm writing this I haven't seen Volume 6 yet, having only read a bit on the wiki for context purposes, but I will let you know that I'm going with my own original idea for what Jaune was doing before Beacon, and hopefully use it to bolster certain aspects of his character. Anyway, thanks for reading and reviewing, I hope you guys liked it, and I'll see you next time!