Disclaimers : I do not own any of this but the oc's, everything else belongs to there rightful owners
"Normal " - speaking
' italics ' - thinking \ flashback
" italics " - Reaper talking (in Jaune's mind)
Bold- yelling
Bold & underline - special attack / Weapon name
* Bold * - sound effect
The Unforgiving Path
Ch 2 : bonding souls
'Man, I still have face a team today don't I.' I thought as I just finished my shower, and changed into my uniform.
"OK, now that the shower is done let's get breakfast ." Reaper said eagerly.
"OK, fine we'll go, hope we don't run into anyone I know." I said, as I made my way to the cafeteria.
( The halls )
I was very cautious on my way to the cafeteria, to make sure I didn't run into anybody. " Isn't that the guy who forged his transcripts." I heard someone say. I looked left to see two people talking down a long hallway. 'What the hell." I thought, "yeah that's him, I don't understand why Ozpin keeps him here, he's going to get himself killed." the other guy said. ' How can I hear them from this far, I shouldn't be able to.' I thought, moving along while trying to figure this out.
" It's because we share the same senses, Jaune. " Reaper said
"Wait, how's that possible, how do we share our senses, and I thought only faunus can only have senses this high, Are you a faunus Reaper?" I asked trying to see if I can find out more more about him.
" for your first question, It's because we combined our auras, so in a way our souls are connected, hell, I wouldn't be surprised if you can use my aura to. For you second question you don't have to be a faunus to have high senses, you just have to train them. and for your third no I'm not a faunus. " he responded.
"Wow, so our souls are combined?" I asked
"In a way yes, our souls are connected, so now I can give you aura if things get hasty in a fight, and you might want to just talk to me in your head,people will think you're crazy. " he said, as we passed two girls that whispered "weirdo" and "creep". " Damn, girls must line up to get your number. " Reaper "complemented"
"Shut up, Reaper"
( The cafeteria )
The cafeteria wasn't busy, that was good for me since I didn't have to deal with too many glares as I made my way to the line to get breakfast.
" Hey can you double up on breakfast for today Jaune. " Reaper asked
'OK, but why? ' I asked as I got to the front of the line. A woman was waiting there, ready to take my order
"I'll tell you why later, for now order." he said
"Hi there, what will you be having today sweetie?" the woman asked.
" Hi, can I get two breakfast sandwiches, two cups of orange juice, and two apples." I said, and with that she turned around and started to get the food
"So where do we plan on eating, because it doesn't look very welcoming here." Reaper said
I turned my head to see that the cafeteria started to get busy. There were many people, and with more people more glares. You would think that it would stop after a month, but it never has.
" Here you go, two breakfast sandwiches, two orange juices, and two apples, enjoy." I heard the woman say.
" Oh, thank you ma'am, have a nice day." I said as I picked up the tray and walked away from the line.
I was making my way to the door until I saw them open. I look to see who it was and saw the people I was trying to avoid.
There at the door was team RWBY, and NPR. I was so shocked that I just stood there and panicked. Me standing there gave them enough time to spot me in my shock.
"Jaune, you're starting to panic, what's going on? " Reaper questioned.
'It's them, my old team, and team RWBY. I'm not ready to face them yet.' I answered, almost shaking through my pants.
I hoped that they would just raise their head and walk away like they always did, but instead, they walked towards me. Now at this point I actually started to freak out.
" Jaune, you're starting to hyperventilate, you have to calm down." Reaper said
Before I could think, I dropped the tray, and ran the other direction hoping to escape them.
"Get back here Jaune." I heard Ruby said,but I just ran not listening.
" Quick, get behind the pillar, fast, there all following us, and one of them is gaining on us, this one's the fastest." Reaper ordered.
'Ruby must be using her semblance to catch up.' i thought as I looked for the pillar Reaper mentioned, while dodging people that got in my way. I found the pillar, but it was to far for me to reach in time.
" Damn it. Jaune focus your aura into your legs and keep running." Reaper ordered
"What, why would I do that at a time like this." I said, listening to the footsteps get closer and closer with each step I took.
" Just listen and do it. " Reaper shouted as I responded.
' OK, fine I will.' I replied, not being left with any options.
I tried to concentrate my aura to my legs while being focused what's in front of me. Then, I suddenly felt like I was faster, lighter, more nimble. I looked down to see my legs glowing a bright white. The surprise didn't last long, as I already behind the pillar, and leaning against it.
'Alright, I'm here now what?' I said, looking around the pillar to see if they followed. They were all in front of the pillar waiting for something.
" OK, give me a minute, I need to do something ." Reaper said.
Then, I felt something around my left arm. I looked down to see what was happening, only to see my arm covered in a black aura. It looked menacing but it was actually warm, and welcoming. Then the aura started spiraling above my Palm to form a black ball the size of a golf ball, then it shoot into the shadow the pillar casted, and then it turned darker.
" OK, I'm done, all you have to do is run into the shadow." Reaper said
"What, Reaper I'm not running into a shadow, why would I, it makes no sense." I said a little above a whisper to avoid the others hearing.
" Jaune, come out, we need to talk." Yang said, putting emphasis on the 'talk' of the sentence. Then they all started walking forward towards me.
" you know what, I have nothing to lose anyways." I said while running into the shadow. Then, to my complete surprise, I walked straight through.
" Now we hav- hey where'd he go?" said Yang, now where Jaune used to be, not noticing the shadow turn from black, to a gray color.
" Did you get him Yang?" asked Ruby, now beside her sister.
" No, He was here a second ago and then disappear. " Yang said, looking around seeing if there were any traces to lead to him.
( Professor port's room )
After I went through the shadow, I opened my eyes to see a ceiling of a classroom. I pushed myself up into a sitting position to see where I was, and from the looks of it, I was back in Prof. Port's room.
" Hey, need help up" I heard Reaper say. I looked in front of me, only to see a gloved hand.
" Sure." I said, accepting the hand and being pulled up. I was about to walk towards a desk to sit in, until I noticed something " Hey wait a minute, how are you out of my head?"I questioned with a surprised tone.
" Jaune, I don't know if I told you this, but I can leave you body anytime I want to." he said in a matter of fact tone.
" Really, but I thought that our souls where connection." I said confused by what was happening, this is too much for me to handle.
" I said our auras were connected, not our souls, and even if our souls were, doesn't mean I have to stay inside your head, so if I ever feel that you are the wrong host, I can leave your body whenever I want." he explained, making it easier for me to understand. "if we're going to continue this Q&A let's at least eat breakfast." he said, walking to a desk and taking a seat.
" Yeah, about that. I kinda dropped the food when I ran away, sorry about that." I said sheepishly.
"I know but I saved the sandwiches, that should be enough for breakfast, right." and with that, he pulled out two sandwiches from nowhere. "Here" he offered.
'I'm not even going to ask how he got them' I thought "Thanks." I said taking sandwich, a and the seat next to him
"So have any questions you want to ask?" he said while taking off the mask, and digging into the sandwich.
Now that I thought about it, I did have questions but not very many.
" yeah, what was that back there, when I was running and the aura helped me go faster, what was that." I asked watching him eat the sandwich.
He paused from taking another bit to answer my question. " What happened was, when you surrounded you leg with aura, the muscles in the legs were given strength, and relaxed to the point where it felt like you were walking on air, and aura can do a lot more then that, but that's a lesson for another time. Anything else?" he said, finishing his breakfast.
"Yeah, when I was behind the pillar, some black aura came out of my hand, and shoot into the shadow, what was that about." I said, now deciding to eat my breakfast.
" That was my aura that shot into it, that's what I needed to do in order it activate my semblance." he said
I look at him, questioning if he was telling the truth or not. "What's your semblance Reaper, can you teleport?" I asked continuing to eat my breakfast, while Reaper kicks his feet up on the desk, leans back and pop open a Pepschnee. ' How many of those does he even have' I mentally deadpanned
" Well since we're going to be partners, and you might need to use it on your own one day, I'll tell you." he said taking a swig of the soda. " My semblance is Shadow Manipulation."
"what's that mean?" I asked
" I had a feeling that you would say that, so let me explain and make an example with my weapon." he said, picking up the mask and clipping it to his side so he would stand, and held his palm downward. Then suddenly, all the shadows in the room started to shift towards his palm, the action caused me to jump up on the desk thinking that it would save me. As soon as the shadows meet under his palm, they started to come to life, as they lifted from the ground to meet his palm. When they did meet, the shadow started to take a form, it look like it it would be a polearm type weapon, like a bo staff or a spear, then the shadows made the shape a large, curved at the top, then the shadows shot away and revealed what it was. What I saw next left me in awe.
There in Reaper's hand was a was a great scythe. The handle of the weapon was a black with thin, red paints covering it in a twisting fashion, and a ring in the center of it. The blade of the scythe, which was near his neck, looked really intimidating, it looked like it was three feet long, it was sharp all around so it would cut anywhere, the bevels of the blade had some type of wavy texture. Near the base of the blade it curved in leaving a semi-circle that looked like it was meant to decapitate Grimm, the bottom of the scythe had a blade identical to the first one, except smaller, and straight out. The most noticing feature though, was the red crystal on the top of the staff section, it didn't look like any dust crystal I've seen before. Before I could continue Reaper started speaking.
" Shadow Manipulation gives me the ability to control the shadows that I've connected my aura, it can do a lot for me, like fighting, teleporting, storing stuff, and lots more. What you witnessed just now, was me calling the upon the shadows to give me my weapon here." He said, giving the scythe a full rotation in his hands and putting it in the same position as it was before.
" Wait, this is your weapon?" I asked, getting off the desk.
" Yep, this is my weapon, it's name is Phantom obsidian." he said with pride in his voice.
" But if this is your weapon, then what were those things on your hips when we first met?" I said, looking to see if they're there. They weren't.
" that was Phantom, in its dual wield form, watch." he said while giving the scythe a small, but firm pull and they came apart by the ring at the center. When they came apart the bottom blade went from being nearly identical, to fully. Besides the crystal, everything was the same the shape, the size, hell even the texture on the bevels were the same.
" This is the form I usually keep them in ether for fighting or just to keep it sheathed." he said, putting the scythes to his hips, when he did, they folded so they would hang there comfortably.
" well, that makes it easier to understand." I said sitting back down in a chair, Reaper doing the same. " but I have one more question to ask you, it's been bugging me."
"shoot." he said, drinking more of his soda, relaxing once more.
" why me, why are you choosing to help me of all the people in the world. A scrawny, weak, stupid guy who had to cheat his way into a combat school without being aware of the risks." I asked
I looked at him to see if he would do anything, but he didn't do anything. He didn't move, flinch, look, blink, he didn't even breath. If I didn't know any better, I would think he was a statue. After awhile, he looked at me with a look that said ' I've been through too much' and then he spoke
" Jaune, can I tell you a story about myself?" he asked looking to the floor, as if he was nervous to tell me.
" Sure, you can tell me." I said. He waited a while, thinking of the words to to say.
" When I was young, I lived in a small village near Mistrial known as Frontída. We weren't the best village but we were a happy one, there were hardly any trouble, kids played, family's were happy, people worked together, and I was happy there." he told with a small smile on his face.
" during that time I was five, I had a happy family. I had a mother, and a father, both professional hunters, and grandparents, they were retired, and my mother was on a maternity leave because she was expecting a daughter, so that meant I was getting a sister, and I was ecstatic to have one, every time I would go outside I would meet my best friend. She was a wolf faunus,her name was Lýkos, we were pretty much inseparable, we would play all day until bedtime." he continued, but now the smile turned into a frown, and started to clench his fists, I thought I could hear the atoms that we're trapped in them start to break.
" Then my peaceful life was ruined." he said, eyebrows now furrowed, as if he was looking at his worst enemy.
" Some guy came to our village leader, demanding that he have complete control of our village, and its forces, the leader denied him any control. So the man left. Later on that night our village was attacked and set ablaze by the same man. I lost everything that I held close to me just because some ass hole didn't get his way. The only reason I'm still alive is because my dad ran and put me in the safe house the village had and, he gave me my mother's necklace said she always wanted me to have it and ran back to the fight. The worst part of it was that I was probably the only survivor of that massacre for all I know." he finished, releasing his fist and calming down. " After that the Grimm came and swept the village of what was left. I was out of the safe house at the time so I was forced to run with only two things to remember my family." he said, reaching into his shirt and and pulling out a necklace, that had a that had a silver chain, and a purple gem hanging from it.
"So Jaune, to answer your question, the reason I choose to help you was because when I first saw you yesterday, I saw myself in you. You had the look of sadness, fear, betrayal, and your story only proved my point more. A boy who had everything stripped from him, just because some jerk didn't get his way. At that point I knew I had to help you, so you wouldn't become like me." he said putting my question to rest.
" you've been through so much, and at an age like that, how did you survive?" I asked, thinking of what to say after that.
" I'll tell you that another time, for now please answer my question." he said, getting up and looking at me with a soft expression.
" OK, what is it?" I asked, as he walked towards me and stopped on top of my shadow.
" Why did you trust me so fast? for all you know I could have came to murder you." He asked, now deciding to clip his mask on his face.
It was a question that I didn't expect, so it took me some time to answer, he just stood there waiting for his answer.
" Reaper, the reason I trusted you so fast was because you were the first person to show me kindness in a whole month." I said but he didn't look satisfied with my answer, so I continued.
" This whole month here at Beacon has been nothing but a hell hole. I was abandoned by my friends, disowned by the Arc family, pushed around. I couldn't even go into the city without getting any dirty looks because everyone knows about the headline that hit the world 'The Arc Failure' that cheated his way into Beacon. I had no plans for whenever this would happen, so I was lost. But you were different, now I'm not going to lie I thought you were going to kill me when I told you everything, but no, you didn't do anything, but you actually decided to help me become a stronger, so that's why I trusted you so fast." I finished, Reaper looked satisfied with my answer this time.
" And besides." I said, bringing my fist out to him. " Strangers are just friends you haven't meet yet" I finished.
Reaper stood there not doing anything, before he chuckled. It was hard to tell with the mask, but I knew there was a smile on his face.
" Yeah man, now I definitely know that me and you will get along just fine." he said as he raised his fist, then we gave each other a fist bump. Then he started to sink into my shadow, but it was a different feeling this time, it felt as if warm water was being slowly poured onto me and it was pleasant. Then he completely submerged into my shadow.
Then I heard the door open and low and behold, there was the owner of this classroom, professor port.
" Oh mister Arc you're here already, it's a little early don't you think." the jolly man said, as he started to walk down the stairs to get to the bottom. I looked to see what time it was, it was 8:30 AM.
' 30 more minutes until class starts.' I thought. " Yeah, I just wanted to get here early so I can prepare for class today." I said.
" It's a bit of a surprise, you're the first to come to class this early" he said, reaching the bottom of the stairs, and walked to his desk.
" Well you know what they say, it's better to be an hour early than a minute late." I said, hoping those words would cut me free.
" Very true mister Arc, very true indeed." he said reaching his desk to prepare for his classes.
" Nice, you pulled it off." I heard Reaper praise.
" That reminds me of a time when I was young hunter, i'll tell you when class starts." he said turning around to write something on the chalkboard.
' Oh Oum, why .' I mentally mourned, as I now had to prepare for Prof. Port's torturous stories.
"what's wrong, it's just some stories." Reaper said, unaware of the tournament that lied ahead.
' Oh , you're going to be in for a big surprise.' I finished.
End of Ch 2
AN: Unknown back guys, and here is another chapter.
I just want to thank you all for all the likes and the favorites of this story. So thank you, and if you guys enjoyed it then please follow, favorite, and review
And until the next chapter, unknown out