Chapter 6. Battle of the Blonds and Smoldering Embers
"It's times like this that I regret coming to this madhouse." Jaune thought as he looked at his sparring partner. The best thing about schools like Beacon is that fighting and sparring among students was actually encouraged, so afterhours combat practice was more than allowed.
"You ready for this lady-killer?" Yang asked, stretching her arms up and eliciting a few pops from her back. She had opted for a more relaxed outfit, still striving to get a rise out of Jaune. She was wearing a form fitting yellow muscle shirt with her emblem on it, a pair of short boy shorts, and wrappings around her hands. This was meant to be a more relaxed and informal spar, and as such Jaune was also dressed down and without his armor and weapons. He was clad in a sleeveless black muscle shirt and loose fitting black sweatpants.
"Absolutely, this should be interesting." Jaune said, bending his knees and prepping his arms.
Yang said nothing more, opting to charge in and trying to give and uppercut to Jaune's solar plexus. Jaune twisted to the left out of the way and used the torso turn to power a left hook at Yang's face. Yang made a mistake at this point in trying to tank Jaune's punch and use her semblance to add its power to her own, and almost lost her lower jaw.
Yang flew, Jaune became concerned, and their audience was in awe. Yang landed hard and struggled to get her feet under her. Taking a massive hit to the body or torso was something easy for her semblance, but taking such hits to the face or head made it possible for her to be knocked out. When the room stopped spinning Yang noted that her hair was glowing brilliantly and the power she felt coursing through her limbs was startling.
"You're in trouble now Jauney boy." Yang said in a sing song voice, working to not grimace when her injured jaw protested the movement.
"We'll see." Jaune said calmly.
Yang sped towards Jaune, moving faster than she expected. It was only her combat experience that let her not simply zoom past Jaune. She sent out a left cross, attempting to repay Jaune for his attack to her face. But Jaune caught the punch with his right hand, his furrowing brow making clear that he wasn't expecting such force. His retaliation was to launch his left into a gut punch, which was blocked by Yang's forearm. Even with her aura and semblance she felt the bones in her forearms either bruise or fracture, but even with her attempt to block her feet came up off of the ground.
Jaune spun and brought Yang over his head and slammed her down. Yang was slightly winded but her semblance took the hit and she retaliated by kicking Jaune in his face. The empowerment by her semblance made her hit much stronger than it could have ever been on its own. Jaune was sent sliding back seeing stars. Jaune used the momentum to roll backwards and get to his feet while Yang kipped up to her feet. They both looked at each other, Yang was now super powered and looking to actually beat Jaune while Jaune was smirking slightly.
"Well now, I guess I should stop holding back so much." Jaune said, touching the middle of his chest. A red glow emanated from under the skintight fabric, emitted from a circular glyph that was on his chest. It had five concentric rings, complete with runic script, with the Horseman horse skull motif in the center. Weiss, recognizing the design, gasped in shock.
"Weiss? What is it?" Ruby asked, munching on some cookies.
"That glyph, it's a power limiter!" Weiss said, recalling back to the ease in which Jaune had bested her.
"So Jaune…" Pyrrha trailed off, realizing what Weiss was implying.
"Jaune's been under a handicap from the beginning. Always fighting at a reduced level." Ren surmised, leaning forward.
"So what does that mean for Jaune?" Ruby asked, Weiss looked ready to snap at her but Pyrrha answered first.
"Imagine if you tried using your speed semblance while wearing heavy weights, it would be hard at first but you would adapt and strengthen. Then if you remove those weights your top speed is greater than it was when you started training." Pyrrha explained calmly, Ruby's eyes widening in understanding.
"But this glyph is much more than that." Weiss continued, noting that when Yang and Jaune reengaged the fight was much more in favor of Jaune. "It's clear that the glyph limits his physical ability…" she stopped as the two fighters fists connected in a battle of might, feeling the resulting shockwave rattle every bone in her. "…Jaune's glyph is designed to limit all facets of him. His other abilities are likely just as enhanced now, I would imagine his own use of glyphs is much more potent now. The same for his aura." Weiss said, wincing at the side kick that Jaune sent into Yang's stomach. Even with Yang's unique aura and semblance the girl still was suffering from internal damage if the blood dripping from her mouth was any indicator. The worst part was, since Weiss's defensive aura was nowhere near as impressive as Yang's she could easily imagine the damage such a strike would do to her own body.
"That looked like it hurt." Nora said, clutching her own stomach in sympathy.
"It's about to hurt a lot more." Blake said, watching Jaune rear his fist back to punch the downed Yang. Fortunately for Yang she was able to roll to the side and avoid the strike, unfortunately the punch continued and met the floor. Which promptly shattered. (think sakura punch in shippuden)If Yang had tried to take that she would be sent to the infirmary, but thankfully she had recovered enough to resume the offensive. She would later learn of the conversation in the stands but for now she learned, in the hardest way possible, how much Jaune's aura had improved with the loosening of the limiter. The massive force of nature that was Jaune's had, through intensive training under Death, been trained to passively use his aura as a form of defense. For most it would simply make normally lethal wounds nonlethal, but for Jaune, with his aura being significantly greater in amount and potency, it served as a near impenetrable barrier.
Yang almost broke her hand on the aura, her fist hovering at least an inch from Jaune and being unable to come any closer. Yang, in that moment, realized that this was a fight she couldn't win. She was injured, winded, and starting to feel a strain on her aura. But Jaune was still fresh, his own aura having healed what little damage she had inflicted on him and now both protecting and empowering him.
"I yield." Yang said, straightening up. She again fought down a wince as the kick had done quite a number on her.
"That's somewhat disappointing Yang." Jaune said, standing up. "Are you alright?"
"That kick took a lot out of me, but I'll be fine." Yang said, waving off Jaune's concern. But she blushed when he closed the distance and placed his hand on her shoulder. The height difference was pretty startling, Jaune being almost two heads taller than Yang, but the closeness brought Jaune's chest and abs directly into Yang's immediate field of view.
Jaune hadn't noticed the blush, instead channeling a fractionally small amount of his aura into Yang. She nearly yelped as she felt her reserves refill in a split second. She could feel the aura repairing all of the damage in moments, she felt like her aura was on its own unique high. It was best describable as her aura on a sugar rush, roid rage, and a cocaine high all at the same time. When she came to her senses Jaune had already steered her to a seat and was looking at her with some concern.
"I'm fine." Yang said a little breathlessly, she was struggling to regulate her aura again.
Jaune simply nodded, glancing at the rest of Team RWBY and stepping back. A Horseman's aura was more potent than a human's. It would supercharge Yang's aura for a time but would also make it more unruly for a time.
"Yang, are you ok?" Ruby said, shaking her sister's shoulder. She recoiled a bit as a small red spark jumped out at her. Ruby wasn't hurt but her hand was now numb.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I just…need a moment." Yang said, not noticing the spark that had jumped out at Ruby.
Jaune checked out of the conversation at this, his attention focused on his limiter glyph. He was about to retighten it, he had used a small degree of his power, not even enough to feasibly put an estimation on, but it had significantly boosted all of his powers. That included his abilities of foresight.
He looked at Ruby and perceived her importance in upcoming events. He found that by altering his perception of his power's function he could make them manifest in ways that made them more understandable in particular circumstances. For now, Jaune was seeing what he called 'threads of conflict'. He perceived battles and confrontation, past or future, as red strings that wrapped around and extended from a particular target. In Ruby's case he noted a few key threads, one of which was recent and, upon Jaune tapping into it, showed the young reaper engaged in a brief scuffle with a man in a white suit and a briefer encounter with a shadowed woman with glowing orange eyes.
Other threads Jaune simply glanced at, an argument with Weiss, a few short lived beowolves in the initiation, and a small argument with Yang. But there was one particular thread that was very important, Jaune saw it as a bright red rope-like line that coiled around Ruby and extended from her before branching off to connect to all of the other trainees around her. The thing that interested Jaune was the branching threads that extended off into space. One of which Jaune saw involved the man in white again, who now Jaune could see was Roman Torchwick, but another involved a woman in a red dress, with black hair, and orange eyes. Jaune knew that this woman was of exceeding importance, but she apparently kept a low profile.
Jaune would meditate on her later, if he did it right he would be able to see all she had ever done. He couldn't explain it, but he felt the need to find her. She had looked all the part of a manipulator or schemer, and either one on the loose posed a risk.
"Jaune!" Ruby said, bringing Jaune out of his revere.
"Hmm, what is it?" Jaune said, finishing with his glyph reapplication.
"We're planning a little outing for both teams, we just wanted your input." Blake said, not bothering to look up from her book.
"I'm not familiar with the shops of Vale, but if we can find a place with food and no issues with volume we can learn more about each other." Jaune said pragmatically. A beeping from Weiss's scroll brought her attention from everyone else and to it.
"We should turn in, it's beginning to get late and we need to eat before bed." The heiress said.
"Seconded." Jaune said, cracking his neck one way then the other. The rest of the group had no arguments so they all made their way to the cafeteria. In less than an hour there were eight relaxed and well fed students lounging in their rooms. But while everyone else was winding down for the night Jaune was entering a meditative state. He found the woman he saw earlier, Cinder Fall he learned, and looked into her presence in time. He was not pleased with what he saw.
In her future he saw Pyrrha's death, he saw the destabilization of the upcoming Vale festival, the machinations of her and her associates, the participations in dust thefts, the interaction between her and the White Fang, the recruiting of the two with her, and finally the attempted theft of the powers of a season maiden. It was now, after seeing all that this woman had and would do, that he realized what he had sensed earlier about her. She was a wicked soul, a being who he, as a Horseman of the Apocalypse, was honor bound to hunt and destroy.
Far away, in a tucked away corner of Vale, Cinder awoke with a shiver. For some reason, she felt as if her life had just been evaluated and that her live span was just drastically reduced.