Jaune was conflicted.
Several days had passed since he had come crashing into the past.
Oh, yeah, that was important.
The past.
Thousands of years before his time.
The gods pulled a fast one on him, though truthfully, he wasn't that surprised.
He was far more suprised by the fact that he was currently laying on a thin layer of fabric in the home of his worst enemy.
If that wasn't the shock of the millennium, he didn't want to know what was.
It took him a solid three seconds after hearing her introduction to faint.
Seriously! Who did he piss off to get such rotten luck?
When he woke a few hours later, he was greeted by the woman he now knew to be salem, fretting over him
He managed to bluff his way out of any uncomfortable questions.
In the days since then, she spent an hour each day using her magic to heal him, followed by a few hours of Salem trying her hardest to keep a conversation going.
He refused to admit it but it was adorable to watch. Like a puppy taking its first steps and failing.
When she ran out of steam, Jaune picked up the slack by asking her about magic under the guise of trying to set some memories loose.
Once he got her started, she turned into a completely different person.
Gone was the proud, yet timid girl who awkwardly tried to make conversation. In her place stood a bright and confident young woman who spoke about magic with such passion that he could barely believe she was the same woman who would one day become the Queen of Grimm and Terror of Remnant.
However, despite all of that, Jaune was a very simple man. A part of him that he hadn't entertained since his early days at Beacon reared its head.
An opportunity was in front of him that he didn't hesitate for a second to grasp.
Magic. Real magic. He felt like a child running to wake his parents on Christmas morning.
Just the thought of it excited him.
He agreed to Salom's offer to teach him before he even realized it.
For some strange reason, she was overjoyed.
He was immediately filled with dread when she pulled out a giant book.
If Pyrrha was watching him from the Great Beyond, she would have been laughing herself back to life from his expression alone.
Through these lessons, he learned a great many things.
First and foremost, he learned that the reason why his aura had failed to protect him was because his aura was simply gone.
He thought back to the burning sensation he had felt after the God of Darkness had touched him.
Just another thing to tack on to his list of reasons to hate the gods.
He decided to get that list trademarked the first chance he got.
He only realized it when salem asked if she could check his mana level.
At the time, Jaune thought that "mana" was just an ancient word for aura.
As it turned out, he was very wrong.
Salem pressed her index and middle fingers against his forehead, just as Pyrrha had done all those years ago during their initiation.
However, unlike then, instead of feeling the weight of his soul lifting off his shoulders, Mana felt entirely different.
It felt as if a calm ocean suddenly turned into a violent hurricane inside his soul.
Also, unlike aura, this phenomenon was visible.
The small cylinder that was Salem's room was flooded with a torrent of white light that blinded both of them.
When the light faded, Jaune burst into laughter.
The reason? Salem stood still, her expression mimicking that of a fish out of water.
"You have a ridiculously large mana pool," she remarked, jealousy bleeding through every word.
Jealously quickly turned into curiosity and excitement at his potential.
She ran off to get another comically large book, much to his eternal dismay.
"Each person is born with certain magical affinities," she began to explain. "With elemental magic, a person typically has an affinity for at least one of the six main subtypes."
It really was amazing how accurate video games of his time were when it came to magic.
The six subtypes were pretty simple: Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Light, and Dark Magic. Each of those subtypes also had subtypes, but apparently you couldn't have an affinity for a subtype of magic.
Salem went on to explain the way to determine one's affinity was to channel mana into a specific type of rune.
Jaune could feel the seventeen-year-old nerd within him having a heart attack from sheer excitement.
That excitement was quickly squashed.
Salem etched the rune into the marble floor of her home and motioned for him to channel mana into it.
"I don't understand," Salem spoke with clear confusion, "Everyone has at least one elemental affinity. Why don't you have one?"
Her new friend presented her with a magic mystery! She was so excited!
Jaune, on the other hand...
Salem looked up from her book only to see something that made her wince.
Jaune was absolutely inconsolable.
"Everything is fine." He curled up into a ball, pure depression leaking from every word. "So what if I can't level mountains with ease? That sounds lame anyway."
Oh dear.
Salem scrambled to etch another rune into her floor.
"it will be alright!" she said frantically. "You might have a strong healing afinity!"
A glum Jaune slowly inched over and placed his hand on the new rune.
This time, the reaction was very different.
"What?!" Salem shrieked. "That shouldn't be possible!"
Jaune's poor ears cried out for help.
Salem roughly gripped Jaune's shoulders, her face glowing with excitement.
"You have the strongest affinity for healing magic I've ever seen," she shook his limp body back and forth. "Your affinity for healing is even greater than two of my elemental affinities combined!"
Jaune could already feel a headache setting in.
"Do you know what this means?" Salem's eyes looked as though they were filled with stars. "You outrank a Royal! That's incredibly rare, especially to this degree."
That brought some light back to Jaune's eyes.
"That was great and all, but I don't know how to use it." Jaune severely doubted Salem realized that was bait.
Salem grasped his hands and invaded his personal space with a never-before-seen fervor. "I'll teach you!" she tightened her grip as he tried to back away. "You'll be my star pupil."
When she got like this, she really reminded him of Ruby.
"How could I turn down an offer like that?" He chuckled awkwardly as he gently pushed her away from him. "Why don't we start tomorrow?"
The future looked bright indeed.
Magic wasn't the only thing Jaune had learned.
A full week had passed since he'd crashed through Salem's roof. It was kind of inevitable that they would eventually interact.
He learned a lot about her in that time.
Being practically immobile for the first three days made conversation essential to avoid going absolutely insane.
Salem was shy at first, but by the eve of the second day, she had crawled out of her shell.
She regaled him with stories of her family, growing up as a royal, and the eventual betrayal by her power-hungry stepmother.
In truth, her story struck a chord with him. All she wanted was a life of freedom so she could live up to her family's legacy.
Jaune, against his better judgment, told her an edited version of his own story.
how he wanted to live up to his family name, his time training under a much stronger warrior, and even tales of his travels across anima
She hung on to his every word as he spoke about his travels. Her eyes sparkled whenever he described places from his adventures.
Eventually, their conversation shifted to other more basic topics.
"I don't believe you," Salem crossed her arms in mock disbelief. "You certainly don't look twenty-three."
Talk about a gut punch. Damn.
"Hey," he said, his voice shaking as he tried to regain control. "Fighting for your life every day isn't great for the skin."
It was still hard to believe that he was twenty-three. The war against the woman who sat across from him had dragged on for a long time after the fall of Atlas.
Also that business in Ever After didn't count. He was still in his youth damnit!
"You can use healing magic to help with that," she stared down at a chessboard sat between them, "With your affinity, you'll look better in no time."
He laughed, "Calling me ugly now?" Jaune took her rook with his bishop. "I don't know," he said. "A friend of mine told me that the rugged look was part of my charm."
Salem looked unimpressed. "Your friend lied to you." She captured his bishop with a knight.
Jaune dramatically put his hand over his heart. "Your words cut deep, Princess."
Salem's eyes twitched.
He learned quite quickly that calling her princess annoyed her to no end. Coincidentally, annoying Salem became one of his favorite pastimes.
Salem used her knight to knock down Jaune's rook, more aggressively than before.
Today was the tenth day since Jaune had appeared in the past, and he was growing bored.
A man could only be beaten in chess so many times before his ego took a hit.
"Hey Salem," Jaune positioned his queen to take a pawn and leave Salem in check.
"Want to try and leave?"
Her hand hesitated over her knight before moving to protect her king. "I've told you already, Jaune," she said. "We can't leave."
Jaune cursed as he retracted his Queen. "Are you absolutely certain?" He glanced toward the hole in the roof. Days of boredom had led him to several different escape plans. "If I got in that way, shouldn't we be able to leave that way too?"
Salem thought for a moment before her brow creased. "I refuse to believe it's that easy."
She rose to her feet and raised her palm to the sky. A black orb appeared a few inches in front of her palm, and a beam fired through the hole completely unimpeded.
Salem's face was absolutely priceless. She went from shock to the biggest pout he had ever seen.
Jaune couldn't stop himself from laughing at her misfortune.
In retaliation, she drenched him with ice-cold water.
That certainly silenced him.
Once the initial shock faded, Salem squealed with excitement. Yes, you read that correctly; the Queen of Grimm and Princess of the Everyday Kingdom squealed.
What a sight that was.
It was like watching Ruby discover a new weapon of mass destruction.
Needless to say, he wasn't surprised when she appeared in front of him and rapidly shook him.
"Jaune, do you know what this means?" Every word that came out of her mouth was dripping with enthusiasm. "After all these years, I'm finally free! I can finally fulfill my dream!"
What was that dream you might ask? Salem had told him about it over a particularly crushing game of chess.
Salem wanted to explore the entire world.
He wasn't really suprised.
Jaune tried his best to calm her down, but it was all in vain.
"How can you not be excited?" She finally stopped shaking him. "This is such a big opportunity!"
Jaune sighed before looking out the window. "Look at the sky, Salem," he said, rubbing his eyes. "It's midnight." He paused and then added, "We'll head out tomorrow morning."
That was apparently not the right thing to say.
Salem looked as though she were a child who had just been denied candy.
She also acted like it.
She complained for a solid twenty minutes brfore he finally tuned her out and went to sleep.
He doubted she was pleased with that.
Oh well. That's a problem for future Jaune.
Salem was having the best week of her life
First she made a friend! The first of many she hoped, but...
Jaune was an odd man.
Salem had heard stories of knights ever since she was a little girl.
She had always been told that they were chivalrous, honorable, and gentlemanly warriors who fought against the greatest evils and fiercely protected those they cared about.
However, when she met Jaune, that image was shattered.
He never acted like the knights in her stories. He was a lot less flashy; he spoke with her as an equal and would even jest with her. He never treated her like a delicate flower. She liked that.
Even so, it was clear to her that Jaune was a warrior, but there were some things...off about him.
For starters, the way he spoke.
The only explanation she could think of was that he came from a backwater frontier village.
Another thing was his clothes.
His armor was well-taken care of. It had seen combat countless times, yet somehow looked to be in pristine condition. His actual clothes, however, were what she found odd.
His trousers were made of a very odd material. He called the material "combat denim" when she asked about it, but that didn't help her understand any better.
There was also the matter of his... hoodie? That was he called the peculiar article of clothing.
It was a hooded garment that fit his body snugly. She had never seen anything like it.
Then there was the other thing about it...
On the fourth day after Jaune's arrival, she offered to clean his clothes using magic. He reluctantly agreed and she requested that he remove his armor. Then she saw it...
That adorable bunny emblem! Any reservations she had about the strange knight evaporated when she saw it.
His face burned red as she cooed of the adorable thing.
In that moment, she decided that it was impossible for anyone wearing something so cute to be evil.
As the week stretched on, she learned she was right.
Jaune was a good man.
She always paid close attention whenever he told her stories about his travels. Adventures through the wilds and great journeys were what he spoke of most.
She loved his stories, but she did notice one thing.
Jaune never mentioned any of his friends with detail.
He made passing remarks about his comrades but refused to go into detail when she pressed him for more information.
Salem would openly admit she could be very naive at times, but even she knew what that meant.
His comrades were all gone, likely dead. Such was the path of a knight.
The mere thought of it made her sad.
She turned to look at his sleeping form with a frown.
Jaune was a good man, but he was also a deeply troubled one.
That much was clear to Salem from the very first day they met.
It saddened her.
Jaune quickly became her best friend, though admittedly that was through the process of elimination. Still, she enjoyed his company.
She wanted to help him.
So she made a decision.
When the morning came, and they had escaped this accursed tower, she would take him with her to see the world.
After all, it was poor form for a teacher to abandon her student.
She wanted to show Jaune how much she appreciated what he had done for her and that even if he had no one else, he had her.
She would help him.
That she promised.
Hello again! i hope you enjoyed the chapter.
I hope to aim for a minimum of 2k word chapters from here on out.
As for the chapter, I apologize for the slow start, but some world-building was necessary.
I have high hopes for this story and I aim to upload somewhat consistently.
If this story turns out well, there are a few other ideas I have floating around that I could turn into another handful of fics.
But I shouldn't get too ahead of myself.
Either way, I look forward to hearing your feedback.
In the next chapter, we will begin to explore the outside world.
Stay tuned!