"Have you ever killed someone, Jaune?" His partner, Pyrrha Nikos asked as she walked alongside him. She was absently twirling her hair and her tone had been casual.
"Nope, never." He answered.
"I've heard it's excusable when another life is at risk." Pyrrha brought a hand up to her face and looked up to the sky. "Say," she began with an unnaturally curious tone, "I'm just wondering, but you wouldn't happen to be planning on killing someone? Are you?" She paused and then shook her head. "No, no, never mind, I'm just being silly." Then she suddenly leaned in and whispered. "Unless?" Her eyes begged for an answer.
"By that logic, planning to kill me would make you an excusable killing target." Jaune absently responded as his eyes searched the forest for a clear path.
"Are you planning on killing me?" Pyrrha asked as her breathing sped up, and a healthy red flush filled her cheeks. Her hands twitched and her eyes darted to the spear on her back.
Jaune turned to look at his partner, and a smile graced his lips. "You're one odd little duck." With how weird she was, he almost felt normal in comparison. "Thanks."
The healthy flush on her cheeks got a few shades deeper and Pyrrha stopped in her tracks, her gaze went to the ground and her hands met each other. She started to fidget in place. She swallowed loudly before speaking. "Jaune, can you listen to my request?"
"Huh? Sure, what's up?" He stopped and turned to face her.
"It's just a small favor." Her hand grasped her spear. "Just a little." She held her spear with both hands. "It's fine if it's just the ti-"
In the middle of her request, the forest hadn't stopped making its natural sounds, and yet the single crunch of a leaf indistinguishable from the many sounds that had been naturally produced provoked a violent reaction.
Pyrrha's right arm blurred and her spear vanished, Jaune didn't have time to blink before he heard a violent explosion of wind that tossed up surrounding leaves, twigs, and rocks. When his line of sight was no longer obscured, he followed the path of his partner's outstretched arm.
A person was standing in the path, or maybe more accurately, a corpse was standing in the path. And while that could be deduced from the spear hole that had pierced their chest, where a ribcage, lung and heart were supposed to be. What truly gave away that they were a corpse was the exposed bones barely covered by discolored rotting flesh, and the fact that they were currently lacking a head.
Jaune blinked, this was his second time seeing a dead body, but his first time seeing one decayed and standing.
The corpse shambled forward.
First time seeing a corpse moving too. "What's that?" Jaune pointed at the moving corpse, maybe they had something in common.
Pyrrha blinked as she looked up, apparently she had thrown before she had seen what her target was, because she appeared to be just as confused as he was. "I'm not sure, there's plenty of Grimm capabie of making a corpse move, and a few that could make it appear as if a corpse was moving."
"Really?" Jaune had only ever heard of animal-like Grimm, he was pretty sure he was taught that Grimm were animals resurrected by dark magic, or maybe that had just been a fairy tale, he probably should've paid more attention.
"It doesn't appear to have died recently, so it's probably not a Chill." Pyrrha spoke as she approached the shambling corpse, she did a quick walk around it. "I don't see a mask, so it's probably not a Geist." The shambling corpse tried to follow her but it tripped over itself as it turned around. She knelt down next to it and took in a deep sniff. "This scent…" she closed her eyes and took a moment before she continued. "It's been dead for about two years, but look at this flesh." She poked and prodded the corpse crawling towards her. "It's still this well preserved, how marvelous."
Jaune walked up to the corpse, and he knelt next to Pyrrha. "Is it really that well preserved, it looks rotten to me." He poked at the outstretched arm that was trying to claw at them. "Feels like bad leather."
"No, no, this is great." Pyrrha grabbed the hand with her left hand, and with her right she grabbed the wrist, with a quick tug she separated the hand. "It's still fragile and yet maintained without any help, some corpses fall apart within a few days, most can't even last a month."
"Oh, really?" That was useful information, so his body would run out in a within a month if he stopped healing it. "Do you know what it is yet?"
"Oh," Pyrrha blinked, "I would wager it's a Grudge. The corpse seems real enough that I doubt my senses are being fooled. Grudges are a type of Grimm that is spawned from corpses that have been heavily exposed to Grimm Residue."
Grimm Residue, that was what he called Essence and Ashes, the official term he only knew thanks to Yang's memories. "I thought that caused a disease that drained your Aura before it killed you." Or, well, Yang had thought so at least.
"Scientists and scholars are still having trouble studying Grimm in their entirety, I wouldn't put too much faith into theories that stem from fairy tales." As she spoke she began pulling apart the corpse at its joints. "It used to be standard procedure to burn Grudges, but that was before people learned that the smoke created from them caused the Grimm to infect living people as well." Pyrrha appeared to be speaking without realizing it, she continued her speech, but she had lost the sugary sweet tone she normally spoke with. "Now it's standard to dissolve the remains in a vat of acid, but I wonder how long humans will use that method, a simple misplaced vat in the wrong hands, a gallon or two in a water source, it's like they're asking for an outbreak."
"And this method?" Jaune gestured towards the pile of dismembered body parts.
"A stopgap at most!" Pyrrha smiled. "The Grudge can only infect humans, animals and the like are immune, and as long as humans don't consume an infected animal then they're safe!" She stood up and stretched. "Alternatively, right now this is just a corpse, it can no longer move, hardly different from a non-infected corpse. The only issue with this method is the question as to whether or not a soul is trapped inside the remains unable to pass on to the next step." Her tone probably tasted like marshmallows.
Jaune blinked at the corpse, within his Ethereal Sight he saw faded orange lights stained in something resembling a black sludge. He reached his hand out and although his corpse stopped at the flesh of another corpse, his hand continued on, he scooped out the sludge and without a second thought he dragged it into his corpse. As he opened his eyes, he witnessed the corpse shimmer orange before it crumbed to a fine dust. "It should be fine now." He said as he turned to face his partner.
Pyrrha blinked at him, somehow she had retrieved her spear and was currently pointing it at him, but her eyes were locked over where the corpse used to be. "Do you consider releasing a Soul from a body to be killing?" Her words sounded hollow.
"Hmm, well maybe if they had previously been alive before the act, but well I think this counts as an exorcism or something."
"Ah," she lowered her weapon with a pout, "fair point." She didn't even try to argue, and her smile afterwards was relieved.
Perhaps he shouldn't have performed his exorcism, and sure there were no signs of that being the cause of the swarms of Grudges flocking to him, but he couldn't really think of anything else. He did also consider they were just curious as to his own ability to be an undead corpse.
Pyrrha was the one responsible for immobilizing the swarm and guarding him as he purged the fallen corpses of the black sludge that stained their souls. With an ounce of curiosity he had watched what happened to a cleansed soul and unsurprisingly it just faded away, he might have been shocked if it had drifted towards the sky or underground, but no such luck.
Jaune did feel slightly odd with the black sludge that was rapidly starting his own soul, but it just felt mildly annoying, nothing he was concerned about. The swarm did eventually stop, and he was somewhat surprised at just how many people have died in this forest. Also it appeared that Grudges didn't have an expiration date; corpses dressed in ancient attire had crawled out from the ground. When all was said and done, he felt like he had eaten a large salad for breakfast.
Feeling slightly full, Jaune asked Pyrrha if they could take a quick break before continuing, she agreed and then sat down next to where he had sat, he told her he was going to meditate and then he deposited a bit of his own Soul and some of the Sludge into his clothes, armor, and shield. And while he was at it, he connected with the portion of his Soul within his sword.
'Took you long enough.' It snapped at him, oddly enough he couldn't reabsorb it, information sorted out his confusion.
The Soul in the sword appeared to be anchored within the steel, similar to how he was anchored within his corpse. During whatever happened that turned him undead a deep part of his Soul was splintered off, although similar to how he could deposit a portion of his Soul but that was actually Aura at work, his Soul just produced Aura and reabsorbed it. Although he had used the term Soul when referring to a Aware cluster of his Aura that wasn't actually true.
Regardless of all the confusing bits, all this meant was that the Soul within sword was a nearly separated entity with a self sustaining Soul, and as a bonus it did have a body that could rot.
'I could still rust, and none of that matters.' It said and established a complete link between their two Anchors.
Instantly his memories and thoughts were added and synced up, now he was a unified consciousness, with this method Jaune was able to understand the bond between Aura and Object much better. So he synced up his with the Aura in his equipment to prevent any unforeseen consequences from the sludge possibly overrunning the divided portions.
Jaune opened his eyes, he definitely felt better, although he would absolutely prefer if he wasn't forced to learn so many new terms, the standard education he had gained from a girl who hardly paid attention in class couldn't quite keep up.
Pyrrha, who had suddenly distanced herself from where she was about to lean on his side, looked away.
"I'm all better now, let's get going." He stood up and stretched his corpse, glad he had a body that could move and bend, he almost rolled his eyes at the thought.
"Let's be on our way then." Pyrrha shot up and began walking, the way she navigated through this thick forest without a compass was admirable.
A compass?
Jaune unsheathed his sword and fiddled with electricity on it for a while before he forced the Aura within it to float aimlessly, the sharp tip eventually pointed to where Pyrrha was walking, speaking of her, she suddenly looked back with more shock than when he had first performed an exorcism. "It's a compass, now we can be sure we're heading north, but I guess since it's pointed where you were headed we won't need it." Surprisingly Jaune could feel a little bit of a disappointment, his brain was getting better at managing emotions.
As Jaune's glowing white sword began to float back into his hand, it was suddenly knocked upwards and began spinning. He blinked as a spear with a faint black glow appeared in front of him.
"My Semblance is called Polarity." Pyrrha began as her spear swam through the air, and again she smiled less wide than what she usually flashed but it also somehow held more joy than any other smile. She went on to explain in more detail what she was capable of.
And although Jaune didn't divulge that he was undead, he told her about how he recently discovered he could manipulate his, and to a lesser effect other people's, Aura.
Together, as equals they walked through a supposedly deadly forest at their own pace, a floating sword and a flying spear eliminated all Grimm that tried to approach them. Their genial conversation ended when they approached something that could only be described as a battlefield.
A dome of ice surrounded by a large ring of burning trees, littered amongst the ground were large pitch black and stark white feathers, and high above the dome was an unnatural Grimm.
Carried by a large pitch black left wing, and equally large but stark white right wing, both wings ended in large pincers. It had four heads, two snake-like, one bird-like, and one insect-like, and it also had a tail tipped with a large yellow stinger. Yet perhaps the most out of place were the four large chunks of stone floating behind it.
First time seeing whatever that was. "What's that?" Jaune pointed at the unnatural creature.
"I may be wrong, but judging from the floating stone, I'd wager that a Geist had somehow fused about four large Grimm together. However that is simply just my guess, my experience in the hunting of actual Grimm of any kind is truly lacking." She finished speaking and she looked at the ground.
Jaune blinked at Pyrrha's tone, compared to her earlier guess work, this time she didn't appear confident. It appeared she was truly unfamiliar with animal-like Grimm. He pointed his floating sword towards the massive beast. "Want some firsthand battle experience?"
Pyrrha blinked as she looked up, she blinked again as she stared at Jaune's face and then she smiled. "I'd love to."
For some reason her words sound just a little off to Jaune, or maybe the light flush of her cheeks just confused him.
I'm back and thanks for continuing to read.
Gosh, I hope everyone is safe and sound within this story where death doesn't necessarily mean the end for them.
I had a little difficulty writing this chapter even with my motivation back, the next chapter might take some time but rest assured I'm not taking another break for a while.