My Christmas time off begins 22nd December and I'll be back 4th Jan

I'm super sick today. I went to my parents' house, and they got us takeout from an Indian they love, and it was just awful. Think I've got a bit of food poisoning as a result.

Cover Art: GWBrex

Chapter 45

Ruby was the only one who really wanted to know more about what he'd gotten up to since they parted. Blake and Adam cared more about the Relic than he, and theirs had ever been an alliance of convenience, while Taiyang owed a debt or followed his daughter – he wasn't sure which and hadn't bothered to ask. Either way, they were happy to talk with him – Adam and Blake about Menagerie; Taiyang about anything, really – but they didn't seek him out. Ruby did. Whenever there was a spare moment on the open sea, she'd be there, asking if he'd had any more dream visions or what fights he'd been in, or just how he felt about everything.

It was good to have someone to vent to who wasn't involved in all this Mistral business. Nora and Ren might have listened, but they'd have also felt the need to prod and assure him that this was doing the right thing. The same went for Sun and Neptune. They were all biased in one way or another and Ozma was the worst of them in terms of that. Ruby didn't care. No, that wasn't right. Ruby did care, but she cared more for him than Mistral; she had only seen a small part of the country, and what she'd seen was frankly awful.

He told her about An Ren and the Kuroyuri sect; he told her about the Deterrence Corps; he told her about the lodges; he told her about Ren's mounting instability that led him to charging three huntresses alone; he told her about the fight, both against the younger Schnee and then his killing of the elder. More than that, he told her of how bad it made him feel, and how empty that was because even had he found a way to spare her, Winter would have been brutally killed by the victors and then strung up to die.

They talked for hours. Literal hours. The sun dipped and then set in the distance, and sailors came by to light torches along the port and starboard sides of the Seaspear, and he and Ruby remained at the prow, legs dangling over the edge as the air turned cold.

"I haven't even asked about what you all got up to," said Jaune, feeling self-conscious now that he'd realised just how much he dominated the conversation.

"There's not much to say."

"There must be. How did the tribe take you leaving? What about your sister?"

"The tribe were kinda fine with things. Or, well, not fine," stressed Ruby, "but most of them were too afraid of what you might do if they want after you. It was only Raven who really wanted to hunt you down. Qrow wanted to take a more cautious approach. Yang was a bit of both; she was angry you ran off with the Relic, but she saw how you beat those people in the tournament and didn't think there was any chance we could force you into anything."

"And she was fine with you leaving to go after me?"

"Nope. Tried to convince us to stay. Threatened to force us to. It was Raven who made her stop. I think at that point Raven wanted us out the tribe. A lot of other people were getting superstitious and saying we knew about you and didn't warn them."

"Which you did."

Ruby smiled. "I didn't say they were wrong to be suspicious. Anyway, we made for the ports after that and boarded a ship to Mistral. We ran into Adam and Blake along the way, and they convinced us to work with them. Gave us the same offer they gave you."

Menagerie. A home. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't sorely tempted. He missed his family, Ansel, and the small but close community. He missed the simple life of hunting and carrying back his quarry, then watching everyone's eyes light up. He missed delivering cuts of meat around the village and knowing that people were eating well because of him. He missed everyone knowing everyone else's names, and the greatest worry you had being shoring up for winter.

It wouldn't be the same in Menagerie, but it'd be the closest he could ever get. They would need to build a village and fight off Grimm, and all that was bound to be terrifying, but the day-to-day work would be the same, if heavier. The main draw was the isolation. They would be entirely cut off from the rest of Remnant, including Salem and the Church and the Chosen. He only had one worry.

"Do you think we can trust them?"

"Adam and Blake seem okay."

"Not them," said Jaune. "I mean the White Fang in general. What's to say they won't be as superstitious as the bandits? It's one thing for them to say they're fine with me – us – but that might change when we're there. We'll be the only humans on the island."

"I think they'll be fine as long as they need you," said Ruby, touching his hand. "And they do need you. If you have the power they want, and the Relic, then they will have to bend over to accommodate you. And us." She laughed suddenly. "And if they don't then we can live on the outskirts as hermits. Who cares? They'll get used to us after a few years."

Jaune released a breathy laugh. "You're much too optimistic. I'd almost forgotten."

"Have you missed it?"

Yes.

He had.

/-/

The journey back to Kuroyuri was one that took four days and five nights. It probably would have been less on foot as a direct line, but it was safer to skirt the coast and take out to deeper waters whenever they saw another ship, and that added time to the journey. That time was not spent wastefully, however.

Jaune – or Ozma, really – taught Ren how to better control his aura at least two times a day, and those lessons gained the addition of Ruby, who had been scouted twice now for the Chosen and run away twice as well. Ren had been annoyed at first to have another student, either because he thought it would dilute his training or that she would somehow grasp it all too easily for being a woman. That attitude changed when Ruby progressed at an almost identical pace to him. Ren's mood lightened, and paradoxically so did Nora's, who had long worried his training Ren might be some blasphemous and unnatural thing.

"Magic is magic. Aura is aura." Ozma spoke with Jaune's voice, but everyone in the cabin knew who it was. They had been tense at first and Ozma knew it, but he had pushed on with the lessons and not once raised the issue. After a day or two, they'd stated to relax. "The Church of Salem would have you believe that the magic a man wields is different to that of a woman. Cursed. There is no such reality in that, nor in the misconception that a woman will find it easier to master."

"It's all the same, then?" asked Ren. "Even the magical spells?"

"Spells, as you call them, are little more than how aura expelled outside the body interacts with the world around it. It is more science than you realise – though the theory of such is a little more advanced than society currently is."

"I don't think there's anything natural about summoning bursts of lightning or balls of fire," said Nora. Her presence was a constant despite her lack of natural aura. They all knew she was there to make sure Ren wasn't taken advantage of in some way.

"And yet fire and lightning are in themselves natural phenomena," said Ozma. "But my point is that magic works within the boundaries and limits of the world. You would struggle to summon fire underwater because of the lack of oxygen. Conversely, you will find calling lightning to be thousands of times easier within a storm."

"What about changing the weather?" asked Ren. "That can't be replicated."

"I do not summon storms, Lie Ren. I simply heat and cool air currents to encourage them to form naturally. Such a subject is a little too advanced for the pair of you right now. You cannot yet reliably push aura within your own body, so talk of expelling it is wasted. What I wanted to make clear is that magic is easiest when you are working with your surroundings. Not against them. Aura is the fuel for that – for everything. If you summon fire then you are feeding it aura. Aura is an enhancer."

"An enhancer of the body?" asked Ruby.

"It can be. Yes. There are dangerous, of course. You could strengthen your arms to hit harder and your legs to run faster, but that does not mean your muscles and bones will be any more capable of handling that. I've found it easiest for beginners to think of aura as a force for enhancement. Enhancement of anything and everything. If you pour aura into a burning torch you are holding then it will burn hotter and brighter. If I click my fingers as such then you hear a sound." He demonstrated. "But if I were to gather aura between my fingers as I did…"

The sound was not deafening. It was louder for sure, enough to make Nora, Ren, and Ruby jump. The sudden crack of it was like a plank of wood breaking. "Aura," explained Ozma, smiling. "Or, as Lie Ren would say it – a magic spell. The truth is less magic than you would think. That sound always existed as energy. All I did was feed aura into it and grant it more energy, which not only made it louder but also slightly warmer as well. With enough aura I could make it loud enough to hurt your ears, and hot enough to cause a spark. With fine control, I can decide which form of energy is enhanced."

He snapped his finger again, but this time the sound was muted, and a flame sparked to life and burned over his fingers. Ren might not have been able to see it, but his aura training had progressed enough that he could see the magic, essentially highlighting the flame in his mind.

"It looks like impossible magic to the average person, but the reality is that the energy that causes this was always there. All I have done is enhance it dramatically. A person could replicate this if they used different materials. Flint and steel for instance. The act of striking those to form a spark is akin to snapping fingers together, except that the fingers in that case are not of flesh and blood."

"What of glyphs and shields and that teleporting trick you pulled in Vale?" asked Ruby.

"Far more advanced than be covered here, child. Both the magic and the real-world theory behind them. These involve laws of the universe that few have ever learned, and which will likely never be learned. It's easier to call those magic. If only because the understanding of the natural laws behind them would take decades of study."

It was interesting to listen in on. Interesting because it was new. He wondered why Ozma hadn't explained any of this to him before, and why he was able to use magic outside his body so easily when Ren and Ruby struggled. He'd been better at it even than Winter, who was a Huntress Superior.

"That is because of me," said Ozma, into his mind. "Our souls are linked, and aura is of the soul. Whenever you use magic, I am there with you. I assist by providing you just as much or as little as you need, like when your father would stand behind you and correct your stance when you were young. They do not have the luxury and must learn this the old-fashioned way."

/-/

They did not reach Kuroyuri but moored off the coast nearest it, then he, Ruby, Taiyang, Neptune, Ren and Nora went the rest of the way on foot. The area looked much the same as it had before, with no signs of war or conflict or of the rebellion An Ren should by all accounts have launched already.

"An is going to freak," said Nora.

"Why?" asked Jaune. "We took a town. The rebellion is doing well."

"Are you all forgetting something? Am I the only one who isn't?" Nora looked to Ren, who had learned aura enough to be able to walk on his own. He couldn't see the ground or make out any details, but he could see the trees when they came within a few metres off him. He was using a whittled stick to probe the ground ahead for rocks. "You too, Ren?"

"I don't see what you mean, Nora. As Jaune says, the rebellion is-"

"Your face, Renny. Your face."

"My-?" He paused. His mouth spread into a surprised `o` shape. "Oh. Oh, right. My eyes." He sounded embarrassed to have missed it. "Yes, I… You're right. It might be better for myself, Nora, and Neptune to enter on our own and explain the situation."

"How much of it are we explaining?" asked Neptune.

"That I faced a Huntress and lost my vision and that it was no one's fault."

"How about the part where you recklessly charged three huntresses?" asked Nora.

Ren coughed into his free hand. "Mother has the rebellion to think of. I don't think it's best for anyone if she gets distracted over this."

"What a convenient excuse…"

Jaune laughed with a few of the others, even if he worried An Ren would take it out on him. Hopefully Nora and Ren would be able to prevent that. If not, well, he'd let her know he wasn't going to take that kind of abuse anymore. He'd killed for her cause now and put in more work to enable her than anyone else had. He wasn't the weak runaway from Vale who needed her help anymore. He didn't know what he was. Dark Lord? Criminal? Rebel? Victim? The specifics eluded him, but he sure as hell wasn't going to take responsibility for Ren losing his mind and throwing himself into danger. When they cleared the edge of the woods and saw smoke in the distance, all conversation halted.

Ren couldn't see it, and no one wanted to say it, but the smell reached them all the same. Burning meat. Nora's sudden inhale was all the clue he needed to know something was wrong, and then Nora was running ahead, chased quickly by Neptune. The rest made their way up slowly, arriving in time to see Nora and Neptune coming back out one of the underground hatches with their faces smeared with ash and soot.

"It's gone!" screamed Nora. "It's all gone!"

The Corps had found Kuroyuri.

"Calm down," snapped Taiyang, a rare voice of reason. "You said they would be mounting their own attacks on the Schnee, right? Isn't it possible they evacuated this place to launch their assault, and burnt it down to cover their tracks?"

Possible, yes. Unlikely as well. Jaune could tell that by the look on Nora's face – the desperate mix of fear, pain, and hope. Jaune doubted An Ren would intentionally burn down a backup hiding spot, home and storage area like this, but it wasn't entirely impossible.

"They might have been followed back from an attack which prompted an invasion," said Jaune. "But Kuroyuri has more than one entry and exit, right? There's no way the SDC would have found all of them at once."

"He's right," said Ren. "The children, at the very least, would have been evacuated."

"I… Yes…" Nora took a shaking breath. "Y-Yeah, you're right. An was always saying we might be found any day. We had all those escape plans for a reason. The Corps must have burnt the place down after everyone escaped."

The hope was still there.

"We'll check with the nearby villages," said Neptune.

It was the work of a few more hours to reach the first village. It was less to see it burning. The smoke told them what they would find, and it was no surprise to see the burnt-out husks of the homes. Far worse, however, were the piled-up bodies. Men, women, and children. They'd all been killed and then piled together, and finally set alight.

"It's like that village we saw before," said Jaune.

"Except this one was never loyal to us!" said Nora. "This is the place that turned us away!"

It hadn't saved them. They'd followed the rule of law and it hadn't helped them in the end. They turned away, headed to the next village, but when they arrived there, it was the same story. The village had been destroyed, its population slaughtered, and while most were burnt there were also bodies strewn here and there that had not been. Neptune knelt by one and checked the man's armour. "Corps," he said. "The village tried to defend itself."

"They never would normally," said Ren, breathing heavily. His lack of eyesight was a blessing right now, though he wouldn't have thought that. "No one ever fights back."

"Maybe the rebellion was going well," said Taiyang. "Your mother must have given them hope." Under his breath he added, "For all the good it did them."

"No. This isn't right." Ren moved ahead, his cane touching against dead bodies as he picked his way through. "The Corps kill the people but never destroy the buildings. They want the village to stay standing so they can repopulate it and get it working again. The Schnee are ever demanding tribute. They need the resources."

It didn't look like they cared anymore. Had they decided to purge everyone in the area in case they were working with the Kuroyuri sect? Or maybe they had wanted to give the sect nowhere to run, and they killed everyone first. And where are the survivors from Kuroyuri? Or are there any? There's no way the Corps found every single entrance in and out. Some people must have escaped.

Though to where, he had no idea. If the Corps really had destroyed every village…

They checked a third to be sure. More hours of travel, more hours of silence, and then another village that had been burnt down. It was the mining village this time, the one that had smuggled minerals to Kuroyuri. It looked like they'd fought to defend themselves as Corps lay strewn all over the place. The mine entrance had been collapsed, with rocks covering it, and they were about to leave when they heard a sound from within. A ringing tap-tap-tap.

"Metal on metal," said Taiyang.

"Combat?" asked Jaune.

"No. Like someone banging something on metal. Making a signal." He looked to the mine entrance, where giant boulders had blocked the way. It looked like someone had taken away the wooden posts and supports holding it up, and the tunnel beyond had collapsed as a result. "It might have been collapsed from the inside instead of from outside."

In which case there might be people trapped inside. Whom, though? It could be those fleeing the Corps, but it could just as easily be Corps themselves who had chased people inside and slaughtered them, and who now wanted out. Judging by the looks on Nora and Neptune's faces, he was going to be blowing this open either way. Jaune sighed and waved them back, then took a stance some twenty feet away, with them behind him.

"Fire will do little here, but if you were to ignite it below the rocks then the force of the blast might dislodge them." said Ozma. Again, it was a task that someone of his training shouldn't be capable of, but with Ozma there to take care of pesky things like the control, all Jaune needed to do was focus and pilot his aura out his fingers, through the air, and into the cracks between the rocks. "Now!"

He imagined the spark and fed the aura into it. And, like two rocks striking, it ignited. His aura then fed the ember and turned it from a flickering spark to a great conflagration. The suddenness of it expelled heat and light and force that caused the rocks to rumble and crack, and the smallest of them to even flip up and away. The crack spread as the fire dug deeper, and with a mighty boom the rocks that had covered the entrance came rushing out, smashing through already burned homes and landing in the fields outside.

The shaft was not fully cleared. To do so would be to risk causing another collapse. Instead, he'd taken care of most of the fallen rocks, and from there it was easy enough to pull and roll the others aside by hand – aided, he realised, by people pushing from the other side. As one large boulder toppled and fell, Jaune found himself face to face with an old man. He was aged, weathered, and he was covered in soot and dust. Beyond him, he could just make out other faces in the thin beam of light piercing through the hole.

Not Deterrence Corps, then.

It was some work to get them out. They came one by one, squeezing the smallest children through the hole first and then moving up in size, with people pushing from behind and Jaune, Taiyang, and Neptune working to pull them through. Ruby and Nora helped gather them to safety. It took an hour, and by the time they were done some fifty or sixty people – more women and children than men – stood in the charred remains of the village. They huddled together, crying softly at the sight of their lost loved ones.

"Is that everyone?" asked Neptune. The old man nodded.

"Only a few of us managed to retreat to the mines. We stayed close, hoping against hope that someone would come. You are our saviours."

"I don't think you can call us that when your village fell," said Jaune. "What happened here? Why did the Corps do this?"

"It was the Schnee's orders. A proclamation from Willow Schnee." He let his head fall, releasing a breath that was filled with defeat. "For colluding with evil and turning from the Goddess' light, all villages in Mistral are to be purged."

What…?

"WHAT!?" yelled Ren, pushing forward. "Are you – is she – insane? Are you sure you heard that right? Or did they mean the villages in this area? Is it because of the rebellion?"

The old man shook his head. "They said all. A mass purge, they called it. Salt the land and start anew. Towns are being evacuated and brought to the main city of Mistral; it is to become an ark. Everyone else is to die, and then the ones who remain will be spread out once again over the land. T-They said they will start anew. A new Mistral. A Goddess-fearing Mistral. A loyal Mistral."

"This is genocide!" whispered Ren. "This… They've been evil before, but this is complete genocide. What of the Kuroyuri sect? What of An Ren and the others?"

"They heard the news. They tried to strike at the Corps. There were too many. They were followed back to Kuroyuri. I know not what happened to them since," said the man, shaking his head. "We came under attack soon after. We were told to open our gates and submit ourselves to execution where we would be welcomed into the Goddess' light. We refused." He laughed bitterly. "What little good that did us. It's all gone now. We are all that remains. My family. My son. My daughter-in-law. All gone in an instant."

Taiyang ushered the man away, an arm around his shoulder, and took him back to the others. Ren was shaking. He was practically vibrating.

"This is madness," he whispered. "It's insane. Willow has lot the plot if she's doing this. There's no way the church will ignore it; this isn't the Goddess' wish. It's insanity."

"Maybe she has gone mad," whispered Jaune. "We killed her daughter."

"And she's killed many, many more!"

"I'm not saying we're wrong or she's right. Just… This might have been the spark to send her over the edge. Or maybe she saw towns falling and just lost her mind. I don't know. If she's gathering everyone in Mistral like they say, then she's practically surrendering the rest of the country to the rebellion. Is that a bad thing? The massacre is, obviously, but her retreating means she's accepting defeat."

"He has a point," said Neptune. "Kill the Corps outside the city and lay siege, and she'll be trapped inside. This is a bad move no matter how you look at it; she's turning the entire country against her. If they weren't already. Even those who wanted to keep their heads down will fight rather than be killed off. Maybe she has lost her mind."

"We need to meet up with the other sects," said Ren. "If they're falling back to Mistral then that means we need to be united into one army. Maybe… Maybe mother will be there. Her and the remains of the Kuroyuri sect. Or if not, then I'll have my vengeance." He grasped his cane tight. "We can't stay here. There's no point. The Corps have come and gone, and everyone will be dead."

"There's a town not two days from here," said Neptune. "It should be empty if the rumours are true, which means it can be taken over by anyone. We'll head there, see if it's true and see if any other sects have come along to see. If An Ren is anywhere, it'll be there. We can decide what to do next after."

Still feeling ill. Always feels like it's on the weekend, though maybe that's just that it bothers me more and sticks in my memory as a result. I usually just go to work and deal with it on weekdays, unless it's something infectious.

Next Chapter: 18th December

Like my work? Please consider supporting me, even if it's only a little a month or even for a whole year, so I can keep writing so many stories as often as I do. Even a little means a lot and helps me dedicate more time and resources to my work.

P a treon . com (slash) Coeur