He could now say it, without the barest, smallest hint of a doubt.

Mistral FUCKING sucked. It was already bad enough that he was forced to strip himself of both his chest piece AND one of gauntlets, but why did there have to be so many damn insects?!

He smacked himself by mistake trying to squash one of the annoying bugs, and his annoyance grew to match the pain caused by his misstep. At that point he almost wished for more Grimm to attack him. At least he could distract himself. But nope, just stragglers, small groups of maybe three at best. He couldn't say that he actually remembered this particular road… he found that he didn't actually care all that much.

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NEW AREA: SHUYŌ DŌRO

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He twirled Mors Celeri in his hand, leaving his main weapon momentarily in its sheath by his side. He wanted to try a new fighting style, since he had lost much of his defense against the Nuckelavee, less focused on blocking and taking hits and more on dodging and retaliating, which meant he needed to put in some practice with his dagger. And he would have, if only there were… you know, things to kill.

He huffed through his nose, irritated beyond relief at that point. He was confident that his scowl was so deep that Yang herself could see it, all the way from beyond the grave.

He winced at himself. Too soon Jaune, way too soon…

His resolve was strengthened, for sure, but that didn't make the wound in his heart stop bleeding… the only cure would be to see her back on her feet once more.

He looked around his surroundings once more, now seriously questioning whatever the hell was going on. Less Grimm was overall a good thing, he'd be the first to admit it, but this… this is actually ridiculous. Either those monsters deliberately avoided the area, and he doubted it considering their lack of intelligence, or… someone or something was keeping their number down.

His grip on the blade tightened, suddenly on edge. He wasn't alone on this road, it became obvious at that point. The question then changed. If there was someone else around…

Then where?

His response came when a foot broke a twig behind him. He acted on instincts as quickly as lightning, throwing himself to the ground, mere moments before being impaled. He jumped back on his feet, brandishing Mors Celeri.

The person that almost killed him a second time revealed herself, her weapon crackling with electricity. Jaune's eyes squinted. She looked familiar… that brown skin, with patches that almost looked like a reptile's scales… those auburn locks of hair, gathered in a ponytail and that weird rapier/whip…

He knew this girl. And she wasn't Turned!

Ilia Amitola squared him carefully, recognition appearing in her eyes.

"Wait… I know you. Aren't you one of Blake's friends? Arc… something?"

Jaune nodded, dropping his stance at the same time she did, while she sighed in apparent relief.

"Thank the gods I haven't skewered you then, especially since you're normal, instead of… one of those things. Do you have any idea of what the hell is going on?! Grimm are overwhelming the place and people's faces are turning white while growing those… weird black veins. I managed to slay most of them in the area, but they keep coming!"

Oh boy, she didn't know a single thing. He motioned for her to sit down and listen, he doubted she was going to be happy about any of it.

It took him a good twenty minutes, but eventually the faunus was caught up on all the events.

"I… I see… so this is what's going on…"

Surprisingly, she wasn't throwing a fuss. He was relieved, honestly, but puzzled at the same time.

"Stop giving me that look! I'm not blind you know, I figured that something bad happened when none of you came back after the battle of Haven… I just didn't know what…"

Jaune hummed. Yeah, it made sense. Ilia was smart and aware of the whole truth of the situation, while Tai… he had to deal with everything all at once. Annnnd he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed either. Like father, like daughter as they say. Or something along those lines, he didn't know, bite him.

"But still, this is a terrible situation. You're telling me that all of you failed to kill Salem, your two teammates are nowhere to be found, Yang is dead and the rest of her own team has been corrupted into… that. Blake included. Damn it…"

He remained silent, giving her time to put her thoughts in order, while his own head wondered a bit. Right… Ren and Nora. They were gone too. Where? He had no idea. He could only hope that they were together… in life or in death. That last thought provoked an uncomfortable feeling, deep on the bottom of his stomach.

Please, for the love of the twin gods… let them be alive…

"So… from what you're telling me, you are heading down this road to find and obtain a powerful aura, correct? The means of obtaining it being killing, I suppose. What else are you supposed to do around here? Maybe I can be of help".

Oh right, he had a couple more objectives. He quickly made his requests.

She listened, nodding her head.

"I see, you want to know the whereabouts of your friends. You know that there might be a chance they're not even in Mistral at the moment, right?"

Of course he knew. But he had to start checking some boxes, eventually. But somehow he knew that they weren't too far away.

"You think so, mh? Fine, I'm going to be on the lookout for them. If they are on the continent, I will find them. I promise. About the other guy you are looking for… the blacksmith. This is just a rumor, of course, but I heard that the remnants of the Branwen tribe recently kidnapped a guy that sounds just like the one you described. They are camped not far from here, keep to the right and you should stumble upon them. I don't know if it actually IS him, but a lead is better than nothing, might be worth the deviation, right?"

Jaune perked up. Sure, he was going to have to deal with those assholes, but honestly, how hard could it be? He just had to find the camp, rush through, find the guy and use the lotus shaped item to teleport him, should it be the person he was looking for. Otherwise, just haul ass as far away as he possibly could.

Or he could use his lack of armor to his advantage and be sneaky about it. The option was definitely there.

Heck, maybe he could even try to fight them if they really were so little in number as Ilia seemed to imply.

Speaking of, the chameleon faunus got up from her spot, stretching.

"Regarding the last of your requests… there is no need to look. I already know who is waiting at the end. Same feeling as you, now that I think about it. See you around, Jaune Arc. Keep yourself alive and I shall find you again, once I discover where your teammates are".

She waved and walked away.

Jaune took a second to also get up, looking in the direction where she had literally melted in the shadows. Who is waiting at the end…

He closed his eyes, breathing deeply through the nose. The feeling came back, pointing towards…

He smiled bitterly. Salem… she had a sense of humor, it would seem. He should have figured, with the shit that she pulled with Yang.

Well, one half of the pair was already gone. It was only fitting that the rest would follow soon after.


Finding the new Branwen camp was fairly easy. Without Ilia's directions he might have missed it, but he could see it now. It was… pathetically small.

He never saw it himself, he only had Weiss and Yang's story as a reference, but they had described it as a fairly large place. Larger than one could expect a bandit camp to be. And a whole lot more intimidating.

This really didn't live up to the expectations. The whole thing was maybe as big as a medium sized flat in length. The… "walls", if one could call them that, were short in height, made of piked trees and barely put together. He could honestly give it a tap with his feet and the whole thing would fall apart. He had no idea how many tents or people were inside… but his guess was, not too many.

Life in the apocalypse wasn't kind to bandits either. Who would have believed it.

Jaune hid among the trees, weighing his options. He could just go in without a care in the world and make his way to the supposed blacksmith, his opponents were bound to be weak after all.

There was only one thing stopping him in his tracks… or someone, more like.

He had no idea if Raven was among them.

He was stronger than before, sure, but not strong enough to take on a Maiden, especially if she had backup.

He crossed his arms to his chest, nodding to himself. Stealth was the way to go then. He had no other possibility. Now then, he had to find a suitable place to enter quietly, preferably with a guard dumb enough that allowed him to sneak in.

Circling around the place, he managed to find the perfect spot. A small opening in the wall, unnoticed by the bandits… somehow, with a guard looking emptily in the distance, likely contemplating all of his life choices.

Jaune picked up a pebble, testing its weight like he had done before in Vale, all the while deciding on what to do with the criminals. He could just sneak up on them, bury his dagger in their neck and call it a day… but there were so few normal people around, the idea of reducing them even further seemed… wrong, ironically.

He chuckled at himself. Killing bandits not being the best idea. Remnant works in mysterious ways… but he made his decision. No bloodshed if possible… but a couple of broken bones?

Meh, they'll live.

Making use of the fact that the bandit wasn't paying attention, he threw the pebble, hitting to the man's right, on the opposite side as the hole. Luckily, the wall was short, so he didn't have to be extremely precise.

"Uh?! Who's is it?! Show yourself you coward! I have a…!"

He looked at his weapon.

"... A kitchen knife…? I MEAN, I have a kitchen knife and I am not afraid of using it!"

… seriously, were those guys even actual bandits or did they just… got picked from the side of the road? Man, Raven must have gone insane. Or desperate. Or both.

Jaune waited until the guy was completely facing the other direction before sneaking in through the hole. He creeped behind the dude and choked him into unconsciousness. One of the saddest spectacles he had ever seen, honestly he almost felt bad for the dude.

Almost.

He moved on from there, crouching behind a tent and surveying the rest of the camp. Counting the one he was using as cover, there were ten tents in total, excluding the big one at the end that supposedly belonged to Yang's mother. And at center… a small arena. If he wanted to be nice about it. Less an arena and more… a crooked circle made of wooden spikes.

As for people…

The place was basically bare. One woman was walking around, while a man was seated, seemingly asleep judging by the extremely obnoxious snoring.

He was genuinely starting to get depressed, the place was THAT bare.

Where were all the others? Did they all die or something?

He got his answer when the tent he was leaning against started shaking. The woman doing the rounds stopped and banged her hand against it.

"Be quiet in there you monsters! I swear, if you idiots weren't part of the Tribe, you would already be dead!"

She turned around to walk away, but Jaune seized his chance, grabbing her from behind and dragging her into cover, choking her the same way he did to her clanmate.

He peeked around the corner again. The other bandit was still in dreamland.

Taking a risk, he decided to walk out into the center, just to try.

Nothing. He drew a deep breath of relief. Right, time to find the blacksmith.

After disposing of the sleeping bandit, he opened the tent that the woman had previously… "pacified" and almost fell backwards.

Cages upon cages filled the place, and inside them…

Rows and rows of Turned. This is where the rest of the bandits went. They all got infected. They growled, kicked and bit their cage's bars, their animalistic tendencies enhanced by the transformation. He closed the flap of the tent, deciding to move on to the next.

He kept it up, occasionally dealing with a lone guard and picking up as many items as he could, including two fire dust bombs, three Aura Boosters and some more Scrap Metal. He still wondered what the hell he was supposed to do with it…

Until, finally, he decided to check the main tent. Carefully and gently, he opened the flap, just enough to see inside without attracting attention.

Empty. Except for one last cage, that one containing…

He made a quick check. The long dark beard, the patch over his left eye, the almost overwhelming stink of gunpowder.

He had found his man. After making sure that the rest of the tent was actually empty, he entered it and stopped at the man's cage, who looked up at him.

"Hm? Who is it? Another bandit who needs their two lien toys fixed? As I already said, I'm not moving a muscle for you meatheads, so you might as well let me… wait. No, you aren't a bandit. That attire… those weapons… that look in your eye… you are a Huntsman! What are you doing here?"

Jaune quickly explained, afraid that Raven might return.

"Ahhhh, that Roman Torchwick bastard sent you to get me. I understand, he wants to cash in on THAT favor then…"

He seemed to think about something.

"Very well then. I shall play along. My name is Gunmetal, and if you get me out of here and find me a working forge, I shall repay you by making your equipment stronger than ever before".

Finally, someone who didn't waste ages of his life chatting. He picked the lotus shaped item and touched Gunmetal's forehead with it. The man disappeared in a small circle of light.

Jaune finally allowed himself a moment to relax. All right, now he only had to get out of there…

In his relief, he failed to hear the footsteps stopping behind him. And when he noticed and turned around, he was far too late. The only thing he could see were a pair of piercing red eyes…

And then darkness.


When he finally came back into consciousness, it was to a killer headache and to a cacophony of voices.

Or… more like a small selection of different voices at best, but the pain seemed to amplify everything. He got back on his feet slowly, holding his head. He really needed to stop getting distracted, like seriously. It wasn't healthy.

Once he was upright, he opened his eyes… to one the saddest scenes he had ever seen.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Jaune Arc! Yes, yes! I do remember you, from the ragtag group that my dear daughter was a part of. Mr Knight in Shining Armor… without the armor in this case. You, my friend, have made the biggest mistake of your life, coming here to the Branwen Tribe's Camp. Honestly, I command you for making it this far, but your luck has run out! Right boys and girls?!"

A weak chorus of affirmatives and claps followed.

He was at the center of the circle he had seen previously, surrounded by bandits. All ten of them, including the main woman herself, who was trying and failing at… intimidating? Hyping up? Both? He had no idea. All that he knew was that he was starting to get embarrassed for her.

Raven growled lightly, but bounced back relatively quick, to her credit.

"As is tradition in the Tribe, I, Raven Branwen herself, offer you a chance to walk out of here with your own legs! How, I hear you ask?!"

He hadn't opened his mouth the entire time.

"But with a fight to the death of course! The prizes will be your life, your freedom… and your blade".

THAT got his attention. He patted his sides and sure enough, his dagger was still there.

But Crocea Mors was gone, snugly fit behind Raven's back. Of course she had to take SOMETHING!

"So, who wants to prove themselves with this Brave Huntsman? Glory and respect awaits those that succeed!"

She declared and waited. And waited. And waited some more. She lost her patience very quickly.

"Really?! Nobody?! Are you that scared of those twig arms?!"

Ohi, his arms weren't twigs! Not anymore at least, thank you very much!

"Miss Raven, if I may…"

One of the bandits went to their leader's side and whispered in her ear. The woman's expression light up like a Christmas tree.

"That's actually a genius idea! Bring her here then! Let's see how she fares!"

The person motioned to two more of their comrades to come help, and together they lifted one of the cages that he had seen and threw it unceremoniously inside the arena after unlocking it.

And out of it came a young woman, with short brown hair, a ripped jacket and some… fairly sick tattoos on her arms, honestly. The white skin and black veins told him that she was a Turned.

Raven's voice boomed, and the girl looked at her, even with the infection probably clouding her mind.

"This is your chance to prove yourself, Vernal! Kill that boy and you will have your place beside me once more!"

She threw a dagger at Vernal's feet.

That was a terrible idea. A Turned as a right hand man… woman?! He couldn't think of anything less suited for the job. This girl probably didn't even know what her former leader was saying!

But Vernal… she seemed to understand. She raised the weapon given to her by Raven, ready to fight, and threw herself at him. And well… let's just say that he wasn't terribly impressed.

She was quick, sure, but she lacked everything else. Strength? He was stronger. Experience? If she had any, it was gone now. Tactics? He almost laughed at that one.

Yeah, honestly, after fighting Yang, many of the people AND Grimm he was once afraid of… simply didn't come up to par anymore.

He dodged once again and decided to end it quickly, for the sake of everyone involved.

With one slash he forced Vernal on the defensive. With another, he made her dagger fly away from her weak grasp. She fell to her knees and he savagely buried his own dagger into her flesh, where her heart was. Finally, with a twist of his wrist, he tore her ribcage apart. She collapsed onto her back, quickly disappearing into smoke.

Too much? Maybe. But this bitch almost killed Weiss back in Haven, so he'll be excused for being a bit salty about it.

Obtained: Wild Outlaw's Aura

Nice. Something good DID come up from that.

Raven's voice resounded in the deadly silence that remained. She looked at him, then at the spot where Vernal died, then at the person that suggested the fight in the first place.

"You. With me".

They tried to protest, but were dragged away mercilessly. He didn't have to wonder what happened after. In the meantime, he decided to examine his new aura. The girl had behaved differently than the other Turned, so he was curious.

Aura once belonging to Vernal, bandit of the Branwen Tribe and decoy Spring Maiden. Even back in life, her only desire was to earn Raven's approval and affection, by any means necessary, even if it meant risking everything else. After her resurrection, her leader's voice was the only thing capable of stopping her rampage.

Use this Aura to become stronger… or for an unknown purpose.

He sighed. Great, now he actually did feel bad. That one sucked…

Raven came back with a scowl, her blade stained in red, but schooled her expression back to neutral.

"A deal is a deal, Arc. Here's your weapon, you've earned it".

She threw him Crocea Mors, which he was only too happy to take.

"But, before you go…"

She smirked at him.

"I have a proposal for you… if you would like to hear me out".

He hesitated for a moment. A proposal? From Raven Branwen?! All the alarms and code reds in his head were blaring furiously. But, somehow, he knew that he had no choice but to listen. She could kill right then and there, after all.

"You see, people are hard to come by lately. Competent people more than anyone else. The space here is limited unfortunately… but oh, would you look at that! Someone just… quit their job".

Uh-huh. Was she ever going to get to the point?

"So, Jaune Arc, Brave Huntsman. What says… would you like to join the Branwen Tribe?"

Hello?! Is this thing on?! It is?! Noice.

And here we are, dudes and gentleladies back to Auraborne, now with an actual schedule to go along with it, would you look at that.

Yes yes, you heard me correctly! I finally managed to pull my shit together and be somewhat consistent! Wild, isn't it? I'm such a professional.

It came to me during my… *ahem* careful planning, that stealth was being somewhat… underutilized. Still kind of is, but from now on, Jaune will start using his skill set more… together with some new tricks *wink wink*

We found ourselves a blacksmith, Jauney handed Vernal her ass back to her (with his first Visceral, might I add) and our boy received quite the offer! I wonder what he's gonna say…

Updates for this particular story will come once every two weeks on Sunday, as to allow me to cycle through my other fics. We're getting shit done, little by little.

Review responses!

merendinoemiliano: Glad it was up to standards!

ER-47: Thank you my friend, I hope to continue to deliver!

Essiter1987: My dude, you are a person of focus and dedication, let me tell you. You actually went through and reviewed every chapter individually. I respect that, so I'm gonna answer everything here.

Don't feel too bad about forgetting it, it kinda went into hiatus for a bit because I'm stoopid. You came back at just the right time!

JNPR will show up, of course. How? You'll have to see. I do have plans for CDRL, but nothing as fabulous as a boss fight. They don't deserve it, at all.

Taiyang is a special NPC type that I made for this story specifically. He's basically Jaune's partner for everything Vale related. Every continent will have one. Can't tell you who they are, but feel free to guess. You can probably already tell who's gonna be Mistral's companion though.

I KNOW RIGHT?! Imagine how cool it would be to have a single player soulslike where you can create your own custom character. Maybe set back in time to when Team STRQ was in Beacon, as to not have to worry about following the main RWBY story. At this point I could even take a proper fighting game, (after BlazBlue basically blue balled us) just give us something that's not a side scroller or puzzle game, please!

Oh good, I don't have to go back and change. Epic.

And you are now not caught up anymore hahahahaha. You know, I was almost tempted to update right away, just to be a dick, but decided to be nice and wait for the right day. I do have to proofread the shit I write, after all. Now, watch it still have mistakes everywhere...

Before I go, I would like to say a thing. We have officially breached 10k views! I seriously cannot thank you all enough for this. This story blew up in a way I was NOT expecting. Maybe it's not much for some people, but it is a big deal for me, since this is just my second story on this site. For real, thank you, from the bottom of my cold, dark heart.

That's all folks! Ta-ta for now!