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Chapter Twenty One: The Birth Of New Power!
"I can't believe how detailed these are," Weiss murmured, "It's like he can subsconsciously read the flow of battle."
She'd never admit it, but even Jaune could tell that the heiress was even a little impressed with how he'd put together the notes on everyone's fighting styles and the things that he thought they needed to work on. It would seem that despite his low level of physical prowess, Jaune had a strategic mind that was unlike most developed in their entire life, let alone as a first-year Academy student.
"Done!' Jaune exclaimed happily, stretching a little in the face of his completed homework, gratned Ozpin's had been...particularly easy given the nature of the multi-choice aspect but Jaune wasn't going to sit here and complain about it.
"All you had to do was tick little boxes, lady killer, hardly the type of-"
Jaune turned his head quickly, shooting Yang a playful glare as if daring her to take the small victory away from him and she threw her hands up in defense immediately, though a second later, after a small shake of her head, Yang lightly thumped him on the shoulder to show that there was no hard feelings from that. The homework of all the team members now complete, they could look at getting the movies set up and focus on enjoying the bit of free time they'd earned themselves.
"So, what've we got in the backlog?" Yang asked, flipping through her scroll.
"We don't need a backlog. Atlas TV has pretty much everything," Weiss informed Yang and she pulled up her own scroll. She went through a few screens and then was able to bring up the screen of what looked to be, at least from what Jaune could tell, a form of subscription service that kept a wide-range of telivision shows and movies on it. It looked relatively new, and nothing like he'd seen back home. Supposed Weiss had certain advantages what with her family being as loaded as it was. He couldn't begrudge her for it, it was more a curiosity than anything else.
After the group had decided on what they were going to watch, they arranged themselves across the sofas. Once she'd gotten the signal from the others, Weiss hit the selection and made it play through the projection her scroll had created. Jaune leaned back slightly, turning his head toward the screen, barely registering a light thump that hit against his arm from a smirking Yang.
Everything was slowly going back to normal after the incident with the book and he felt he could appreciate that. A quick glance around the room showed Jaune everyone's seating layout. Weiss and Ruby had claimed the loveseat at the end of the room, Blake was curled up in the lone armchair to the side of that, Ren and Nora had taken the other love seat and finally Pyrrha and Yang were seated on either side of him on the big three-person sofa in the centre of the room. The movie that had been selected was a sort of mish-mash of several different genres and, as Yang had put it, 'would give a little bit of enjoyment to everyone.' The story itself was captivating to Jaune, a young man leaving home to find out who he is and meeting people he could rely on. The hero's journey could be a bit cliche sometimes, but he was glad in the manner of which this film seemed to be handling it.
Feeling another tap to his shoulder, Jaune threw his head to the left, but only received a smirk and a little wink from the one responsible before they turned their head back to watching the film again. Jaune shook his head and did the same. Overall, when all was said and done, it was a good day that had been able to be enjoyed by friends and that was what mattered if you asked him. He didn't know what cause it, perhaps the stress of everything that he'd been through over the last while having finally taken its toll or simply how much energy he'd been expending of late, Jaune's eyes slowly drooped closed and he fell into the abyss of darkness once more.
'You're too slow!' the man admonished, laughing brightly in the face of the slightly shorter man standing opposite him, "You're never going to be able to beat me at that speed!"
The fierce eyes of the shorter man meet the gaze of the laughing one and he, through gritted teeth, manages to clamber to his feet whilst hoisting his weapon back into a battle-ready position, "I won't give up - I can't give up."
"Well then, little brother. I think it's about time we end this little spar don't you?"
The taller of the two men drew his hands up, resounding clicks sounded through his gauntlets and with a single thrust he'd thrown a mighty beam of glowing energy in Acheron's direction. The blade's side glinted sapphire and in a moment of frustration, Acheron jumped forward. He slashed his blade into the beam of energy and a roaring howl flew off the blade, then after it absorbed the beam's power...it threw energy right back at the caster. That wasn't all that happened, the energy that left Acheron's possession felt like it had been substantially increased in power compared to the one that had been directed at him.
Whilst Jaune was sleeping, Pyrrha and Yang had turned their heads and smiled at him. They both knew that he'd been struggling to sleep lately, so it was good to see that was on a little bit of a different course. Maybe all he needed was to be distracted from his thoughts long enough in order to sleep properly. Pyrrha smiled, then squeezed Jaune's upper arm in a gentle manner. This action wasn't enough to wake Jaune, but he did stir enough to readjust how he was seated a little, then fell right back to sleep.
"He seems so peaceful compared to how we've seen him of late," Blake noted quietly.
"It's certainly a relief," Pyrrha agreed, "Was starting to feel like we'd lost him to the desperation of discovering the depths to that sword forever, but now we can all focus on being the best team we can be and for the right reasons. Not simply to seek the deeply hidden power of a weapon more ancient than perhaps even Remnant itself."
Ruby turned her head back from her spot, looking over at the three person sofa, "All of us will have to face his involvement with that weapon one day though. Won't we?"
"We will," Ren agreed, "But it's something that we'll deal with when the time comes. For now, we need to do our best to grow not only as Hunters and Huntresses but as people so that when the time does come for us to handle whatever mystery is behind Jaune's weapon, that we can support him in any way that he needs us to. We're all in this together now."
Yang's gaze shifted back to watching her leader's expression and she nodded, "None of us will have to face anything we can't handle by ourselves alone. That's a promise and I'm sure sleepy here would agree with us if he was awake."
x-x-x-x-
"Are you sure about this?" Pyrrha asked Ruby softly.
"I don't want to admit it, but I have to agree with Ren, Weiss is the one most likely to not hold back with Jaune. We can all do our best not to, but in some way we'd be inclined to subconsciously do it to some small extent because of how we've been training him up until recently."
"Jaune can handle this," Ren assured them both, "If he can't, then he won't be able to get much further and we'd be better off putting our time elsewhere. He can do this. You just need to have a little faith in him."
In the arena, Jaune had gripped onto his sword a little tighter, the sheathe and coincidentally the shield part of crocea mors lay upon the seat beside Ruby. Catching notice of this, Yang's brow arched, "He's not using his shield? Against Weiss who's mostly a ranged fighter? That's...odd. I hope the lady-killer knows what he's doing."
Jaune took a deep breath, slowly rising his sword into a battle-ready position. Yes, losing a defense mechanism in a fight like this was probably a little bit of a disadvantage, but Jaune saw how fast the others were just using weapons and now was the perfect time to experiment with the options available to him. Jaune's narrowed gaze fixated on Weiss and he nodded once to indicate that he was ready.
"Battle Begin!" Nora boomed.
Weiss led the charge by immediately firing an ice cannister of dust free from her sword, it soared through the air and much to the surprise of the other, Jaune threw his body downward, sliding completely beneath the blast.
"That instinct-" Blake noted, "He seems far more confident than the last few times he's fought."
It was true, Weiss was throwing all manner of blasts in Jaune's direction, but he was able to avoid each one as he made his approach toward the opponent. This felt natural, like it was how he was meant to be fighting the entire time. The loss of that extra weight in the shield was making all the difference.
"GRYAH!"
Metal collided with metal and sparks erupted from the point that Jaune's blade met the thinner one of Myrtenstar, a tremble of sapphire light centered in the blade of Crocea Mors, but Jaune being more focused on the task at hand didn't notice. Weiss pushed Jaune off and took a stab at him with her own blade, but Jaune side-stepped to the left and brought Crocea Mors' to his back, blocking the strike expertly, as if he were simply in the process of opening a door. Jaune spun, using his upper body strength to throw the blade off his own then turned to Weiss, eyes full of quiet confidence.
"Maybe our training's been doing more for him than we realized," Pyrrha said quietly.
"But that quickly?" Yang observed, "I think something else is happening here."
The bout between him and Weiss had been unpredictably intense, Jaune was surprised he was keeping up given that his opponent had promised that she wouldn't be taking it easy for his sake and by the faint glow from the tip of Myrtenstar, Jaune assumed that Weiss was preparing herself to bring an end to their little contest. His eyes were drawn down to the blade of his own blade, and his eyes widened. It was very faint, but he could see a small outline of the energy he remembered from that day in the Emerald Forest now sitting around the blade of Crocea Mors.
"Now?" he asked quietly.
"You'd better concentrate, Arc!" Weiss warned him.
She flicked her blade out and a bright glyph of pearlescent white formed at the tip of it. A large chunk of ice erupted from the end, soaring outward and in the direction of the other side of the arena.
Jaune roared out, slowly his aura leaked out, surrounding the outline of his entire body. It spread until it also coated the outline of Crocea Mors. Without hesitation, he swung the blade up at the incoming projectile, a harsh battle cry leaving his lips.
"FULL COUNTER!"
End Chapter.
Hey guys, I'm really sorry for the short length of this chapter but I've been struggling a little bit and this really feels like it should've been part of the last chapter rather than it's own one and since I don't know enough of the technical side of the site I'm inevitably left to post this as it's own chapter which I apologize for. Hopefully you enjoy this either way and please take it as a continuation of the previous chapter rather than an entirely new one.