33 Preparing for departure

It was a sunny day, the refreshing breath of nature could be easily felt on one's skin and the tranquil silence of nature could be felt all around the place.

This was the current state of the area that stood a few minutes of walk away for the peaceful and isolated village of Ansel.

There, it can be seen two figures seated on top of a fallen log, their haggard appearance and the destroyed state of their surroundings already giving an idea of what has just happened a few moments ago.

One was a boy with golden blonde hair that reached down to his shoulder, sapphire eyes that seemed to contain much more wisdom than his age suggests, skin that was covered in dirt and sweat but it didn't diminish his apparence, by the contrary it further gave a sense of vitality and youth when looking at him. His clothes were very plain and all the dirt and sweat made them look very shabby on top of the fact that they were already too small for him.

On his side there was a girl that much like him seemed very tired and dirty but in her case much more so, as she was desperately gasping for air and her appearance led one to believe that she spent the last hour rolling in the dirt, which is not far from what actually happened.

In regards to her appearance, she had a long wavy hair that reached her waist that was split in two colors being brown at one side and pink with white highlights in the other, she also had a bang that covered one of her eyes and hid their heterochromatic nature with only a pink colored iris being visible. Her physique was still very petite for a 14 year old, but her days of being malnourished and growth stunted were long gone, with her having grown and developed a lot ever since she arrived at the Arc household and received a proper diet along with physical training.

If you were to look at those two and say that they're 4 years apart with the girl being the older one, than most people wouldn't believe it. Not only because the girl was small but also because the boy that is actually 10 years old looks more like a 13 to 14 year old in height and his well trained body only reinforces it. When they first met 4 years ago this discrepancy wasn't so big, but as the boy developed at a much faster speed than normal children, most people became unable to guess his true age.

This pair was obviously Jaune Arc and Neopolitan, which were using the woods near the village as a place to train and have their frequent spars take place outside of prying eyes. This is something that both of them have been doing ever since Neo started her training and it has been immensely beneficial for both of them.

Jaune needed someone for him to use his semblance on. He was already very acostumed to using his semblance to amplify his own aura, but he also wanted to practice using it on others for when it's necessary. His fellow students in the dojo were not feasible since he could only see them for a limited time and he was busy on the dojo sparring with his teacher, Ryu-Bang wasn't an option since he never discovered his own semblance to this day, discovery that made Jaune respect him even more as he achieved all that he had purely with his skills and aura techniques and lastly his parents were most of the time either occupied or away which didn't allow them to help him, leaving only Neo as an option.

Neo meanwhile, got proportionally much more out of this deal, as Jaune could not only guide her in anything she has issues learning since she isn't directly taught by Ryu-Bang and can only receive guidance like other normal disciples, that's thanks to her age not allowing her to become a direct disciple like Jaune since she's already too old and it will be hard to catch up to the other students in the dojo, but this spars also allowed her to train her aura and semblance for much longer due to the boost that Jaune's semblance could provide her, therefore extending how long she could train.

Speaking of wich, she had her aura and semblance unlocked not long after she started her training and much like him, her semblance was very easy to be discovered due to Jaune already knowing what it was. This was crucial in order to allow her to keep up with training despite her horrible physique and the semblance was critical for her combat plan.

In the dojo, she is constantly defeated by other students due to her late start and small body, so since a direct confrontation with them would never be fair to begin with, he decided to teach her to fight using all the means she has in order to make up for that difference.

Ryu-Bang is a very upright and honorable man that would never teach one of his students to fight dirty, his parents and grandparent are the same in this aspect. But Jaune is different, he has no issues in fighting dirty, using cheap moves and trickery in order to win since to him the most important thing is to be victorious over having the moral superiority. Neo has absorbed all of that from him over the years and combined with her experience surviving on the streets and semblance, she was able to even the playing field and start finally winning a few spars.

This got her an infamous reputation in the dojo and the fear of many boys that saw her mercilessly targeting their fellow disciples lower parts, but despite this she never got to be among the strongest in the dojo due to tricks being able to only take her so far and she just not being compatible with bare-handed combat in general.

That's why she was never taught the crushing fist style which has harsh physical requirements and instead Jaune took a few manuals from the dojo's library and taught her a mix of many martial arts that involve agility, flexibility and precision which suited her much better. But that was just in order to build a foundation and start her aura training since her real combat training would happen at home.

Her training would focus mostly on wielding weapons, with Alexandra as a retired huntress being in charge of training Neo whenever she's free while Jaune trained with his father, the weapon most commonly used being a short sword since it was light, easy to learn and it was the type of weapon that she used in the show, meaning that she must have some compatibility with this kind of weapon. So they would both spar using wooden swords in this clearing whenever they could in order to improve their skills.

Her current style also developed to have many points in common with the show's counterpart, especially as she made use of her acrobatic prowess and flexibility to perform many unexpected moves that most wouldn't be able to copy, that combined with the learnt aura techniques at the dojo, training by both himself and his mother and a little bit of ballet moves that she learnt in dance lessons created a completely distinct and original fighting style.

They could use the forest near the village without any problems or danger since the mountainous terrain surrounding the village made the access to it very hard from the outside and limited the number and size of Grimm that could aproach it, allowing a single huntsman to be more than enough to protect it as Nicholas has been doing for years, with such a favorable environment the only reason that Ansel hasn't expanded beyond a small village is the lack of fertile soil or any valuable resource in conjuction with its isolation.

The fights between them would all favor Jaune due to his greater experience, better physique, larger aura reserves and a semblance that could not only support him but since discovering a new use of it a year ago can also increase his offense. Neo meanwhile, wouldn't let this victory come to him easily, she used her semblance to constantly relocate herself, confuse him and conceal her location, allowing her to launch dozens of sneak attacks with only some of them succeeding, but despite this, she still failed to deplete his monstrous aura reserves and lost.

These were simple but very special moments that both of them shared that caused the two of them to slowly accumulate trust and strengthen the bond that they had, this was a time that all worries and uncertainties could be put aside in favor of just enjoying that moment.

...

|Jaune's P.O.V|

After we finished our routinely spar, which I won by a pretty large margin considering how much aura I still had left. I noticed that Neo which was sitting at my side was sporting a gloomy expression and so I decided to say a few words to try and cheer her up.

"Huff... you're getting stronger pretty fast, you almost got me with your last sneak attack, you just need a little more time to perfect your aura manipulation." I say while stretching my muscles that were sore after a good spar.

"Hmph!" Neo meanwhile just lets out a dry snort hearing that and doesn't put what I said to heart, even if she had hit me with that sneak attack, it would've only depleted a fraction of my aura reserves.

But it couldn't be helped, this was a unfair fight from the very begining considering that Neo would need to deal more than 5 times the damage she received in order to have a shot at winning, that's one of the reasons that I can force a draw when sparring with more skilled opponents and win most battles of attrition. Not to mention my now improved semblance that mix not only incredible defence but also offense whenever I might need it.

Over the last year I've been deepening my knowledge of my own semblance through constant experimentation and have been able to so far discover many new uses for my already insanely versatile semblance.

Not much was changed in regards to the amplification of the 'protection aspect' besides increasing the amount that I could augument my aura reserves from a factor of 1.7× when I first unlocked it 4 years ago to a current 2.45×. With my aura pool that's 5 times larger by default, that would result in having effectively 12 people worth of aura that my opponents would have to go through in order to damage me.

But the real discoveries were centered on the amplification of the 'destruction aspect' that I discovered a year ago, when I switch what aspect I'm amplifying to this one, I gain an increase in my raw attributes such as strength and speed and and explosive raise the power of all offensive aura techniques I've learned so far, but this comes at the cost of decreasing the defense and recovery properties of my aura.

But the real breakthrough came when I looked deeper into the flames that coated my body when I first used this power, those white flames were neither just a decoration as I first assumed nor did they behave like normal flames when I put them to the test, instead they turned out to be some things much more remarkable.

I named those white flames 'Soulfire' and they could be described as being aura in its most destructive form, while regular fire burns things with its high heat and potential energy, Soulfire in the other hand releases no heat and instead it destroys any object that it comes into contact at a molecular level not even leaving dust behind.

Meaning that I can technically use it to destroy any material on the planet, one of the limitations being the amount of aura that I infuse into the flames as that is its fuel and the tougher the molecular bonds of the material are the more energy is required to break it, meaning that the amount of aura that it costs me can vary and the Soulfire cannot linger too far from my position since without aura it will quickly be extinguished.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Soulfire only affects physical objects and since aura is both spiritual and physical in nature, it is capable of somewhat blocking Soulfire's effects, though it will still do some damage to aura due to it also being half physical, so someone's aura protection or coating their weapon in aura is a viable way to counter it.

But this power's greatest strength is at the same time its greatest weakness, as Soulfire is destruction indiscriminate, it cannot be controlled once released and it will lay waste to the surroundings without any distinction, which makes this power extremely dangerous and unsuitable to be used when there's allies nearby or many civilians as they may be destroyed along with the surroundings.

That thankfully does not include Myself as the white flame is fueled by my aura and therefore does not cause any harm to me, but the same can't be said about my clothes and weapons. Luckily at the time I wasn't wielding crocea mors or it would've been a complete disaster, but I still had to endure the shame of walking home after all my clothes are gone, all the photos of that day were immediately deleted using my hacking skills but I couldn't do anything about the incessant teasing that followed.

Over the course of this year I've increased my control over it so that such thing wouldn't happen again but regretfully, I had to come to the decision of not using it unless it was completely necessary, it was just too dangerous and I had to hold off on using it until I gained greater control of it.

'But still, raining Soulfire on my enemies and watching them be reduced to nothing should be a very exhilarating experience. It is a pity that I won't have many opportunities to use it unless...'

I then suddenly snap out of a trance and hurriedly touch my face with my hands only to realize that I was currently sporting a wicked grin that reflected the dark and murderous thoughts that were on my mind.

So after fixing my expression, I immediately turn towards Neo that was on my side and quickly decide what I should do in order to expunge such thoughts.

"Neo, I need you to put your head on my lap, hurry!" After I open my mouth, what comes out of it is an outrageous demand out of the sudden and without any explanation.

"..?" Neo hearing my request just tilts her head to the side showing a confused expression, but she quickly complies without even asking for the reasoning. Partly due to how tired she was and partly due to this being an request from non other than her benefactor.

With her head now resting on my lap, I then start to gently stroke her hair and feel all the dark thoughts that were on my mind a while ago vanish as instead my mind is filled with peaceful thoughts. Neo also seems to be enjoying it, as I can hear her almost purring in satisfaction at the gesture.

'That was dangerous! I could feel myself falling to the dark side right there, I'm feeling that as I'm getting stronger, more twisted thoughts are starting to brew within me, I have to be more careful and make sure to keep a source of nice thoughts nearby.'

After standing like that for a little while, I finally stop and decide that's already time for us to return home.

"Neo, c'mon let's head back. I have to talk to mom and dad about the trip and you need to go wash all the sweat and dirt off."

"..." Neo showed a displeased expression at my last comment but did very reluctantly get up from his lap.

I then got up and prepared to leave, but I then noticed that Neo wasn't following and looked back to her.

{Are you really going to make me walk after seeing how tired I am? Considering that you're the one that is responsible for this, is only fair that you help me by carrying me back} Neo conveyed using sign language, one of the skills that the members of our family had to learn in order to communicate with her.

"Sigh... Fine, I'll carry you on the way back. I swear that you're becoming more needy by the day, just keep in mind that my generosity isn't limitless, so don't waste it." I warn her so that she doesn't become too excessive, it would probably be more convincing if I hadn't said this hundreds of times over the years.

So I aproach her and turn my back so that she can hop on my back, feeling her arms wrapping over my shoulders and her weight on my back, I grab onto her tights to support her and start making my way back home.

There will be a long talk ahead of me once I reach my destination.

...

"Son, what are your thoughts on having an arranged marriage prepared for you?" I can barely believe on what just left my father's lips on this day and age.

"W-What?" Comes my very intelligent response.

"Your father and I have taken the liberty to find a fiancee for you, we have also settled on a date for you to meet."

It would seem that my predictions can be very easily subverted by a few words.