Spring had arrived in Vale.
No one would have guessed.
The sky was still a pale sheet of steel, clouds hanging low and heavy like unfinished thoughts and frost still clung stubbornly to the ground.
Wind moved across the forest clearing. The location was relatively close to the city but it was still far enough away that no one was going to bother them. The area had been transformed into a training plateau, and the misty wind swept across the area like a breath from a cloud.
Jaune exhaled and stepped forward.
Raven didn't move.
She stood with one hand loosely raised, posture relaxed, dark hair stirring faintly in the wind. Her expression was calm.
Jaune struck.
Twin blades flashed in tight arcs, steel carving through the air with a precise hiss. Aura surged along their edges, flaring at the moment of impact.
Aura Echo.
Tenfold.
Each swing carried the layered reverberation of prior force, stacked and folded into the present strike. The air cracked as his blades collided with Raven's raised hand.
She blocked it with just her palm.
The impact rippled outward, frost shattering beneath their feet in a web of fractures.
Jaune pivoted immediately, second blade sweeping low before snapping upward into a diagonal cut aimed for her shoulder. Echo layered again. Ten stacked pulses compressed into one decisive arc.
Raven's fingers tightened slightly.
She caught the flat of the blade against her forearm and redirected it with a subtle twist of her wrist. The force dispersed harmlessly to the side, gouging a shallow trench into the ground.
She still didn't move.
Jaune pressed harder.
After the fight with Arthur Watts months ago, something had changed.
The artificial propulsion into Rank 2 and the raw expansion of Will that came with standing on a different plane of existence had faded.
But one fragment had remained.
The sensation of Jaune's Will.
Rank 2 Will had the capacity to alter reality in subtle ways. To impose intent so cleanly that the world adjusted around it. Jaune no longer possessed that level of dominance.
Yet his body remembered how it felt and so did his brain remember.
It was as though some door had been forced open during that battle, and even after it slammed shut, the hinges never quite aligned the same way again.
Now every strike of his carried the Echo by default. Tenfold was his ceiling and the maximum his current state could sustain without destabilizing his attacks. Yet, he maintained it in every attack.
He lunged again, blades crossing in a rapid combination. Horizontal. Vertical. Thrust. Reverse grip slash.
Raven's hand moved in smooth, economical motions. A tap to deflect. A push to redirect. A slight angle change that stole the momentum from a thrust before it could fully form.
She was not just using brute force, she was also just better.
She was using her whole hand now.
Months ago she had stopped him with a single finger.
Others might have found it humiliating, to be blocked so casually. To fight at full capacity while your opponent barely exerted effort.
But Jaune had stood in the skin of a Rank 2. He had felt what true superiority was.
This was not humiliation but acknowledgment.
He shifted stance, dropping lower as his weight redistributed through his hips. A subtle opening appeared along his right side.
Deliberate.
Raven's eyes sharpened.
Jaune twisted at the last possible instant, exploiting the exact angle of weakness he had presented. His blade snapped inward, riding the narrow corridor between defense and counter.
Weakness had become a weapon of pure skill.
Since reaching comprehension, he had possessed an almost predatory awareness of his own structural vulnerabilities. He could feel where his body was weakest in any position. Where leverage thinned and where balance wavered.
And instead of avoiding those spaces, he guided opponents into them.
He flowed into the weak points, compressing them into traps.
Raven's palm intercepted his strike again, this time with slightly more force.
The ground cracked beneath them.
She nodded faintly.
"Impressive. Truly."
Jaune did not respond. He was already moving.
A feint high. A true thrust low. Echo layered. Ten pulses compressed into a single explosive release.
Raven stepped back.
One step.
Jaune's heart pounded.
He pressed forward relentlessly, blades weaving in a tight storm of gold light. Echo thundered through each strike, controlled but violent.
Raven now used her entire arm to parry, redirecting his blades with sharper motions. The air vibrated with impact after impact, shockwaves rippling outward in visible distortions.
Even so, she remained composed.
Jaune felt the difference clearly.
To her perception, he was likely still moving slowly. Faster than before, yes.
But not enough.
He pivoted into a spinning cut, one blade carving wide while the other thrust inward from beneath his shoulder.
Raven caught both.
Her hand clamped around one blade's flat while her forearm absorbed the second.
She twisted.
Jaune's arms jolted violently as the force unraveled his structure. He stumbled back three steps before regaining footing, breath ragged.
Raven lowered her hand.
"That's enough."
Jaune stood there, chest rising and falling heavily. Sweat cooled instantly against the Valean wind.
Raven wasn't even winded.
If anything, she looked mildly contemplative.
"You've integrated it fully," she said.
Jaune sheathed one blade but kept the other resting against his shoulder.
He gave a tired half smile.
"Yeah. Came with the experience, I guess. Didn't have much of a choice."
She regarded him steadily.
"Indeed. And you've also made the best of it, so you won't hear any disregard from me in that manner"
He shrugged faintly.
"Turns out knowing exactly how fragile you are makes you efficient."
Her lips curved almost imperceptibly.
"Your Will, you're skilled enough in wielding it that you should even be able to purge external runic influence on your body. Truly I say to you, if you ever manage to reach Rank 2, you'll be an incredible fighter. "
Jaune nodded, accepting the compliment.
That had been another change.
Pyrrha could no longer manipulate him using her Ferrous rune.
Not the way she once could.
Controlling the iron in his blood had once been almost effortless for her, even if it cost her a lot of Aura to do so. Now, when her rune attempted to grip him, Jaune simply infused his Will through his body to purge the runic energy from his system.
Almost all runic energy of rank 1 and below could be dissolved under that pressure.
Meta runes however, were a little different. Ones like his Weakness and Plunder—they existed on a higher conceptual layer of power—which meant that they could bypass the body's defenses entirely and interact with structure at a deeper level. Those could not be purged through Will alone. Only passive Aura defense could mitigate them.
But against ordinary runes, Jaune had become infuriatingly resistant.
None of the others could defeat him in combat anymore.
Not Ren, Nora or Blake.
Even Pyrrha couldn't do such a thing anymore.
This wasn't arrogance. It was simply a fact measured through repeated sparring.
Raven studied him for a moment longer.
"You're very close to the absolute ceiling of Rank 1," she said calmly.
Jaune wiped sweat from his brow.
"Ceiling?"
"Hmm. You are aware of what being peak of a Rank is, correct?"
Before he could respond, a shadow passed overhead.
A massive black shape descended from the sky, wings beating slowly as it spiraled downward. Snow scattered in gusting circles beneath it.
Jaune glanced up.
The crow was enormous. Four legged. Black feathers slick and layered like overlapping blades. Its body was roughly the size of a ten year old child, talons digging into the frozen ground as it landed.
Its eyes gleamed with faint red glints.
Jaune stared.
He had seen worse.
He had seen Qrow in his building sized avian form, wings spanning entire rooftops.
Still, this version was quite unsettling.
The crow tilted its head unnaturally and opened its beak.
"Well well," it rasped.
The voice was thick. Gravel dragged across broken glass.
Jaune blinked slowly.
Crows could imitate speech perfectly. Which meant this was just intentional.
He stared deadpan at the creature.
"Really?"
The crow puffed its feathers indignantly.
"What?" it croaked in the same theatrical rasp. "You don't like it?"
"You sound like you're auditioning for a haunted forest. What are you going to do, jump out of a bush and scare me?"
The crow froze.
Raven sighed quietly.
The black shape shimmered, feathers folding inward as its body restructured.
Qrow Branwen stood where the bird had been, adjusting the collar of his black sweater beneath his long coat. He wore a full black ensemble. Cargo pants, heavy black boots and his massive single edged greatsword rested across his back like a permanent accusation.
He crossed his arms.
"You're no fun," he muttered in his normal voice.
"Thank you," Jaune replied flatly.
Qrow shot him a sideways look.
"Kid really is getting stronger," he said to Raven.
Raven nodded once.
"He is."
Jaune rolled his shoulders, tension easing slowly from his muscles.
"So what did that mean exactly? The ceiling thing you were talking about."
Raven crossed her arms.
"It's classified in semantics. LUCID's designation for individuals who have 10 in Body, Will and Aura, as well as having both two runes are considered peak Rank 1's."
She paused.
"However there are distinctions in strength between these individuals. Can you guess what they are?"
Jaune nodded. "Rune comprehension."
"Indeed. Those who have reached comprehension in their runes are always stronger than those who haven't. These people are also known as half-step Rank 2's."
"Half step..."
"Though, you should also be aware there are distinctions in strength between half step Rank 2's. The man who you fought a long time ago in Belmont. Roman, was it? He was a person who had two runes at comprehension level, yet he hadn't ranked up to rank 2. He was at the ceiling of possibility for Rank 1. Or at least, the ceiling of his own capabilities at that point."
Jaune nodded. "I see. That makes sense, I guess. Then, I would be considered as a half-step?"
This time it was Qrow who answered.
"Sort of. Though in your case, I'd consider you more of a ceiling-breaker, in certain cases."
"Ceiling breaker? How many terms are there?"
Qrow patted Jaune's shoulder.
"More than you'd expect. In any case, ceiling breaker means being able to fight across Ranks. Very few individuals in all of awakened history have been able to do this. Your achievement can be considered as nothing short of legendary. Even if it only occurred under very specific circumstances."
Jaune cracked a sad smile at that. "Guess I'm special huh?"
"Something like that."
The wind swept across the plateau again, carrying the faint scent of frost and distant steel.
Months had passed since Atlas burned and froze in the same breath.
Loss had settled into something quieter. Not gone. Just integrated.
Like weakness.
Like an echo.
Jaune looked between Raven and Qrow.
"So," he said, sliding his second blade back into its sheath. "Why set all of this up? It's rare that the both of you have time off and want to spend it training a kid like me?"
Raven's gaze sharpened and Qrow's lips twitched into a faint smirk.
Raven then uncrossed her arms and asked Jaune a very interesting question. One that he wasn't even sure how he was supposed to answer.
"What do you know about the shadowrealm?"
Above them, the clouds shifted.
.
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AN: Advanced chapters are available on patreon