Chapter 2: Fearless Leader?
| Nora Valkyrie POV |
Late at night.
Beacon Academy was huge, sprawling, and honestly? Totally awesome! After the craziest initiation ever—which involved falling out of the sky, riding an Ursa like a majestic steed, and smashing a giant scorpion monster in the face with a grenade hammer—we were officially Team JNPR!
Juniper! Like the berry! Or the tree!
The second we were assigned our dorm room, it was a mad dash to claim beds. Well, it was a mad dash for me. Renny just sighed and started unpacking our luggage like the responsible, completely-too-serious-for-his-own-good guy that he is. Pyrrha, the super famous cereal girl who was actually surprisingly nice and not at all stuck-up, was carefully folding her clothes on her mattress.
And our fearless leader? Jaune-Jaune?
He had taken one look at the barren dorm room, let out a long, suffering sigh that sounded like an old man whose back hurt, and declared he was going on a supply run.
"I'm finding a vending machine," he had grumbled, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "I need something carbonated or I'm going to commit a war crime. You kids want anything to celebrate?"
He had called us kids, even though he was the exact same age as us! But he offered to buy celebration drinks, which officially made him the best team leader in the history of Beacon Academy. I immediately ordered an orange soda. Pyrrha asked for some water. Ren, predictably, asked for green tea.
But as I watched Ren meticulously color-coordinate my socks in my dresser drawer while I started hanging up my awesome posters, a thought struck me.
Wait.
I don't want orange soda.
I want coffee!
Ren never lets me have coffee past five in the afternoon. He says it makes me "hyperactive" and a "danger to the surrounding." Which is entirely an exaggeration! Just because I accidentally crashed through a wall back in Mistral that one time doesn't mean I can't handle a little caffeine! Plus, tomorrow is our very first day of actual Huntsman classes! I need to be awake! I need to be alert! I need the bean juice!
If I told Ren I was getting coffee, he would veto it instantly with that disapproving Mom-stare of his.
But, if I run out, find Jaune-Jaune, intercept the drinks, and drink the coffee before I get back to the dorm... Renny won't ever know! It's the perfect crime!
I glanced at the clock on the wall.
Wait a second. It had been over forty minutes since Jaune left. Where was he? How hard is it to find a vending machine in a school for super-powered teenagers? Did he get lost? Did he get ambushed by upperclassmen? Did he fall out of a window?!
"Renny! Pyrrha!" I announced, placing my hands on my hips.
Ren paused mid-fold, already looking tired. "Nora, please tell me you aren't planning to dismantle the bunk beds to build a fortress again."
"No fortress!" I beamed. "I'm going out to find Jaune! Our fearless leader has been gone way too long! What if he fell into a trap? What if he's being interrogated by the teachers? I have to go rescue him!"
"Nora, it's a school," Ren sighed. "There are no traps."
"You don't know that!" I spun around on my heel, my skirt flaring out. "I'll be right back! Don't wait up!"
Before Ren could protest or Pyrrha could offer to come with me, I bolted out the door and into the pristine, quiet hallways of the Beacon dormitories.
Tap, tap, tap!
My boots echoed lightly on the polished tiles as I jogged down the corridor. The academy was massive, like a fancy castle mixed with a high-tech laboratory. Most of the other first-years were already asleep or quietly settling into their rooms.
"Jaune-Jaaaune~!" I sang softly in a sing-song whisper, checking around corners. "Come out, come out wherever you are! I need to change my order to a triple-shot espresso!"
I wandered for about ten minutes, checking the communal lounges and the ground-floor cafeteria areas. Nothing. No sign of our blonde, slightly goofy, but surprisingly intense leader.
That is, until I passed by a secluded stairwell located at the end of the north wing. It had a brass plaque next to it that read: Upperclassmen Residences - Years 3 & 4.
Grooooaaaan.
I stopped in my tracks.
My ears twitched. Was that... a groan of pain?
Uggghhh... my ribs...
It definitely was! My eyes widened in excitement. Was there a fight? A secret late-night brawl?! Were the seniors already testing their skills against each other?
Curious, I peeked my head around the corner of the stairwell, tilting my head to look up the spiraling steps.
And there I saw it.
A flash of distinct, bright yellow hair leaning casually against the metal handrail of the second-floor landing.
"Jaune-Jaune!" I mentally cheered, preparing to sprint up the stairs.
But my cheer died in my throat as my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the stairwell. I froze, taking in the entire scene.
Our fearless leader, Jaune Arc, the boy who wore a bunny onesie to bed and couldn't even figure out how to unfold his map during initiation without getting tangled in it, was leaning against the railing. One leg was crossed over the other in a posture of absolute, unbothered relaxation.
And in his mouth was a lit cigarette.
Puff.
A thin cloud of grey smoke drifted up toward the ceiling as he casually exhaled, his expression completely flat and listless.
Okay, wow. That was shocking. Jaune-Jaune didn't look like the 'bad boy' type who would smoke. He looked like the kind of guy who drank a glass of warm milk before bed and said his prayers.
But what actually made my jaw drop and stoop so low to the floor wasn't the cigarette.
It was the three bodies groaning, whimpering, and twitching on the tiled floor right in front of him.
Three massive, heavily muscled guys wearing Beacon upperclassmen uniforms were curled into fetal positions at his feet. One was holding his face, another was clutching his stomach, and the third was just staring blankly at the ceiling, looking completely out cold.
Twitch.
Jaune didn't even look at them. He just flicked a bit of ash over the railing, staring out a nearby window at the shattered moon with eyes that looked like they had seen the end of the world and found it entirely boring.
I took a tentative step onto the first stair. "J-Jaune...?"
He finally, lazily turned his head toward me. His eyes—those striking gold eyes that had freaked Pyrrha out earlier during the Deathstalker fight—locked onto me. He looked at me for a few long seconds, his face blank, as if trying to remember if I was an enemy, an obstacle, or just a hallucination.
And then, he muttered a single word.
"Ginger."
I blinked.
Did... did he just?
"Ginger?!" I shrieked, my initial shock immediately vaporizing into fiery indignation. I stomped up the stairs, taking them two at a time until I reached his landing, completely ignoring the groaning seniors under my boots.
"Hey, what do you mean ginger?!" I demanded, pointing an accusing finger right at his nose. He didn't even flinch, just took another drag of his cigarette. "Just because I have orange hair?! That's mean, Jaune-Jaune! I'm not a ginger! Gingers are completely different!"
I placed my hands on my hips, puffing out my chest. "Do I have freckles? No! Do I have a creepy, soulless stare that judges your sins? No! I have beautiful, vibrant teal eyes and flawless skin, thank you very much! Therefore, I am not a ginger. I am a readhead. Yep!"
I nodded firmly to myself, completely satisfied with my flawless logic, successfully justifying the vast, monumental difference between my cute, energetic orange hair and the stereotype of a soulless ginger.
Jaune just stared at me. The cigarette dangled precariously from his lips. He looked at me as if I was speaking a language comprised entirely of static noise.
"...Are you done?" he asked, his voice rough and incredibly deep, completely lacking the nervous crack it had in the locker rooms this morning.
"Well, yes. But enough about me!" I chirped, bouncing on the heels of my boots. I pointed down at the three whimpering hulks of meat groveling on the floor. "What happened here, Jaune-Jaune?! It's been nearly an hour since you went out to get us drinks and didn't return! I came looking for you!"
I leaned in closer, whispering conspiratorially. "And to also change my drink order. I want a large iced coffee instead of orange soda. Renny won't let me have caffeine, so we have to be stealthy."
Jaune blinked. He looked from me, down to the groaning seniors, and then rubbed the bridge of his nose, letting out another one of those exhausted, ancient sighs.
"Ah, shit," he grumbled, pinching the cigarette between his fingers. "My bad. Sorry, I lost track of time."
He kicked one of the unconscious seniors lightly in the ribs with the toe of his sneaker, just to make the guy groan and shift out of his way.
"I was walking around trying to find a vending machine that didn't just dispense healthy, sugar-free crap," Jaune explained, his tone conversational, as if we were discussing the weather. "When some hot girl wearing a beret told me the best machines were on the second floor of this wing."
"Ooh, sounds like a trap!" I gasped playfully.
"Yeah, clearly," Jaune snorted, rolling his golden eyes. "So, I was walking up these stairs to get the drinks, when these three goons blocked the landing. Tried to act tough. Told me I had to pay a 'freshman toll' or some shit to access the higher floors."
"A toll?! Extortion!" I gasped, clutching my metaphorical pearls. "On the first night?!"
"Right? Annoying as fuck," Jaune agreed casually. "So, I kicked their asses, broke the big one's nose, kicked the tall one in the liver, and choked the third one out."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of lien cards and loose cash.
"Then I looted their wallets," he said smoothly. "And found out one of them had a pack of smokes. So I've just been standing here, relaxing, taking a smoke break. Entirely lost track of time. Being back in school throws my internal clock off."
I stared at the crumpled bodies. Then at the fistful of stolen cash in his hand. Then at his completely unrepentant face.
He didn't just beat up upperclassmen on the first night of school. He mugged them.
Our fearless leader was a delinquent! A thug! A magnificent, completely unhinged badass!
"My bad," Jaune shrugged, slipping the cash into his pocket and tossing the cigarette butt onto the ground, crushing it beneath his heel. "Come on. Let's get the drinks together. I found the machine. It's just down the hall."
He turned to walk away, then paused, shooting me a sidelong glance. A manipulative, conspiratorial smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.
"Tell you what," he bargained smoothly. "You can get two large coffees, on me, paid for by the generous donations of these fine gentlemen on the floor..." He gestured vaguely to the groaning upperclassmen. "...if you keep this little incident, and the smoking, a total secret from your boytoy and the amazon redhead."
My face instantly felt like it was on fire.
"B-Boytoy?!" I spluttered, feeling the heat rise all the way to the tips of my ears. "Renny isn't my boytoy! We're not together-together! We're just childhood friends! We've been together forever! We're... he's... he's my Renny!"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, Valkyrie," Jaune rolled his eyes, turning down the hallway.
"Call me Nora!" I demanded, jogging to catch up with his long, surprisingly confident strides.
"Valkyrie is fine. It sounds tougher. Fits your whole hammer-smash aesthetic," he replied, not looking back.
"No, call me Nora!" I insisted, stepping in front of him and walking backward so he had to look at me. "Team leaders are supposed to use first names! It builds camaraderie! Friendship! Team cohesion!"
"I don't really care about that though, Valkyrie," he deadpanned.
"It's Nora!"
"Valkyrie."
"Nora!"
"Ginger."
"I am a readhead! Call me Nora!"
We went back and forth for three entire minutes, standing right in front of the brightly lit vending machine. I stubbornly refused to let him insert a lien card until he conceded. I am stubborn. I once out-stubborned a Beowolf in a staring contest until it got bored and walked away. I could do this all night.
Finally, Jaune threw his head back, let out a frustrated groan that echoed down the hallway, and dragged a hand down his face.
"Jeez," he hissed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Fine. Nora. Whatever. Are you happy now? Can I please buy the sugar water?"
"Yay~!" I cheered, throwing my arms up in victory. "I win! Alright, now let's get those drinks! And don't worry, your bad boy mugging-and-smoking secret is totally safe with me, Fearless Leader!"
Jaune just looked at me with those ancient, tired gold eyes.
"I have a feeling I'm going to regret being put on a team with you," he muttered under his breath, punching the buttons on the vending machine entirely too hard.
"We are going to be best friends!" I beamed.
He didn't answer, just handed me a can of ridiculously strong iced coffee.
Clink.
Yup. Best team leader ever.
| Jaune Arc POV |
A few hours later.
Scratch. Scrape. Tch.
The faint, rhythmic sound of metal carving into polished wood was the only noise in the otherwise silent room, save for the soft, synchronized breathing of three sleeping teenagers.
Even in another world, people are still people.
Some are disgusting wastes of air trying to run petty extortion rackets in a hallway.
Others are hyperactive balls of sunshine that should be strapped to a chair and wired into a power grid because we'd instantly achieve infinite, renewable energy.
Snicker.
I let out a soft breath of amusement through my nose as I worked, crouching low by the wooden frame of our dormitory door. Behind me, the room was bathed in the pale light of the shattered moon filtering through the window.
My newly acquired 'team' was dead to the world.
The hammer girl—Nora, I corrected myself mentally so I wouldn't have to deal with another migraine-inducing argument tomorrow—was sprawled starfish-style across her mattress, one leg hanging dangerously over the edge, completely tangling herself in her blankets.
The quiet, Asian-looking kid with the pink streak in his hair—Ren—was sleeping perfectly still on his back, his hands folded neatly over his chest like a corpse in a casket. It was genuinely unnerving how still he was.
And the tall, athletic redhead—Pyrrha—was curled onto her side, tossing and turning slightly every few minutes, her brow furrowed in a mild, uneasy sleep. Probably the adrenaline from the day's combat wearing off.
I ignored them, focusing entirely on my task.
In my right hand, I held the blade of the simple, uninspired longsword this body possessed—Crocea Mors, or some other equally stupid, pretentious name. But I wasn't holding it by the hilt. I had my hand wrapped directly around the base of the steel blade, holding it firmly like a giant, unwieldy metal pen.
Scraaaape.
I dragged the sharp tip of the blade down the wooden doorframe, carving a precise, ancient sigil into the grain of the wood.
Seriously. How could my new team of dumbasses just go to sleep in an entirely new, unfamiliar place without at least setting up a basic perimeter? No traps? No alarm systems? No cursed talismans? It was baffling. You don't just close your eyes and trust a wooden door with a flimsy electronic lock to keep you safe in a world filled with monsters.
That was how you ended up as a midnight snack.
Emerge from darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure.
I silently recited the incantation in my mind as I finished the final stroke of the carving. I pushed a minuscule, almost unnoticeable sliver of Cursed Energy from my fingertips into the grooved wood.
The carving flared with a faint, pitch-black energy for a fraction of a second before fading entirely, settling deep into the frame.
A 'Curtain'.
It was a basic, rudimentary barrier technique used by Jujutsu Sorcerers back home to hide their activities from non-sorcerers and contain curses. But with a few modifications to the binding conditions, I had altered this one to act as a silent proximity alarm and physical deterrent. If anyone—human or otherwise—tried to force their way into this room without my approval, the barrier would snap back like a rubber band, delivering a concussive shockwave of Cursed Energy right into their chest.
It wouldn't kill a high-tier fighter, but it would throw them across the hallway and wake me up instantly.
I stood up, rolling my shoulders. My joints popped loudly.
I looked down at my hands. At the pale, unscarred skin. At the gangly, completely unconditioned forearms.
What a weak ass body I got dropped into, a total untrained mess. Even Megumi could kick my ass right now...
It had been roughly a couple hours since I had been somehow ripped out of my own death and slammed face-first into the consciousness of one 'Jaune Arc'. The transition had been jarring. One minute I was bleeding out, looking up at a sky I'd failed to protect, and the next, I was plummeting through the air holding onto an infuriatingly loud, aristocratic girl in white.
The muscle memory in this body was non-existent. The kid hadn't trained a day in his life. Swinging his sword felt like trying to swing a baseball bat underwater. His footing was sloppy. His center of gravity was disastrous.
But... the inner reserves?
That was another story entirely.
I walked over to the window, leaning against the cold glass and looking out over the sprawling, moonlit campus of Beacon Academy.
This world was weird. Bizarre.
It had been just a couple hours, and I hadn't seen a single, genuine Curse. No grostesque manifestations of human malice crawling on the ceilings. No invisible horrors born of fear and depression haunting the hospitals or schools.
Which was odd, to say the least. Where there are humans, there is negative energy. Where there is negative energy, there are Curses. It was a just how it is back home.
But instead, this world had 'Grimm'.
Those monsters we fought in the forest. The giant scorpion. The massive bird. They felt... similar to Curses, but distinct. If I had to classify them, they felt like heavily diluted, physical manifestations of negative energy. Kind of like Grade 3 or low-tier Grade 2 curses. They lacked complex thought, lacked cursed techniques, and were entirely reliant on their physical bodies.
They were beasts. Not spirits.
Maybe this world just had a completely different system for handling the accumulation of negative emotions. Instead of pooling and birthing spiritual horrors that only Sorcerers could see, the energy somehow calcified in the wild, creating these physical 'Grimm' that anyone with a pair of working eyeballs could spot. And apparently, these monsters were fought against by a mercenary, glorified police force called 'Huntsmen'.
At least, that was the assumption I was working on based on the very few, fragmented memories I had managed to salvage from the previous owner of this brain told me.
Tsk.
I clicked my tongue, crossing my arms over my chest.
This whole setup reeked. It fucking stank to high heaven.
A force of endless, soulless monsters that supposedly outnumbers humanity a thousand to one? Yet somehow, humanity is still alive and kicking, sitting pretty in massive, technologically advanced kingdoms with floating arenas and holographic scrolls?
Yeah, I call absolute, grade-A bullshit on that.
An imbalance that extreme doesn't sustain itself naturally. If the Grimm truly wanted to wipe humanity off the map and had those numbers, they would have done it centuries ago. This balance looked artificial as hell. Cultivated. Maintained.
Someone, or something, was keeping the Grimm at bay, or keeping humanity just strong enough to serve a purpose. It felt like walking into a massive, global farm where the humans were the livestock, blissfully unaware of the fences holding them in.
And don't even get me started on the power system these 'Huntsmen' used.
'Aura'.
I sneered internally.
The amazon girl, Pyrrha, had unlocked it for the previous host of this body of mine. And I had immediately felt it when I woke up—a massive, churning ocean of light suddenly expanding outward from the core of my existence, wrapping around my physical body like a glowing, gelatinous armor.
Using your own soul as a battery to power up your attacks? Projecting it outward as a literal forcefield to take physical hits?
If that isn't a one-way K.O. condition for literally any Sorcerer or Curse with half a brain, then I don't know what is.
From a Jujutsu perspective, it was the most suicidal, unnatural mechanic I had ever seen.
The soul is the blueprint of the body. It is the most vital, vulnerable, and heavily guarded aspect of a living being. In my world, damaging the soul meant permanent, unhealable damage. If a Curse, or worse, Mahito touched you, you were dead. Period.
By projecting your soul outward into a tangible, impact-absorbing shield, you are essentially wrapping yourself in your own internal organs to block a punch. Sure, it stops the physical strike. It stops the claws and the bullets.
But you are exposing your absolute core to anyone who knows how to actually interact with a soul.
If any decent Sorcerer with a Domain Expansion dropped an attack on an Aura user, the guaranteed-hit effect wouldn't just bypass the shield; the Aura itself would become a massive, glowing target for soul-targeting damage. It would shatter them instantly.
Even without a Domain, just applying the basic properties of Cursed Energy into a strike was enough to bypass the artificial protection.
I knew this for a fact.
I replayed the memory from a few hours ago on the staircase.
Those three senior bullies. They had tried to shake me down. When they realized I wasn't intimidated, the big one had lunged at me, his fists glowing with his own personal, blue Aura shield.
I hadn't used the massive reserves of white Aura pulsing inside me. I had ignored it entirely. Instead, I tapped into my own reserve of Cursed Energy that had migrated with my soul.
I had reinforced my fist with pure Cursed Energy. Just a standard, textbook application.
When my knuckles connected with the senior's stomach, my fist didn't bounce off his forcefield. The Cursed Energy had treated the Aura like it wasn't there at all, bypassing the spiritual projection entirely and striking his physical flesh—and the vulnerable soul—with devastating force.
A straight punch. Bypassed the Aura completely. I knocked the wind out of him, cracked three ribs, and knocked him out in a single hit. The other two had fallen just as easily to a liver kick and a chokehold.
Aura was a crutch. A massively flawed, exploitable crutch.
Until I could dissect its mechanics, until I could understand exactly how this world manipulated the soul without dying, I wasn't going to touch it. I was not going to project my soul outward to tank hits from giant scorpions or rival Huntsmen.
At least not until I learned enough about using it so that any sorcerer I might meet wouldn't just one-tap me... If I could land here... who's to say others from my world who died aren't here somewhere?
Although I doubt it. If someone like Gojo and Sukuna had landed here... they'd already be well known enough by now to strike fear and awe in equal measure as walking natural disasters. The fact that Jaune had no knowledge of such strong individuals... or that a quick search for their names in this world's equivalent of a scroll turned up nothing... meant they probably weren't here.
For now, I'll stick to what I can do... Curse Sorcery.
Curse Reinforcement—wrapping the body in the negative energy of human malice to enhance physical durability and striking power—was more than enough for me right now. It was a completely different form of energy, one this world didn't seem to possess or understand.
"Step one," I muttered quietly to the empty room, turning away from the window and walking toward my unmade bed. "Fix this pathetic, noodle-armed body. Step two. Figure out who's orchestrating this fake-ass monster war."
I sat heavily on the mattress, unlacing my boots and kicking them under the frame.
I didn't ask to be brought here.
But I was here. I was breathing.
And if there's one thing a Sorcerer knows how to do, it's deal with the worst hands fate can deal.
I laid back on the pillow, closing my gold eyes.
For the first time since opening my eyes in the Emerald Forest, I allowed my guard to drop just a fraction.
Tomorrow, Huntsman Academy classes began.
Let's see what the locals here know about killing.