Chapter 1: Breathe

Jaune Arc was just your average 14 year old male teen living in Argus with his family; having to go to school, make friends, fall in love, play video games and read comics, etc. with the only extraordinary part of himself–being his seven sisters and a huntsman father.

Ever since he was a child, Jaune had many dreams and ambitions in life. Who wouldn't? Everybody when they were a child would have that same mindset as well.

But one particular job, no, dream stuck to him. Being a hero. An ally of justice. And the closest thing to that was being a huntsman.

There were many reasons for him to want to take on such a role. The influence of comics, animation shows, the grand stories his father told him about his adventures as a huntsman and the history of the arc family, etc. It was mostly the latter that inspired him.

Jaune wanted to become a hero. He was firm in his decision when he turned ten and asked his father to train him in the ways of a huntsman, of a hero.

The result? Well, he got turned down.

Why? Jaune didn't know and his father would never explain the reason. Though it might be because they were tight on cash right now, with his dad's job being a huntsman and his mother being the boss of their restaurant. They had money coming in but with seven kids? Yeah, diapers and toys aren't cheap y'know, and combat school as well.

Nevertheless, he didn't give up. He turned to beg his father several times to train him but the answer he would get would always be the same– "no son, I won't train you" or "you're too young, maybe next time".

Four years have passed. Since then, he continued on begging, then bribing, threatening and even straight out demanded his father to train him. But the answer he'd get would always be the same, with some spanking to the ass as punishment when he went too far with his demands.

He tried getting others to train him but his village only had a few huntsmen/women and all of them were his father's friends so they didn't help him lest they earned his ire. As for sneaking into a combat school? Yeah, he wasn't that desperate or stupid enough to end up in jail so soon and be stamped in his permanent record, ruining any chance of him achieving his dream.

So his path of becoming a huntsman was clearly closing down on him.

But he wouldn't give up. After all, he swore to himself that he would become a hero, and an Arc never goes back on their promises.

"But what am I going to do...?" Jaune muttered out absentmindedly as he sat cross-legged under a large tree, located in their backyard, to hide against the hot sun. He stared blankly at empty space, completely bored out of his mind.

It was the weekend, precisely Saturday, and he was bored. Although he wanted to accomplish his dream very badly, to the point that he had even gone through some very shady stuff on the internet and outside, but that didn't mean he would be obsessing over it everyday 24/7.

He's a kid after all.

Jaune would've just used his scroll or GameStation to play video games in his room for hours to sate his boredom, unfortunately however, one of his oldest sisters, Saphron, decided to host her little hangout with her friends in his room because she didn't have a GameStation or YBox One in her room with a state of the art monitor. While his scroll was currently getting an upgrade at the store and he wouldn't get it back until Monday because no one works on Sunday. As for TV? His younger sister, Amber, is currently watching pretty, pretty pegasus and he was not going to ruin that for her. Every child has the right to enjoy their cartoons.

'Like sis, if you wanted to impress your friends, especially Terra that you DON'T LIKE AT ALL,' Jaune rolled his eyes, sarcasm dripping out from his thoughts. 'don't use your little brother's room, that's just lame.'

Like many of his siblings, he didn't believe Saphron at all who denied having any feelings for her best friend. Even though her feelings for Terra were clear to anyone with a pair of working eyes, hell, even Terra knows! She was just waiting for his idiotic sister to make the first move!

"Well, I already know what I'm gonna do tomorrow. Though I gotta have to ask Terra for help first before I go along with my brilliant plan in my mind. Hehehe..." Jaune cackled evilly as a dastardly plan formed inside his head to get back at her. A plan so evil, so maniacal, so bad; in fact, that he was afraid to even think about it more.

...Though let's just say, it involves a rope, chair, a room and a very disturbing video being played in a loop.

Unbeknownst to Jaune however, this plan he created and did would become a certain someone's villain origin story. But that's a story for another timeline.

Jaune shook his head.

'Evil plan later, trying to find something fun to do first before I go bonkers takes priority.' With that in mind, he moved his body into action.

Moving his neck around, he took the wooden sword by his side as he stood up from his position, took off his shirt, revealing a slightly muscular lean physique, and took a deep breath as he then went into a kendo stance.

The wooden sword was handmade by him, with the help of numerous tutorial videos of course, and it looked decent enough. Made out of maple oak: it looked slick and smooth; as it was modeled after the family sword, Crocea Mors, though the wooden blade is less thick and spread by half than the original size; the handle is wrapped with blue bindings and the cross guard is painted yellow.

After he took a deep breath in, he closed his eyes and stood still. His chest rose and fell as he held his wooden sword with both hands, air coming in and out of his mouth randomly but if anyone were to observe him closely, they'd notice that Jaune was breathing in a specific pattern.

He breathed in.

His muscles began to tense, from his shoulder muscles: trapezius and deltoid; to his abs and then his lower legs.

'Focus.'

He breathed out.

He ignored the world around him.

'Visualize.'

There was only himself in this dark void.

He breathed in.

'Concentrate.'

He felt his heart, burning.

He opened his eyes, his face emotionless, and he began swinging his sword at the air in front of him.

He swung, and swung, and swung. Jaune didn't try to swing the sword in any direction but downwards, nor use any kind of technique most fighters would show off but only pure and raw strikes.

Because to him, this is no fight or competition, but training. There was no limits. No enemies, but himself.

And so, he continued on with unrelenting strokes of sword strikes one after the other at the air with a few steps: forward and back, taking only the most necessary bodily movements and used the maximum limit at all times, without stop.

Seconds. Minutes.

He continued on, slashing and cutting, even if he felt his body crying out from pain and screaming for him to stop, he ignored it all as he held his wooden sword with stubborn determination to cut an invisible enemy.

For a split second, every time he slashed his sword around, flowing water would not only came out of the point and edges of his sword but his mouth as well.

'No. No. This, this doesn't feel right. This isn't–!' Jaune inwardly said to himself as he turned on his heel and slashed diagonally upwards with his left hand.

Jaune didn't undergo any sort of training or listened to any lessons on sword fighting by anyone, he learned this all by himself. All because of his instincts and a dream he had two years ago.

Though a dream might not be the word, as Jaune still vividly remembers the dream and the following more when he sleeps so–a vision, perhaps? But anyways.

Jaune would see a boy, a year or two older than him, dressed in strange garments that somewhat resembles the clothes he'd sometimes saw in some Mistralian shows in TV. He'd watch the young man, as if he were a ghost, of his training.

First he witnessed him descending the treacherous mountain terrain, filled with all kinds of booby traps, for weeks then he'd carry a sword and start swinging his sword on top of the mountain and lastly, he saw a strange man wearing some kind demonic mask teaching the boy on some breathing techniques.

When Jaune first started seeing these visions of his, he became confused as to why. And when it became a weekly thing, he started to freak out.

His mind, being a paranoid idiot, thought to the point if he got infected by some kind of new variant grimm. He was about to tell his parents when he thought more into the visions.

What if, this was an opportunity?

See, Jaune couldn't just watch some combat tutorials on the internet because his parents monitored their children's internet history and wifi usage to the extreme. To the point that even if he tried to delete them, his mom would've already known and retrieve the data to prove him otherwise. Why and how? Because she's a computer witch! Back when she was in college, she took courses on computers and other related courses because she wanted to earn quick money just like any other person.

Oh and he didn't want anyone else to think he was insane if he started talking about seeing some visions of someone descending a mountain.

So, he took the visions as his training course.

As the time passes by to a couple of hours and Jaune was about to vertically swing his wooden sword once more, he froze.

His lips trembled as blood dripped out of his mouth.

With great effort, he brought his right hand up to touch his lips and looked down to see his fingers covered in blood.

'Oh, shit. That's not good...' That was his last thought as he passed out.

AN: Hi guys! I hope you like this story! Sadly however, this story would be put in the one-shots(shelves) for the moment as I took priority with my other stories.