Jaune could feel his Aura bleeding away like sand through an hourglass.
The world around him was chaos—a red haze of motion and shrieking Grimm, the smell of scorched ichor was thick in the air. His mind strained as he kept the Rune of Weakness active, its glowing lattice threaded through every bug-like Grimm in the area.
It was working—but god, it was causing a large mental pressure on his mind.
Every Grimm caught in the Rune's power was forced to bend under its invisible weight. The sprawling insectoid horde—beetles, chitinous crawlers, and those centipede-like horrors—moved sluggishly now, their strikes dulled and coordination frayed. Their black carapaces dulled, their limbs losing strength. Most of them, the Rank 0's, couldn't even fly anymore. Only crawl pathetically across the ground. Even the air seemed to vibrate differently now, due to their oppressive presence being forcibly muted.
The problem however, was that Jaune could feel the backlash in equal measure.
Jaune wasn't used to using the WeaknessRune on this scale. In his mind, Jaune had designed the rune to be a focused debuff to be cast on a few enemies at most—but he was pushing it beyond his intended threshold and anchoring it to dozens of Grimm simultaneously. The energy cost might have been linear but spread across multiple beings, it seemed to grow exponentially with every new target he bound it to.
He grit his teeth and forced the power to hold.
His internal aura reserves was dropping in uneven bursts. Eighty percent. Sixty. Forty.
Every passing second cost him more.
Still, he kept it up.
Because it was working.
Yang slammed a shockwave punch into the ground, and a wave of force blasted outward, tearing through a cluster of crippled bugs. Their bodies crumpled under the concussive blast, limbs snapping like twigs. Nora followed up, hammer crackling with electricity, and brought it down on another cluster. The discharge leapt between the crippled insects like a spiderweb of lightning, turning the air into a strobe of blue and red light.
"Keep it up!" Nora shouted, her voice barely audible over the thunder of her own attack.
Weiss and Oscar were working together near the front lines. Weiss's spirits spun like small constellations around her head, sending shards of elemental matter spiraling across the battlefield, while Oscar's Force rune burgeoned with red energy that cut clean through the slowed Grimm before they could regroup.
Jaune frowned as he felt the pulse from his Rune growing faint, its glow now dim and stuttering.
Most of the Rank 0s were already down. Their bodies melted into black sludge that hissed and evaporated on contact with the ground.
But the Rank 1s were still moving.
The wasp-like Grimm—dozens of them—still hovered in the air above the carnage. They stayed far enough away to avoid Yang and Nora's reach, firing down lances of red energy from their bone stingers. Each blast sizzled the ground, leaving behind deep grooves that smoked with black heat.
Jaune ducked behind ground debris of a half-melted tile as a beam cut straight through where he'd been standing. His reserves had fallen to around twenty-five percent.
"Jaune, how're your reserves?!" Oscar shouted, blocking a beam with a green barrier glyph.
"Almost empty! Gonna release it now!" Jaune barked back, forcing the Rune to release.
The air immediately grew heavier again. Without the debuff, the remaining Rank 1s moved with renewed aggression.
Jaune forced himself to breathe out. He couldn't afford to get distracted now.
A sharp hiss drew his attention upward. One of the wasps had descended, abandoning its ranged bombardment for melee. Its stinger shimmered crimson as it lunged. Jaune brought his sword up to parry.
The impact rang like a bell. Sparks flew as metal met bone. The creature's strength was monstrous—it wasn't one of the weaker Rank 1s, either. He twisted his wrist, redirecting the attack, and kicked off the ground to meet it midair.
"I hate bug Grimm," he growled through clenched teeth, slamming his blade upward to catch the second stinger jab.
The wasp's movements were sharp, angular, almost mechanical. Each strike came faster than the last. His body could take the hit, but his rune frame was already scratched up from multiple glancing blows. He needed to be careful.
Down below, Nora and Yang had joined Weiss and Oscar in taking down the larger mantis-type Grimm that had been stalking through the far side of the ward. It was a Peak Rank 1—a nightmare of serrated limbs and red eyes. The four of them attacked in tandem, Yang's shockwaves pushing the creature off balance while Weiss pinned it with ice and Nora's hammer sent crackling bolts of power and electricity straight into its carapace.
Jaune stole a glance back, breathing hard. "At least that one's handled…"
That left the swarm.
Two wasps were circling higher above him, while the one in front buzzed in agitation, its stinger twitching.
A shadow dropped down beside him. Blake, landing in a crouch, twin blades drawn. Her black ribbon-like tendrils shimmered faintly with her own rune's light. "Can you use Weakness again?"
Jaune blinked, incredulous. "Again? I just—Blake, my Aura's at twenty percent. If I cast it now, I'll be dry."
"It doesn't need to last long." Her eyes flicked up toward the swarm. "Five seconds will be enough."
Before he could argue further, Ruby landed on his other side in a blur of motion, She looked… sheepish, somehow, despite the battle raging around them.
"Um—hey, Jaune," she said, brushing soot from her cheek. "Weakness is really strong. Please, just one more time?"
Jaune exhaled through his nose, part frustration, part reluctant pride. "You have a funny way of saying, please empty your reserves. Using it on multiple enemies also causes a mental strain on my mind."
Ruby gave him a hopeful grin. "Five seconds?"
He groaned. "Fine. But if I get a big headache and pass out, one of you's carrying me."
He raised his hand again, the Rune already flaring to life on instinct.
He aimed it at the wasps.
"Weaken."
The world lurched. His mind stretched thin. Every ounce of Aura poured into the cast. His reserves plummeted—fifteen percent, ten—but the Rune took hold. The air trembled as the sigil expanded, locking onto each airborne Grimm in range.
The effect was immediate.
The wasps faltered midair, their flight paths jerking as their wings lost rhythm. Their beams weakened, scattering in unfocused bursts. The shriek of their flight dulled, as though muffled by the invisible weight pressing down on them.
"Go!" Jaune shouted.
Ruby and Blake didn't need to be told twice.
Blake shot forward first, leaving a trail of shadowy afterimages in her wake. Her phantom clones acted as platforms that became her next stepping stone.
Ruby, meanwhile, simply ran on air. Her Accel Rune flickered to life, every step forming a red shockwave that propelled her upward. The two of them ascended toward the crippled swarm in synchronized motion—one a blur of shadows, the other a streak of crimson light.
Above him, Ruby and Blake tore through the slowed wasps, slicing them apart mid-flight in a dance of speed and precision. Black ichor rained down like ash.
Jaune didn't simply idly stare.
He joined in, jumping and stabbing through one wasp whose wings Ruby had cut through and kicked off of it to slice off the head of one which was targeting one of Blake's phantom from behind.
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[Ascended beast, Vespula slain. 10 Runes granted]
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[Ascended beast, Vespula slain. 10 Runes granted]
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Jaune turned just in time to see the mantis Grimm's final death throes. Against Nora, Weiss, Oscar and Yang, the battle was a frenzy of motion and light.
Its long, serrated forelimbs rose in a desperate arc, forming a crimson crescent of condensed energy that screamed through the air toward Yang.
"Yang!" Weiss shouted. Her rapier stabbed forward, and a solid wall of ice shimmered into being before Yang's gauntlets, layering themselves like the plates of a shield.
Yang didn't slow down. She braced her arms behind the barrier, teeth gritted, gauntlets flaring gold as the energy slash hit. The impact detonated in a shockwave that made the air twist and vibrate, sending heat and dust scattering in every direction. Weiss staggered back slightly, boots grinding against cracked tiles, but held firm.
Yang snarled, muscles tightening as she redirected the blast into her gauntlets. The glow surged, and even her hair haloed in an orange light. "My turn!"
She blasted forward in a sonic boom, reappearing right before the mantis Grimm. Her fist drove forward like a cannonball, shockwaves rippling outward—
—but the mantis suddenly planted its blade-like limbs into the floor, twisting with impossible agility. The creature spun sideways, narrowly evading her punch as the ground cratered from the force of her missed strike.
It was a grotesque sight, seeing a grimm praying mantis performing acrobatics, its segmented body twisting midair before it landed on Yang's left, scythes scraping sparks against concrete. Then, with a shriek that rattled the air, it swung those scythes toward Yang. She was still off-balance, caught mid-recovery—
"Now!" Oscar's voice cut through the chaos.
Nora rocketed downwards, propelled by a blast of concentrated power from Oscar's Force rune. Lightning began to coil around her, dancing across her rune frame in jagged arcs, as her discharge rune flared to life.
The mantis turned just in time to see her descending like a thunderbolt from heaven.
Her hammer came down with a deafening crack that drowned out its scream. The explosion of electricity vaporized the mantis' upper body in an instant, and the remaining half collapsed as its form dissolved into a storm of black motes.
Yang winced, shielding her eyes from the flash as she skidded back, hair blown wild from the blast. "Damn, Nora, warn a girl next time!"
Nora landed in a crouch, grinning wide, arcs of static still snapping around her. "Sorry! Couldn't hear you over how awesome that was!"
Jaune and the others regrouped as the motes of darkness drifted away into the air. The ground trembled beneath them, dust raining from the cracked ceiling. The reek of burnt ozone and Grimm ichor still hung heavy.
But far ahead of them—there was still fighting.
Massive gusts of wind rippled through the space like invisible blades. Each shockwave carried enough pressure to push the younger hunters several steps back even from their vantage point below.
Qrow and the shadow raven were still engaged in battle, a storm of motion that was almost too fast for the eye to follow. The two of them, in their large monstrous avian forms, swept across the chamber in a whirlwind, wings slicing apart anything within reach.
And in the center of it all—
The operating table.
The giant man strapped to it screamed endlessly, body writhing as wriggling black veins pulsed beneath his skin. His flesh was bubbling, deforming, tearing itself apart from the inside. The sound was horrific.
From the walls nearby, gargantuan clawed hands of oily darkness emerged—massive Grimm constructs. They gripped his limbs and chest, restraining him even as the two giant Kaiju bird's slashes tried to sever them.
"What the hell is happening over there?" Jaune muttered, lowering his sword. His aura was practically zero, but his eyes stayed sharp.
Ruby's voice was small but tense. "Should… should we help Qrow? Or—?"
Weiss glanced up sharply, hair whipping in the wind. "That's a fight between Rank 2's. Against that? You'd be vaporized before you could blink!"
Jaune frowned, eyes narrowing as the battle intensified. Qrow leapt upward, his large four monstrous crow legs trailing a crescent of scarlet energy, while the shadow raven's screech tore through the chamber, scattering black mist like feathers. The air vibrated with each impact—
Then came the sound.
A thunderous boom, like the sky itself splitting open.
The ceiling above them glowed for a heartbeat before erupting in a blinding white-red explosion. The entire room trembled as debris rained down in molten chunks. The squad ducked behind cover as a massive hole burned into the ceiling, the edges of the crater hissing with molten stone.
"What the hell was that!?" Yang shouted, eyes wide.
Blake pointed upward. "Look—there!"
Through the smoke and fire, a small silhouette was suspended near the gaping wound in the ceiling.
Ren.
He hovered on one of his drifting bullet platforms, the afterimage of energy still glowing beneath his boots. The air shimmered around him, heat distortion rippling outward from where a massive energy discharge had just been unleashed.
Ruby exhaled a shaky laugh. "I… guess we know what that was."
The rest of the squad nodded, absentmindedly.
Then—
"Oh. Not bad. Your friend did it."
The voice came from behind them. Calm, gravel-edged and familiar.
Every head whipped around in an instant.
Qrow stood a few paces away, hands casually grasped around his greatsword, with an infuriating smirk tugging at his lips. Perched casually on his shoulder was the shadow raven—its feathers darker than the space around it, eyes burning a dull, hungry red.
For a moment, no one spoke. The air still vibrated faintly with the aftershock from Ren's blast.
"Uh…" Jaune blinked, trying to process what he was seeing. "Weren't you just—?"
Qrow gestured lazily toward the ceiling, as if expecting them to follow his finger. "He found the core."
The group followed his gaze automatically, though none of them truly understood what he meant. Their instincts, however, told them it mattered. And when they looked back down, they froze.
The battle that had raged only moments before was still happening.
High above, the massive crow-like monster and the enormous shadow raven still tore through the air, their titanic wings battering the air into cyclones. Below them, the grimm amalgamation—the Surgeons—lashed upward with writhing limbs of bone and black flesh, every strike lighting up the chamber with showers of sparks.
Ruby's eyes widened. "Wait—what the hell?! You're here—but you're also—" She pointed toward the sky where the enormous crow-beast struck like a meteor into the Surgeon's chest. "—there!"
Yang blinked twice, mouth slightly open. "I… I don't get it. Is that your rune or something? Because if that's the case, I've got questions."
Qrow tilted his head at their expressions, then frowned faintly as though realizing something. "Oh. Right." He scratched at his chin, unbothered by the chaos around them. "Guess I forgot to explain that part."
Weiss's tone was sharp, almost demanding. "Explain what part, exactly?"
Qrow shrugged. "Eh. My Runes."
Yang immediately pointed an accusing finger at him. "You never told me and Ruby what your runes are! You always dodge the question."
Qrow gave her a lazy smirk. "You never asked in a way that mattered."
"We're literally in a death zone!" Yang shouted. "I think it matters now!"
He chuckled at that—a low, rough sound that didn't quite reach his eyes. Then he sighed, looking faintly amused. "Fair enough."
He looked over the group—Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Jaune, Nora, and Oscar—his expression a mixture of mischief and fatigue. The raven on his shoulder tilted its head, echoing his motion perfectly.
"My runes," he said finally, "are Crow, Misfortune, and Murder."
The silence that followed was almost comical.
Ruby blinked. "Wait, like… literal 'Crow'?"
Weiss frowned. "That's… absurdly on the nose."
"Welcome to my life, Princess." Qrow gave her a wink. Then, with a faint grin that showed just a hint of fang, he added, "I'm a peak Rank 2, by the way. So, no worries—I can afford a little theatrics."
Yang's eyes widened slightly. "We know... but still!"
Qrow waved a hand dismissively. "Don't make it sound like much. Just means I've been doing this too long." He paused, looking up again. His grin returned, faint but wolfish. "Anyway… you kids wanna see something cool?"
They stared at him, uncertain, the tension palpable. The air still pulsed with residual energy from the ongoing aerial clash above them, and the heat from Ren's blast hadn't even faded.
Still, Ruby, unable to help herself, nodded first. "Uh… sure?"
The others followed, more out of curiosity than agreement.
"Alright then," Qrow said.
He took a single step back. The shadow raven on his shoulder fluttered once, melting into a shadow.
Then, his entire body shifted.
A sound like ripping paper echoed through the chamber as Qrow's body shimmered, his outline bending unnaturally. Feathers of liquid darkness erupted from his back, expanding and reshaping in a torrent of black-red energy. His human form dissolved—skin and rune frame giving way to a massive, monstrous silhouette.
Within seconds, the man was gone.
In his place stood another Kaiju Crow.
Four massive, blade-like legs clawed against the ground. Its feathers were jagged shards of shadow edged in crimson, its wings stretching wide enough to blot out the flickering emergency lights. The monster threw back its head and shrieked, a sound that rolled through the air like a thunderclap.
And then—its body split.
Once. Twice. Thrice.
Again and again.
Each time, the darkness tore itself apart into a new form—each a perfect copy, each just as immense and terrible. Within seconds, there were half a dozen massive monstrous crows standing where Qrow had been, all exhaling waves of heat and killing intent.
Yang's jaw dropped. "No. Freaking. Way."
One by one, the massive crows launched into the air, their wings creating gusts strong enough to knock the students a few steps back. The air howled as the flock took flight—a few heading for the surgeons, tearing through the amalgamation's limbs like wet paper, another veering up toward the shattered ceiling where Ren had been moments before.
Yang gaped openly, one hand shielding her eyes from the swirling wind and feathers. "That's…" She hesitated, blinking as realization hit her. Then she started to laugh, even as dust and debris whipped around her face. "That's the best use of a pun I've ever seen."
Blake glanced sideways at her, brow raised. "What?"
Yang pointed upward, grinning. "A Murder of Crows."
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AN: Advanced chapters are available on patreon