Chương 29: Safe Haven
Author Note : This chapter contains Volume 8 spoilers. By now I am sure everyone that wanted to watch Volume 8 has probably already seen it, nut just in case I am starting with this warning.
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Waking up in bed beside May, Death found her resting comfortably in his arms, awake, but seemingly very groggy. Death just smiled at her and stared into her heterochromatic eyes. He had been caught up in the emotions she was going through last night, and he had been extremely happy for her, so much so that he had not noticed that her newly formed eye was silver.
Death was well aware of what silver eyes meant, so naturally someone that only possessed one was a bit mysterious to him "Were your eyes originally heterochromatic?" Death asked her with curiosity.
May groggily shook her head "Are they now? Do they look bad?"
"May, you are beautiful. It's just that when my semblance regrew your lost eye, it came back as silver, like Ruby's. I'm wondering if that means you've become a silver-eyes warrior too, or if it is just cosmetic." Death explained to her cheerfully "If it ends up being like Ruby's, then you will have one more weapon in your arsenal, wont you? But don't feel bad if it doesn't have the power. You aren't losing anything, since you never had that power to begin with, and you are still stunningly beautiful."
"My breasts are small though." May pointed out to him "I'm still surprised that you agreed to love me."
"Your breasts are fine. There's nothng wrong with b-cup breasts. Not all men are obsessed with only giant breasts." Death looked at May's breasts and grinned "They are still quite a bit larger then Weiss's breasts, and I still love Weiss as well, after all, so you shouldn't worry about their size. The guy you are with thinks you are just perfect as you are, and that is all that matters."
After saying that, Death made his move and a little morning fun began. He didn't have to push her to the limit of her endurance to find their souls together anymore, so he was extremely sensual and gentle, and left May feeling blissful before she reluctantly felt she had to leave. Death gave her one last tender kiss before she left, after a shower of course.
Death did give her a new eyepatch, though, to hide her silver eye for the moment, planning to have her train with Ruby in secret. May and Ruby had grown to be great friends, so it made sense to let Ruby, who knew how to use her eyes, train May.
That day, Death did pay a visit to Ozpin, and then to Ruby and her Teammates. Since he managed to level up his range and could stop using his body doubles specifically towards that end, he was finally able to focus on satisfying his lovers again. He made love a lot over the next four days that it took his avatar to finally arrive at Mistral and set up a gate in the mirror dimension instance dungeon and return to Beacon.
It was finally time to go to Haven Academy, now that he had a gate in place.
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Death stepped into the office of the Headmaster of Haven Academy, Leonardo Lionheart, but he had not come with Neo yet. No, the person at his side was none other then Professor Ozpin. "Good evening Leo." Ozpin greeted the other Headmaster.
"Oz....Ozpin, I didn't know you were coming" Leonardo rose too his feet in a hurry, seeming shaken by Ozpin's unexpected arrival.
"Oh, we have a few matters to discuss, Leo, but the first matter is something that can be handled only in the Vault. It's nearly curfew, so shall we start heading that way?" Ozpin asked Leo with a warm smile that did not betray the fact that they knew he was a traitor.
Leo looked at Death after Ozpin said that, clearly surprised.
"This young man has devised a clever method to deal with Salem once and for all." Ozpin told Leonardo "He has been initiated into the truth of things, so it is fine."
Leonardo nodded with reluctance and proceeded to lead Ozpin to the statue and soon enough they were headed down the elevator towards the vault.
"So, why are we headed into the vault anyway?" Leo asked with confusion "The Spring maiden is still missing, so we can't get to the relic."
"She will be meeting us there." Ozpin insisted.
That answer certainly surprised Leo, as he realized that Ozpin had somehow found the maiden "That's...good..." Leo answered with nervousness.
They reached the bottom of the shaft and stepped off the elevator and Ozpin looked at Leonardo "When he said that you betrayed me, Leo, I didn't want to believe it, but then I learned about Mr. Wulfric."
Ozpin said to Leo, who suddenly had a look like a deer caught in the headlights and stepped back from Ozpin, looking scared.
"You hid that you had a Silver-eyed warrior pass through Haven academy, and even made excuses to not let his team, which had been the strongest in his year, participate in the Vytel Festival tournament either time while he was attending Haven Academy, and the very first mission after he graduated that you sent him on, he and his teammates never came back from." Ozpin was clearly upset when he had learned this.
"What? It...it's not like that." Leo insisted fearfully.
"You are just a coward who is afraid of dying, so you assist Salem and help her to kill others, or as in the case of poor Wulfric, you helped her to turn him into a grimm-human hybrid abomination." Death explained to Leonardo "How do you live with yourself after not just causing many people to die, but also causing a young man that respected you to be doomed to such a despicable fate?"
"Your betrayal is revealed, Leo" Ozpin insisted as Death opened a gate as previously planned, and General Ironwood, Glynda Goodwitch, Qrow Branwen, Taiyang Xiao Long, and Summer Rose came out first, escorting a prisoner, none other then Hazel Rainart. After them came Neo along with Amber, and team RWBY, then Neo's teammates taking up the rear position with May Zedong.
"I'd really like to know why you agreed to have so many kids come here." Taiyang said to Ozpin.
"It was young Mr. Rose's idea. He insisted on these people coming, though I am not certain why." Ozpin looked at Death then.
"Because I want to use the relic of knowledge, first to verify that my strategy against Salem wont kill me or blow up in out faces, and then, assuming that goes well, I'll use the last question to show you all what I've seen about the past and future that could have been." Death insisted "I wont use the last question, though, until I've verified that my plan will work as I expect and will let us prevent Salem from resurrecting."
Death looked straight at Hazel and grinned "You think that Salem is immortal, and that is technically true, even my plan wont truly kill her. She will just be waiting around until the end of time, unable to put herself back together, not truly dead, but not a threat either."
"Salem is...immortal...?" Ironwood asked with shock.
"Technically, yes. Ozpin normally holds that bit back because Salem's goal is death for herself, and the only way that she believes she can achieve it is the complete destruction of Remnant." Death explained to Ironwood "The bottom line is, even if there had been no permanent victory before I came into the picture, she had to be fought, no matter the cost, because not fighting her meant everyone died." he looked at Hazel "You hate that Gretchen died, you believe she was a pawn in an unwinnable battle, and you are not entirely wrong in that, but just because it was unwinnable, does not mean that would always remain the case. Many were sacrificed to allow society to remain long enough until victory became possible."
Hazel just glared at Death, but remained silent, pondering his words, as Neo approached the door to the relic of knowledge, touching it and using her maiden powers to cause it to begin open "General Ironwood, please make sure the traitor Leonarda Lionheart comes with us."
"Glynda, please assist James with that." Ospin instructed her.
"Yes sir" Glynda agreed.
Death then led the group into the vault and approached the lamp, touching it and kneeling in close to whisper 'Jinn' as the others all gathered around him.
Ozpin and Death had seen it before, so they were not surprised, but everyone else was shocked as a mist emerged from the lamp and then formed Jinn.
"Wow, you've brought quite the crowd today old man." Jinn said to Ozpin, smiling. "Do you have any questions? Two questions remain."
Death made the Sword of Edicts appear in his hand "What is the best way to use this without being killed in a manner that gets the best possible result?"
"That weapon...quite interesting..." Jinn said while examining it "If you activate it, the sword will have the effect you expect, but your plan to activate it is flawed. You will die as soon as you activate it following your plan, thus deactivating it and defeating your intended purpose."
More mist started gathering and Death readied his scroll to take pictures and video as needed "To successfully activate the Sword of Edicts, borrow the power of the Relic of Creation" they heard Jinn announce and saw an image of Death showing schematics to Ambrosius, and he immediately was recording all the schematics as they flashed one after another, then Death made a huge lantern appear next to the image of himself. "This item of yours is unusual, it seems to be similar to the relic of creation." Jinn's voice was heard "This is the most important piece of the equation, and will become the power source for Atlas, in addition to letting you use it as a buffer, to grant you just enough leeway to survive, if you leave a body double, or avatar, as you seem to prefer to call them, in an Atlesian Stasis Pod. Your Body Double will have just enough buffer to survive the process of activating the Sword, and will allow you to safely reincarnate from its place. A fascinating life-saving skill you have there, young man."
"She said it would do 'what you expect', but why don't you tell us what she was referring too." Ironwood asked.
"Sure." Death said to General Ironwood "This sword is the Sword of Edicts, a weapon made by a god named Guthix. The relics you know of were each imbued by the brother gods with the essence of a single divine law, those being Knowledge, Creation, Destruction, and Choice, but this sword was infused with many laws, and a substantial portion of the Divine Might of the god of balance and nature. It originated from another world, and was created in an era known as the God Wars, when multiple gods had descended upon this world, gathering mortal followers and making them kill each other. Thus was this sword formed by Guthix, to banish the rampaging gods and their influence from that world and save the mortals there. The sword of edicts was the physical anchor for the Edicts of Guthix." Death explained to Ironwood "Do you follow so far?"
"Please just continue" Ironwood insisted..
"Basically, Guthix died and the Sword of Edicts still existed, but without someone at Guthix's level to again bind their lifeforce to the sword, it became a useless piece of metal. I used the relic of knowledge to just perfect my plan. As you heard, she pointed out flaws and said how to correct them" Death explained "As for the results, the relics will be fine as they hold the power of laws, but certain bits of casual magic created by the gods will cease to function, meaning that once Salem is 'killed', her regeneration will not trigger as long as I live, and I'm immortal, in the sense that I'll never die of old age, not in the same sense as Salem is. Additionally, grimm will cease to be able to repopulate, meaning that for each Creature of Grimm killed, you will be one step closer to wiping them off the face of Remnant. This will remain the case as long as I remain alive. Should I die, though, the grimm will become able to replenish again, and Salem will be able to reform. Additionally, with her divine curse of immortality cut off, even if no one kills her, she will eventually grow old and die. Her grimm part will, of course, slow down her aging process significantly, but will not stop it."
"You are correct, young man, though it is surprising that you deduced so much." Jinn verified "It is even unclear to me how you came into possession of this sword and battery. With my power, I know you have them, and how they may be used, but I do not know from where they came. I am not accustomed to not knowing things." her tone was a bit whimsical.
"They were gifts. I received them from a deity that called himself One-Above-All. While I assume that Guthix was at a similar level to the brother gods, maybe a bit stronger or weaker, I am pretty sure that the one calling himself the One-Above-All is worlds above the brother gods in terms of scale of power. I am not certain of this, but it is my hunch." Death explained.
"Fascinating." Jinn explained "I have one last question available."
"Will you please show everyone here the images I am about to activate? If I watch it, only I can see it. I want to borrow your power to show everyone here the world that would have been had the One-Above-All not assisted my siblings and I in reaching Remnant. I did come here, as I said, because I was drawn here by curiosity towards Ruby, but admittedly it was actually that god who made it possible" Death explained to Jinn.
"I can do as you ask." Jinn verified "Begin it when you are ready."
Death nodded and willed the activation of 'RWBY Volume 1-8 Live Action'
It was basically identical to the cartoon he had seen when he was younger, but the people shown were all the real people he knew, with their true voices, not voice actors and animated figures. It was a bit eerie to some of the people there, seeing and hearing people that looked and sounded like them but that was not them.
As the story progressed, Neo, Cinder, Emerald and Mercury all found out that if Death and his siblings had not arrived then they would have ended up as villains, and it was especially troubling for Amber, who saw herself getting killed by Cinder during the battle for Beacon. The presentation went on all the way through to the end of Volume eight.
Summer was hit hard when Ruby and the Schnee's killed the hound, whose true identity was Russ Wulfric, the very faumus that Ozpin had condemned Leonardo for betraying. Seeing that other Ruby conclude that 'mom' (referring to Summer) had become a monster like him as well.
Death did not know whether or not that was true, but it was possible, and it was clear that that other Ruby was very traumatized by that possibility. By the end of the vision that Jinn shared, Penny had died again, with Winter, Weiss's sister, becoming the new Winter Maiden, and all four members of Team RWBY (and Jaune) falling into what looked like their deaths.
Quite a few people were looking at Cinder and her teammates, but Death just chuckled "Cinder was targeted as a child. You saw her at ten in the orphanage, but before that Tyrian Callows collaborated with Cinder's first step mother to try and kill Cinder's father. In other words, Salem had registered Cinder as a useful pawn from a young age, and was likely secretly in the shadows pulling strings to drive her into the madwoman that she would have eventually become. Strife, though, saved her fathers life and completely foiled Salem's scheme right from the start. Salem had similar schemes towards Neo, which were foiled by my sister Fury from the start. The One-Above-All appears to have carefully selected the times and places for each of us four to arrive where we could most screw over Salem's schemes."
Death walked over to Neo, Cinder, Emerald and Mercury "Those versions of you did not have the chances you had. Emerald, in that version of history, you were just someone with no one before you met Cinder, surviving day to day on the streets. You became dependent upon the first person to show you kindness. Fake kindness, yes, but kindness nonetheless. Mercury, meanwhile, was raised by a terrible man who no doubt did heinous things to him. I don't know whether or not Salem had any hand in your suffering, Mergury, but it doesn't change the fact that those people had different stories then the four of you. They are not you, but you can learn from them, to see how good you are. I think knowing this can help each of you to feel grateful for what you have."
Neo jumped at Death and threw her arms around his neck and passionately kissed her him. Death let her, and gave her a quick hug before letting go of her.
"Okay, I think I get why you wanted both Cinder's Team and Ruby's to be here, but why her?" Summer asked Death, casually indicating May Zedong.
"It was not shown in what you saw, but May here would have died during the battle for Beacon if my siblings and I never entered this world." Death explained to Summer "The other reason, well, I already told Ruby, so...." after stepping away from Neo, he found himself before May, and carefully removed her eyepatch, revealing her lone silver eye. "When I healed her previously damaged eye with my semblance, it turned out that May here had heterochromatic eyes, and her second eye was silver. Even if her death is averted now, she still has every right to by here. And as for Hazel, he is strong. Once he knows that Salem can be stopped from regenerating, he can be reasoned with. He did not understand why Ozpin had to fight Salem, he was only mourning his sister Gretchen, and lashing out at the man he blamed for her death, believing his little sister was a sacrifice in Ozpin's war. Hazel, will you join us against Salem? Once she is unable to regenerate and she is defeated, the war will finally end, and there will be no more Gretchen's. People will still die fighting the Grimm, sure, but as time passes there will be fewer and fewer grimm, and eventually no one else will die to them. Additionally, the grimm will be much less dangerous without Salem guiding them."
Hazel still didn't look happy, but after hearing and seeing so much, he finally accepted that Ozpin had to wage the war against Salem. He hadn't agreed with the war, thinking that if Ozpin hadn't fought the war, Salem wouldn't kill so many people anymore, but knowing that Salem aimed for the complete destruction of the world, and seeing another version of himself even come to the same conclusion, it had all had a huge impact on him. "No more Gretchen's. Alright. I'll work with you." he agreed.
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Hidden Quest Complete : Hazel Rainart Switches sides before the Battle of Beacon
Reward : Otherworld Skill Gates of Babylon (Empty), 500,000 exp, 10,000,000 shop points
Failure : Summer Rose is captured and brought to Salem, Taiyang Xiao Long dies
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Death saw the notification and was relieved.
"What?!" Taiyang suddenly asked with shock.
Jinn, it turned out, was still showing the others what his system showed him.
"Experience, and shop points, like a video game or something?" Ruby asked, seemingly amused, momentarily not noticing the quests failure consequence.
Death willed the window to close and sighed "I already told Summer and Qrow that the god that I call One-Above-all communicates with me. Well, the manner in which he does so is very similar to a video game. I did not reveal that because it's rather hard to believe, you know. If I didn't live it first hand I'd probably not believe it if someone else said it. Rather then trying to convince people of something hard to believe, I just took the K.I.S.S. approach. That is an acronym for Keep it simple, stupid."
"This 'Gates of Babylon', is it a movement ability of some kind? What did it mean by empty?" Summer asked. While initially being shocked by the notification, given what could have happened to her and what she now knew Salem did to people like her, she had moved past it since the quest was completed, so there was no need to fuss over what could have been now.
"Here's a little freebie, since it can be said to be part of your first question." Jinn told them all "While the Grimm will not be able to reproduce, Salem will still be able to turn Silver-eyed Warriors into 'hounds', even under the suppression of the Sword of Edicts." after saying this, Jinn transformed into mist and returned to the relic of knowledge.
Jinn's disappearance momentarily interrupted Death before he could answer Summer, but he decided to answer right after "I'm only vaguely aware of the particular world that the ability originated from. But apparently it's more like a weapons vault or something. Since I don't know the ability well, I'll have to experiment with it later. As for it being empty, I guess that means that it doesn't yet have untold thousands of weapons stored inside it to rain down on my enemies. I don't know if I'll get much use out of it, given that I already have a somewhat similar ability, and that one is not limited to only weapons. The only advantage Gates of Babylon has over my other ability is taking out many weapons at once, as far as I know."
Regrettably, he hadn't seen that series in his past life and did not know the true potential of the skill that he had just received.
"I see, so you can experiment with that later." Ozpin agreed "For now, we need to decide what to do about Leonardo, who has betrayed us."
While technically Ironwood, in that other timeline, also went a bit nuts after hearing that Salem could not be killed, he had good intentions, he was just misguided. Ozpin had apparently decided not to hold that against him. After all, they now had a method to defeat Salem. With true victory now possible, he knew that James Ironwood would not get that desperate now.
Even James Ironwood was horrified by the point that the other him had fallen too, even if he could understand it somewhat. "For now, I'll take the students back to Beacon, and leave you all to discuss what to do with this scum." Death suggested to Ozpin, Glynda, Qrow, Summer, Taiyang and Hazel "How long until I should come back and pick you all up?"
"An hour should be sufficient. Thank you Death." Ozpin agreed.
Death nodded and opened a gate again, letting Cinder's Team go first, followed by Team RWBY and May, then he grabbed Amber by the hand and led her through. Technically she wasn't a student, but Death figured Leonardo would be executed, and he did not want Amber to be present for that. He also got another takeaway from the hidden quest, though.
Apparently he had not prevented the Battle of Beacon, and it would still be happening in some form.
After passing through the gate last with Amber, they arrived back in Ozpin's office "May, Ruby, Cinder, I want to talk to you three for a bit in private about something important. The rest of you can go for now. Thanks for coming today." the others started filing out, and Death resolved himself to have an important chat.
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