SPOILERS FOR UP TO VOLUME 5 CHAPTER 14 I OBVIOUSLY DON'T OWN ANY CHARACTERS AND HAVE ALTERED SEVERAL THINGS I WILL TRY TO UPDATE REGULARLY AND BUT THAT WILL DEPEND SOLELY ON IF YOU REVIEW OR NOT. THIS WILL BE EPIC IN LENGTH, HOPEFULLY THIS IS THE SHORTEST CHAPTER IN THE FIC, MOST CHAPS WILL PROBABLY BE 5K OR LONGER. ENJOY
Thoughts will be written in italics
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Ruby Rose, walked through the broken remains of Beacon academy, along the cliffs, with a somber air about her, dragging her broken weapon through the dirt and stone. Her red cloak, once her most treasured item, had long since been destroyed, burned to ashes while it still clung to her body.
Normal fire could barely burn her, not with her aura up, but the white hot inferno a Fall Maiden could create? The heat was so intense her skin bubbled and blistered on contact. The cloak, which was once a precious reminder of her memories with her mother, of her childhood, was the very thing that had almost killed her.
She still had the scars.
There was a dull crack that sounded through the air, and she jumped slightly, immediately on high alert. Crescent Rose was raised to the sky, ready to strike down anything in the way of its descent, Grimm or not. The broken blade of the metal death machine gleamed in the midday sunlight, and the black blood that ran down the brand and onto the ground below. A quick scan of her soundings showed no immediate Grimm in the vicinity, which surprised her, this area had been overtaken with them years ago.
She took another step, and heard that very same crack, she looked down to see her foot smushed into the remains of a skeleton rib cage.
Years ago she would have cried out, startled and scared, but the Ruby Rose that stood there, crushing the bones of some student under her foot, just felt tired. So fucking tired.
She felt something in her fall apart at that moment, that moment of resignation with the way things were. That seeing dead bodies was part of her life now, part of everyone's lives now.
She let her scythe clatter onto the ground, and she didn't bother to pick it up. She didn't need it anymore, not after what she was planning.
She was so tired of her friends and family dying, of slowly watching as they were picked off one by one by terrorists and monsters and Salems lackeys.
She was so tired of burying bodies, of reminiscing on the good times with the people that knew them, until the people to reminisce with grew fewer and fewer.
She was so tired of living the life she did.
The farther along she walked, the more bodies she came across, most not nearly as whole as the first. Some had bite marks in the bones, some were missing arms or legs, frozen open with wide jaws.
They died screaming. She told herself, with a pain in her chest.
The bodies inevitably brought memories of her friends and family, as well as their own gruesome demises.
Pyrrha was the first to go. Shot in the heart by Cinder, Ruby watched her disintegrate before her very eyes. Turning to ash and blowing into the wind, off to oblivion.
Weiss was next. Stabbed through the stomach, again by Cinder, this time in Mistral, 7 months later. Jaune had tried to use his newly awakened semblance to heal her, to boost her aura, but it wasn't enough. She was dead before she hit the ground.
Jaune never forgave himself after that.
After that the deaths didn't seem to ever stop coming. Qrow. Taiyang. Nora. Yang. Team CVFY. Ilia. Blake. Oh god Blake. But it still didn't stop, Jaune, Ren, Cardin, it didn't matter who they were or how much they trained, they all fell.
And it was her fault. Salem.
The silver eyed warrior closed her one eye, trying to fight back the flashes of lifeless bodies, not unlike stringless puppets. Instead she tried to think back on what she accomplished earlier today, and images of Salem's decapitated head thumping down the stairs filled it. It was an image she had been hoping to see, and if possible cause, for over eleven years now. And yet…
It felt like a hollow victory.
Ruby knew she should be celebrating, knew she should go find the few huntsmen and huntresses still out there and throw the biggest bash of the century, with champagne and music and dancing, but she couldn't see the point. Not when eighty seven percent of the planet was infected with Grimm, a number that was still rising. Three of the major kingdoms had fallen, two of them almost completely devoid of life, and the third was running out of resources, so they too would soon fall. It was only inevitable.
She looked up at the school she once joined when she was fifteen years old, so many years ago. Looked at the crumbling architecture and broken glass littering the ground.
All things created will be destroyed She thought with finality
It was the very principal of the world. Since the time of the two brothers, it was always like that.
She looked down the cliffs of beacon, walking with none of her patented speed and excitement. She walked like she was being weighed down by a million stones, and in a way, she was.
The cold breeze sent a chill down her spine, but she hardly noticed as she stepped closer and closer to the edge.
She closed her eye, and felt a warm tear slide down her cheek. A gurgled cry, like an injured animal, broke out of her throat.
She didn't want to die, she really didn't, despite what the scene might portray, but she didn't feel she had any other option. Anyway to make the pain go away.
She tipped on her toes, leaned forward, and…
"I wouldn't be so hasty, Ms. Rose." The calm and collected, yet clearly sad, voice of Ozpin brought Ruby back to reality.
Ruby's eye shot open and darted to look behind her, to see a young man of 25 years old, with dark skin and darker hair, look upon her with understanding and sadness, yet no pity.
When they had gotten back from the mission in the grimlands to kill Salem, he had disappeared saying he needed to look for something, and she hadn't bothered to find him.
She refused to turn around. Mostly so he wouldn't see her crying, which she was absolutely tired of doing, but partly so he couldn't talk her out of it.
Her voice croaked, "What do you want Oz?"
He chose his words carefully, speaking slowly in a way Ruby had very rarely seen from him.
"When you killed Salem...I…" he pauses "I harvested as much of her magic as I could. And as I'm sure you've noticed I've been very...frugal, with my own."
She had noticed, but gathered that he was simply running out.
Never assume anything with Ozpin She reminded herself
"Yeah I have." She said with a sigh, sounding almost as exhausted as she really was. Was he not even going to try to talk her out of it? Though she guessed he might not be the best person to ask for mental health advice.
"I have been saving it, and I believe that with my now large enough supply to...shift time itself."
Ruby spun around, small rocks at her feet flying away from the semblance induced turn. "What are you talking about?"
"I believe, if I use all of my magic, and aura, along with Salem's, I might be able to shift, and even turn back time."
Ruby stared at him.
Ozpin stared back, unflinchingly.
"I would have assumed you would be ecstatic, Ms. Rose." The joke is delivered with Ozpins usual dry wit, but lacking any emotion behind it at all, they were long past that point.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Ruby demanded, stomping up to him and glaring down at his still shorter figure.
"Not in the slightest." He responded incontestably.
Ruby had her mouth hanging open in shock, but she quickly closed it, her mind racing a mile a minute.
"Do you know how to do that?" She asked finally
"No." He admitted "But I know how I can learn." He held up an aqua blue lantern encased in a complex golden shell.
"The relic of knowledge." Ruby supplied in absolute amazement.
"Yes. I know how to access it so I can learn to turn back time, and with all the magic in my body, I can send you back as far as I can."
All the magic in his body? Did that mean..?
"It'll kill you." She said in shock, not that he would volunteer his life for this, anybody would, but the fact that he never suggested it before.
Ozpin nodded. "Certainly. I do think I've walked this earth long enough, I dare say I need to sit down." Again, it was the usual Ozpin joke but with none of the sparkle in his eyes. Only blank acceptance.
"But...how would I stay as myself through the trip? Wouldn't I just go back to however I was back then?" She could hardly wrap my mind around it, Time Travel that is, but she didn't need too.
This is the way out! This is the way to fix everything! If we get another chance, maybe we can stop Salem before anyone dies! Rose was so wrapped up in her own mind that she didn't even hear when Ozpin answered her question.
"What?" She asked
"I said that if you are holding the relic it should protect you, it is an object outside of time, and hypothetically, it should shield you from any changes."
Hypothetically was good enough for her.
"That's perfect! Give it to me, now!" Ruby was practically pleading with him to giver her the lantern so it could happen.
Ozpin actually looked a little amused, "Oh my, I haven't seen you this excited since you and Ms. Belladonna-"
"Shut up and do it."
He nods and places a palm onto the blue of the lantern, and visibly concentrated. A green shimmer from Ozpin hand, traveled into the object, seemingly being absorbed by it, before a soft wave of energy radiated from it. Ozpins eyes snapped open and he hastily shoved the relic into Ruby's arms.
"Quickly! Before the knowledge passes!" His eyes kept changing from, black, to green, to blue, fast enough that to any non huntsman they would just seem like a blur of grey.
"Wait, Ozp-" BOOM!
Ruby was interrupted by a great boom, like thunder, without the thunder. The Sun seemed to fade into darkness, and the clouds wisp away into air, shadows creeped up from every corner.
Is this supposed to happen? Ruby thought, but didn't dare drop the relic.
The ground fell beneath her, but not her along with it. She floated in a black abyss, with only the shining relic visible, nothing else, not even her arms, which were holding it.
To be frank, the experience was terrifying.
To comfort herself she thought about the first place that came to her mind, her beacon dorm room, with her teammates.
Yang… She thought of long bright hair and cocky grins, and not the poisoned corpse Jaune had dragged out of her room at two in the morning, with eyes like rusty metal.
Weiss...She thought of proud glances and worried nagging to do homework, not the oozing remains of a chilling cadaver slumped on the ground.
Blake...She thought of shy blushes behind raunchy books and sneaky looks, not blank stare she gave Ruby when she found her dumped behind an alleyway, a bullet between her eyes and bloody lumps where her ears used to be.
And suddenly light started to creep into the void again, Ruby's feet touched hardwood flooring, and in a swirl of green and blue Ruby Rose was left staring at a much smaller, much younger, version of herself in the first year beacon dorm rooms.