Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach and RWBY. Bleach is owned by Tite Kubo. RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth and the late Monty Oum (rest in peace you saint of a man).

A question one would ask why type this up? Simple – why not?

Chapter 29: Together Again

After a few minutes of everyone present freaking out that Ichigo had a tail and Ruby had a new pair of wolf ears, it was Senna who regained composure. She focused reiatsu into her throat, a technique she picked up from Urahara-san and Yoruichi-san, and took a deep breath.

"EVERYONE, CHILL THE #### OUT!"

The booming voice of Senna silenced the screams of everyone present, giving much needed silence to the former shinenju. Ichigo and Ruby were at a loss of why they were suddenly Faunas.

"How did this happen!?" screamed the pair.

'That would be my bad.' said Cristina.

Ichigo widened his eyes when he suddenly heard Ruby's Inner Hollow.

'What the hell are you doing in my head?' said Ichigo.

'Was that Ichigo's voice?' This time it was Ruby's voice.

Ruby and Ichigo exchanged confusing looks to each other. That confirmed that it was definitely a voice from each other and not some trick.

'How can I hear your thoughts?' they both said in unison, slightly getting a migraine.

Zangetsu answered.'Both of our mindscapes are still connected somewhat. Beats shouting words, but it was annoying already with just Kingy.'

'Hey!' Ichigo shouted at Zangetsu.

'Onto what I was saying,' said Cristina, 'my little plan to kill you all kind of f'd up some things in the process. Technically, you're not Faunas and more similar to Hollows.'

'I guess it's cool.' replied Ruby, 'Ah~, me and Zwei can even be more connected.'

Ichigo sweatdropped in the real world. 'What about me? I'm a bit freaked out that I have a freaking tail. H-How do you even control it?'

'C'mon, it can't be that bad.' said Ruby.

Ichigo only gave his signature scowl in response and the mental conversation ended there. A chill ran down his spine when he became the target of a red-eyed Yang. Putting on a 'sweet' smile, she flanked Ichigo from behind and made her presence known by putting a hand on his shoulder.

"So," Yang voiced, sending a cold sweat down Ichigo's neck, "what's going on with you and my baby sister? Are you the reason why she has wolf ears all of a sudden?"

When Ichigo stared into those red eyes, he felt he was going die right there. Ruby saw what her sister was doing and couldn't help but feel a tinge of anger with her attitude to her boyfriend. At least she wasn't flirting with him, then things would've been really bad. Blake noticed that Ruby's new wolf ears were twitching, and she tentatively took a step back knowing what the situation was going to become.

Ichigo panicked. "Nothing weird, I promise."

"But that smooch Ruby gave you says otherwise." said Yang, her hand tightening on his shoulder, "You haven't done anything indecent to her have you?"

"This man is very dead." commented Weiss.

"Ruby doesn't seem to like it." Blake added.

"H-Hell no!" Ichigo exclaimed, "Jeez, what the hell do you take me for? I'd never do something like that to her. We just started dating a few days ago."

"Now," Yang said, clenching robotic hand into a fist and activating the muzzle, "I hear you say words, but I can't seem to trust you. So, for my little Ruby's sake, you will back-"

A hand gripped onto Yang's left arm. The blonde almost gasped to find Ruby, who suddenly moved from her spot earlier without using her Semblance. She was in shock seeing those once innocent silver eyes glaring daggers into Yang.

"Leave Ichigo alone, Yang." Ruby demanded, not willing to back down even to her sister.

"Ruby," Yang berated like a mother, "I don't feel comfortable with you dating guys that I don't know about."

"NO!" Ruby growled, her lips curling back to reveal canines in the back of her jaw, "Leave - him - alone!"

'Oh Kami, help me!' Ichigo prayed.

The remaining of the party started to pace back, either in fear of a beserk Yang or a truly angry Ruby. In her and Ichigo's mindscape, Zangetsu and Cristina were watching the show, wishing for a bowl of popcorn right about now and laughing like maniacs.

"Ruby-"

"BARK!"

The party of Huntsmen, Huntresses, and shinigami blinked once, then twice, then four times.

Did Ruby just bark!?

Blake facepalmed for she knew why Ruby was acting this way toward her love companion. Faunas may be far from being animals as they are prejudiced, but that didn't mean they didn't possess any instincts that exceed humans. In simple terms, Ruby was being protective to someone she cared a lot for. Looking back at those Blake ears, she shivered from memories back from Beacon. Ruby needed to control herself because Blake would go mad being chased by a human-sized Zwei.

Qrow didn't say anything, but threw his whisky bottle. If being sober made Qrow see Ruby with wolf ears barking on top of being back from the dead, he did not want to find out what he would see if he was drunk.

"What the..." Yang muttered, snapping out of her stupor, "Did you just bark?"

Ruby growled and snarled like an actual wolf. "BARK, BARK, BARK, BARK, BARK, BARK, BARK!"

The barks were not some human copy or something from a house pet like Zwei. Yang felt like she was being barked at a big and a very angry wolf of the highest echelon. With each bark, Yang stepped back pace by pace. She kept going till she was with the gang, but Ruby was still growling at her like a human-sized guard dog.

"Ruby, that's enough." Ichigo said, unconsciously wrapping his tail around Ruby's waist.

Ruby was reluctant to stop, but she dropped the glare and growling for Ichigo's sake. She looked to her friends, who still were having disbelieving looks even from Yang. She took a few steps and was soon facing her old team.

"Is it really you, Ruby?" Weiss asked, trying to hold in crying.

"Of course it is." said Ruby, but the looks from Blake and Weiss didn't drop, "It really is me."

"But - you died." said Blake, "We saw you turn into ash."

Ruby sighed. "How can I prove it's me?"

"What's your favorite food?" Weiss questioned.

"Stawberres." Ruby answered immediately. Ichigo went a little red from that fact via the second translation of his name.

"What is the name for a coordinated attack with you and Yang?" Blake questioned.

"Flower Power." said Ruby.

"What teacher from Signal built Crescent Rose?" Yang asked, but she was confident Ruby knew the answer.

Ruby smiled. "No one from Signal did. I built my beautiful baby with my own blood, sweat, and tears."

Weiss and Blake's jaws fell and their arms went limp at their sides. Tears of joy were flowing down their cheeks.

"It really is you..." mumbled Weiss.

"Holy crap." commented Qrow.

Ozpin was at a loss. No one could just come back from the dead. Granted, he was brought back by the God of Life, but he was sure they would never interfere in mortal affairs again. And if so, why Ruby then? The old soul could also note there was something extremely powerful dwelling just beneath the surface, especially from that thing from earlier and that sword she was holding.

"Uh, guys..." Ruby said sheepishly.

"RUBY!"

Ruby was tackled to the ground by all three of her teammates. She tried to pry herself free but stopped when she saw WBY of Team RWBY crying their eyes out. Their arms wrapped around Ruby, unwilling to let her go again. The Huntress/Grimm/shinigami hybrid smiled kindly and returned the embrace as best she could. Senna and Ichigo looked out of place as Ozpin and Qrow gathered around them, the former putting a hand on his neice's back to comfort her.

"My Ruby," sobbed Yang, caressing her sister's cheek, "Our Ruby is back."

''Hey Ren, you made it back too', Why thank you guys.' Ren mocked in his head, hiding his annoyance with a blank expression.

"That's right, and I'm back better than ever." Ruby said with a cheer.

"Damn Ruby, you are going to give me heart attack before the alcohol kills me." said Qrow.

"As much as I would hate this reunion," voiced Ozpin, "we still need to get the Relic to Atlas."

Ruby raised an eyebrow at Oscar then looked to her friends and family. "You guys still haven't gotten to Atlas yet?"

Everyone except Ichigo, Ren, and Senna looked sheepish at Ruby's question. The old lady, Maria, made her presence known when she felt the chillwinds blowing again.

"I believe I am out of the loop, but did you say this girl died?" Maria inquired.

"Not even a body left." Ruby said with a nervous chuckle, "Not sure if I'm still dead or alive. Maybe neither."

"Sis, what happened to you?" asked Yang. The rest perked up, wondering if Ruby could tell them tales of the afterlife or something place else entirely.

Ruby looked to Ozpin, who nodded in approval. She gestured everyone to sit down, with Team SIRR sitting at her sides and WBY sitting in front of her.

"Be prepared for a very long story of a crazy adventure." Ruby announced.


(A long story-telling later...)

"Woah." Yang was the only one to voice her reaction of Ruby's tale becoming a shinigami, storming a place called Soul Society, and fighting people of near godly might while gaining those very same powers. Everyone else was just speechless.

"Ruby, you're... I don't even know what to say." said Yang.

"So there is an afterlife, but it just sucks." said Qrow, drinking from his emergency flask.

"It's not the realm that our gods made." said Ren, "In their dimension, their god is called Kami."

"And this Kami runs the afterlife called 'Soul Society'," said Ozpin, "which is protected by shinigami that in our terms are called 'death gods' in an organization called the Gotei 13, right?"

Ruby nodded. "Crazy, I know, but that's what Ren and I went through. After that, I was hanging with in Ichigo's home for a month. I, well, kind of asked him on a date and we're together now."

"Much to Goat-chin's amusement." Ichigo grumbled.

"And this world has its own version of Grimm called Hollows," said Weiss, "that are somehow worse because people can't see them?"

Ruby nodded. "Yeah, and that's what me and Ichigo turned into when we, uh, he-he, derailed you. Sorry about that. Apparently, it's because we are hybrids."

"I'm afraid to ask but," said Blake, "how strong are you?"

"We did just obliterate a mountain." said Ichigo.

Ruby paused for a moment to measure the spiritual pressures of her friends and family. The most prominent out of all of them was Qrow, who could take on a lieutenant at most. The others would rank as seated officers but not very far. One-on-one with Senna, they would lose. All of them against Ruby, Ren, or Ichigo, well...

Ruby shook her head. "I'm sorry to say but Qrow stands above all of you, but at best he ranks as a lieutenant in the Gotei 13. Except Senna, we rank as above captains. You all wouldn't stand a chance."

Weiss, Blake, Qrow, Maria, and Ozpin widened their eyes in disbelief. It was hard to see a lie in Ruby's eyes. They couldn't believe Ruby Rose, the youngest and the most innocent of them, could stand above them like they were dust if Ruby's comparison between lieutenants and captains.

Yang smirked. "That's a bold claim to make sis. Care to prove it?"

"As entertaining as that would be to assess Ruby new power," said Ozpin, rising up, "it is best if we get a move on now."

"Don't worry, Yang." said Ruby, leveling a wolfish grin to the blonde, "We'll have our fight later. After all, you did threaten my boyfriend."

Yang replied. "You're all 'bark', but do you have bite?"

Everyone groaned at Yang's so-called comedy gold that are her dreaded puns.

The party disbanded to get back on the trail. Ruby spotted the Relic and grabbed it and the rest of Team SIRR looked at the destroyed landscape that Ichigo and Ruby caused for supplies. From the train, Ichigo and Ruby managed to find new tops since their transformation destroyed Ichigo's shirt and almost ruined Ruby's modesty. Now replacing the top of their shihaksho was a black and white sweater for Ichigo and a deep crimson fur coat for Ruby. With the threat of total annihilation gone, Yang started to see the dilemma they were in. Nearby, Yang found her precious motorcycle that was unfortunately stuck in the snow.

"This is the worst!" Yang exclaimed, yanking her motorcycle out of the snow, "We're stranded. We lost a third of our party, and we gained a defenseless old lady."

"My name is Maria Calavera." the old lady berated Yang, "And I am not a defenseless old lady. I'm just hard of hearing, and blind without my eyes."

'Ok, robotic eyes.' thought Ichigo, 'Apparently, I haven't started to see everything.'

"Yang, knock it off." said Qrow, "If we lose our cool now, we'll be attracting more Grimm."

"I say bring it on." Senna boasted, "Me, Ren, Ichigo, and Ruby can take on anything that comes our way."

Qrow glanced to Senna. "You seem a bit too cocky to face a horde of Grimm, eh..."

"The name's Senna." said Senna, "We're shinigami. We can take on anything."

"Easy there, we don't need to get out of frying pan and into the fire." said Ruby.

"Senna has a point." noted Ren, "We can face a horde of hundreds like we did in the Valley of Screams. But Ruby is right, we can't get ahead of ourselves."

Senna pouted. "You guys only say that because I'm the weakest."

"Don't worry." consoled Ruby, "You will get better."

"Does it matter if you can destroy entire armies?" said Blake, "Apparently, we've been attracting Grimm since Haven."

Ruby arched a brow in confusion. "How is that possible?"

"The Relic can attract Grimm." said Yang, leveling a glare at Ozpin, "A fact Ozpin chose to not tell us until the incident with the train. What happened to no more lies and half-truths?"

"What?" Ruby exclaimed coldly, giving a shinigami-signature glare to Ozpin.

"Yeah." Oscar agreed, "I think it's about time we got some answers."

Oscar stiffened for a moment before Ozpin took control. The indication he did so was the yellow glow in his eyes and the dramatic change in Oscar's demeanor.

Qrow noticed Senna and Ichigo's lack of reaction to the change in personalities.

"You seem to be taking this well." Qrow noted.

Ichigo scoffed. "This isn't even close to the weirdest crap I've seen."

"I did not lie to you." said Ozpin.

"You certainly didn't tell us everything about the Relic." said Weiss.

"Please, this is not the time." replied Ozpin, desperately trying to calm down the situation.

"Really?" said Ruby with a chuckle on the border of snarling and her wolf ears twitching, "I didn't come back for such lame excuses. We are not moving from this spot until you come clean with us."

"Ruby, I know you are more-"

"I think you're making a mistake thinking you're any position to hold me down when you feel like it." Ruby retorted, flaring a bit of her spiritual pressure laced with Cristina's. The Remnanties and even Senna backed away from the show of power that seemed to make the snow stop falling for a brief moment.

'Well done, sis.' thought Yang, flowing with a sense of pride for her little sister putting her foot down.

Ozpin sighed. "It is true that the Grimm are attracted to the Relics. It's faint, but undeniable. I believe it has to do with their origin, but I'm not entirely sure. Regardless, I felt telling you would only more anxiety and negativity. It seemed like the safer option."

"I object to that." said Ruby, "I'd face all the Grimm with a smile on my face as long as it isn't Kenpachi."

Everyone shivered at the mention of the battle-crazy man that, according to Ruby from her retelling of her adventures, could slice down towers with a single stroke. And could also shrug off injuries like impalation and keep going wild with a laugh.

Anything other than Kenpachi they will gladly leap towards to.

"Is that why you chose to lie to everyone about Lionheart too?" Yang scolded.

"Exactly." Ozpin firmly said, "As a matter of fact, I believed the kingdom of Mistral deserved better than the truth. And I believed Leonardo deserved to be remembered for his lifetime of service, and not the unfortunate missteps he made in his final years."

"Oh, you call betraying his entire people 'missteps'?" Yang exclaimed.

"I fail to see, Ozpin," added Ren with a narrowed eyes, "how all this lying will work to the betterment."

"In hindsight," said Ichigo, "I wouldn't blame this guy for turning your back to you with all the lies you've been keeping."

"What Lionheart did was reprehensible." Ozpin excused, "I am not here to argue differently, but does one lapse of judgement truly negate all the good he had done?"

"You call betrayal a 'lapse' of judgement?!" Ruby exclaimed.

Ozpin ignored Ruby. "You may have met Professor Lionheart, but you didn't meet the man he was before Salem found him."

"We're supposed to be together in this." Yang said, "You can trust us. We are not going to turn our backs on you."

"Do you think Leo wasn't the first?!" Ozpin exclaimed, permeating a silence in the air, "That he didn't say those exact same words to me? I'm sorry but you have to understand my behaviors are backed by experience. I'm not saying that I have reason to think you will betray me. I'm saying that I have reasons for the things I do. The secrets I keep. The reason I..."

In two short shunpos, Ruby disappeared and reappeared back in her spot with the lamp in her hand. Shocked eyes turned to Ruby holding the lamp with a frown toward Ozpin.

"Ruby, hand it over." Ozpin demanded.

"Uhm... no!" Ruby firmly denied, "So all those times you talked about having faith in humanity, that was just for everyone else?"

Ozpin sighed. "That's not what I meant to suggest. Miss Rose, the Relic is a powerful item, and I feel it is my burden to bear."

"A burden!?" Ruby exclaimed, "This thing can't do anything so why do you want it so badly?! I am so sick and tired of these excuses, Ozpin!"

Ozpin took a step towards Ruby. "I need you to-"

He stopped abruptly with his arm extended in front of him. A golden glow surrounded him and Oscar was put into control, although barely.

"Hurry." said Oscar, "He's... trying to stop you. He's afraid... that you'll... find out... what he's hiding."

The strain to keep Ozpin suppressed made Oscar fall on all fours, panting heavily. Ichigo and Senna fingered the hilts of their zanpakuto as they sensed the tension growing in the air.

"Her name is Jinn." Oscar muttered, "Say her name to summon her."

"Her name?" Ruby said, eyeing the lamp in her hands that was giving a soft, blue glow. "Jinn."

Suddenly, time stopped for the party. The falling snow stuck in place and the howling wind silenced. The lamp floated out of Ruby's hands and produced a blue mist. From the cloud of mist, a large, feminine figure took shape till there were all staring at a giant, blue woman with chains around her hips, wrists, and ankles. She gave a moan as the entity stretched her legs.

Meanwhile, Cristina and Zangetsu were screaming and laughing as they teased their hosts about the entity's lack of clothing. They both became beat red.

"Wonderful." spoke the entity that they all assumed was Jinn, "Tell me, what knowledge do you seek?"

"By Kami." Senna swore, "A real, freaking genie. Wonder what-"

"PUT SOME DAMN CLOTHES ON!" screamed the rest of Team SIRR.

Jinn pouted. "Party poopers."


How is that for the first chapter of 2019? Literally posted this after the Crystal Ball in Times Square dropped.

After the events that Ren and Ruby went through, it made sense in my head to make Ruby a bit OOC than how she was in the original. I'll probably skip the whole backstory they wish from Jinn.

Next is Chapter 30.

Stay in touch. Please, please leave a review. I love you all!