Chapter 66
He could finally see it, his destination. At the maximum speed Madara could afford, it took around half an hour, but at long last his travel was done. With the Light-weight rock jutsu still active, he remained high above the ground, and he looked down at an expansive landmass. Surprisingly, it was one he hadn't ever been to before. On a world map, it would be the dragon-shaped continent, west of Atlas and North of Sanus.
The mere sight of the landscape was almost enough to make the Uchiha disappointed he hadn't ventured earlier. No doubt that it was the only place in the world with this kind of environment. That said, it would be the last place on anyone's list for vacation or tourism, for a wide variety of reasons.
As the water got closer to the shore, it turned from blue to a dark red. It was almost black like dried blood once it touched the ash-like beachfront. What would normally be sand or ice was some kind of black stone. It looked as if it could be mined and burned as a fossil fuel. There were hundreds of small formations, stalagmites that rose from the ground, some pointing up while some pointing out to the sea.
A little bit past the beach, there were puddles on the ground. They were large, and the liquid wasn't water. They were entirely black, and it was impossible to see anything through the surface, if there was even anything to look at. However, despite there being apparently nothin in them, the surface was indeed moving. Some of the puddles bubbled, growing as if something was rising out of them. Slowly but surely, entire limbs reached out of their pools, emerging and revealing themselves to be Grimm. The lack of any white proved their infancy.
Madara hummed silently. Eyeing the puddles that birthed the creatures. "So that's how they're made." he made sure to keep his mind empty. With their young age and his current position, they most definitely wouldn't notice him as long as he showed no negativity or ill-intent.
He looked further into the mainland, and saw something in the distance. It was by no means a natural formation. It was like a castle, with multiple towards and pointed roofs. There were seven bridges connecting those towers. It was a manmade structure, or maybe not exactly man-made. There weren't many Grimm near the castle itself, little enough that he could feasibly land at the "front door".
Unfortunately, he ran into a dilemma. The Lightweight Rock Jutsu consumed chakra to maintain, chakra that he needed to preserve in case he needed to fight. Unfortunately if he were to deactivate the jutsu, he would be well within visible range of the Grimm. That would obviously lead to a premature conflict. In other words, the choice came down to either sacrifice his chakra to reach his destination quicker, or to sacrifice his time clearing out the Grimm in his path.
He grumbled to himself, scowling at the creatures beneath. Ultimately, continuing to fly would be the most effective. Fighting his way through would exhaust him physically, and large groups would require chakra use anyways. Probably because of the siege on Atlas, he hadn't encountered any airborne Grimm yet,
The more time he spent, the more danger Atlas was in, and the more danger team RWBY was in. So he continued to fly, but increased his speed slightly.
Even at his distance, he could feel the massive amount of chakra that was the Nine Tailed Beast. It was waiting for him, and so was Salem. In the most optimal scenario possible, he could obtain the Nine Tails and leave without issue, recover the remaining three as well as his Rinnegan, and then return to seal away the danger that was Salem in the fractured moon. Oh what a pipe dream that was.
The Atlas Military held nothing back. The gunships and grounded turrets fired with everything they could. Thousands of Atlesian Knights of varying models old and new stood at the front gates protecting the closed entrances. Hundreds of Paladins were deployed. Yet this alone would not be enough. Atlas was certainly powerful, but needed far more than just its military, and so it was supplied.
The ethereal blue giants, acolytes to the Azure Titan that had protected both Vale and Vacuo, presented themselves on the battlefield. From eight different sides, they rained hell upon the Grimm with astonishing efficiency; their fiery blades and their comma-shaped grenades laid waste. Despite their small number, their strength rivalled that of the entire Atlas Military and their presence gave hope to their fellow defenders.
And then there was the third line of defense. Hundreds of Huntsmen and Huntresses around the world were made aware of the situation Atlas was in, and they were offered an appropriate amount of money for service. In response they moved as fast as they could to assist, not only to receive payment but to prevent the entirely possible destruction of an entire country.
It was not just a battlefield. It was a warzone, one that rivalled the great battles eighty years ago. It was a battle meant for fully grown and trained adults, but for some reason Team RWBY was also on the field.
Against an attack of this size and magnitude, close-range engagement was kept only as a last resort. Even the huntsmen stayed close to the walls and fired from a safe position. Simply put, getting too close to the black ocean ran the risk of being swallowed up by it..Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately depending on perspective, there were a few Grimm of impressive size that managed to break through the constant bombardment.
Then there was a problem; the gun turrets had emptied all of their ammunition and needed to be reloaded. Even worse, A behemoth of a Grimm, with a preposterous constitution, quickly approached the vulnerable south-eastern wall. Without suppressive fire, more Grimm would notice and follow behind it, thus causing their defensive perimeter to crumble. It was Team RWBY's job to make sure that this didn't happen.
It didn't look like any animal on the had an uneven number legs that ended in barbed tips. Its body was flat like a disk. As far as they could tell it didn't even have a head. Instead it had several large tentacles sprouting from its back, each possessed a jagged and grotesque mouth at their end. Some were small and looked like whips, others were more than wide enough to swallow a person whole.
Together, the members of Team RWBY advanced towards the creature. In order to prevent interference from other proceeding Grimm, Weiss manifested walls of ice behind it. Simultaneously, she created a pair of ice-made giants as their vanguard. That way, the larger tentacles would target them first.
The bait taken, Ruby charged her Crescent Rose with electricity and bolted underneath its body. In a split second she tore off a pair of its legs, causing it to let out a pained and ear-piercing shriek. On the other side, she fired beneath her and propelled her onto its topside to target the base of the tentacles.
The smaller tentacles that hadn't aimed at the ice-constructs shot at Ruby en masse. Despite her best efforts, they were starting to push her back. However, just before they could knock her back to the ground, Yang shook its entire body with an uppercut from beneath. In its confusion, Blake mounted the beast and put herself between it and Ruby.
Blake glanced behind at her team leader. "You okay?"
"Mhm!" Ruby noticed Blake loading colored dust cartridges into her weapon, and backed off of the creature.
When the tentacles aimed for Blake, she created elementally-charged decoys. All that attacked were either frozen solid, electrocuted, or blown to smithereens.
Followed by the sound of metal cutting flesh, the swords of the ice giants cleaved through the larger tentacles.
"Everyone back away!" Weiss shouted before touching her sword to the ground. Multiple wide glyphs appeared beneath the Grimm, before it was swiftly skewered by icicles.
It let out another screech, what was left of its tentacles swung with reckless body started to morph, something underneath its skin was moving, crawling its way topside and stretching its flesh as it began to emerge. Any second now, and it would've broken free from its body, likely to attempt escape and obtain a new body. That wasn't going to be allowed to happen.
From a short distance Ruby stabbed Crescent Rose into the ground. Its barrel and sight pointed towards the breaching entity. She channelled electricity into the weapon, quickly generating a magnetic field around its payload: a thin metal rod. With every moment, the field and potential energy built up to extraordinary levels.
All of a sudden the field collapsed. The rod was released from the barrel, as was a clap of thunder, before flying at a ridiculous speed towards the creature. The spear effortlessly tore through its body, as if there wasn't anything there to begin with, and disintegrated its instantly core. It was simply gone, and the noise rapidly faded.
They all felt it; a sense of enjoyment and triumph over their toppled foe, but the feeling was snuffed out. They could already see their next opponent: three of the same creature moving like a pack..The turrets needed more time. Time that they would have to afford.
All three had to be taken out simultaneously, not consecutively. The latter meant more Grimm to deal with afterwards.
Ruby held a finger to her ear, more specifically a device around her ear. "How much longer?"
"Reload will need another twenty minutes." A voice answered back.
"Understood." Ruby replied, lowering her hand from her ear. She looked at her team. "You guys know how to kill them now. Divide and conquer!" she commanded, charging Crescent Rose's blade and barrel. Together, the four advanced before splitting up.
Rumbling like it was beset by an earthquake, the Grimm-colored castle shook. But it was no natural disaster, though it arguably was a disaster.
The shaking was growing closer, she could feel it. She could feel walls and doors being broken down by single hard impacts. She could hear the footsteps of one person echoing through the halls. Salem sat at the end of her long table, as she often did, waiting for the arrival of her honored guest. She was watching the door alone, but would be so no longer.
Soon the crashing and shaking stopped and all was quiet, save for the footsteps. They were closer, stopping just in front of the entrance. Salem smirked, slowly raising her hand and snapping her finger. The doors opened like the maw of a predator, revealing the Uchiha whose fist was also held up.
"You know, I would have invited you in if you knocked."
Madara lowered his fist, briefly glancing at a pile of debris used to be a door. "I did." He said as he walked in.
"Clearly. Now then, why don't you take a seat." She offered.
Madara sharpened his gaze, looking Salem dead in the eyes. "I'm here for the Nine Tails, not a friendly chat."
Salem shrugged. "I assure you that I will stay true to my word. However, we have much to discuss before that. You don't need to sit down, but I urge you to listen."
Whatever it was, it must have been a trap. The woman in front of him was no woman, but a monster. With her Grimm, she posed as much a threat to her humans as the Tailed Beasts did his. Madara's sharingan told him something else, something he only half expected.
Chakra: it was swirling around inside her body, not flowing like a river, but spinning like a whirlpool. It was a massive reservoir, bordering on endless. If she decided to use it, it could very quickly become a problem. To his relief it wasn't orange, so she was not a Jinchuuriki. Unfortunately, it wasn't blue either. Instead it was black, a color of chakra he hadn't seen before, despite all his years of experience fighting all kinds of enemies. Just where had she acquired it?
"Do you know what I am?" Salem asked, smiling cordially. "A rhetorical question. A very long time ago, I was the youngest of what you might call a 'family'. It was a wonderful childhood, until the gods unleashed their silver eyed warriors. As much as I grieved over the deaths of my siblings, I couldn't simply throw my life away. I had to grow, and become something my family could not. Like any creature of Grimm, I grow smarter as I do older. I've learned a great many things, and I have something to share with you."
"Don't waste my time." Madara demanded, impatiently crossing his arms.
"I've seen more bloodshed than anyone else on this planet, past and present. Yet no matter how many of mine and of man's fall, more sprout up just to continue the cycle. It is endless, and with so much death, so much sorrow and pain and anger, I long ago came to realize who my true enemy is." She turned away, pointing out of the window at the sky. "My foe is not humanity, nor the gods, nor the ever-so annoying Ozpin."
Madara reached the answer before she could say it. Of course he could, he knew it himself. "The world."
"I have for a very long time wondered just how I was to fight against the world itself. When I discovered the existence of the relics, what they could do, I realized that I didn't need to. All I needed to do was eliminate suffering. With the relics, I could do that for both man and my own. Without the suffering and negativity of mankind, the Grimm will no longer be violent."
"And you want me to obtain the Relics for you, so that you can end this 'suffering'." He had a good idea of her intentions; how she planned to accomplish her goal.
"I've already used the Relic of Knowledge, and I don't need it anymore. I do need, however, the remaining three. Creation to build an eternal Utopia for the souls of man and faunus. Choice, to guide them to that Utopia. Destruction, to sever their ties to this world. With all of that done, the war between my people and man will finally end. There will be an everlasting peace."
"You would force all intelligent life to unanimously accept death for your belief of what is just." his hands were clenched, though he didn't even notice.
"A mercy without question, something I'm sure you are familiar with." Salem turned her back to Madara, looking out at the broken moon. At the same time, Madara's hands loosened. "You were so, so very close. No, you had already achieved it, but you were punished for your efforts instead of rewarded. Yet after all this time, you are here now, here to do what you were always meant to do. Now is your second chance, to be the hero that saves mankind. After that, well, without humans in the way collecting those 'tailed beasts' will surely be a lot easier." She stopped talking and looked back at Madara. As she held her hands together, she awaited his answer.
He stared at her, unmoving. He remained like that for over a minute, before closing his eyes. He muttered something to himself, sounding as if he was frustrated. Then, on his lips appeared a thin smile.
"A very very long time ago, I told someone, 'Madara is he who rejects the world'. In some ways, that hasn't changed. " He muttered, held back the urge to laugh as he spoke. "That said, I almost can't believe I'm about to do this."
"Hm?" Salem tilted her head, looking confused at Madara. She noticed that his eyes were red, with straight lines extending out of three connected comets.
"Right now though, it's not quite as simple." Madara stepped forward, putting his hand on the obsidian black table that stood between them. With a jerk of his arm, the table was flung into the wall. "I'm not quite the person I was back then."
"Then you'd rather the people of this world endure more pain and suffering?"
Madara smiled wide, cracking his knuckles and walking closer to Salem. "Without pain, fighting wouldn't be very fun. Besides, there are a few things to me worth more than the world. In other words, I reject your offer. I don't need your help to accomplish my goals, in fact, I need you out of the way."
His stubbornness often caused him trouble. Sometimes, his unwillingness to let go of his beliefs led to the greatest losses he could imagine. He would not make the same mistakes again.
"Then you understand the consequences." Her own body started to emanate a gas-like black aura. "Truly a shame, Madara Uchiha."
"It is." Madara took a lunge, ready to take the head of the Grimm's queen.
END