Even if it was so long ago, Ozpin still vividly remembered everything from his first two lives. The rescue of Salem. His death. His resurrection. His reincarnation. The birth of his daughters.

Their deaths.

After defeating Salem in their first battle, he and his daughters went back to the capital, Roma, so that Osiris could begin the healing of the Empire as its new Empress. However, upon arriving, the Imperial Guard apprehended Ozma, having been declared a traitor and enemy of the Empire by the Imperial Regent, Martinius de Caledon.

Osiris, still recognized as heir to the Empire and soon to be crowned Empress, reversed the declaration, much to the protest of Lord Martinius. Instead, Osiris declared Martinius as a traitor for conspiring against the Imperial Household and could only be rectified by his death through a beheading.

Ozpin still remembered how Martinius pleaded for a death through poison instead, wishing to keep his head and thus, his honor. Ozpin should have probably tried to convince his daughter to grant his request, but alas, beheading was the punishment for the crime and Osiris was a stickler to rules.

In a last act of defiance, Martinius jumped from the window where he was placed under house arrest, killing himself.

With his death, the collective frustrations, and grievances of the Empire's citizens against the Imperial Family all came together into a unified opposition, a rebellion, against the Crown. From the stories of Emperor Karl's cruelty to his own daughter, to the authoritarian rule of Empress Salem, and now the seeming coldness of Osiris, many have lost their love for the Empire's rulers.

Even the Imperial Guard, sworn first to the Crown, split into those that stayed true to Osiris and those that supported the rebellion.

Seeing the situation lost in the capital, the Imperial Family and their supporters fled to the Sanus continent, hoping to rally troops there to retake the mainland.

As the Imperial Family regrouped in Sanus, the rebels in Roma have formed themselves into the Caledonians, in honor of the dutiful servant of Empire, the Imperial Regent Martinius de Caledon.

Ozma and his daughters fought with all their might, but even with every victory they could achieve against the relentless Caledonians and the intense Grimm attacks, their grip on the Empire continued to slip. Both the Northern Continent and Western Sanus formally seceded from the Empire. The Draconis Colonies all fell under the Grimm Horde. Only Eastern Sanus remained under the Empire, scarred and besieged.

Then, the final battle.

The battle raged around Ozma, the harsh sounds of metal swords clashing and blood-curdling screams of the unfortunate fallen flooding his ears. The clash between disciplined formations has long past, everything now was just a brutal, disorganized melee between the Crown Loyalists and the Caledonians.

Ozma raised his staff high and willed his magic to strike out. The emerald gem glowed brightly in response, before green tendrils shot out towards several Caledonian soldiers. Those soldiers, upon being struck by his magic, fell, dead.

Ozma brought back his staff on the ground, starting to finally feel the exhaustion from the battle as sweat rolled down from his head. He had been in the thick of the fight for too long. Even if the common soldier would normally be of no concern for Ozma, constant use of large-scale magic to defeat numerous troops took its toll.

Ozma was about raise his staff again for another attack when a shout interrupted him.

"Princess Helvetica!" A random Loyalist shouted from behind Ozma.

Ozma immediately turned his attention towards where he felt his second oldest was fighting and saw three different spears jutting out of her body. Still, Helvetica clung to her life, still gripping tightly to her sword and raising it defiantly against the enemy before her. Then, another spear pierced her, this time through her heart. Finally, her grip loosened, and her sword fell to the mud.

Ozma despaired as he felt the magic connecting him to Helvetica fading away, until it was no more. He wanted to scream for his pain, for his loss, but he once again felt the same fading sensation, this time for his second youngest, Stella.

Ozma did not want to lose another daughter and so forced his body to comply, ignoring its painful protests as he cut his way through the battlefield. He cared not if they were Loyalist or Caledonian, anyone in his path was slain until he saw Stella.

She was swinging around vigorously with her spear, keeping the Caledonian spearmen that surrounded her at bay. Ozma could see the countless cuts and wounds on her body, and once more rushed towards her, cutting down a few of the spearmen surrounding her.

Ozma almost felt relief at saving his daughter from death when suddenly, an arrow pierced her neck.

Despair gripped his heart once more as he held his daughter in his arms. Stella, abandoning her spear, brought her hands to her throat as she choked on her own blood. Ozma shed tears and tried to will his magic to heal her but it had been exhausted already. Seeing nothing else, he simply held her in his arms until he felt her magic fade away as well.

Rage coursed through the blood of Ozma as he laid down his daughter's corpse gently on the ground. The Caledonian spearmen still surrounded him, a look of fear in their eyes as they saw the sheer hate in his eyes.

Ozma knew he had no more magic to use. It was all exhausted in the battle. Still, he'll have his revenge on these Caledonian bastards that killed his daughters.

Ozma raised his staff again, thinking to rush the spearmen and beat them with it. However, before he could do so, arrows embedded themselves in the spearmen's' heads, killing them. With no time to even react to their sudden deaths, Ozma also felt magic pull him out.

"Father! The battle is lost! We must retreat!" Ozma heard his eldest, Osiris, say as she grabbed hold of him.

Ozma looked back at the battlefield once more and saw it true. While the brutal melee continued just before him, he could see slightly further that there were Caledonian forces still in disciplined formation not yet joining the battle.

Ozma merely nodded in agreement with his eldest, not wanting to see her or his youngest die on the battlefield as well.

"Osiris! Father! Look!" Ozma's youngest, Istria, shouted as she dropped her bow to point towards the sky.

Ozma followed her finger and saw a magical bombardment about to fall down on them.

This was the end. There deaths were near. At the very least, he should give some comfort to his daughters in their final moments.

"Osiris. Istria. I lo-"

Then he woke up in another person's body.

The war was over. The war was lost. Lost through the deaths of his daughters.

Ozpin let a lone tear escape his eye. Even with an eternity behind him, the pain of his loss could never truly fade.

Ozpin always asked himself where everything went wrong, and in each incarnation, his answer would change. It went wrong because of Salem's tyranny. It went wrong because of his neglect. It went wrong because of the Gods. It went wrong because of something. It went wrong because of nothing.

Now, however, Ozpin was certain where it all went wrong. In that forest. Where he first fought Salem. Where he killed Arcturius.

In that forest, both he and Salem fully lost themselves. Even if Salem was becoming more and more authoritarian, she still cared for her people in a twisted sense. Even if he himself was impulsive in taking their daughters away, he did it with good intentions.

However, when he killed Arcturius, he also killed the hero inside him. Yes, he had killed before, but they were servants of evil forces and heinous criminals. Arcturius was only a man dutiful to his vows and honor. And Ozma killed him to survive.

And when Arcturius was dying on the ground, silently pleading towards Salem to honor his death and service, she turned away and abandoned him. At that moment, Salem's love for humanity proved weak.

Arcturius' death pushed them past the point of no return.

Ozpin bitterly smiled at the irony of it all. He only realized the answer to his question was the death of someone when that same person magically comes back alive and meets him.

'Turius Arc. A little on the nose, don't you think?' Ozpin sardonically thought, recalling the introduction of the resurrected man just a few minutes ago.

'Then again, when only Salem and I could recognize you in this time, it's not that bad an alias.' Ozpin reasoned to himself.

"I wonder why you're here now, Arcturius." Ozpin vocalized his thought.

Ozpin planned to find that out through keeping the man close, hence offering him a position in the faculty. If he is in service of Salem or willing to serve Salem, Ozpin will deprive him of any opportunity to do so, and even kill him if necessary. If he is not, Ozpin will keep him away from Salem's grasp and influence. Ultimately, Arcturius is to be kept in the dark.

With a plan finally formulated in his mind, Ozpin slightly relaxed in his seat and took a sip of his coffee, already compartmentalizing his previous emotional distress.

"The unpredictable Knight enters the board." Ozpin calmly commented for his amusement before continuing to drink his coffee.