A/N Honestly forgot to post this update sorry :) x-posted on ao3 which is a little ahead on chapters
"The best that I can imagine is that what's happened has happened because you're incompatible. Your souls are simply too different one from one another to coexist, despite whatever shared life experiences you might have had. In this situation, I think there are really two options laid out before you. One, as your sister suggested, you can sever the connection that's tethering the two of you together. Two, you can make it so that your souls become compatible, and then you can merge, and you will become one."
"What will happen if we choose the first option? Once our so-called 'connection' is severed?"
"Most likely, Miss Azula's soul will be ejected from your body."
"You mean, she'll actually become a spirit then. A ghost."
"It's possible, if her body is truly alive somewhere, her soul will naturally seek it out and return to it."
"How likely is that to happen?"
"I can't say. This is an unprecedented situation."
"So not likely at all then."
"If we wait too long to sever the connection, it's also possible your soul will be the one that gets ejected, Miss Schnee—if Miss Azula's soul grows stronger than yours and your control over your body continues to diminish, you could reach a tipping point. That's why the matter is time-sensitive. Each second that passes perhaps brings you closer to that unreturnable edge."
"Hm. Well, I think that I'll take that risk."
"Miss Azula, I'd like to hear Miss Schnee be the one to say it, completely on her own, without your influence."
"I'll take that risk."
"Very well then. Then, the second option."
"No."
"You're not going to listen to what I have to say?"
"You can cloak it in euphemism if you want. But I understand when you claim you want to make our souls compatible with one another, what you really mean is that you want to change our souls to the point that they're almost the same. I don't need to know what the process entails to know that's not something we want to do."
"Souls naturally change and evolve with time. It's the reason Semblances change and evolve, too."
"But this would be artificial, deliberately induced soul-change. Sure then, pray tell. What would that process entail?"
"We would cut out certain pieces of problematic memory, edit them, and insert them back in."
"You would manipulate our memories?"
"It's not as invasive as it sounds. Souls are made of many things, with memory just one part of it. Atlesian tech is marvelously—"
"So, right, like I said, I don't think that's what we're going to do."
"Miss Schnee—"
"Yes, that's my name, Headmaster. And if this conversation has made anything clear to me, it's that you're not truly invested in our welfare. I think the matter is that you find us more of an interesting circus case that you want to poke and prod at than anything else. So, if there's nothing useful left to talk about this subject, then we're done. But before I leave, there's something else we will discuss."
Ozpin's expression, to his credit, is perfectly stoic and unflappable. The whole conversation, it has remained stoic and unflappable. Azula wearing Weiss's face, too, has retained a perfectly schooled and unrevealing expression. Ozpin and Azula stare at each other evenly across Ozpin's desk.
On the inside, Weiss reels. Both of the options that Ozpin laid out to her sound horrible. In the first one, either Weiss or Azula would probably die. In the second one, they would lose crucial bits of themselves, their personalities. They would become, from two people, into one person. The thought of it is hard to wrap her mind around, to conceptualize, but it feels inherently, deeply, wrong to Weiss.
She's Weiss Schnee. And Azula, who has only just gotten her name back, is Azula. Weiss remembers clearly the confusion and unstableness of being all mixed up, all muddled up, earlier in the semester. She had barely been functional back then. It had already been difficult to tell from beginning to the end who was Weiss and who was Azula, and to consider making that even worse...
You're going to die anyways if nothing is done, Azula notes, clinically, so the first option isn't actually a big risk, compared to that. But I would rather the both of us die and become nothing than 'merge our souls'. That wouldn't be living at all in my opinion.
I need to think, Weiss thinks. She holds onto her earlier words. This is… There has to be a third option. We just have to figure it out. Find your body, wherever it is, the Spirit World...
Ozpin says, "It's just as well, because there are other things I need to talk about to you, too."
Azula says, "Sure. But I'll start. Where are you hiding the Maiden in the school?"
Pause. A fragment of shock enters Ozpin's expression. Azula's satisfaction is almost intoxicating.
"Right," Azula deduces. "It's the real deal, then. You're hiding someone capable of manipulating the elements in Beacon. Water, air, earth. Fire. Whatnot."
"You shouldn't know about that," is what Ozpin says.
"Too bad," Azula says. "I know about it. And I want you to tell me where she is. I'd like to speak with her."
"I can't give you that information. Who told you about the Maidens?"
"Well, I can't give you that information either. I've already said more than I should, considering what I promised. But say we make a little exchange, and I might be willing to say more."
"With all due respect, Miss Schnee, there is no reason for us to be antagonistic with one another. We are on the same side."
"And what side is that?"
"The right side."
"In a war, everyone believes they are on the right side."
"We are not at war."
"No," Azula says. "Perhaps not. But I'm not sure that's what you really believe. Is it?"
Ozpin frowns. Weiss frowns, too. Azula?
"You speak of not being antagonistic," Azula continues, "and yet you eavesdropped on our conversation with Winter Schnee and pressured my team into giving up my secret to you. You suspended me from your school. The fact is you don't think we're on the same side at all, or at the very least you are feeling very pressured by something, otherwise you wouldn't have taken such steps. Is there a reason I can't speak with the Maiden? Of course I would be willing to meet her under careful supervision, if you're worried that I might try something."
"The Fall Maiden, unfortunately, is not in any position to be seen by anyone," Ozpin responds.
"Incapacitated, then," Azula nods. "Thank you for confirming that for me. I suspected as much. Is she in this school? Yes. Of course she is. Headmaster, I don't mean to threaten you, but what's to stop us from tearing this place from inside out in order to try and find her? Or leaking her existence and the existence of the other Maidens to outside sources? I'm sure there are plenty of people who would find the information about Maidens fascinating. Weiss here will protest the idea, of course, because she's too good, but you know, I have no such qualms, and I'm the one sitting here right now, in front of you . She won't be able to stop me from doing such a thing forever."
Azula smiles.
Ozpin looks at her with a huge frown.
Weiss does the mental equivalent of an exhausted sigh. Azula, she does in fact, try to protest.
"I'd like to see you try to kill me to shut me up," Azula says. "If that's your style, Headmaster." She goads him, putting her palm on the desk, leaning forward, flashing a smirk, "Go on. Give it a try. I dare you. Let's see how everyone reacts and how you try to cover it up. You know 'Weiss Schnee' is not a not well known person."
Ozpin stands up.
"I will fetch the General and Professor Goodwitch," he says in his still even tone. "We will take you to the vault together. Wait here for me to return."
When Ozpin leaves, and it's just the two of them, Weiss sinks far, far down into the chair. She holds her face in her hands, not minding the way the position jostles her still hurting injury.
"I can't believe you just did any of that," she groans, mortified. "Oh my god."
"You mean you can't believe we just did that," Azula says. She smirks again. It's her trademark expression. "I forgot how good it feels to be me."
"I know you did a lot of it back in your world," Weiss complains, "but you can't just threaten people here."
"It worked," Azula shrugs. "You need to be more assertive, Weiss. I know you have it in you, you can be a righteous uptight snob when you want to be."
"I've been trying to get better with that," Weiss mutters. "Not regress."
"I told you I'd handle it, didn't I?" Azula says. "And I handled it, didn't I? They wanted to play with fire. And they got burned. Whose fault is that?"
What a mess everything still is, Weiss thinks, with no small amount of gloom. She thinks of Winter, and Ruby, and her team, she thinks of her broken Aura. But she can't help but smile a little, too. It's been too long since Azula has felt anything but anger and hate and woundedness. This small amount of satisfaction and pride is worth something.
The Fall Maiden, it turns out, is just an ordinary-looking girl, with a nasty scar on her face. Weiss puts her hand on the glass of the container, ignoring Ironwood's sharp comment of displeasure, and shivers. She doesn't know if the shiver is all Azula, or if part of it is her, too. She thinks she can feel the power emanating from the Maiden, an unmistakable allure.
Azula tries not to think about it ( bless her heart, maybe , Weiss thinks, at least she's trying ), but her first immediate thought is still one of murder. Let's kill her, Azula thinks, and then my bending, we can—
Calm down, Weiss thinks. We're not killing anyone. I'll say it as many times as it needs to be said. Weiss inhales, and forces herself to take a step back, ripping her hand from the glass.
"Is she dead?" Weiss asks. Her voice echoes down the long hall.
"No. But she's close to death," Ozpin says.
"What happens when she does die on her own without someone killing her? Her power leaves her to someone else anyways? Someone undesirable?"
"Yes."
"I can't imagine a man like you doesn't have a contingency plan for preventing that scenario."
"I can't tell you any more information, Miss Schnee," Ozpin says.
"Let's make a trade of information," Azula says. "Or, a plan of mutual cooperation. We are not quite friends, Headmaster. But maybe some of our goals do align and we can help one another. Your show of faith here has restored some of my faith in you."
"You will tell me about our enemy?" Ozpin says. "Whoever you learned about the Maidens from? The one who attacked the Fall Maiden in the first place?"
He's clever, Azula begrudges. He made the connection. But I promised I wouldn't say a word about that woman. I swore it to her.
I hate how your sense of morality is like this, Weiss thinks.
"That person is not my friend either," Azula says. "But I can't tell you too much about them."
Ironwood crosses his arms. "This isn't some game," he says. "Real people's lives are at stake here."
"The Headmaster has made up for some lost time. But I still really don't like you," Azula says. "That person—I'll take care of them myself. You don't have to worry about it."
"You're a student, Miss Schnee," Goodwitch says.
"What's your point?" Azula says, blankly. "How about this. If that person ever comes to become some kind of serious threat, I'll come clean. But for now, this is a personal matter."
"No," Ozpin says, calmly. "It's not a personal matter at all. She is a serious threat to the peace of everyone in this world. Do you want your pride and stubbornness to put you on the wrong side of history, Miss Azula?"
...Azula, Weiss thinks, stomach sinking. She can feel the image of orange eyes burning into her from across a table, the smirk, she sees Ozpin's completely serious expression. I think we're in over our heads here. I think we are missing out on a lot of important context.
Do you know what this means, Azula thinks back, almost gleefully. It means we just got infinite leverage. I'm sure even you can tell that this man is clearly desperate to hear what little information we have. He'll give us almost anything we want in order to have a crack at that woman. Oh, he shouldn't have told us this, he slipped.
"Ozpin!" Ironwood snaps. "She is a child who at the very least is suffering from serious mental delusions. The last thing we should do is tell her!"
"I agree with James, which is the last thing I thought I would ever say," Goodwitch says, pushing up her glasses. "But this is not a good idea."
"How about this," Azula says, clapping her hands together to get the adults' attention. "I'll go meet up with that person one more time. On my own. On my own terms. And depending on the outcome of that conversation, we'll speak again, Headmaster."
"That is acceptable to me," Ozpin nods.
"If you'd really like to further ingratiate yourself in the meantime," Azula says. "Then you'll put together a dossier on everything you know about traveling between different worlds, as well as cases of body possession. I'm sure you have access to all kinds of interesting sources and connections we ordinary people don't have access to."
"Consider it done," Ozpin says.
"And lastly, and just as importantly, this is for you, General Ironwood," Azula says. Ironwood bristles. "Get your specialist to apologize to Ruby Rose, will you? It was very unprofessional what she said. She stepped out of line. Hm. You know what, don't just get her apologize, I want you to get her to—"
"—an apology is enough," Weiss says, with some serious effort, feeling a trickle of sweat bead down her forehead, wrenching control of her mouth. "Ruby is very important to me. What happened on the training mission was truly an accident and completely my own fault. If you could get Winter to understand that, I would be very grateful."
"James," Ozpin says, and the general's jaw visibly clenches.
In the privacy of a bathroom, Weiss splashes water on her face, feeling all the ends of her nerves tingling. She lets out a huge breath of air. She looks at her reflection. Her reflection looks back at her smugly with golden eyes.
"And that is how you do negotiations," Azula announces. "Learn anything? Maybe a way to handle your rat of a father?"
"I didn't know you cared about Ruby that much," Weiss says.
"Of course that's the one thing that makes you improve your opinion about me the most," Azula rolls her eyes. "I should have expected it."
"Thank you," Weiss says, and Azula pauses, and Weiss can feel how she feels genuinely taken aback, at a loss for words. As for Weiss, her own chest buzzes with a hint of warmth.
"Let's just figure out how we're going to approach that woman," Azula grumbles, making Weiss turn her body away from the mirror so that Weiss can no longer see whatever strange expression they must be sharing.
"Sure, sure," the corner of Weiss's mouth twitches. "Let's do that."
Today was not a bad day.