After going through countless amounts of grimm with only some of them even being notable I finally found the way up deeper into the giant grimm. They strangely ignore me when I go up the half fleshy half solid stairs. I reach the end of the staircase and find one long hallway withs several branching paths.

*Sigh* Didn't expect the inside of this thing to be a maze

Well no time to waste, me and Ker split up and begin the long and convoluted way to Salem.

(Half an hour later)

'Kratos, I found a way up.'

'Alright, coming to you.'

I make my way up and sure enough in front of Ker is another staircase, only this one is completely made out of whatever hard material the floor is. When we go up another long hallway shows itself but this time it has less branching paths.

But as me and Ker are about to split up again a floating orb with a glowing orange center and tentacles edged with bones dangling from the bottom of it floats to us. It gestures to follow it and not seeing any other alternatives we let it guide us hopefully to Salem.

We follow it and after a lot of twist and turns and one last staircase we reach the next floor with only one long hallway leading into a big room. It floats away back down leaving us as we walk towards the large room. We enter it and immediately I can see a throne made of stone or bones with intricate carvings in it facing away from me and towards a glowing orange part of the black fleshy wall.

And on the side I can see a pale arm with black veins running down it resting on the side of the throne. That is all the indication I need to know who's sitting there.

"So we finally meet in person, Kratos." She says as she gets up and slowly turns to me with an eager look on her face.

"Finally indeed. Do you know how much of a hassle it was to even get up here? It's a whole labyrinth down there."

"*Chuckle* Well all those grimm needed to be stored somewhere, and besides, some extra room never hurt anyone."

"Right, and what's that grimm besides you supposed to be? Never saw any of those out there."

"This… is an experiment, an earlier version of the more successful one, I'm sure you saw little red riding hood's sister?"

"Couldn't miss it, especially with the entrance she made. What'd you do to her? Dip her in a grimm pool?"

"Something similar but not exactly that either, dipping a subject into a grimm pool is what happened to this one." She says referring to the grimm besides her.

"Interesting, but that's enough chit chat don't you agree?"

"Wholeheartedly."

The moment she finished talking the grimm pounced at me. I quickly react by sidestepping and punching it away. Shadow tentacles then sprout out of the ground and impales it before throwing it back at me. I kick it upwards and Ker jumps out of my shadow and bites into the neck of the thing and rips away large chunks of it.

He then kicks it back down before returning into my shadow. It lands with a loud thud and strangely enough, a groan that sounds vaguely human. I look down and the grimm and see part of a faunus head sticking out with half of their face covered in white membrane like things and the other half is clear with silver eyes staring at me in despair, begging for me to end it.

Ker holds down its limbs and I hook into the faunus with my hooks and easily pull out its soul with no resistance and absorb it. As I absorb it I can feel a fiery power spread throughout my body, similar to what happened when I absorbed Cinder's soul but not exactly.

Since that power is likely the same one Ruby has, I look at the wall and concentrate the power into my eyes before flaring it. The result was a bright flash of silverish white and as it died down part of the wall I was looking at has turned to dust.

"*Whistle* Wow, in all my years of living, I never would've thought I'd see anyone absorbing souls and using the power of the silver eyes so casually."

"There's always going to be something you haven't seen yet, Salem."

"I suppose so. Doesn't happen often but I guess it does happen."

"You have anymore of those silver eyed people lying around?"

"Back at the grimm lands, those failures are useless, you can have them."

"Right then, back to business."

Ker's tentacles wrap around her as I channel my ice into my hands and run at her. She barely struggles and breaks free and only has time left to block my strike. The swirling orb of ice slams into her abdomen as I send her flying right into the center of the orang glowing wall.

As she impacts the wall it freezes most of her body to the wall restricting her movement. I jump at her as I freeze more of the wall around her. But I can see she's taking a deep breath before breathing out a torrent of fire much more intense than Cinder's.

I make a shield of ice and plough through to Salem as I slam into her and through the wall pushing both of us outside and falling to the sea of grimm. I look back for a moment and turns out that was the giant 'eye' of the grimm we went out of.

I look back to Salem and see she sent several energy blasts at me, I block one and it felt like it would seer my skin if I let it stay in contact for too long. I tried deflecting them with my blades but that only made them explode in my face.

So I try different approach, I cover my hands in mana and attempt to catch it. And surprisingly I was able to hold it without it exploding, it's still incredibly hot so I throw it back at her. Not expecting it she hastily forms another blast and intercepts it before it could get close.

'Ker I need a boost downwards.'

I put one of my arms back to create a shadow for Ker to come out of. And when he does, he kicks me downwards lessening the gap between me and Salem. She sees me get closer and turns around to see that we're only seconds away from reaching the ground and the grimm that's going around where she's going to land.

I can see that she somehow stopped inches from the ground and suddenly all the small rocks around her start to spin rapidly around her. I cover my fist in mana again and finally reach Salem as I slam my fist onto her. As I do, the impact of the force causes the ground under her to cave and more dust to kick up blocking my vision.

I notice that my fist isn't connecting to flesh but a cool breeze with a lot of resistance. The dust quickly clears, and I see that Salem caught it, albeit struggling, it doesn't change the fact that she actually caught it. I quickly superheat my blade in my free hand and slice her hand off before kicking her away.

Now that I have time to look around I see that the grimm running around me and Salem like rocks in a river. Strange, but convenient. Salem pants as she regrows her arm and the severed one turns to ash. She glares sends me a glare before shooting lighting at me. I block it with my axe that I quickly covered with ice.

I manage to disperse it and I focus on Salem as small things start to swirl around her again. I tense as she dashes at me extremely quickly, nothing like Hermes but nothing to scoff at either. I quickly block a punch with my ice covered axe and several more that came in quick succession. She blows me away with multiple orbs of wind and sends mini tornadoes immediately after those orbs.

I quickly freeze my feet to the ground to avoid getting thrown into the air. She sends a large fireball to mix with the tornadoes but I quickly channel a lot of my ice into the axe and throw it hard enough to escape the pull of the tornadoes.

It cuts cleanly through the fireball, dispersing and going straight for Salem. She sidesteps it with a smirk on her face and not looking back as it sticks into the ground. I hold my hand out calling it but Salem likely thinks I'll send out some sort of attack as she prepares to block. But to her surprise the axe struck deep into her unguarded back and encases her whole back with ice.

The sudden pain and sheer coldness of it catches her off guard and she shouts loudly in pain stuck in a hunched position. Because of this she lost concentration, and the tornadoes dissipate. I then decide to try something out as Salem is struggling getting the axe out of her back.

I ignite my blades but also run my ice power through it and the result is the blades ignite normally but have ice energy swirling around them resembling mini snowstorms. I run at Salem who just started to thaw some of the ice with great effort. But as I'm about to strike I see a shadow forming under me and I hear a slightly distorted shout.

"M̵̫̉y̴͚̆ ̴̠͑q̵̫̀u̸̗̎ė̵̪ḛ̶̈́ṋ̴̈́!̵͓̍"

I quickly dash back in time to avoid getting hit with what looks to be a giant grimm hand with red veins running along it. The dust clears revealing that it was the grimmified Yang who is growling at me with her teeth bared at me.

"Get this thing off me!" Salem shouts at her.

She gives me a cautious look before helping her so called queen who is still in the process of thawing all the ice out. Yang gets behind her and starts trying to pull the axe out but to no avail, only causing Salem more pain.

'Why are you letting her try to get the axe out.'

'It'll be fine, trust me Ker.'

'…Alright.'

She tries again and I deliberately cancel the ice power on the axe causing it come out easily and the combination of the sudden ease and all the force Yang was putting trying to pull out the axe causes her to fall flat on her back.

"So this is the successful experiment huh?" I ask with a smirk.

She looks back at Yang and facepalms as she sighs in disappointment. This of course causes Yang to get up angrily and she throw the axe back at me full force. But I easily catch it by the handle.

"Thanks for returning it."

And that just infuriates her more as she dashes at me as she shrinks her grimm arm to have more control. She throws several punches that I either block or dodge and every time she makes contact with me I slowly freeze her hands more and more. After a certain point she had to jump back to warm her hands up, and behind her I can see that Salem finished healing the large wound from the axe and is preparing an attack.

Yang rushes me again and as I'm about to sidestep a blow the ground below me traps my feet forcing me to block her strike. But instead of just blocking I quickly ignite my blades again with the mini snowstorm swirling around it again. I then start to cut through her hand and she just makes it easier with her initial momentum. With all of that combined I manage to cut through half of her hand down the middle.

And the effect of the combination of ice and the blades was the two sides of her arm that I cut through are frozen essentially making a 'Y' shape, and underneath it I can see that the grimm flesh under it melting from the heat.

She shouts in pain and tries to strike me with her normal arm, but I easily catch it and break my feet out of the earth and push on her as I sever her normal arm with my blade causing it to also freeze over. She screams in pain again allowing me to jam part of her now severed arm into her mouth. I punch her chin forcing her to bite to down on it before kicking her away in time to block a fireball.

But that fireball was strangely weaker than the previous ones. I look past the pained Yang and find the reason as I see a tired and panting Salem who still has her arm outstretched. Yang suddenly inhales sharply before shouting as fiery black aura bursts to life around her. It seems she still has her semblance.

Her appearance becomes much more feral as her horns and teeth elongate and visibly get sharper, her eyes widen as they get madder, slowly turning only to a black sclera and a red pupil and her legs seem to buff up. She dashes at me in anger and even more speed, but she doesn't even come close to Salem when she was using her wind. Because she's running on pure rage it's easy for me to dodge a pounce and sweep her off her feet. I grab her and slam her into the ground several times a before impaling her back with both of my blades and throwing her into air before doing on last big slam into the ground causing it to cave in as large cracks appear from it.

Ker's tentacles sprout of the ground and holds her in place as she's somehow still conscious after all of that. I kneel next to her as she's trying and failing to bite my face off and take out my claws.

"It's time for you to rest."

I hook her chest and start to pull out her soul. She gives admirable resistance as she's lashing out trying to keep her soul. But I increase my efforts and she eventually looses her grip allowing me to absorb her soul and I might even be able to use her semblance and summon her.

I look to Salem and see that she's preparing on last attack as she's mixing a lot of elements into a condensed orb.

"You know it's useless right?"

"I'm not dying *pant* without a *pant* fight!"

She finishes condensing the elements and she shoots at me. It has the speed of her using wind as lighting shoots out uncontrollably from the orb. I jump right and avoid it, but it curves around and flies at me with again with that same speed. Not bothering dodging, I gather a lot of my mana into my hand and prepare to catch it. It crashes into my waiting hand, and I can feel the intensity of the heat and electricity combined as the ground beneath me cracks. It starts pushing me back, but I focus my aura for once to my legs allowing me to push it back and eventually throw it right through the hole me and Salem left as we exited the giant grimm.

What followed after was lighting, water, fire and chunks of earth exploding out of the grimm's head in a large destructive display that catches everyone else's attention. I walk to Salem who looks like she's accepted her fate as she rests on the ground.

"Ready?" I ask as I stand in front of her.

"As I'll ever be." She says with closed eyes and a lone tear running down her face.

I hook her shoulders and start to pull out her soul but before I do something about her feels different somehow. It feels like an orb of light has been covered by a shell of darkness and as I hook her the shell cracks allowing the golden light beneath it to shine through. So instead of trying to pull the whole 'orb' like I always do, I try to only take the shell.

It's stubborn at first but as I increase my efforts I can feel a crack running down the middle of it. I redouble my efforts and this causes the crack to deepen before finally splitting the shell apart and letting the glowing orb beneath it shine in all its glory. What I pull out is a manifestation of Salem after she went into the grimm pool and this is causing the physical Salem pain as the soul is trying to claw its way back into her.

With one final pull I completely disconnect and absorb the grimm Salem which causes the physical Salem to glow a golden light. As it dies down, I can see that Salem is surprisingly back in her human form. She opens her eyes and looks around confused and looks up at me.

"What happened? Why am I still here?"

"Make a puddle and see for yourself."

She looks down and gasps as for the first time she sees her now human hand. She quickly makes a puddle of water and looks at her reflection to see her human face staring back at her. She touches her face to make sure it's real and once she's confirmed it she starts to cry. But suddenly stops and looks at me again.

"What about my curse?"

"I likely took it because it was likely attached to your grimm form. Because as you can see my body is free of wounds."

To further prove my point I cut off one of my fingers and a few moments later it grows back. With this known she bursts into tears and jumps up to hug me as she repeatedly says thank you. I let her do this and pat her back and after some time she separates with some tears still running down her face.

"Are you fine now?"

She nods.

"Ok good, now how do you control your grimm? The grimm are still running out of this giant one."

"R-Right," She takes a few deep breathes before continuing, "You need to will the grimm to stop coming out of the grimm pool at the back of that giant grimm and will the rest of the ones here to retreat back into it."

I nod and close my eyes to concentrate better and try doing what Salem said and will the grimm to stop coming out of the grimm pool. After a minute of grimm running out they finally stop meaning it worked. I then will the rest of the ones on the battlefield, both here and in mantle, to retreat and after some time they all start falling back into the giant grimm and all the flying grimm start to just fly around the giant grimm.

The ones defending Atlas notice this and pushes their defense line forward not wanting to miss this strange chance. Ruby and Raven are the first to make it through the retreating grimm since they were likely the closest when they were fighting Yang before she jumped away to help Salem.

They continue killing the retreating grimm not noticing me or Salem yet. Not long after all of the grimm have retreated into the giant grimm, clearing the battlefield. This gives Raven, Ruby, and the rest of the defenders a clear view of me, Salem and the now dead Yang. Ruby and Raven notices Yang on the ground and rushes to her.

We hear footsteps along with a gasp, we look to the side and see Ozpin looking at the teary eyed Salem in shock.

"Salem?"

"Ozma… it's me… I'm back." She says with a face splitting smile and tears already flowing.

Ozpin doesn't say anything but starts shedding tears of his own before running towards Salem. They embrace each other with Salem completely ignoring the fact that Ozpin is in a boy's body. But unfortunately Ozpin calling out Salem's name catches the attention of an enraged Raven and an equally furious Ruby.

"Where is she/that bitch!?" Ruby and Raven shouted looking around and their gaze lands on Salem who was facing down with a look of sadness and guilt on her face.

Knowing what she previously looked like from Jinn's story, they both rushed at her. Ruby with her silver eyes already flaring and forming a silver scythe and Raven who's blade is burning at an impossibly high temperature. They both went for a strike but got blocked by Ozpin and his cane. They all struggled to keep their ground before Ozpin used his aura and mana to push them both back.

"I lost my wife once and I'm not losing her again!" Ozpin shouts.

"She kidnapped my daughter!" Raven shouts.

"She took my sister away from me!" Ruby shouts.

"She wasn't fully in control of herself! You know this!" Ozpin shouts.

And true to his word, Jinn did reveal that the grimm pool corrupted Salem's mind quite easily with all the negative thoughts and emotions she was feeling at that point.

"And you expect us to do nothing about it!?" Raven shouts as she and Ruby charge at Ozpin again.

But before they could reach her I put up a wall of ice thick enough to stop them. And Raven snaps at me.

"What are you doing!?" She shouts.

"You want to talk to your daughter again?"

"Of course I do, but I can't because she's dead! Now let us through!" She shouts but before she can strike the wall I talk again.

"Did you forget what these could do?" I ask showing her my claws.

She looks at me and thinks for a moment before gasping with wide eyes and instantly lowers her weapon.

"What? What do those do?" Ruby asks clueless.

As her answer I summon Yang's soul which still has all her grimm parts and new outfit. This causes Raven to run at her already knowing what my claws can do while Ruby stands there shocked to the core and her silver eye power disappears in an instant, instead being replaced by tears. She then tackles the mother and daughter who are currently embracing each other to the ground.

This leaves a smile on Ozpin and the others as they watch the scene before them.

"H̸͓͌e̴̘̾y̸̡͆ ̵̛̦Ṙ̸̤ǔ̷̯b̸͉̀e̴̖͗s̷̝̑,̶̟̇ ̴̖̚m̷͉̍o̴̳͂m̷͕̄." She says in the same slightly distorted voice.

"I miss you so much." Ruby says as she cries into her shoulder.

"I'm sorry for leaving you." Raven says never once releasing her grip on her.

I turn to Ozpin who's looking at me with a smile on his face.

"Wondering how I turned her back?" I ask him.

"If you don't mind." He says.

"With these." I say brandishing my claws.

"How exactly did you use those?" He asks.

"Well at first I planned on just killing her like the original plan, but when I actually got to the part where I was pulling out her soul -yes these things can do that- it was different from the other souls I ripped out. It was like a glowing orb was covered by a shell of darkness and when I used these I made a crack in that shell. So I started to only pull on the shell and eventually I managed to break it and you see the result." I explain to him.

"I see… I am forever in your debt Dominus. I cannot even begin to describe how thankful I am." He says.

"You are very welcome, Ozpin. You want to go catch up with her now?" I ask.

He smiles and turns to Salem who's also smiling brightly, "Would you?" He asks.

"Gladly." Is her simple answer before they walk off already chatting with each other.

"Hey, you three want to blow off some steam?" I ask the trio.

"On what?" Ruby asks.

"This." I say as I summon the grimm Salem that they've come to know and hate.

Ruby quickly flares her eyes, Raven ignites her whole body with help from Erebus and Yang enlarges her grimm arm.

"Time for some fucking payback." Raven says before they all charge towards the grimm Salem.

I walk past them and towards James who's walking towards me with his army tending to the wounded behind him.

He looks to Salem and Ozpin who're happily chatting with each other before looking at me, "It seems this is an unexpected but welcome ending to the war."

"It is, do you have a bomb of some sort to blow that giant grimm to smithereens?"

"I have just the thing as a backup in case this plan was a failure."

"And thankfully it wasn't one. Let's blow this thing up and rest for the day after accounting for all your men and bringing the people back in. How's that sound?"

"Amazing." He says before calling someone on his scroll and telling them to transport the bomb here.