Chapter-20

Ruby

"Welcome back Tristan." Onyx spoke greeting Tristan, who'd returned with Ruler, Port and Team RWBY to his house.

"How was the mission?"

"It was successful. The shadow servants are clearly too weak to pose a challenge to me." Tristan spoke.

"So, you know about these shadow servants too?" Ruby asked as Tristan nodded.

"You could say I, and Ruler, are experienced in fighting them." Tristan spoke.

"But…why are they even here? You said they used to be human but now they're…spirits?" Weiss asked skeptically as Ruby nodded. Ever since they fought the trolls in initiation, things are different. People who are way too strong for a human and monstrous creatures that have a soul unlike grimm. Now, these 'shadow servants' who are spirits?

"More like degraded spiritual versions of the human they are trying to imitate. Usually a great warrior."

"A warrior…you mean these shadow servants are ghosts of huntsmen?" Yang asked as Professor Port put a finger to his chin.

"I do remember Thane talking about it being possible for the existence of ghosts. But people don't believe such a thing since it is…too supernatural."

"Ironic for a race who has the ability to partially manifest their soul." Ruler commented. "But…have you found out anything else about these shadow servants?"

"I can confirm there are four humans leading them." Tristan replied before leaning towards Ruler and whispering something in his ear. Ruler's expression was grave as he nodded slowly.

"I see…two of them, you say? What are their classes?"

"One had a sword, so most likely a saber, but I can't say that with certainty. The other behaved a lot like a Caster."

"Can you tell me their descriptions?"

"The caster…no. But the saber had a sickled shaped blade and could go invisible."

"Perseus." Blake spoke as Tristan looked at her. "Ah…you have encountered him. Well, that is not good. Even weakened, he still has some dangerous gifts that can be used. As for the Caster…they live deep in the woods and are directing the shadow servants from there."

There were those names again. Saber, Caster. Ruby thought back to Professor Saber and Professor Lancer. It just can't be a coincidence that there are a bunch of people popping up with titles like Saber, Lancer, Ruler, Caster. She'll look into it when she comes back from this mission.

"Ah, so currently the caster is well-defended." Ruler spoke. "Well, I heard from Mr. Belladonna that the shadow servants were initially stealing dust but switched to outright attacking the town. Have you found any reason for that?"

"No. The most I was able to gather was that they are looking for a specific object. The Caster is getting impatient and I believe is going to change their strategy and look for the object through infiltration rather than such attacks." Tristan replied.

Weiss leaned forward. "What about this object? What could it be?"

"I do not know. Is there anything here in Cysgod that could be of importance?" Port asked as Onyx suddenly shook his head.

"No."

"Could it be something belonging to Thane?" Blake asked.

"Could be, Ms. Belladonna." Professor Port agreed. "My teacher knew a lot of things that he did not share with those close to him. He was always keeping secrets so that he could know more about those secrets himself and then reveal them. Now that I think about it, Thane did look like he had something in his mind the entire time he took me and his other pupil to Cysgod. He of course never told us what occupied his mind at Cysgod. Onyx, do you have an idea?"

Onyx, who was strangely sweating, shook his head. "No, I can't think of anything."

"Then we'll have to find out." Ruby spoke. "We know they are going to be sneaking into Cysgod. So why not catch them and find out what they're after."

"My thoughts, Ms. Rose." Ruler spoke. "Onyx, you should now divert most of the city's defenders to looking for them in the night."

"Understood. You can also help. The girls and Mr. Ruler, but Port, are you sure…?"

"Don't worry about me, Onyx. I still have a lot of spirit left in me. I can do patrolling just fine." Professor Port spoke as Onyx nodded. "Very well. Just be seated, I'll go check if your rooms are ready."

Onyx got up and left, leaving Team RWBY to talk to their chaperones and new ally.

Onyx went up to his study, thinking about the conversation earlier. He had lied to the Port and his students. He knew exactly what those people were looking for.

He went into his study and removed a book from his bookshelf. He pulled out a key and inserted it into the lock behind the book as the book shelf opened to reveal his secret stash of books that have now been declared illegal on the case of sedition.

He went inside and opened one of the books, looking at a specific page hidden in it.

"I'm sorry, Port. But I made Thane a promise. If Thane is right and these people do work for her, then I can't tell anyone about the whereabouts of this page." Onyx spoke putting the page back in the book.

He'd been given this page by Thane when he had arrived at Cysgod with Port and Maria.

"What this page contains is confidential information that not even my superiors in Vale's council know about, Onyx. Maybe Oz does, considering he had a little involvement. But You cannot let anyone other than the two of us know of this until the time is right."

Onyx could never forget the sheer amount of terror he felt when Thane told him a horrific secret that lurks in the mountains separating the capital from the rest of the continent. Onyx had agreed then and there to Thane's request and kept the page away from the rest of the world for 50 years.

But somehow…Thane's enemies had gotten wind of the page and were now here to take it.

Onyx hoped that Port, his students, Tristan and Ruler would be able to handle the intruders without him having to reveal the contents of that page.

Shirou stood looking at the sun setting from the terrace of Onyx's house.

Hm, they're certainly being risky… He thought. He had seen just how well-guarded Vale's villages are compared to those of other kingdoms. Atlas didn't have any settlements outside of its two cities other than military establishments in Solitas and the city of Argus in the northern tip of Anima. Vacuo's tribes were a bunch of nomadic tents which forced its residents to fight tough and only the capital was the centre of sedentary civilisation in that kingdom. Mistral's villages were recently settled and hence not well-defended. Vale's villages and towns, on the other hand, had centuries of history in their houses, Shirou having learnt that Vale was at some point in a state of civil war between duchies just like Japan was during the Sengoku Jidai, was well aware that each village was akin to a small fortress.

But if going after this object was precious enough to possibly get caught and get possibly dragged back to Ozpin, then Shirou also needed to know what this object was. He and Port could both tell Onyx was lying about not knowing what the shadow servants were after.

"Oh!" He heard someone exclaim as he noticed Blake behind him.

"Ah, hello, Ruby." Shirou greeted the girl. "What brings you here?"

"Oh, uh, I just was going to watch the sunset. You?"

Shirou chuckled. "Same here, Ruby." He spoke looking at the setting sun. "Well, Ruby, now that you're here, what do you think of it?"

"Huh?"

"Well, there is a reason why you want to watch the sunset?"

"I do…but why are you asking me this?"

Shirou shrugged. "Simple curiosity. Considering the little informal conversation we've had in the time I've been training you and your team, I believe this mission is also a good time to talk."

"Oh! Ok then! It was a thing my mom used to do. Take me and Yang to Patch's cliffs to watch the sunset." Ruby spoke. "And…yeah. There's a lot more details to it, but I guess its….nostalgia?"

"We are the same then. To me, watching the sun setting down everyday reminds me of…much simpler times. Times when my people fought against their oppressors for their faith."

Ruby looked at him. "You're religious, Ruler?"

"I am. And so were many others." Shirou spoke. "However, our practicing of our faith was not liked by the local authorities."

"Please! Please! I've given all I have for my harvest!" A peasant screamed as soldiers serving under the Katsuie dragged him out of his house.

"Shut up! I know you're hiding your rice somewhere! Tell us where it is and we will lessen your punishment for defying the Daimyo!" A soldier yelled kicking the peasant, before one of the soldiers came out of the peasant's house with a portrait of Christ. "He's a Kirishitan!"

The soldier who kicked down the peasant looked down at him with newfound wrath in his eyes before grabbing the portrait of Christ, "Take him to the temple." He spoke coldly as the peasant's eyes widened.

"No! Please don't this! I-I'll tell you where the rice is! Please don't make me trample upon my faith!" He begged, tears coming out of his eyes. The soldiers paid him no heed and dragged him away to the Buddhist temple.

Nearby, a young boy in a hood clutched the cross around his neck.

"Many were dragged away and tortured to death, because they were unable to pay the extortionate demands of the local authorities and because of their faith in God." Shirou spoke.

Ruby looked at him in concern. "Didn't they do anything about it?"

Shirou chuckled. "Of course they did."

"KILL THEM ALL!" The village headman screamed as an angry mob of peasants surged forward, clashing with the soldiers as the magistrate shuddered behind the line of soldiers.

"H-Hold the line!" He spoke in terror, looking at the amount of rage and bloodlust that was being directed at him.

The soldiers fought out of desperation, but as more of them got cut down, they started running away.

The Magistrate looked at the fleeing soldiers. "What are you doing?! Come back and fight!" He screamed before hearing a yell of anger and a sharp pain erupt in his chest as he noticed the headman with his blade plunged into the magistrate's chest.

"This is for my daughter." The headman snarled before repeatedly stabbing the magistrate to death as the peasants set the magistrate's office on fire.

Among the mob, several peasants with crosses around their necks stormed Buddhist shrines, hell bent on vengeance for the persecution of their faith.

"They rebelled against the oppressive regime who made their lives torture. They won victories and even captured the main fortress of the oppressors." Shirou spoke.

"Did they win?" Ruby asked as Shirou's smile fell.

Shirou looked around at the burning walls of Hara castle, the dying screams of rebels as they were cut down by Tokugawa troops storming the castle.

He looked back at his cross in despair.

Is this the end? He thought. The work that God had given him would be undone like this?

Shirou looked at the desolate landscape as Shimabara's rebels were massacred. He tightened his jaw and clutched his cross.

"They will achieve salvation." He spoke. "For they fought for their beliefs. And I shall fight for mine till the end."

"No. They were all killed. Reinforcements stormed their fortress where they were killed. Some survived and went into hiding, practicing their religion in secret in peace but all in all, the resistance was shattered. I was an officer in the rebel army, and I found myself a wanderer for a long time after the rebellion was crushed."

Ruby frowned. "That's sad. It kind of reminds me of the discrimination against the faunus." Ruby spoke as Shirou nodded. "It does." He spoke. "Seeing the sun setting, it reminds me of the courage of the rebels and the light of inspiration they gave to other practioners as well as their failure. Like the sun, their flame of rebellion was eventually snuffed out."

Ruby shifted uncomfortably. "I wandered for a long time, until I saved Blake at the docks. And when I was offered to take part in this…I accepted, perhaps because I felt that I still had some unfinished business. But even with this new purpose, I still feel unhappy. That by joining this, all of my efforts for the rebels would be in vain. That's why I feel both happy and sad looking at the sunset."

"Um…Ruler? If you don't mind, can I say something?" Ruby asked as Shirou nodded.

"From what I hear, I don't think your efforts were in vain."

Shirou raised an eyebrow. "Hm?"

"What I think…is that even if you lost, you said your people are peacefully practicing their religion. That should mean the authorities left them alone…right?"

Shirou nodded.

"So, isn't that what they wanted? To be free to practice their faith? Maybe not complete freedom, but it did give them some leeway?"

"That's…true."

"So, I think you did enough. I personally don't believe in 'God' and that stuff, but I learnt this from my mom, and that is that we always have something to do. Maybe you did enough and you have a new assignment…like, I completed my homework and then got a new one!" Ruby exclaimed as Shirou put a finger to his chin.

"So…yeah!" Ruby spoke as an awkward silence ensued. Ruby started fidgeting when Shirou gave no response.

"Oh, the sun's set!" Ruby spoke as Shirou noticed the sun had disappeared from the horizon. "Well, nice talking to you, Ruler. I gotta go!" She spoke walking off, leaving Shirou alone on the roof.

He smiled in amusement and looked up at the sky. "To think I was her age when I was chosen to do your work…"

In the night, three figures were walking towards the gates of Cysgod. They walked up to the guards, one of them waving their hands in front of the guards who showed no reaction.

"Damn, this works wonders." They spoke in a male voice.

"Shut up, Mercury. It's strenuous to tamper with both the vision and the hearing." Another figure hissed in a female voice. "Don't you make this harder for me."

The third figure, Perseus, crossed his arms. "Not the time, Mercury." He spoke before wrapping his arms around the waists of the others two and flying over the walls.

Touching down, they looked at the near empty streets of Cysgod before slipping into an abandoned shed that their colleagues had told them about. Coming in, Emerald lifted made herself and mercury visible and only kept up a cover of sound with her semblance.

"Alright, she's saying the page is in the headman's house." Perseus spoke.

"And we're going to break in?" Mercury asked.

"Not now. It's too heavily guarded for us to go in right now. Besides, stealing the page isn't the only thing we have to do."

"Yeah, yeah, kill Adam's crush. How're we going to deal with him when he finds out she's dead?"

"The Carrier has already assured that he will deal with Adam in case he figures it out. First, she will whittle down the defenses of the village. Once Cysgod's defenses are weakened to the point that diversions are required, we'll split up. You two will secure the page while I will kill Belladonna. But that will happen only when our ally sends the signal, understand?"

They nodded. "Good. Now, we should start making preparations considering that they are suspicious of our possible presence in the village."

Mercury sighed as he dropped the box he was holding in his other hand. "Alright, just point me where to put them."

A/N: At this point, I'm just going to accept that my school will always make my work hectic. At least we're approaching the end of the first term, so after this week I won't have humungous assignments to do until the second term of my school year begins. As for friday, well, I visited the university I'm gunning for next year so I was out the entire day. That explains me skipping out on Friday.

As for Shirou's little talk with Ruby, I did research on the Shimabara Rebellion, because I don't like taking on characters about whom I know absolutely nothing about, and after learning about it I'm going to tweak Shirou's characterization a bit from canon. Just because I've got some things planned for him later on.

Also, I noticed I reached a 100 favorites on this story earlier but then someone dropped it back to 99. Not that I'm mad, I know very well that me not updating this story for a week would have a negative impact, and I'm pretty sure I'll hit a 100 after this chapter is uploaded. So, I want to say a few words:

I recently found out that one of my favourite fanfiction authors, D.N. Works, is discontinuing his story 'Remnants of the Lostbelt!', which is pretty sad not only because I was hyped for how the story was going to go but also because of the influence it has on this story. When I was thinking what type of story I was going to write as my first fanfic, it was the story which told me that I should go for a FGO/RWBY story. It, along with 'Grimm Stay Night' and 'Fate Disaster', gave me a lot of ideas I'm going to implement in this story. And now that I'm hitting a 100 favourites soon on this story, I just want to say thank you to D.N. Works and his stories, all those who appreciated this story and those who criticized it. You all are amazing, and once I hit a 100 again, I'll be uploading the Prologue of my second story. Don't get excited, it'll just be the prologue. I'm still going to start the storyline after this story's volume-2 as I said earlier. So, tomorrow no RTSP chapter because tomorrow will be dedicated to the second story. Chapter-21 will be later.

Hope you guys enjoyed and constructive criticism is appreciated!

Response to Reviews: Well, technically the Maglad one should be here, but considering their review was a little bit extreme (Calling me a gynophobe even though I'm just trying to write a good story where the characters are fitting and not because I'm afraid of strong women.), it's in the previous chapter.