It had been close. Too close. She was on her last vestiges of strength. Barely conscious.
Ozpin and Winter had almost destroyed her. With her N-Field torn apart as it was, Kirakishou couldn't even imagine what would happen were she to fall. Each of the times she had looked through the Relic of Choice to such a conclusion, the vision had ended. And that, more than anything, had frightened her.
Sealing Winter Schnee into a teal-green crystal had spelled put the end of their battle. A moment of hesitation, a flicker of uncertainty, and the battle had been lost for the General of the Atlesian Military. Without Winter Schnee to power her semblance, her manifested creatures had faded away, leaving Ozpin all alone.
And Ozpin, as she had found out, was a frighteningly effective warrior. Even in the body of a child, Ozpin was leagues above any other adversary she had faced in the world of Remnant. Were the man in his prime, Kirakishou had no doubt in her mind that he would have been able to counter the Knight of the White Rose. His barrier semblance alone had nearly spelled her end on a number of occasions, having forced Kirakishou to use more and more of her aura to overpower the barriers that continued to bar her way time and time again.
Coupled with the Schnee family semblance, it made for a highly structured defensive style that could easily be converted to an offensive force when required. Somehow, Ozpin had made for a warrior that easily outclassed the tired and withered man she battled once upon a time during her growth in Vale.
Bolstered by Winter Schnee's aura, limited as it was by their lengthy battle, Kirakishou had collapsed a large portion of the Vault chamber. It hadn't been enough to knock Ozpin unconscious, as she had felt him violently forcing debris away through the use of his Schnee semblance for a good long while, but the intermission had bought Kirakishou enough time to act, using up what little reserves she had in order to forcefully end the battle.
Barely. She didn't even have the strength to repair her outfit at the moment, tattered and torn as it was. She had been off from the pristine timeline by a matter of seconds, and her collected aura had dipped too low in order to function properly. Had she been wearing the Relic of Choice, she would have known of such a thing, but she had chosen instead to preserve her time with Ruby Rose to her present self, rather than spoiling it through future timeline viewing.
And, without enough seedlings to process the visions sent by the Relic of Choice, choosing to wear the Relic now would only impede her thought. She had inadvertently railroaded herself into a singular timeline, where she was too weak to so much as conjure clean clothes.
...Her Master would understand. She had to understand.
Kirakishou herself did not have much choice in the matter. Time continued to tick ever onward. Her own decisions had led her to this one particular timeline, and it was up to her to forge it into one worthy of hosting her bond with Ruby Rose.
Even as she felt her form barely holding on to the material world, Kirakishou knew that she would continue to remain in this world of Remnant. Her connection to Winter Schnee, and soon-to-be Ozpin, would allow for such. If only just.
Her abilities would be limited, but it was a small price to pay in return for the chance to reunite with the one she loves.
And as rubble was forced away through the efforts of her darling ability, she stared down at the broken and battered form of Ozpin as masses of crystals grew over his body. In her weakened state and with limited resources, the process had been agonisingly slow to witness and Kirakishou could barely force herself to remain standing as her collected aura was stretched thin.
In time, it would return. When Ozpin and Winter Schnee were safely contained within her tattered N-Field, she would be able to harvest more aura. Both of them were huntsmen and huntresses of significant auric standing. Until then, however, she was weak. Feeble.
All because of the actions of a bunch of little toys that didn't even know what they were dealing with. Now, her first moment spent reuniting with Ruby Rose would be left to chance, and there was nothing she could do about it.
She leaned down closer to the boy, as crystals grew over his cheek and threatened to fully encase his body.
"...Do not worry, Ozpin. This is not your world to save. A pure rose shall guide this precious little garden, and do her best to save it."
If she were expecting a response, she did not receive it. The boy merely glared at her, until he was fully contained within her crystals. There would be no quick escape for Ozpin, this time around. Kirakishou had made sure of it, as she needed his strength to ensure her continued existence. The room was made silent, save for the flickering of broken electrical panels and the occasional brush of ruined embers. Atlas, as a whole, was quiet.
The time has finally come.
The Vault of Choice lay before her. Broken open by way of her dominion over the current space, feeble and fleeting as it was. The immaterial became material, and once again Kirakishou was given access to one of the fabled Relics. Not that anyone even knew about her position at the current moment or even her former acquisition of the Relic of Choice.
Nobody was there to stop her. Nobody was there to witness the return of her Master.
It was almost funny, really. She had spent all of this time purposefully manipulating key variables to ensure that all the denizens of Atlas were in their correct places, and when the time came for her to enact her plans, Kirakishou couldn't even sense a single person in Atlas. She knew where they were, but she couldn't be certain, and that filled her with a peculiar sense of-
No. She was hesitating. Just because her time in Atlas hadn't gone as smoothly as she had liked, it was no reason to hesitate.
She moved forward and grabbed the Relic of Creation. A staff, really. Golden and ornamental in nature, with a blue crystal shining atop it. Kirakishou found she quite liked the design, save for the choice of crystal. Her own stave was much more useful, even if she hadn't bothered to use it during her time in Atlas. Her stave called for precision, while her time in Atlas demanded broad strokes.
When she was with her Master, she may choose to change the design of her staff to mimic the design of the Relic of Creation, save for the crystal. Kirakishou believed that Ruby Rose would quite enjoy the sight of such a piece.
And, as Atlas began to fall, the world stilled.
Before her very sight, a blue figure materialised. Male in appearance, with impressive musculature development indicative of a healthy and active life. Though she supposed such things were purely aesthetic when one was not a physical being.
Not that anything was wrong with aesthetical choices purely for the sake of beauty, of course.
The figure floated above the ground, stretching. It appeared to be rather tall. Certainly taller than her, by far. It took some time to glance around the area, seemingly confused, before its attention turned to focus on Kirakishou herself.
"Hm. How very strange. I don't precisely recall being placed here upon completion of my last job," the figure mused curiously. "Would that be due to your work, little doll?"
Kirakishou perked up. The figure had somehow identified her as a doll at the first glance. Impressive. Of course, she was aware of the conversation from the very start, having used the Relic of Choice multiple times for deciding the appropriate course of conversation.
"Indeed~" Kirakishou gave a little curtsey, to a somewhat limited effect given her ruined clothing and overall damage. However, necessity dictated the movements as required for proper discourse. "I am Kirakishou, of the Rozen Maiden. I have come with a task for you."
"Have you now?" the figure exclaimed in interest, adjusting its posture to something resembling one laying on its stomach, albeit suspended in the air. "And you are aware of what would happen, should you aim for such a request in this location?"
"Indeed I am," Kirakishou confirmed politely, nodding her head. To be quite honest, she was looking forward to it. "Atlas will fall. Plans have been arranged for this event, of course."
"Plans I suspect would be entirely of benefit to you, hm?" the figure dryly mused, waggling a finger at her. "I smell the Relic of Choice on you. Clearly, you have used the Relic to search for your opportune future, hmm?"
To some small degree, Kirakishou found it interesting to see how the two relics interacted with each other. In no other timeline save for the one Kirakishou had selected, had the figure of Creation been able to notice her use of the Relic of Choice. Or, perhaps, her visions were purposefully structured to exclude the presence of the Relic of Choice? Had Kirakishou the time, she would be interested in studying such an oddity.
However, she did not have much time at all. The world was already beginning to change. It would become visible to the naked eye, soon. If she needed to play her part in order to be reunited with Ruby Rose, then so be it.
"Correct. The Relic of Choice has guided my hand and led me to my opportune future. You are the final piece."
"Fascinating," the figure sighed, shaking its head and chuckling. "I would quite like to meet the one that created a being quite like yourself. I imagine they would be something of a kindred spirit. However, I suspect that such a thing wouldn't end well for anyone involved. A shame."
A shame? Not as much as the figure would think. Kirakishou amused herself at the very thought.
"Perhaps," she allowed, instead, choosing to shrug her shoulders as the Relic of Choice dictated.
"Your movements are choreographed, and your answers predetermined. There is no enjoyment to be taken in conversing with you," the figure sighed, frowning wholeheartedly. "Very well, then. If you have indeed been offered a vision from the Relic of Choice that has led you to me, then speak my name. That is all the proof I need."
Curious. The figure had not been meant to ask that in her perfect timeline. Was this yet another result of her failing to meet the appropriate time stamp?
No matter. She knew the answer from other timelines. "Ambrosius."
It was a curious circumstance that led her to this information. The Relic of Choice had not given her the figure's name. Not exactly. Instead, she had heard Ambrosius say it himself in a previous timeline. Another oddity.
The figure, Ambrosius, chuckled openly. "An answer most outside of time. Very well, then. What do you require from the Relic of Creation? To where does your heart lie, little doll?"
"With Ruby Rose. I seek to bring her to my current location."
Ambrosius gave her a brief smile. Whether it was mocking, genuine, or anything in between, Kirakishou wasn't entirely certain. She had never been one to effectively decipher the emotions of people outside her N-Field, save for Ruby Rose.
"An understandable goal. Many of the mightiest inventions have been fueled by love. And how do you seek to reunite with this 'Ruby Rose'?"
This time, Kirakishou smiled. She could feel her very body trembling in a barely-restrained sense of excitement, all at the sheer idea of finally reuniting with her treasured Master.
"I have the exact longitude and latitude of Ruby Rose's current position, calculated for every second from now until the next several hours. The calculation takes into consideration the curvature of Remnant, the momentum generated by Ruby Rose at any given moment, and the application of force generated by transporting an entity from one side of Remnant to the other, as I desire to do in order to reunite with Ruby Rose."
The exact combination of data strings and the equations necessary to arrive at the correct conclusion had all been tirelessly learned and processed by Kirakishou. It had been one of the very first uses for the Relic of Choice, using the mass amount of timelines generated in search of Ruby Rose in order to effectively calculate her location given Kirakishou's future knowledge.
In combination with the power of Ambrosius, reuniting with Ruby Rose would be a borderline non-issue.
Ambrosius gave out something of a slow clap. "Hm. It seems that somebody has done their homework. It's fascinating to see someone that has delved so deeply into the Relic of Choice and arrived at a conclusive answer. However, I must ask, if you have such information, why not simply find her yourself?"
An unnecessary deviation. Thankfully, Kirakishou had several hours of calculations capable of locating Ruby Rose, and Atlas was effectively crippled the moment that the Relic of Creation activated. However, still, it was an annoyance. She wanted to reunite with her Master, already.
"My sisters," Kirakishou answered simply. "They would interfere. By returning Ruby Rose to my presence in this manner, the other Rozen Maiden are unable to intervene."
"Rozen Maiden, you say?" Ambrosius raised a brow. She did not like his tone, nor the unique question that had failed to appear in any of her timelines. Too many of those were occurring, and she hadn't the faintest idea as to what they could mean for her. Clearly, Kirakishou had underestimated the interaction between relics. However, she didn't have any more time to waste with idle conversation.
It would be visible to the denizens of Remnant, now. The tear in this world. She could not see it from this ruined spot of battle, deep within the city of Atlas, but enough of her timelines had given Kirakishou a rough understanding of the progression of time. There would be panic.
She needed to act quickly.
"Yes. That is what we are called. I introduced myself as such when we first met. Now, if we may move on to designing and activating the device to return my Master to me?"
Ambrosius gave a tired sigh, sounding almost as if the figure had expected her reaction. "Oh, very well. You youth, always racing to the end. Honestly, I shouldn't be surprised," the blue-toned figure clapped their hands together suddenly, and a pulse of Creation touched the world. "Ready yourself! To witness! My artistry!"
She always wondered why the figure always chose to sing that part.
Every. Single. Time.
But, Kirakishou performed the necessary calculations and voiced the appropriate geographical coordinates of Ruby Rose in relation to this particular moment in time, she found that she didn't rightly mind Ambrosius choosing to sing. It was, indeed, a momentous occasion.
A perfect moment. A piece of art.
For, now, Ruby Rose would return to her.
And as golden energy spiraled between Ambrosius and Kirakishou, condensing into a ring-shaped construct that continued to brighten with the passage of time, Kirakishou found that there were indeed moments that the Relic of Choice could not rightly decode.
For there was a smile on Kirakishou's face. A true smile. Ah~ She was so very excited!
A shimmer of golden light, and she was gone.
Yang couldn't believe her eyes. They had been in the midst of battle with Ruby Rose after she had gone all psycho following some freak grimm attack, and when negotiations had broken down, a combination of attacks had been able to offer the survivors a brief moment of reprieve. Then, the ice construct holding Rubes had flared with a strange light and her baby sister had just… vanished… before her very eyes.
It didn't…
What in the world… what happened?
Weiss tentatively released her hold on the ice dust that had been containing Ruby Rose, and the hole formerly containing her baby sister quickly filled with muddy water riddled with black feathers and red petals. The rest of the group, huntress and Rozen Maiden, all came to investigate, and even Jun ventured out from his hiding space.
"She's gone?" Jun looked completely confused. "Is this something to do with her semblance? Could she teleport, as well?"
Blake's feline ears flickered, something of a tell that her partner was focusing more on her faunus senses, one that Yang had been able to pick up after fighting with a bunch of faunus in the ring. Something of a common tell, supposedly.
"...No. It doesn't seem like Ruby is nearby," Blake denied, shaking her head. "And if she has somehow developed a method of teleportation, it has a higher range than what I can detect."
"From what you can- oh," Jun realised mid-sentence, before grimacing. "So. Most likely it's outside interference, then. Any ideas?"
"Please, we don't need to discuss ideas or theories or any of that," Suigintou interrupted, placing a hand on the boy's shoulder and pulling him away from the hole. Both Shinku and Jun shot the winged Rozen Maiden a look, while Suiseiseki looked like she was glaring daggers at Yang's Rozen Maiden. "It was Kirakishou," Suigintou suggested what they were all thinking. "Makes sense. This altercation happens with Ruby all of a sudden, then the N-Field incident, and now this weird teleportation outside Ruby Rose's perceived capabilities. Doesn't seem like a coincidence to me."
"...It is plausible," Souseiseki tentatively agreed, the tomboyish blue-clad gardener doll reminding her somewhat of how Lie Ren from Team JNPR would act back in Beacon Academy. Very chill. "Though I've never heard of Kirakishou manifesting any power that does not outwardly reference her own motif."
Namely, vines and flowers and all that jazz, Yang assumed.
"So because it was some golden light you don't think it was Kirakishou?" Suigintou crossed her arms, huffing. "Everything that has happened in this world of Remnant, regarding the Rozen Maiden, has always involved Kirakishou. What is to suggest that this isn't just some method of Kirakishou masking her power to stop us looking for her?"
"In that scenario, it would seem pretty pointless," Shinku spoke up, shaking her head. "After all, we're suspecting her, anyway. Going to such a length would be pointless. She would know such a thing. However," Shinku raised a hand when Suigintou went to intervene, "that doesn't discount your point. There is a high chance that Kirakishou is involved in some manner."
"...Then all of that battle was pointless?" Yang's head shot up in surprise, as Weiss Schnee of all people crossed her arms, fingers digging deeply into her sides as the visibly fought to keep her own temper in check. "All of this? Fleeing Atlas, racing across Remnant? And Ruby still reunites with Kirakishou after all that we've done? It… I just…" the heiress looked around for some degree of support, tears blatantly apparent in her eyes, before she eventually found those of Blake Belladonna. And that was enough.
Weiss Schnee collapsed to the ground. And, even if something of a haze was building in Yang listening to what Weiss had to say, the sight of the prim and proper heiress on the ground was more than enough to stop her from lashing out.
As she tried to gather herself and move to support her teammate, Blake beat her to the punch, sitting down beside Weiss and holding her tightly. The heiress quickly turned to latch on to Blake and started sobbing into the girl's chest, while the rest of the group looked on with varying emotions.
Yang didn't know what to feel. She didn't know what to think.
But she could see it, plain as day. Weiss Schnee, the Heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, the fabled ice queen, was reduced to a sobbing wreck over the sheer stress of the fight. And she hadn't even noticed that it was building in the background until she had been forced to witness it right in front of her.
There wasn't anyone to go to.
No support. No Raven, no Qrow, no Rubes, no friends from the tribe. Not even fucking Vernal. Nobody was there for her. She was all alone with her teammates, and she didn't have a clue what to do.
"I'm done…"
The words were a tiny little whisper in the wind, but they caught her ears anyway. She stared down, incredulously, as Weiss Schnee forcefully tore herself away from Blake Belladonna to outright glare at her. Her. Yang Xiao-Long.
"Weiss, I understand if you're having a hard time, and I'm sorry that things didn't turn out… but we can't stop now!" Yang pressed. Silence stretched on for a moment, and she realised that everyone was staring at her. Were they… "Listen! Everyone! If it's true and Kirakishou has somehow returned to Remnant and has brought Rubes back to her, then we have to act quickly to stop them from getting together. Ruby's unstable at the moment, but you all saw how she was acting when we tried talking to her. We almost got her to work with us. If we can just separate her from Kirakishou and calm her down, then we-"
"Do you even hear yourself talking right now?!"
And suddenly Weiss Schnee was on top of her, tiny little fists pushing her down onto the ground. A glyph, Yang realised in hindsight. The heiress wasn't even trying to actually hurt her or anything, or if she was she wasn't hitting that hard, but the tear-filled rage on her face was enough to stop Yang from lashing out.
How could she, at such a look? It chilled her to the bone.
"All you ever do is chase after Ruby and Kirakishou! Over and over and over again! Even back when they were just two girls spending time together at Beacon, you still were doing the same thing! And, yet, when you FINALLY get Ruby Rose away from Kirakishou, you prove that you're no better than her! If anything, you're worse!"
"Worse?!" Yang saw red and she decided against her former opinion, slamming her head forward and headbutting the girl with enough force to send her backward and onto the ground. Yang quickly got to her feet and glared daggers down at the girl. "Kirakishou manipulated her! Tricked her! Actively changed Ruby from the inside out and turned her into something that she wasn't! All I want to do is save her from that! And you dare say that I'm worse? I get that you're having a moment and that it's suddenly fucking feelings hour or some shit, but come on."
"...Yang, come on. That's enough."
She glared at Blake for daring to intervene and then glared some more at Jun when he stepped forward, only taking her eyes off the boy when he quickly stepped away.
"No, Blake, that's not enough!" she turned back to focus on Weiss. The girl was bleeding from Yang's strike and trying to crawl away from her, as her aura had apparently broken to the point where it couldn't even protect Weiss from the force of Yang's headbutt. "I've trekked across fucking Remnant to save Ruby from Kirakishou and I'm not letting the likes of some fucking upper-class Atlesian princess get in the way of that, thinking she can judge me and my actions. What do you even know? Honestly? You've known Rubes for… what… half a year? I fucking raised her."
A hand touched her shoulder. Jointed. Red eyes met her own.
"Yang. Stop." Suigintou spoke, voice firm. Yang reared back as if struck, before glaring back at the doll and tearing herself away from the Rozen Maiden.
"And you dare think you have the right to judge me?" Yang instead focused back on Weiss, who had crawled over beside Blake. Both the lovers were openly embracing, hunched away from her. "Don't hide behind her! You know I'm right, Weiss. We just need to get Ruby and get her away from Kirakishou-"
"And then WHAT?!" Weiss screamed. "You had her, you fucking moron. Ruby Rose. Right there, alongside us all. And you left her alone! She didn't even have any of the fucking memories of Kirakishou that you're soooo afraid of, and even then you left her!"
"I had to!" Yang screamed back, "Raven said that I-"
"And you listened to Raven Branwen?!" Weiss Schnee forced herself to her feet, bleeding profusely over her face as she continued to yell out for all the fucking world to hear. "You said that you raised Ruby, so ask yourself this one fucking question-"
Would Ruby Rose have wanted that, being left alone without her memories?
It… it was funny. She didn't even think that she heard Weiss say the words. It… it almost sounded like her own voice. But younger.
The answer, whether she wanted to admit it or not, came swiftly.
No, she wouldn't.
Poor Rubes would have been terrified. Confused. Ruby Rose was a girl that had significant difficulties interacting with others but could not stand being left entirely to herself. She needed support.
Without it, she would crumble.
And crumble she had.
As much as Yang wanted to deny it, during their time together, Kirakishou had been something of a stabilising force for Ruby, tempering Ruby's more fanatic emotions by giving her an outlet in their romance. When Yang had succeeded in severing the Rozen Maiden contract, she had inadvertently deprived Ruby of a target for her mania save for her weapons, and allowed the Knight of the White Rose to influence Ruby instead.
And with the Alice Game rearing its ugly head, Yang had instead vested all her time into stopping Kirakishou when she should have been working out how to help her baby sister heal. Kirakishou had seen and exploited her weakness from as early on as their time in Beacon.
Now, her actions had caught up with her. And she hadn't even noticed what was happening up until this point.
"I'm done. Done with Ruby, done with Kirakishou, done with the Alice Game, done with it all," Weiss glared through her tears. "And most of all, I'm done with you. If you want to continue going through this pathetic farce you call a rescue mission, you can go right ahead. Without me."
"Without us," Blake finished.
Oum, she couldn't even fault them. Had it really gotten this far without her even realising?
Tears were in her eyes, she realised.
"I…" what could she even say? "I'm sorry. I didn't know that this was getting to you so much. No. That's wrong. I knew and didn't even try to help. I didn't try to be better when I should have. If… if you two want to leave, then I understand."
She deserved it, after all.
"And now you see exactly why we don't typically allow ningen to participate in the Alice Game," Suigintou murmured beside her. Oum. The Rozen Maiden was her doll, and just like the rest of her friends, they had been rejected in favour of Yang chasing after Ruby and Kirakishou.
The guilt hit her all at once.
Weiss stared at her, uncertainty swimming in her crystal blue eyes. Now that she was paying attention it was so obvious how the heiress was feeling. She recognised that Yang had noticed her feelings, but couldn't bring herself to change her mind.
"...Now you notice what's happened," Weiss chuckled bitterly. "At the worst time, you understand, right when you have lost it all. Outside this fucking camp filled with killers, you finally get it. Well, I don't care. We're leaving."
"What are you going to do?" Yang immediately questioned in response. "Where are you going to go? Back to Atlas?"
Both faunus and heiress looked at each other for a moment, before Weiss took a deep breath and answered. "We were planning on going back to Atlas and working with… with Father, to improve relations between the faunus people and the Schnee Dust Company."
Off to the side of the heiress, Blake was quick to support her partner. "Following the fall of Vale, Jacques Schnee gained the support of the people by capitalising on my own connection to Menagerie and the faunus as a whole. If Weiss and I continue to work on relations, it could pave the way towards a new age of human and faunus cohabitation."
Clearly, they had been thinking of this for some time. Perhaps, that had been one of the reasons why Weiss and Blake had spent so much time secluded from the Branwen Clan as a whole. After all, if they had no desire to stay, then there was nothing stopping them from simply ignoring every attempt made to communicate.
...It still… hurt.
And, so, Yang Xiao-Long collapsed.
She felt...
Cold.
It was all she felt. Surrounded by her silver flames, they did little to quell the chill creeping into her bones. Her aura, fragmented and so very different from before, could only do so much for poor Ruby Rose. Perhaps this was to be her punishment, for daring to voice her feelings aloud.
She could remember Weiss, crying for her. She could picture Yang doing everything in her power to convince Ruby that her way was just and true. Even if she had been misguided, Yang had only ever had Ruby's best intentions at heart, and that alone had limited Ruby's fury to some degree. She had sought only to confine Yang and the others in stone, rather than end their lives. It was the only mercy that Ruby could think to give that was within reason. How else was she to react to those who had imprisoned her? How would they feel, trapped as she had been? Would they understand then?
Too many questions. Indecision had paralyzed her, right up until the end, when the Rozen Maiden had joined the battle and together they had been able to take her down.
Rozen Maiden. Artificial people. Dolls. And, according to the others, Ruby had been in love with one of them. Considering how Yang had done everything in her power to prevent Ruby from learning about this 'Kirakishou', she could infer that something about Kirakishou had ticked Yang off to the extreme. According to Yang, the doll had manipulated her in some way, but she knew that there was more to it. Somehow, she knew, deep inside her heart… that this Kirakishou had loved her.
And she had loved the doll back, to an extreme. It was simply the type of person that Ruby was, in the end. She knew that if she ever fell in love, she would fall hard, and little else would matter to her. Lots of people used to say that Ruby Rose wore her heart on her sleeve, but that wasn't true in the slightest. She was definitely emotive, much like her sister, but Ruby's heart was a treasure she hadn't ever expected to reveal to anyone.
The fact that an artificial girl, a Rozen Maiden, had managed to make Ruby Rose fall in love with her was nothing short of a miracle.
She had thought she would be alone forever, a little girl perpetually chasing the memory of her Mother. Gunmetal and battle were all that she was good for. Why would anyone ever fall in love with her?
Yet, one doll had fallen in love with Ruby Rose. She could feel it, but she couldn't understand it.
Silver flames continued to burn around her. She should have suffocated inside this prison of ice, as the fire consumed the necessary air she needed to breathe, yet somehow Ruby Rose continued to exist. What did that make her? Some kind of monster? Or did her flames simply not operate under the same laws of physics compares to regular fire?
Ruby wasn't sure. She knew that dust created unusual effects, but she'd never experienced anything of this degree. Flame without fuel.
She could feel her aura diminishing, however. An ever-present itch at the back of her consciousness, demanding recognition. Her aura felt… weird. It had ever since she had unleashed her powers against Vernal and her crew of murderous betrayers that Yang seemed determined to recognise as allies despite their glaring lack of morality. And she had known what had occurred as it happened. They had been connected to her. They were still alive, inside their petrified statues. Sleeping, somehow.
And their aura was feeding hers. Making her stronger. Perhaps this aura, the aura she captured, was being burned as fuel to keep Ruby Rose alive? It was an intriguing thought, she supposed. Though likely quite the stretch.
Now, Ruby could admit to not being the most informed regarding the development of a person's semblance, but even she knew that a change of such magnitude simply didn't happen outside of fairy tales. A semblance capable of growing to such a degree, on top of her own original semblance.
Would such a semblance even have an upper limit? If her power revolved around these silver flames, flames that spread, could her semblance grow to the point where the entire world would be overtaken in flame? Or, would whatever magic that was keeping her alive suddenly fail, and Ruby would find herself suffocating in front of her former friends and allies? She couldn't even begin to guess such a thing.
Yet, even the strange and confusing nature of her power was not enough to stop the passage of time. Ruby's aura was continuing to burn out, and it was becoming somewhat difficult to breathe, which unfortunately ruined Ruby's potential power-up hypothesis removing her need for air. She couldn't-
Something changed. A sort of tingling sensation, moving below her? Different from the flames, somehow. Ruby couldn't be sure, considering that she couldn't exactly move her body while frozen in ice, but she knew that it was something vastly different from the strange abilities that had begun manifesting ever since she had first woken up in Atlas.
Odd. A decidedly weird feeling. She tried to struggle, to force her power to do something but it wouldn't respond.
With a flick of colour and Ruby suddenly found movement returning to her body, a yelp escaping her as she lost control of her body and fell forward. Moving quickly, Ruby thrust her arms forward and prevented her body from impacting the metal floor.
Wait, metal? Ruby blinked quickly, taking in the surroundings as she found herself in a place decidedly unfamiliar.
She was inside some kind of weird laboratory setting, one that looked like it had seen the bad side of a big fight. There were some big honking chunks of metal scattered this place and that, and a fair few had massive scorch marks charring the metal an ugly black hue. She could even spot a few fires that were most assuredly not her own, where electrical equipment sparked and burnt out before her very eyes. Cables were hanging about, thick rubber electrical cables that had seemingly been torn open with all the wires hanging out.
The strangest things, however, were all the crystals that she could see. Teal-green in colour and clustered together at odd places, like they had been forced to grow atop the very laboratory she now stood inside. They glowed with a dim light, one that resonated off the crystals in visible waves of colour, yet oddly illuminated only the crystals themselves rather than the rest of the room, which was only visible due to all the fires and sparks. It didn't make any kind of sense.
"...How very silly-" she whirled around at the voice that was not her own, "-I had this whole speech prepared for when we finally reunited, but now that I'm looking at you, I can't even remember the words. Isn't that silly?"
There was a girl standing before her. Oum. She looked like she was barely able to stand. Her clothing had been long since torn and tattered, littered with scorch marks and cuts to such a degree that Ruby could barely make out its original design outside of it looking vaguely like some cross between a ballgown and a uniform- predominately white and with some nice gold accents.
Her hair was the prettiest that Ruby had ever seen in her life, consisting of flowing peach-blonde locks that curtained her body all the way down to her feet. Impossibly immaculate, considering she had clearly just been in a fight where she had only barely emerged victorious.
Most notable, to Ruby, were two particular features.
First and foremost, there appeared to be a rose growing out of the girl's right eye socket. It was not some sort of fancy eyepatch as one would assume, but an entire living rose. Complete with a few little thorns that grew near her eye socket as well. The girl's sole functional eye appeared brilliantly coloured, staring directly at Ruby with an intensity that made her shiver.
The second and most glaringly obvious detail regarding the girl was her apparent artificial nature. Thanks in part to the tattered nature of her garment, Ruby had a completely unobstructed view of the numerous joints and sockets covering the girl's body. She was, without question, a doll. An artificial being.
And there was only a single doll she knew of that would look at Ruby in such a way. The very same doll that had prompted Yang to go so far as to kidnap Ruby and erase her memories. The doll that all of the other dolls seemed to be completely invested in defending against. The one doll that had started it all.
"...Kirakishou."
Speaking the word on her lips felt like fire, igniting a heat in her body that Ruby could scarcely comprehend, let alone understand to any notable degree. And the effect that the name had on the blonde was overwhelming, a grin so bright and cheerful and overpoweringly intense that it took Ruby by surprise and left her entirely defenseless.
"You recognise me!" Kirakishou did a little jump of pure ecstatic joy, clapping her jointed hands together with a brilliant relish of glee. "Ah~ Just to be able to see you again, to hear your voice. It's more than I could have ever hoped for."
She was crying, Ruby realised. Just the sight and sound of her alone had been enough to reduce this girl into tears. She didn't even know that the Rozen Maiden could cry in the first place, let alone display emotions to such an extent that they left her on the veritable back foot, so to speak.
"It's, um, it's okay?" Ruby tried, unsure of what she could possibly say to such a doll in order to calm her down.
She felt all of the odd intensity to her body leave her just at the sight of this doll, a Rozen Maiden brought to joyous tears by her very presence. Her silver flames that had been present for the entirety of her display outside the Branwen camp just… faded away. Ruby could still feel the flames, of course, simmering inside her body, but they were no longer threatening to overwhelm the general vicinity.
How very… strange. But, then again, Ruby supposed she had experienced something of a strange day. What was yet another oddity amongst a great many other weird quirks about her funky power?
"...Ah, apologies!~" Kirakishou hastily wiped away her tears with what little remained of her sleeves. Her voice was odd, there was a soft-spoken cuteness about it that manifested in every word she spoke, no matter the context. "Just seeing you was enough to overwhelm me. I hadn't planned for that. How very foolish. There were so many things I needed to plan for, and I forgot the most basic thing."
The doll giggled, then. A distorted little approximation of soft bell-like chiming childish sounds that could only be scarcely identified as laughter. She found it oddly fitting for the girl. Something unique to this figure. It was cute. Cute in a way that defied the definition yet conversely defined it all the same.
Her words, however, gave Ruby far more context than the doll likely meant to imply.
It was clear that Kirakishou had worked to some degree to plan out their eventual reunion. Which, considering all the ways that the other dolls had acted, doing everything in their power to work again Kirakishou, suggested that the peach-blonde doll was somewhat infamous for her skills.
And, if Ruby were to take the doll's apparent devotion and blatantly apparent admiration for her into account, combined with the tattered look of Kirakishou and the destroyed surrounds, she arrived at one particular unsettling conclusion.
"...Did you do all of this, to summon me here?"
No sooner than she had said the words, did a shudder run through the facility.
Kirakishou glanced around. If she was concerned about all the vibrations that were increasing in apparent intensity, she didn't show it on her face. Instead, the doll seemed faintly amused by the prospect.
Eventually, her sole amber eye returned to focus on Ruby Rose, and Kirakishou smiled widely.
"I did~"
Another shudder ran through the facility, and Ruby found herself suddenly floating. No. Not floating. The room was falling beneath her! Pieces of debris appeared moving in a free-fall, as there was suddenly movement in a room that should have remained stable.
"What's happening?!"
"Atlas has begun to collapse," Kirakishou admitted simply. The doll had also been suspended in a free-fall, before a web of thorned white vines had grown to attach to the walls and cover the general area surrounding the doll. The three-dimensional web acted as something of a cocoon for Kirakishou, keeping her confined in the same area.
For Ruby, however, she had no such protection. So, after a moment of consideration, Ruby activated her semblance and bolted over to Kirakishou in a flare of silver petals. The peach-blonde doll giggled happily, activating her own strange power as large white petals encircled them both.
While the doll seemed calm and content in the face of her sudden revelation, Ruby on the other hand was far from calm. After all, Kirakishou had inadvertently revealed that the two of them were in Atlas, which was incredibly far away from Raven's stupid little campsite on the other side of freaking Remnant. And, not to mention, whatever Kirakishou had done to summon Ruby to Atlas had apparently caused the entire floating city to collapse!
"Don't worry, Master!" Kirakishou took the opportunity to snuggle against Ruby despite her squirming at the contact. Had they been physical in the past? The very thought alone made poor Ruby blush all the way down to her chest. "Nobody is below us, nor with us if that's what you're concerned about. Even the city of Mantle does not exist anymore. Only the people of both Atlas and Mantle, and they have all been moved."
There was so much to unpack from just that one singular response. Ruby was beginning to suspect that it was something of a quirk for Kirakishou, to hold all the cards in her hand, so to speak. No wonder Yang hated her so much. She couldn't stand people that kept information out of her reach, especially if it involved Ruby in some way.
"You got rid of an entire city?" Ruby blurted incredulously. While probably not the best thing to ask a doll inside of a falling city, it was the first thing that had crossed her mind.
In response, Kirakishou merely giggled. "Oh, yes. It was quite easy, actually. And it helped!"
"How could that possibly help?"
"...Because it changed what is below us," Kirakishou explained with the energetic enthusiasm one might expect from a weapons designer showing off a brand new schematic.
Ruby felt herself tense up. Covered in petals and vines, she wasn't entirely certain how she knew they were close to hitting the ground, but she knew it all the same.
"And what is below us, now?" Ruby forced herself to ask the hard question, the one that the doll had apparently been waiting for her to ask judging by the pleased look that crossed her face.
"Water," the doll answered.
There was a brief moment for the words to rattle through her mind before a harsh shudder thundered through the facility, sending both doll and former huntress trainee careening forward via the sheer force of momentum alone. Walls and ceiling alike snapped and collapsed, as the visceral sound of the grating metal paneling being torn apart reached her ears.
Then, a sound that was, by far, one of the worst sounds Ruby Rose could expect to hear in the current situation.
Running water.
Kirakishou grinned, and raised a hand. Vines burst from below the two and ripped upward through their petal cocoon and deep into the ruined ceiling just as a torrent of water burst through a nearby passageway. Ruby found herself holding onto the doll for dear life as Kirakishou crawled upward on her vines, into the passageway that her vines had created in the ceiling.
Flaring her aura as quickly as she could, Ruby did all that was possible to protect her body from the chunks of metal and exposed electrical wires that were cut and torn to ribbons by Kirakishou's vines as the two continued to ascend. She noted, much to her increasing disbelief, that Kirakishou hadn't elected to flare her own aura despite the immense danger. In fact, considering the sorry state that had greeted Ruby, it seemed a miracle that Kirakishou even had aura to spare for use in her strange ability.
Come to think of it, her silver fire hadn't acted up once during her entire sudden meeting with Kirakishou. Was she so startled by the doll that even her power was confused?
She didn't know what to think of this Rozen Maiden, the one that had gone so far as to essentially eradicate two entire cities just to bring Ruby back to her, but she could tell that the doll had most certainly developed an affection for Ruby Rose. Despite what Yang believed about Kirakishou only using her, there was no way in the world that someone would go this far as to piss off the Atlesian Military to bring Ruby back if they weren't hopelessly in love with her.
And even if that hadn't been enough to convince Ruby Rose, the fact that Kirakishou had burst into tears at the very sight of her had certainly done it. Kirakishou had said it herself. For all of her planning, she hadn't taken her own feelings into account. This doll was clearly something of a schemer- probably a good one considering the other Rozen Maiden's trepidation concerning her, and yet still Kirakishou had failed to take into account her own feelings.
As metal and wire gave way to earth, Ruby Rose found herself thrust into the ruined landscape of Atlas. It was… oddly enchanting, in a way. The night sky loomed down at them, devoid of light pollution. A silent city broken only by the crackling of ruined technology and the ever-present movement of water through streets that were never made to house such a volume of water.
The two of them had wound up in a garden of some kind. A field? Grassy and green and expertly maintained in the harsh Atlesian climate by a gardener that clearly had too much time on their hands. With vibrant stone statues and dense flowering plant life, Ruby Rose figured she hadn't ever quite seen such a flourishing garden up close. Sprawled out on the grassy terrain beside her was Kirakishou, her peach-blonde splayed all about the place, impossibly pristine.
Ruby sighed, collapsing as the weight of the world hit her all at once. Despite everything that Kirakishou had said, despite everything that she had done to bring Ruby back to her, things weren't black and white. This doll had destroyed cities for her. Multiple. Atlas, Mantle, and Vale. Her name was on everyone's lips. Ruby wasn't quite sure how she had handled it before, living a life with everyone gunning for her.
Once upon a time, a little girl had dared to be like her Mother.
And… now… everything was just so…
So… different.
Flames, silver and pure, burst out around her.
And, now… Here she was. Without friends, without her teammates, without anyone to back her up.
She was a lone girl, trapped in an unfamiliar world. Hah. Ruby chuckled bitterly at the very thought. It was like something out of a fairytale.
It hurt. It hurt so much. Why did everyone have to leave her? Why was everything burning? Why couldn't they just understand? Why was it that she was always the one that ended up alone?
It doesn't matter. It does matter. It always mattered. It…
Her greatsword was in her hands in an instant, gripped tightly in trembling little hands. It was the only thing that she was familiar with, now. Nothing else made sense. She wanted to… wanted to…
She wanted to feel something. Yes. She needed to feel something. Something that wasn't the pounding in her head, or the ache deep within her body. She was so empty, so sore. But she needed to go on. She had to go on. She was a huntress, despite whatever the world thought. They didn't matter. They couldn't matter, or else she would-
Feel.
And, so….
She brushed off her bumps and bruises, for nothing hurt worse than the loneliness in her chest.
And she attacked.
Here it was.
The final battle. The battle that had been building ever since Kirakishou had first been thrown into the world of Remnant. All of the pieces were carefully maneuvered and placed in their proper roles, all for this battle. The battle that would break the cycle.
Ruby Rose. Her precious Master. Fighting her.
Nothing could stop it. Nothing could prevent this fight. Nothing could delay this fight. Too many pieces were stacked against her. It was simply the way of this world of Remnant. Even for a Rozen Maiden, a girl forever frozen in time, there came a moment where one is forced to express themselves to the fullest- whether one liked it or not.
The streets of Atlas, their stage. The Knight of the White Rose, their character. The people of Remnant, their audience.
Kirakishou moved quickly, expertly dodging a frantic lunge sent forth by her Master, as wild silver flames trailed in her wake. Even with the limited aura and magic inside her crippled N-Field courtesy of Winter Schnee and Ozpin, Kirakishou found herself on the proverbial back foot against the might of Ruby Rose.
Her Master's ability, the silver flames of a Silver-Eyed Maiden, were the ultimate counter to Kirakishou's own powers. Vines and crystals alike were petrified all the same, mere fuel to the flames that continued to grow ever stronger as they raged through the streets of Atlas. Where fire met water, great steam ushered forth, one that Kirakishou knew from her visions to be highly dangerous even to her little artificial body.
While her Rozen Maiden body was somewhat resistant to the silver flames, the multitude of vines contained within her held no such resistance. A moment's hesitation and the steam would enter her body, and Kirakishou would find herself petrified from the inside out.
Naturally, Kirakishou was doing everything in her power to avoid such an untimely end to their battle. However, her Master was certainly making things difficult.
As it turned out, combining Ruby's petal burst semblance with the power of a Silver-Eyed Maiden made for something of an effective adversary. Speed and strength, combined together in a deadly efficient package. Ruby's only weakness was her inherent disorganisation. Kirakishou did not need access to Ruby's Solemn Grove to know that her mind was something of a mess right about now. She had been with her Master long enough to recognise the signs.
Even discounting all that had occurred at the hands of her former teammates and the Branwen Clan, the influence of the Knight of the White Rose was more than enough to impact Ruby's mental fortitude. Her meeting with Ruby Rose temporarily stunned her Master and allowed for a brief precious moment of solace as Atlas fell, but the instability of her powers quickly became apparent the moment that they touched the ground.
Her Master was many things, but when she was divided and sequestered away from those who cared for her… she became a threat unrivaled.
Dodging through the streets of Atlas, Kirakishou quickly summoned forth the Relic of Creation from her ruined N-Field, bringing the weapon to bear against the Knight's Greatsword. While Kirakishou had hoped to keep the Relic hidden, she had no other alternative. Utilising Crescent Rose at the current moment would have seen her Master's weapon cleaved in two, such was the strength of the figure before her.
Even Kirakishou's own staff would suffer the same fate, were she to have chosen to use it. Her staff had been made for focusing on her N-Field abilities, and at this point, neither Kirakishou nor Ruby Rose held N-Fields of any significant strength or complexity.
Blade and Relic met in equal opposition, the divine nature of the Relic being the sole saving grace for her impromptu defence, preventing Ruby Rose from reaching her. Her Silver-Eyed Master growled in agitation, thrusting forward with her bolstered strength as Kirakishou fought to defend against the block. Eventually, her Master's strength won out and Kirakishou was sent flying back, through a ruined bakery and out into a side street.
Thinking quickly, as the Relic of Choice had proven staggeringly unhelpful for such moments, Kirakishou pulled on her gathered aura and materialised a thin white vine to connect her to a nearby lamppost. Using the momentum from Ruby's strike, she was able to swing around the lamppost and surprise her Master when the Silver-Eyed Maiden came for her, landing a strong kick to her stomach.
Both girls crashed into the ground, and both were quickly on their feet in an instant, greatsword and Relic clashing once again.
Silver flames crawled across the Knight's Greatsword, and it was only quick thinking that saved Kirakishou from an impromptu petrification, manifesting a white vine to push the two clashing forces apart.
As the two girls stood there, Ruby Rose looking utterly lost in her own ruined N-Field, they both perked up when their senses detected that same horrid feeling that Kirakishou had been dreading since the first moment she placed the Relic of Choice atop her head.
Glancing upward, they both saw it.
The sky had begun to break.
And Kirakishou knew exactly what that meant. She was fighting on limited time. Ruby Rose, meanwhile, must have felt some intrinsic worry at the sight because she was racing toward Kirakishou at a breakneck speed as if she was trying to stop Kirakishou from acting any further.
Unfortunately, a pure white rose was not in control of that particular garden.
Moving quickly to escape a barrage of silver flames and rose petals, Kirakishou pushed more of her gathered aura to her feet, taking to the rooftops of the ruined Atlas as Ruby Rose desperately fought to chase her down. A flutter of rose petals and the two were on equal footing, jumping from rooftop to rooftop as Kirakishou quickly maneuvered Ruby Rose to her desired destination, as the sky continued to fragment even further. Various electronic screens nearby switched on, as the deafening static rattled through an empty city.
Sounds began to be heard, intermingled amidst the static.
She pushed even more aura to her feet, just to be sure. Was this what worry felt like?
Then, she saw them. Seedlings. Stragglers. Those that had been captured and promptly moved to the far edge of Atlas. They had ventured far to return to their pointless ruined city and found it overtaken by Atlas and muddled with flowing water that should not exist. Still, they had ventured ever inward, chasing an adversary they perceived to be worth facing the toils of a broken city.
Salem. The beasts of dark. When Kirakishou had used up her N-Field and promptly had her Palace of Beginnings shattered by Kanaria, Salem had been set free. Without Judica and Madulin there to stop her, the ruined soul had moved for destruction, regaining control over her beasts of dark and directing their hate toward each and every living denizen of Remnant.
While it had been far too short of a time in the N-Field for Salem to lose her memories, it had been enough to teach the Witch the nature of Kirakishou and the strength of her actions. Now, faced with her failure, the Witch despaired. And despair brought the beasts of dark, pushing Kirakishou's former seedlings back into their ruined home.
They sought peace.
Kirakishou smiled widely as she launched herself from a rooftop, aiming directly for the crowd below her. With a bout of silver flames chasing after her, Kirakishou unleashed as much aura and magical power as she was able to spare, conjuring an array of teal-green crystals. The crowd, whether they recalled Kirakishou's time in Vale and Atlas or not, was quick to attempt to duck out of the way, but they didn't stand a chance against her own power.
As Kirakishou landed in an impromptu growth of crystalline forest, she found herself in a sea of flash-crystallised bodies. Aura flooded her artificial body as a connection was established, and she launched a volley of crystal shards at her beloved Master who was currently leaping down to pursue Kirakishou's pure self. Silver flames and teal crystal met, and a barrage of inflamed crystal rained down on the remaining former civilians of Atlas and Mantle. Petrification occurred almost instantaneously, and Ruby Rose shuddered as she crashed into the ground, her aura flickering a menagerie of colours.
"Now, do you understand?" Kirakishou dared to speak the words to her Master, smiling all the while as she stretched her arms out and spun around the frozen landscape. "Our powers are the same, Master. We attach ourselves to others in order to grow."
There was a moment of silence, where the young former trainee appeared uncertain her greatsword wobbling slightly, before she grimaced and dropped the blade. The Knight's Greatsword clattered to the flash-frozen floor, and Kirakishou dispelled the Relic of Creation. Silver flames continued to burn around the crystallised landscape, and Kirakishou's own crystals began to spread across the ground.
Their powers were growing. But, at this moment, none of that mattered to either girl. For the first time since their fight had begun, precious clarity had entered Ruby Rose.
"...So, it's true," Ruby murmured to herself, staring at her aura-enriched hands with some degree of sorrow. "That's the power of a Silver-Eyed Maiden. A flame that grows, as I grow alongside it. So, it wasn't just a fluke."
"No, it wasn't," Kirakishou agreed with a shake of her head, the confirmation making Ruby stare up at her in surprise. "I've known exactly what was happening to you, Master. I tried to get there as quickly as I could, and this method was the only one capable of both rescuing and healing you."
Ruby Rose looked around at the landscape, sighing to herself. She slumped down onto the crystalline ground, pulling her legs up to her chest. She looked… sad.
"You know what happened, then? With Yang and…"
"My sisters, yes," Kirakishou finished her Master's words with a little frown, moving to sit beside the girl that had captured her love so thoroughly. "Your powers manifested, and they didn't understand. They couldn't understand, because they couldn't understand you."
When their contract had shattered, Kirakishou had known what would happen to Ruby Rose. She would lose her memories of their time together. Anticipating how the others would react to that had been one part speculation and one part Relic-given precognition.
"I attacked them! Attacked everyone else! And I liked it!" Ruby sobbed, grabbing Kirakishou and crying onto her shoulder. "What kind of person does that? And, in the moment, I didn't even care! I wanted to burn them. I wanted to burn them all."
"Such is the nature of your power," Kirakishou soothed, rubbing circles on the girl's back in an effort to quell her Master's sobs. "The power of the Silver-Eyed Maiden is beyond legend. Bolstered by an N-Field, it possesses an almost infinite capacity to grow. But it's only a small part of who you are, Master."
"...It is?"
Her voice was weak. Tiny. It hurt to hear such a voice echo from her Master's heart. She sounded so defeated, so unsure.
"The Ruby Rose I know is strong, yes, but not just on the battlefield. She is the type who would hold others up, and support not just herself but also the ones who earn her affection," Kirakishou spoke softly, smiling at the memories she had experienced alongside Ruby Rose. "There is no other girl that a pure rose could love."
Looking down, Ruby's cheeks tinted red. "...That's right… We, um, before this we were…"
As Ruby trailed off, uncertain, Kirakishou reflected on the nature of their relationship. While she was not the foremost expert on Rozen Maiden behaviour, Kirakishou was well aware that her connection with Ruby Rose was something out of the ordinary compared to how other Rozen Maiden acted with their Masters. She had always craved a deep connection and Ruby Rose had been the only one capable of understanding her.
Once Kirakishou had been given a taste of what it felt like to be close with a Master, she hadn't wished for anything else. All that she had desired was to make her Master happy. To see her smile. To feel her hugs. To feel that warmth carried by Ruby Rose, and watch her heart soar with affection.
Their relationship was different when compared to other Rozen Maiden and their Masters, and Kirakishou could not be happier.
"Partners," Kirakishou settled on the choice of word, tilting up Ruby's chin so the girl could stare directly at her. "We have experienced much together, Master. We have done many things. But above all else, we acted together as two sides of a whole."
Ruby Rose remained silent at that, some kind of indecipherable emotion swimming in her Silver Eyes.
"...You're not like what I expected you to be like after hearing so much about you from others," Ruby Rose admitted with a weak chuckle, shaking her head. "Everyone… they had so many things to say about you. It was like nobody could shut up about you. But… none of them said that you would be… like this."
"They don't know me," Kirakishou answered simply. "People look at a rose and they see only a single feature. It takes time and effort to uncover what is hidden beneath, and most people do not have the patience for such things."
Ruby Rose huffed. "Most people are stupid."
Giggling, Kirakishou nodded. "Most people are. But they mean well. They are merely trapped by their thoughts, trapped by their perceptions of the world, much like your sister."
"...Oh. So, I take it that Yang was needling us even before everything happened and I lost my memories?"
"She was," Kirakishou confirmed simply. "But that was to be expected. Such is her nature. She is quite protective of you."
"Yeah, don't need to tell me twice," Ruby grumbled to herself. "They were attacking me, you know, right before you pulled me over to Atlas. All because of some stupid bandits. They were defending them, the type of people that would go out of their way to ruin people's lives just to profit from it. I just don't understand it. How can they even stand to be near those types of people?"
"Ah, I wouldn't have the slightest clue as to why they would act in such a way, Master," Kirakishou shrugged her shoulders. Whatever her little seedlings did prior to spending time in her garden was of little matter to Kirakishou, serving only as the flavouring for their pleasant dreams.
"Well it's stupid," Ruby shook her head frowning. "Because of them, and my stupid powers playing up, I'm all alone again. I can't even hold a simple conversation with you without going all crazy and attacking you. It takes literally petrifying a horde of civilians to break me out of my spell. Oum, I'm a mess."
Kirakishou did not take the moment to stare up at the sky, having known exactly what was awaiting her sight if she did, courtesy of the Relic of Choice. She did not want to detract from the moment.
Instead, she focused on her Master.
"Your instability is due to the loss of our contract," Kirakishou advised the former huntress trainee, as Ruby eyed her, interested in what she had to say. "I was the one to first bridge the connection between your Silver Eyes and the Fall Maiden powers, developing an N-Field inside of you that was capable of harnessing both powers simultaneously. We hadn't even begun training inside your N-Field at a conscious level before the contract between us was severed."
Ruby Rose sighed in her arms, as Kirakishou felt her Master slump. "...It's so strange to hear all of this, you know."
She cocked her head, intrigued. "Whatever do you mean, Master?"
Puffing her cheeks, Ruby blushed as she stared at Kirakishou for a moment longer than strictly necessary. "This. All of this," she murmured, tearing her gaze away from Kirakishou to stare out at the crystallised and petrified distance. "None of my memories account for any of this. Silver Eyes, Maiden powers, Rozen Maiden, N-Fields. Oum, you even called me Master, just then. I barely even understand what that means for us. Everything is so new to me, so raw. Everybody's been fighting me since I got up and nobody has been able to-!"
Quickly silencing her Master with a finger to her lips, Kirakishou smiled down at the young girl, even as she blushed bashfully under Kirakishou's attention.
"Then, please, allow a rose to give you something. A gift. Something familiar."
She pulled away from Ruby Rose and stood up, the young girl quickly scrambling to her feet to match Kirakishou. Taking the necessary time to gather her new stores of gathered aura courtesy of her impromptu N-Field, Kirakishou reached into her power and presented it to Ruby Rose.
"...Crescent Rose…"
"...Crescent Rose…"
Imagine.
Once upon a time, a little girl lost her Mother.
She didn't understand.
She didn't know what had happened.
One moment, her Mother had been there. Loving her. The next moment, her Mother was gone.
Ruby Rose, once upon a time, had been that little girl. In some small, fleeting way, she supposed she still was. She had grown some, sure, but in the end, she would always be that same little girl forever crying out for her Mother.
Summer Rose's death had ruined her. Oum. She hadn't even been old enough to understand the concept of death, and yet it had been forced upon her all the same. Summer Rose had been the only one she was able to connect with, and she had been torn away from Ruby in a way that she couldn't ever hope to come to terms with, let alone accept with any degree of finality.
And, as time ticked ever onward, Ruby Rose had never let go of Summer Rose. She cherished every memory, collected every scrap of knowledge, and memorised each and every story about Summer Rose that anyone would bother to tell her. It had been the only way that she could persevere, the only way that Ruby could endure, if she felt that the memory of Summer Rose endured with her in some small way.
And it had NEVER been enough.
NEVER ENOUGH.
She missed her. So much. So much it hurt to think about. That it hurt to feel.
But…
Time continued to move forward, ever marching. And, as Ruby Rose grew, she decided that she too would go down the same path as Summer Rose. Whether it be to emulate her Mother in some way, or to hopefully follow the same trail in the hopes of learning Summer's fate, she wasn't sure anymore. Feelings were difficult to explain, difficult to comprehend. They simply were. They consumed Ruby Rose and made her who she was today.
And… if she wanted to follow in her Mother's footsteps and become a huntress, then she needed a weapon.
Crescent Rose had been that weapon.
And, when Ruby Rose had awoken in Atlas, without her weapon, it felt as if a piece of her very soul had been torn away. Her last connection to Summer Rose, the culmination of all her time and effort spent working in the memory of Summer Rose, had been lost.
So, she had forged the Knight's Greatsword. Vengeance. A desire to end. And it had ruined her all the same. The greatsword hadn't solved anything. If anything, it had actively made things worse.
Now, when Ruby Rose had been torn away and torn herself away from others, Crescent Rose was presented to her once again.
Her Mother's memory.
Ruby Rose. Summer Rose. The memory of love, acceptance, warmth, and family.
With shaking hands, Ruby Rose reached forward, barely able to breathe let alone voice her thoughts. Yet, Kirakishou somehow understood all the same and handed Crescent Rose to her with little more than a warm smile.
Everyone had wanted her to move on. And, in a way, she had. The memory of Summer Rose had become a part of her.
...This weight…
There were tears in her eyes, Ruby Rose abruptly realised. The silver flames, those that had been burning in the background, were roaring. Blazing. She could feel them, pulsing in line with her soul.
With a trembling movement, Crescent Rose extended, and Ruby Rose felt her instincts take control. Practiced motions spilled from her, as she spun Crescent Rose around in a steady movement. A dance, almost. A dance, one unlike any other, as memories flooded her mind. Of the weeks she had spent tirelessly working on Crescent Rose, of the tears that had spilled from her as she gazed at the weapon each night, reflecting on her life.
Then, the earliest memory of all.
A smile.
Summer Rose hadn't spoken during her earliest memory. She hadn't needed to. A smile had been enough for her. And it was, without a doubt, the first memory that Ruby Rose had ever retained.
Just a smile.
And it had meant the world to her.
She stared over at Kirakishou. And, reflected there, was that same warmth. That same smile. And, at that moment, Ruby Rose understood exactly how she had come to love Kirakishou, once upon a time.
"Thank you."
There was no way. No possible way that she could place her feelings into words. No way. There was too much. They were too strong.
And, yet, the doll understood all the same.
"You're welcome, Ruby."
Collapsing Crescent Rose back into its folded configuration, Ruby moved forward without thought.
She knew what would happen. She had no memory of her time with Kirakishou, but she knew all the same.
Placing her hands on the doll's cheeks, she leaned forward.
And kissed Kirakishou.
There was a pull on her aura, a touch of something indescribable against her deepest self, and a small little golden thorned ring materialised on her left ring finger.
When she pulled back from Kirakishou, she found the doll to be crying. She was, too. But she was happy, and so too was Kirakishou.
"...I, um… I thought that kissing you would bring back all my memories…" Ruby murmured, chuckling weakly. Perhaps she had read too many fairytales as a kid.
Jointed hands encircled her back, as Kirakishou held her. The doll was trembling, unable to speak for a brief moment. She briefly wondered how a Rozen Maiden felt, overwhelmed with such emotion that it left her unable to speak. Their bodies were artificial constructs, yet in that brief moment the doll seemed so very similar to a normal girl.
"They…" Kirakishou collapsed mid-sentence, and Ruby collapsed alongside her with a sudden cry of alarm. The doll trembled against her, and Ruby realised that she was being forced to hold her up with her own strength. "...Ah, sorry…"
"Are you okay? What's going on?!"
Kirakishou gave a weak giggle. "I wasn't sure how I would fare, establishing a contract with you at this moment…" the doll murmured to herself, shaking her head. "Your memories will return in time, Master… I held them, I held them all, just as you did with Summer Rose, just for this moment… but it will take time, and I'm afraid there is one last action we need to take."
Something about those words sent a shiver down her spine, one that felt decidedly bizarre.
"...And what do we need to do?"
"Prepare."
She did not have a chance to ask for further clarification, as a sudden onset of noise caught her attention as Kirakishou trembled. Her eyes glanced upward, and dread pooled in her chest.
The sky… The sky was…
There were cracks in the sky. Thick, jagged lines. The sky was bright, yet she knew it to be nighttime all the same, but it was not dark, nor was it light outside. Everything was still.
Looking down, she could see everyone. Dozens of onlookers. Hundreds. Thousands. Tens of thousands. People from Atlas, Mantle, Value, Beacon. Frozen in time, like dolls. Unable to move, speak, or even think. Debris from fallen buildings lay still, trapped in midair. Frozen flames, unmoving. Crystals without sheen, without tone or texture. Everything was frozen, she realised. It had been frozen for some time, hanging on a singular moment.
On their moment.
Screens, still displays in a world of technology, flared suddenly. Tattered remains of Atlas, angled in a way that perfectly matched Ruby's current position. The only movement in a still word occurred, as static bloomed on the screen, a horrid visage of grey that abruptly shifted to black and left the world frozen once again.
No. Wait.
There were letters on a screen. Words in a language that she understood.
The sky cracked. Everything was fading away. She couldn't-
She read the words displayed on the screen.
FATHER ARRIVAL IMMINENT.
And the world was reshaped in an instant.