Wraith
Chapter Thirty Eight
Beta: Smithrooks
Cruel Kindness
Beacon, present day…
Nihilus wasn't sure he liked this world.
Nihilus let himself wander the corridors of Beacon unseen, idly keeping an eye on the Betrayer as the worm attempted to sleep. Not that it was forthcoming, apparently.
But this world was different. Not in a good way, but not in a particularly bad way either. Some part of him longed to see the land, to walk the roads and to meet the people. Another part of him wanted to burn down cities and become even more powerful. The rest of him just wanted to kill Ironwood and be done with it.
But instead he did nothing.
How repulsive.
What had he come to? How many years had it been since he'd done nothing? There had been many years of waiting - but that was different than nothing. That had purpose. But what did he have now? He could watch and observe the tricky little Betrayer, but what did that amount to?
He didn't understand the Betrayer. He wanted all the power in the world, and yet he denied himself? He wanted to be a hero and save others, but he sat and did nothing? Nihilus could have given him the strength to do both these things, to reach beyond what was otherwise possible. But he'd denied it. Robbed Nihilus of the last family he had left.
What made the Betrayer tick? What drove him? His soul was far too broken to see clearly through, so taking a look would amount to very little.
"I-it hurts!"
The wail of a mortal broke through Nihilus' thoughts. Its pitch was unmistakably male, and altogether very familiar to the old Arc.
Had he really forgotten the layout of Beacon? After so many years…? No matter. Nihilus didn't particularly mind that he'd found himself in the infirmary. Not like it would matter anyway - the only one with any chance of seeing him was the Betrayer, he was invisible to all others.
"Damn it, that shit hurts!" Cardin clutched at his charred eyes as the school doctor rubbed burn cream in them. "A-ah! Damn it!"
Nostalgic to 'see' Cardin again after so many years. The boy wasn't as Nihilus remembered him - the changes were small. His soul sang a slightly different tune to what Jaune's old partner did. In fact he-
No Jaune! No no no! He was Nihilus. Not him, never him anymore.
Nihilus felt his spirit tremble for a moment. How could he slip up? How could he have used that wretched name for even a moment?
No, it didn't matter now.
Cardin groaned in pain as the doctor finally left him, the boy leaning back into his bed blindly. The blindness was temporary of course, but no less painful.
...Nihilus didn't like it.
Perhaps it was mere nostalgia, or perhaps it was something else he'd long since forgotten. But Nihilus wasn't enjoying seeing Cardin's suffering as much as he usually enjoyed the suffering of others.
This boy was never his partner; never stood beside him at Amity, never needed his help in Forever Fall, never helped him out of the Emerald Forest for no other reason than concern for a fellow hunter.
But this boy was still Cardin Winchester.
Unseen, Nihilus swept closer to the still whimpering teen, his ghostly hand coming to a stop just over the boy's eyes. Should he? He would never admit it to the Betrayer, lest he demonstrate his namesake again and kill Cardin, but perhaps a simple kindness was in order…
Silently, Nihilus drew the pain away from the boy, his old soul mending the wounds the Betrayer had caused and soothing the troubled emotions of his old friend.
"Wha-"
"Sleep."
He was unconscious a moment later.
Cardin was healed; come the morning, the boy would find his injuries miraculously gone.
Was it kindness or cruelty that drove Nihilus to do this? As deeply as he looked into his own soul, he couldn't tell. The answer was shrouded from him.
But… perhaps that was okay. For now, he was just content in knowing that he'd eased a troubled soul that he'd wronged.
Beacon, present day…
Jaune rolled over.
Nora snored.
Ren was silent.
Pyrrha muttered.
And Jaune rolled over again.
Sleep just wasn't coming to him. The things Ozpin had told him were crazy, but the whole situation with Nihilus was crazy, so what was one more thing?
But to think of that woman, this Salem and the torture she went through... just for what? So a much younger Ozpin could absolve himself of some perceived guilt? Pathetic and disgusting.
"It's never enough, is it? Just when you think humanity has done its worst, you find a monster like the Lord of Regret lurking. Or a monster like you."
That was another reason he couldn't sleep.
But Nihilus also wasn't entirely wrong. Ozpin was as bad as Jaune himself, if not worse because the man had done his atrocities on purpose. At least the man seemed to feel guilty about it.
"Ozpin doesn't regret that he did it, he regrets the consequences of what he did. There is a difference, you wretch."
And wasn't that distressing. Apparently, despite the absurd amount of time that had passed, Ozpin still believed in those piddling little Gods of his. The fool still believed that they were guiding him and that he was doing the right thing.
Or so Nihilus said anyway.
"You really should just kill them a-"
Jaune's eyes snapped open as he felt something wash over him, an invisible power gently prickling at his soul. Around him the dark dorm room bled away silently, white streaks of utter nothing oozing into existence until Jaune was alone in the emptiness. Gone was the quiet and dark dorm room, now there was just whiteness all around him.
"It's been a while."
Jaune whipped around at the sound of the voice, the near-forgotten feeling of hope blooming in his chest.
The Fragment stared at him.
The Memory, the one that first explained Nihilus to Jaune and Pyrrha back in the miserable caves at Dorme, the one that claimed to be Nihilus' happiest memory.
But… it looked different than before. Gone was the exact mirror image of Jaune, this one looked like-
"I take it you can actually see me then?" the memory asked, horribly scarred face and blank eyes staring at Jaune dully. "I wondered if you'd be able to this time."
It looked just like Jaune, except… not. It looked like Nihilus. Not the body Jaune had known Nihilus in, but rather what Nihilus actually looked like - the Nihilus that Jaune 'killed' just after the last member of the alternate RWBY died.
Glassy blind eyes and a face cleft in twain by three massive scars. The man looked haggard though, his posture slack and bent as he leant heavily on a simple wooden cane to support himself. "What happened to you?" Jaune demanded, distraught at seeing the memory so horribly damaged. "Why do you look like that?"
The scarred head tilted to the side. "I always looked like this. This is the appearance I had during the memory I was made from. You just saw what you wanted to see. You saw what you thought another Jaune would look like."
"What changed then?" Jaune asked in slight distress, "How come I'm seeing you this way now?"
The horrid face of the Memory split into a smile. "Because you don't expect anything anymore. Life or death, beauty or ugliness, you don't force your perceptions onto the world. You have accepted apathy into your soul."
Jaune stared. Accepted apathy? That wasn't true, he still cared… but-
The bar.
It struck Jaune like a sledgehammer. The bar, the woman… she was robbing the place, threatening the owner. And what had he done? He'd told her that he didn't care so long as she didn't involve him. And again with Cardin… there was no guilt at what he'd done in the arena. In fact, Jaune felt more distraught that his team may be upset with him than upset over doing the actual deed itself.
Was this what it meant? This was the apathy that it spoke of? "And what about it?" Jaune questioned quietly, "Is this what you wanted to speak to me about? My apathy?"
The blind man before him chuckled lightly, the light and airy sound at odds with his fearsome visage. "No, but watch yourself. Apathy is an excellent trait to have in moderation, but if you let it seep into your own ideals then it becomes a poison."
Mindless rhetoric. Jaune withheld his scoff at the nonsense. What did this shadow even know? It was just a memory of something- someone, dead and gone. It didn't-
Jaune choked.
The hand tightened around his throat.
"You forget," the Memory said cheerfully as he strangled Jaune with a single hand, "in this place I see your mind as clearly as words on a page. And you forget just who I am."
The hand that was holding him loosened and Jaune fell to his knees, his hands rubbing his neck as he gasped for breath. That… loathe as he was to admit it, the Memory had a point. This wasn't just anyone he was talking to; this was a precursor of Nihilus. A being that can touch the same power.
Basically a God then.
"You begin to understand," it laughed good-naturedly in spite of its actions, "Good. But that is not why I arranged this; we have much to discuss. There is still a chance you can end this."
Jaune pushed himself to his feet, ignoring that the ground was just as white and featureless as everything else in the hellish void. "W-what do you mean?"
The Memory sighed.
Colour and life bled into the world around them, the white void dying an ugly death as a fictional reality came into focus.
A snowy hell.
It was an icy hillside, snow and frost covering everything in a layer of thin white. But it didn't do anything to hide the mounds of bodies and the pools of frozen blood all around them, the red and white contrasting hellishly as snow gently fell. But… something was wrong. A thick, cloying mist covered the area, so Jaune couldn't see more than a few metres all around him.
It was sickening.
"This is the hell of Nihilus. His inner soul, the place he calls home," the Memory was smiling. "If you stay on your current path, you will end up here."
Jaune looked around wildly. This hell wasn't what he wanted, not now or ever. "You're lying. There's no way I'll become like him!"
The scarred Arc tilted his head, "Become like him? Like me? Oh no, that's quite impossible now. There isn't enough left of you, Umbra."
Umbra? What did he-
"You see, you're a broken little thing. Powerful in a very narrow way, and special in only one regard." The Memory poked Jaune in the chest with his cane, a genuinely remorseful look crossing his mangled face, "Through my design, you showed Nihilus that you and he are profoundly different. In killing Violet, you rejected all the ideals that Nihilus accepts. You showed that you're not the same person."
Jaune threw his hands into the air with disgust. "And look where that got me!" he spat as his anger and resentment swelled. "I get to live in a waking nightmare with Nihilus constantly by my side; I feel like I'm rotting from the inside, like I can't feel anything anymore that isn't painful!"
Jaune panted. It felt nice to speak about it, even just to rant. What right did the Memory have to judge him? What gave it the right to dictate?
"Life is suffering," the Memory replied easily. "Your life, my life, it doesn't matter. One cannot experience joy without sorrow. I am truly sorry about what has happened to you; if there was another option I would have taken it."
"And what is that meant to mean!?" Jaune roared. "Why can't you ever give me a straight answer?! Why is it so difficult to just come out and say whether or not it is possible for me to kill Nihilus?!"
The stench of blood and the aching cold stabbed at Jaune but he ignored it, just as he ignored the mounds of corpses around him. The Memory had never given him a straight answer, not really. But Jaune was done playing games. He was done reacting to things, he wanted to start acting for himself.
The Memory smiled tiredly, "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry. But... you alone will never have the power to stop Nihilus."
Jaune slumped to the ground. Of course…
In a way it was almost relieving, knowing that he had no chance. No way to ever fully remove the cancerous influence of Nihilus from the world. It was like the responsibility was being lifted from his shoulders. He'd always known that he was no match for Nihilus in raw power or ability, but to know there was no chance for even the most minor of victories was… oddly comforting.
But it meant failure. Failure to save anyone. Failure to become a hero in even the most pathetic sense. He couldn't even beat himself…
Laughter bubbled from Jaune's lips as he kneeled on the ice. There was never a point to fighting Nihilus, not even any point to surviving him in the first place. Never a reason, never a hope. All the pain, all the suffering, for what? A sick little joke from Nihilus himself? Or perhaps on the part of the Memory? Maybe even little Violet had been in on it?
"Is this it then?" Jaune questioned from the frigid ground with a chuckle. "You came to mock me? Take joy in my suffering? Ha, well go right ahead. I'll laugh with you."
Jaune closed his eyes as another morose laugh bubbled from his lips; to think Jaune had once been arrogant enough to think that he could stop Nihilus. To think that the actions he took after Nihilus killed Ruby would actually change anything. How cute. There was no stopping him. No changing or redirecting him. Nothing.
"I didn't come to laugh at you. I came because the rest of my solution needs you to feel. If you die now, then Violet will have died in vain and you and I will have failed to stop Nihilus."
Jaune's eyes snapped to the wretchedly scarred form of the Memory. Solution…? A solution? To Nihilus? Didn't he just say that there wasn't one? That there wasn't a point because Jaune could never beat him?
The cripple settled onto the icy ground beside Jaune, the cloying mist around them parting for a moment as he plopped to the ground. "The problem with people is that they never think. You are no better. Think Jaune, where did you first meet Nihilus? How did you first interact with him?"
Jaune shook his head. "Why does that matter? It was in Forever Fall after his little rampage in the city. My team and team RWBY heard a scream in the forest and when we went to investigate we found Nihilus… surrounded by… Grimm…"
Oh… but why?
"Finally beginning to understand?" the Memory smiled manically, "Finally using that head of yours to think? Ask yourself, why was he in the forest in the first place? What reason did he have to go there?"
Grimm. Why would Nihilus be afraid of Grimm? Why would he be afraid of anything? He wasn't. Nihilus was literally immortal, he could literally bleed the entire world dry if he wanted to. So why was he afraid of the Grimm? And why was he in Forever Fall? There was nothing there but trees and dirt.
Jaune cradled his head in his hands. How had he been so thick? How hadn't he seen this?
He'd been manipulated all along.
"It's because he wasn't afraid of the Grimm," the Memory answered the unspoken words, "he wasn't even conscious at the time. I was. I controlled the body, Nihilus dreamt. He's quite the sleep talker."
"No…" Jaune whispered, "that can't be right…"
"But it's true," the Memory countered. "All dreams end when the dreamer awakens. For Nihilus, he awoke to find you and Pyrrha with him in a deep dark little mineshaft. From there it was as simple as doctoring a few of the memories to make him believe he'd done it. That he chose to take you and Pyrrha with him. All was going according to the plan the others and I made, you did your part well."
It wasn't anger, nor was it shame or sorrow that Jaune found himself consumed with, but something altogether more overwhelming as he looked at the scarred face and blind eyes of his counterpart. A pawn. He was a pawn all along. All his suffering and all of his misery… just at the bidding of another. "Others?" Jaune choked out.
"Look around you," the memory whispered guiltily, "finally see what I hid from you."
Jaune was still reeling from the knowledge that he was just a pawn in a larger game. The knowledge that he'd been used. But despite that Jaune obeyed, his eyes leaving the Memory towards the army of corpses.
The mist and ice around them was choking and thick, but Jaune ignored it and edged closer to the nearest body. The face was hard to make out, so covered in ice and frost as it was. With gentle wipes of his hand, Jaune brushed the snow away and-
Blonde hair, blue eyes.
Jaune's eyes widened. No, that couldn't be possible. That couldn't be.
The mist around them parted, the mounds giving way to mountains of corpses. Jaune looked at them all, his eyes spying six bodies that he just… just knew were...
Blonde hair, blue eyes.
Six of them. Each slightly different, but all the same.
Jaune Arc.
The Memory chuckled sadly as six glowing white lights seeped into existence around him, the sound warm despite the frigid air. "This isn't the first alternate world Nihilus entered, it's the seventh. These… are you."
The lights twitched happily, all of them oozing a friendly feeling that was almost alien to Jaune. These were him? These were other alternate versions of him? Why…? What was the point? Why was the Memory showing him this? "Why tell me?" Jaune asked finally.
The snowy hellscape around them withered and vanished, the icy cold fading away as the world seemed to shift. Mere seconds after it began it was over, the icy purgatory replaced with… a beach?
Jaune recognised it. It was the beach he'd first been pulled into when Nihilus offered him his full power. The beach where he'd spoken to the not-Pyrrha. Except… it was sunny now, the gentle waves lapping at his feet peacefully and the smell of the sea just barely noticeable.
The lights of the deceased Jaunes swelled brightly as the Memory spoke, "Because, Jaune, you will be the one to guide Nihilus to the afterlife. You will be the one to finally lay him to rest."
Jaune felt like screaming.
…
Mineshaft, many years ago…
Two years, one month after the Fall of Amity.
They were all screaming at him.
One thousand, two hundred and thirty-seven.
Jaune was alone, but he wasn't. He had one thousand, two hundred and thirty-seven souls with him. He'd known before of course, it was hard to miss. But for the first time since Jaune had first come to after his father brought him here, Jaune was letting all the souls he'd stolen pass through him.
He'd been deaf to them for over two years now - out of fear perhaps, a fear of whatever judgement they may hold.
But he was wrong. There was no judgement, no anger, no hatred.
Just screaming.
Jaune could feel it, unlike any sound he'd ever heard before. Something that simply didn't exist physically and yet was still present nonetheless. They were screaming, all one thousand, two hundred and thirty-seven souls.
The worst part was counting them. He'd been doing it for hours, alone in the dark with nothing but screams for comfort. It could drive a person mad. They were wailing, not words, but in agony unimaginable to Jaune.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, tears seeping down his ruined face. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I…"
There was no point even saying anything. For all their screams, for all the torment Jaune was listening to… they were dead. They couldn't hear him, they couldn't understand that he'd never meant to. All the souls he had, they weren't aware. They were just empty husks of what- who they used to be. They were hollow.
It had been two years, but it still hurt so much. Sometimes the pain was dulled, swept aside by distractions like Violet and John. But when Jaune sat alone in the dark, when he had only his own inner demons for comfort, all the guilt made him feel like he was drowning.
But it had been two years. Two years. As guilty as Jaune felt, he knew he couldn't go on like this.
One soul, a random burgundy-coloured one, was gently pulled from the rest. Jaune felt sick as it writhed and wailed wordlessly in his grasp. There were no words, no cries for help or pleas for mercy. Just screaming as Jaune removed it from the torrent of his own inner spirit.
From here he had a choice; let the soul go, the mindless yet tormented thing set to return to him and all the other twisted dregs of humanity within him. Or… he could bind it to something.
The choices were thus. There was no inbetween. He'd tried, so many times to just remove the souls that swirled torrentially within him. But they were dead and mindless. Upon removal they just returned to him. They didn't move on to whatever passed as the afterlife. They didn't fade away. They just came back.
But not this one. This one was going to be different, Jaune was sure of it.
He had so many books with him now, all from his sister and father when they read to him. They would serve as his anchors. One soul per book.
Jaune took the random burgundy soul tightly in his hand. Some small part of him desperately cried out to eat it, to devour it once more. But Jaune wouldn't have it. He wanted the screaming to stop, to free the poor souls that he'd stolen.
With a sob, Jaune slammed the soul into the nearest book, the reddish light struggling and writhing violently as he wrapped it around the tome numerous times. "I'm sorry," he cried as he mutilated the once beautiful soul. "I'm so, so sorry."
The wails died slowly as the book warmed within his hands. The soul was taking to it, taking to the empty and lifeless vessel. Was it a kind thing? Was it the right thing to do? Jaune didn't know. But he knew he couldn't deal with all the guilt of keeping the souls within him. He had to get rid of them.
Jaune pressed his forehead to the oddly warm book as he cried. Right or wrong, he had to do it. He'd go insane otherwise.
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
All at once, Jaune felt as though lightning passed through his body.
That was his voice.
The burgundy soul was calm now, lucid as it gently flowed around within the book. But… there was something different. Almost as though it were mirroring Jaune himself.
Gently, almost cautiously, Jaune let his own aura drip onto the book for a moment.
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
A mirror.
That's what it was. A mirror of Jaune's soul, almost perfect if not for the colour. It was just repeating what he said. What he'd cried into the soul.
One thousand, two hundred and thirty-six.
This was it. This was all he could do… perhaps it was merely a different prison to force upon them. But all the souls… he could remove them all. Every single one of them.
It would just take some time.
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
And perhaps… perhaps he could still help the world. The things Jaune knew about aura now went far beyond what Beacon ever taught, far beyond even what Ozpin had taught Jaune after initiation. Was this to be his path to redemption? Maybe…
One thousand, two hundred and thirty-six.
…
Vale, present day…
Cinder threw her scroll down.
Nothing.
Something was terribly wrong.
Why wasn't Salem answering her?
…
1236
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A/N
So things are finally starting to explain themselves! Remember those books from way back in the earlier chapters? And the book that Ozpin found a few chapters ago? Well this is their origin - created by a boy crying over something he couldn't change.
Lovely, isn't it?
Anyway it's about thirty-five degrees (celcius) where I am right now and I'm melting. Let's get on with the reviews:
Follower:
Thanks for reviewing.
Yes! Someone noticed it! Nihilus never quite managed to kill the idealist within him, despite his best attempts. However, it won't be that simple. Nihilus is basically certain that Jaune will lose and that he'll be proven right once again, and more than that Nihilus isn't the only player in the game with foreknowledge. There are several factors at work here. They may not have to beat him, but they don't know that.
Good job picking that.
The Powder Keg:
Thanks for reviewing, and sorry for the delayed response from me.
The absorption of the Maiden soul of Amber and Cinder had a huge effect on Nihilus. But bear in mind who actually said that - the alternate RWBY were wrong about a great many things. As for when Nihilus absorbed Ozpin's soul, well you saw what was 'left' of his soul back in chapter 30. Nihilus gutted it and attempted to use it to recreate Pyrrha. He failed.
Whether Nihilus is stronger than Ozpin was when he had the full might of his magic and wizardry. YES. There is almost no point of comparison: Wizard Ozpin was absurdly powerful for a man, Nihilus isn't a man anymore. He's a God. If the two were to come to blows then Ozpin would most likely be able to remove whatever body Nihilus was using, but then Nihilus would just do what he did to Salem.
Good questions though!
Shaded Azure:
Thanks for reviewing. Twice.
Ah to be in love, I'd almost say I'm jealous!
"I hear you… I feel you. Are you eager, Betrayer? To rip, rend and tear?" Good job catching the Doom reference, I was wondering if anyone would get it.
As for whether Nihilus has killed Tyrion more than twice... well, who ever said that this is the first alternate world Nihilus has entered?
ZHsteven:
Thanks for reviewing.
Ozpin did make a mistake, but not in telling Jaune. He still thinks that Jaune might hold some kind of solution to the problem Nihilus, and by extension, Salem pose. The mistake is in thinking that Nihilus wasn't keeping an eye on things.
As for Nihilus you are correct, his weakness is arrogance. He believes that he cannot be wrong. Whether Jaune is intelligent to take advantage of this is another matter entirely.
Jaune Black Smudge:
Thanks for reviewing.
Yes, Salem is the equivalent of Angra Mainyu. However, all that makes her is a terribly wronged woman.
As for Ren and Nora: for the most part, Nihilus simply doesn't care about them. They of note only for the fact that they shared a team with Pyrrha (of his world) before he killed them. The Ren and Nora of Jaune's world don't really matter to him either - their only significance being that they share a team with Jaune.
Regarding the Relics and Maidens... without spoiling anything, Nihilus thinks the Relics are hilarious and the Maidens vaguely irritating depending on who exactly it is.
…
Thank you all for reviewing! I don't get many so I love each and everyone I get from you guys! That being said, feel free to leave another!
