The Age of Fairy Tales:

Ambroise

This hermit that he is like exact reflection of how he feels of empathy of everything he had lost. He even had his taste of liquor the drowned away his sorrows and loss.

The host that he had transmigrate was named Ambroise.

Apparently, both of them had lost things very dearly and thus causing them both to feel broken.

At least they were not alone now.

By the time he had properly integrated into this new soul, he had found out through his mind about the rumors regarding the kingdom of Dracon and how it has long since fallen to ruins.

Including the stories about the Black Queen was nothing more than a deceiving witch and the people had killed the White King though some had come to believe that he was more of a victim of the Black Queens lies but it was too late for regrets now. He also had asked of what has become of his children the four daughters. Ambrose only heard stories about those too but not the children after what happened to the king.

Ozma was more in sorrow and detested himself, believing that he failed to save his children.

Suddenly out of nowhere he felt a tremor that knocked them out of his chair, surprising him as more than an earthquake had come through here. Even it was a short burst it was over. They shrugged it off just thinking it was just a normal occurrence. Then they been proven wrong when he saw some odd lights appearing on the sky.

He immediately walked outside and noticed a familiar dread from Oz's memory fighting against the monster known as Sin that brought the fragments of the moon crashing down to the planet. The new Ozma was terrified of this cataclysmic event, fearing for the worst of not just for himself but everyone else nearby that would be wiped out from this meteor shower. He was a planning on trying to use his magic but wondered to him what was the point, knowing that how humanity responded to the truth of what Salem had been.

He then witnessed the multicolor lights of coming up to the ground and destroyed all the meteorites which surprised both Ambrose and Ozma. Who could destroy meteorites like that?

They know it wasn't Salem. She is sealed inside that crystal prison.

Even the golden weapons nor the sword of destruction wouldn't do something spectacle like that.

Not unless…

A certain memory had finally appeared of a person the old soul remembered who had ocean blue eyes and even her hair was blue as well, fighting with such grace as it was though she was dancing in water.

Both souls were more intrigued in seeing what is going on for themselves. They stepped out of the shack by the clearing of their land and into the woods trying to reach the direction of the location who shot those colorful lights at those meteorites.

He was moving slowly, not sure what to expect and wasn't sure where he was going until another surprise like a giant tornado of water blasted above the trees, pinpointing in the middle of the woods.

Now he knew where the location of the likely fight was now.

He was dreading the worst scenarios of what the source could be, namely those three monsters of the formal warlord that turned into a demon likely causing mischief again. He made it out of the woods into a new clearing noticing the land was not only just drenched from the water but scorched acres of land. Both souls were surprised by the total destruction in the meadow, but the man then noticed something standing out from the damaged grounds.

A woman laying on her back, seemingly unconscious.

She had blue hair and flawless white skin. Her outfit was a little bit worn out during the fight. Nonetheless he recognized the outfit along with the silver armor shoes and shoulder guards. Her clothing was blue and black resembling as a knight and the cloths around her hips flowed are like waterfalls down around her legs.

He immediately rushed over to check his old friend who had appeared again and looked exactly the same as when they had first met. When he reached over to her side he saw Aqua was still conscious and looked to her side and saw him coming. Aqua tried to lift herself up but all her energy spent fighting Gilgamesh had taken a toll on her. He could tell she recognized that magical energy within him.

Ambrose helped her up and let her lean on his shoulder to staying herself.

When she tried to walk beside him, she smiled. "It's good to see you again, Oz."

Even now that introduction wasn't necessary for him to do but he returned the favor.

"It's good to see you too my friend." He smiled.

He lead her out of the battleground heading back to his cottage.

"They sure have grown." At a window overlooking courtyard, a woman with long red hair tied in a ponytail was watching four young girls that were studying, sparring or just relaxing by a fountain. "It all feels like a dream now."

In the years following the disappearance of Aqua, Poppy takes ownership of continuing her mentor's legacy to have students of her own. Maxwell was also by her side helping train the next generation of Warriors and defenders inside and outside of the kingdoms and the wilderness. Both Maxwell and Poppy had been together for the last several years, helping each other out the train those who had come to their land to become more than they once were and refused to become the victims of the grim, bandits, and slavers.

Occasionally in a month Amarilla also came over to the temple to visit good friends there at times but she also wished to move around instead of being cooped up in her kingdom and doing not important enough tasks. Even bringing trustworthy people within her kingdom had also become more than they once were.

Especially those who are not capable of fighting.

They will acquire the knowledge and research within the temple allows them to become not only knowledgeable but wiser too.

"Except we know this to be real." A voice said behind her.

It was a woman with black hair, pale skin and silver eyes who had been a frequent visitor of this temple.

Amarilla had also greeted them after their training, and they had done the same seeing their old friend coming back from their journey. The three of them talk for a while before going inside the temple that had become their home.

"Yes." The red-haired woman, Poppy looked back at her with a smile. "Thanks to you."

"Not just me." Poppy looked to the door, seeing her husband Maxwell was waiting for her.

The three stepped outside but Poppy suddenly stopped at the door sensing something familiar and looked outwards toward the land's southwest wondering what's causing her to sense this presence.

"Poppy!" She heard the four girls rushing toward them when the doors opened.

The three grown-ups embraced each girl from their hugs. Poppy and Maxwell have been raising the children who had been born from both a wizard and a witch. Poppy explained to Maxwell what had happened that night and they had agreed to adopt the children as their own. The man had been understanding of her circumstance, even sympathizing of the girls that possess magic they were scared and yet heartbroken for what happened back in that land of their kingdom that their parents had built together and what have become of them too.

So, Maxwell had helped Poppy raising the little girls but soon enough the two of them became like family figures and a couple.

Even Amarilla ended up being called an aunt that was really cool one. She hoped for one day she'll have her own little ones and next generation of her own heirs when the time comes.

Poppy froze suddenly, sensing something familiar.

This ability had come with gaining new abilities during her training and only grew before and after her mentor had disappeared.

"I just…Don't understand what is happening to me."

Poppy knew she was somehow different.

She had been feeling a lot stronger, even slaying Grimm of many unique types a lot easier, even defeating bandits attacking her like they are In slow motion.

She doesn't understand why this is happening all of a sudden even the next thing she noticed when the during the night hours she couldn't find a lantern and when she snap her fingers she end up fire appeared to a form of light on the tip of her fingers into a light ball hovering beside her. That's surprised her so badly panicking that her finger is on fire but she knows it wasn't for her semblance. She can only set items anything she touch on fire without damaging it by the burn. But appearing on her hands and the tip of own fingers something's off.

Then the next thing was when she was self-sparring even to use her semblance surprisingly, she didn't just channel fire in in her broken blade. Although it's a good use of any other practicing sword. For some reason she wants to use it a little bit longer before replacing it. She ended up somehow casting a flaming projectile at the targets with such energy.

That fireball attack was similar to Aqua's fire spell.

After that surprise she felt drained by just using it but she still doesn't know what is happening to her.

Later she was playing hide and seek with the little girls. She was having a hard time locating them until she began to somehow sense where they are located. The girls thought Poppy was an expert at their game. Truth to be told she was detecting them over their powers of where they are hiding.

"Almost sounds like you are developing magic."

Poppy spoke to Amarilla about the documentary of her ancestors when the days of magic have existed before taken away by Salem's arrogance. She also had explained the energy can be sensed by a common magic user since in the energy and pressure from another. Which brings her majesty the tension realizing the subject that Poppy had brought up.

"Magic?" Poppy looked surprised. "How can that be?"

"You spent a long-time training under someone who wields magic." Amarilla pointed out. "You learned how to wield Aura under her."

"I never gained the same weapon as her." Poppy replied.

"Did you ask her?" Amarilla asked.

Poppy was silent for a moment. "I wanted to…I trained so hard, I mastered the power she gave me…Then when she told me the truth about what her weapon was…I thought long and hard about it…And decided if she wasn't going to offer then I wouldn't ask."

Amarilla watched as Poppy walked over to the window overlooking courtyard. "Long ago, our ancestors wielded the magic of the Brother Gods. If you are gaining magic somehow, it can't simply be from raising four magical little girls. There's only one other person it could have come from."

Poppy stared out the window, contemplating everything that was happening to.

She was becoming a Keyblade Wielder?

She looked back at her sword that was still broken from that night and rested on the wall of her room. She walked over and picked it up. She looked very carefully into the bridge of the sword showing her reflection of her eyes and reminiscing of every moment of her life. Thinking about days long ago, when she trained under her mentor to atone for her mistake that led to the deaths of her family and village.

Even now she wondered to herself if she finally had walked on the path of the atonement.

SHING!

Then flash of light covering the blade was broken and transformed into a entirely new looking sword that had angel wings and the red and black bat wings.

Amarilla stood up, surprised to see Poppy holding her own Keyblade.

She said she wanted to be like her mentor and now she has a Keyblade.

Poppy had spent months processing all of this is happening before she decided to follow in her mentor's footsteps, continue her walk by traveling all over Remnant to help villages and kingdoms in need, protecting them from the Grimm.

And just now, she felt a magical presence.

Only it wasn't the four young girls she had raised.

She was sure, the presence she was sensing was Aqua.

She didn't know why she felt it was her old mentor but in her heart she knew who it was.

Her mentor has returned and with her came increased fluctuation of magical energy.

Aqua must be in a battle right now facing a strong opponent. She initially thought that the only strong opponents for a Keyblade Wielder would be the Brothers until she thought back those three monsters she had seen in the desert. She rushed back to her room to find the Horn of Passage.

Without a Keyblade like her mentor's, Poppy could not access the restricted section but she still kept the two Relics left behind by her mentor close by. In her room, she opened a secret compartment in the wall and inside were the Horn of Passage and the Sail of the Heavens.

She took out the Horn, took a deep breath and blew.

There was puff of blue smoke and the spirit of the Horn, Heimdallr hovered before her. "And where do you wish to go, my lady?"

"Show me, Aqua." She requested.

Heimdallr raised an eyebrow but complied, creating a portal that showed a blue haired woman with an elderly man in a broken-down shack.

Her suspicion was right.

Aqua has returned to Remnant.

"So, your name is Ambroise now?"

Aqua barely had a look at the new incarnation of her friend, Ozma before he had brought her back to his…home.

The old man leaning against the scepter nodded. "Yes. It took a long time before my soul found a new host to integrate with."

Aqua could make out the broken and hollow tone of the old man.

The tone of a man who was broken.

She knew because she had come close to feeling that way since the battle in the Keyblade Graveyard with Xehanort and Vanitas.

"What happened to you, Aqua? How are you standing before me, looking so young as the day we first…That Ozma first met you?" The old man questioned. "You never told me during my time as Diggs."

It took a moment for Aqua to answer as she turned to the window. "I used a power I didn't know existed when my journey began. It's a power that allows me to travel not only across great distances…But through time as I found out."

Ambroise stared at her with a surprised face. "Through time?"

"Yes." Aqua turned and faced Ambroise. "It works by utilizing the bonds and connections of one's heart. I used the between you and me, our friendship to open a passage through time. It caused me to appear when you reincarnated before and when you died, I disappeared. When I appeared again, I reverted back to the age when we first met."

Ambroise sat down, holding his scepter with both hands as he thought over what he been told. "I never knew such a magic existed."

"Neither did I until right before I used it." Aqua sat down on the other side of the shack. "I guess when you die and I disappear…My body is reconstructed to its 'default' age, for the lack of better words. I have no idea how long time passes, though I guess it's as long as it takes for you to reincarnate."

"And why would you do this?" Ambroise questioned. "Why use this power to…travel through time with me?"

Aqua looked conflicted but she spoke. "I learned of a danger coming to Remnant."

"A danger?"

"Yes, a danger." Aqua nodded. "One that no one would have any defense against when it finally arrived."

"Salem?" Ambroise looked pained as he said that name.

"She might be connected." Aqua admitted with a sad look. "You haven't seen her since that night, have you?"

"I…I couldn't. Not after what I had done." Ambroise looked away. "Did…they survive?"

"Yes."

Ambroise looked at Aqua with a hopeful gaze. "They lived?"

"I told Poppy to take them to the temple we had been living at. That's all I know." Aqua said honestly. "I disappeared before I could see them flee but I know Poppy would have protected them. I was planning to go there once I found you. But I have to ask, why here, why this way, why are you living like this?"

"My penance." Ambroise answered with a remorseful gaze. "For the role I played as a false deity. I was tasked to unite humanity by the Gods but when I came back all I could think of was finding her again. And when I did…It was like the day we first met, the happiest of my life or the happiest of my new life. I couldn't say no, not when I believed in what we were doing.

Yes, it was a lie, but I believed we were doing good. We built a home, we built a life, we built a…family." A tear slipped down Ambroise's cheek. "And then it went wrong. I went wrong. I watched her punish people who didn't believe, I fought armies and kingdoms who refused to bow to us, I did all that for her because it made her happy. And when I saw it would never be enough for her, I couldn't take it anymore."

Aqua walked forward and knelt down in front of Ambroise, looking him in the eyes.

(Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep OST Dearly Beloved Begins)

"I told her the truth…Why I was brought back. What I had to do and what would happened if I failed." Ambroise continued, his voice becoming more broken with each voice. "And she said…It didn't matter anymore. They didn't matter anymore…That there was no point in trying to redeem or save them…That we should replace them with something better.

How could she say that? How could she say no else but us mattered? How could she believe we mattered more than anyone else? I, who strived to be a warrior of virtue and justice, only doing what was right was now to believe none of it all mattered?" Ambroise questioned, looking back at Aqua with great sadness in his eyes. "I was revered as a great warrior who wielded a great power but never once used it for any selfish reason. I followed the teachings of justice instilled into me by my mother at a young age and I believed I would always follow that path."

Until he died and was led astray by the very woman he loved.

Aqua reached out and to the surprise of Ambroise, she wrapped her arms around him in a light but comforting hug.

This simple gesture brought forth a warmth that the man with two souls couldn't help but feel grateful for…

And so, they wept.

"Ozma, this isn't your fault. You carry the guilt of dying, of agreeing to Salem's plan but you realized it was wrong and tried to set things right. To try and amend your mistakes is not something to be remorseful for." Aqua whispered gently into the old man's ear.

Ambroise's eyes widened from Aqua's words but then the same words as before came into his mind.

"None of that matters anymore. Why spend our lives trying to redeem these Humans when we can replace them with what they could never be?"

"But…I only agreed…because it meant…I could see her again." Ambroise wept into Aqua's shoulder. "I didn't care about the task I was given. Only that I could be with her again."

"And that is all right. Can anyone say that they have truly been completely selfless in life? You thought seeing her again would be worth it all, didn't you?" Aqua rubbed the old man's back.

"I did…" Ambroise admitted shamefully.

"To make mistakes and feel regret for them…That is to be human. You may have changed, Ozma but you are still human, even now." Aqua said with a sad smile. "To hold onto these mistakes…It will only continue to keep you in pain. Please, don't hold onto this. Remember these mistakes and learn from them but you must try to forgive yourself or everything that has happened up to now would be for nothing."

Ambroise's eyes widened but then they closed as more tears slipped down his cheeks as he continued weeping in his friend's arms.

(Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep OST Dearly Beloved Ends)

Beacon
58 AGW(After Great War)

"Just what the hell is all this?"

Raven Branwen prided herself on being able to handle anything in her way. However, the fight with Gilgamesh had left her somewhat shaken, given how he was stronger than anyone she had ever encountered.

"What is this place?" She pointed at their surroundings that were underneath the academy and then pointed to the glass case behind Ozpin. "And who are you talking to? A mannequin wearing a school uniform?"

The headmaster let out a soft chuckle. "To answer your two questions in one sentence." The headmaster strolled forward towards Raven. "This is a private area that I come to a lot of times to reminisce, long with the mannequin representing my team leader days in our youth that allows me to hold on a little bit longer and keep on hoping for the better future."

"Okay I could understand the underground area secretive." Raven considered, deciding not to press too far forward if Ozpin was willing to talk. "So who was your team leader?"

"A dear friend. I had her possessions brought down here, simply because preserving her belongings helps me reminisce of the old days and times that were most difficult that my friend helped me through. Her words, her actions, her compassion. All of the things that make her who she is what I still admire about her." Ozpin explained with a nostalgic smile on his face. "She always found a way to give me strength throughout the hard times, always reminding that the heart is our strength."

"Sounds like she was a poet." Raven rolled her eyes.

"Oh, it wouldn't surprise me if she was. She had plenty of time to try." Ozpin chuckled. "Back to the matter at hand, when I was made headmaster, I brought what was left of her belongings down here."

"Seems a little much." Raven crossed her arms. "Building a cathedral under the academy just to honor your team leader? Do you worship her as a god or something or did you just have the hots for her?"

The headmaster turned his head away to hiding his blushing face. "I wouldn't go that far."

Raven had a little devious smirk now. "Aww. That's so sweet."

"While we were close, I wouldn't say it was like that and she would be appalled by anyone who thought of her as anything like a deity." Ozpin returned to the subject at hand. "You followed me because you thought I know who hired Gilgamesh to face you and your team."

Raven did recall why she came down here so she would set aside her teasing of him for later on because this was sweet leverage she would never pass up.

She knows her brother Qrow was head over heels for Summer.

And Raven and Tai were looking to take the next step in their relationship.

"That's good and all of you opening up about this Gilgamesh problem. Before we do that, I want to know one other thing. The seven hearts that are yet to be born." Raven demanded crossing her arms. "What's that all about being so important anyway?"

"More ways than you can ever realize. But as of right now you and your team need to rest and return to my office in the morning. I would like to explain it to you all at once and I rather not try to repeat myself over so many times. The last thing I need is your teammates going through a meltdown of what you discovered." The headmaster said to her. "Also including who had hired Gilgamesh. I think it was more like a test you and your team. But I have a certain feeling it wasn't a Black Queen."

Raven was a little bit more curious about this Black Queen.

"I see you have returned. Was Team STRQ enough to satisfy you?"

Gilgamesh was facing a man in red robes and bandages, the both of them standing on a beach as the sun began to rise. "They were not weak but could have been much stronger. Warriors of Remnant don't exactly measure up the way they used to. Sure, their souls project an 'Aura' but their 'Semblances' are lacking compared to actual magic."

"Even the warriors of your time did not have the skills and surprise that the modern warriors possess." The red robed man replied. "Given time, they could evolve into something even beyond the warriors of old."

"I should hope so. Their teamwork was impressive though." Gilgamesh rubbed his head. "I carried out my task as we agreed. Will you give me what you promised?"

The red robed man produced a red sword with silver edges. The guard resembled a grey bird with its wings spread out and a red at the center. The grip was covered in brown leather and its pommel was round and silver with a ruby crest embedded.

"As we agreed, the Dragon Sword is yours."