To Roll The Die

Chapter One, First Contact

I do not own anything pertaining to RWBY or DxD.


Floating through the endless void between all worlds, the Great Red Dragon pondered his fate and the inevitable coming of the machines.

He knew what would soon come to pass, as he was no stranger to every past, present and future that could, would and should befall him.

Such is the Endless Dream.

Such is Fate.

But Fate, it seems, was feeling more fickle than usual, as the Oldest of the Ancients felt the faintest of sensations upon the furthest reaches of his domain.

So faint, yet so very strong.

Dreams, falling further and further into nothingness.

Dreams of heroism and valor, and a gilded soul bright enough to light up the very abyss he had fallen into, where light had never reached before.

Dreams of innocent desire, and a soul that refuses to fade into the nothingness, even after that spark of primordial magic it has obtained in passing had moved on to its next vessel.

One alive, and the other just lost to death, drifting in tandem where two lost souls were never meant to be.

The Great Dreamer became enraptured by the bellowing flames, alive and more real than anything he had ever witnessed, despite the fleeting nature of their soon to be unexistence.

The Golden Flame was the strongest of the two, unbound and ever growing despite the absurdity of its existence, and from it Great Red tasted the concepts of Amplification, Immortality, Virtue, Glory and Victory, Infinite and Unbound, the first being the strongest and with the greatest potential. From this odd power, this Golden Soul persists and grows, even as its vessel struggles to contain it, and those dominions and pseudo-principles beside it continue to grow in the light of this spiritual fire.

The Golden Flame dared to dream, and it chased that dream with everything it had, facing insurmountable odds time and time again without faltering. It was a supporter, a strategist, a brother and perhaps eventually, could have been a lover to put all other lovers to shame, descended from a long line of Heroes who bore those same traits true generation after generation.

The Golden Flame was a bulwark, even in death, holding tightly to the verdant flame nestled within its embrace, even as its vessel expired with a shudder.

That flame too, though faint, is equally as impressive, if not in strength, then in quality and virtue alone.

Sacrifice was strongly tied to Emerald Flame, noble and true to the very end to those that held it dear and to those it held dear in return. Its power was much unlike the Golden Flame, and instead smelled of Technology, Innovation, Magic, Purity and Winter, unique and absurd in its own right.

Born from both machine and man, the soul-powered emerald automaton dared to hope, and dream, and balk against the thought of being any less real than those around her.

These two lost souls had inspired an untold amount of people through their collective actions, and the dreams born from those actions in that ruined world soon found their way to the Void, and inspired great strength in the Dragon of Dragons.

Great Red was fascinated by the world painted by the memories and dreams contained within the two marvelous flames and those that came after, enraptured to the point of near obsession.

A world of Heroes, and Demons! A timeless war between an Immortal Wizard versus an Immortal Witch, who used to be lovers!

Such drama!

Such potential!

And the best part, both of the Gods of that world are Dragons!

That's just what he needed to know!

Letting these flames fade now after all that they have sacrificed would be a travesty, and the world would be a worse place should they pass into the obscure nothingness of the Forevermore.

The more Great Red pondered his options, the more he liked one idea in particular.

With a curious and quaint mental calculation and just the barest flex of its nigh endless draconic might, the trajectory of the falling souls changes to that place of destiny, where the birth of a Hero would spell the beginning of his End.

What if… he picked a different Hero?

What if he picked two Heroes?

What if he picked THREE?!

The Crimson One alone will only lead to his ruin, but what of the Golden One? What of the Emerald One?

If his past, present and future enemies came from other worlds, why couldn't he recruit help from other worlds to even the odds as well?

The Great One watched eagerly as his Fate came unraveled at the seams, and smiled a content smile before resuming his chain of awesome tricks in jubilation.

For the first time since even before his birth, the Great One did not know what his future held in store for him, and so, he looked forward with determination and hope.


Rias Gremory sighed in aggravation as she leaned further back into her plush chair than is probably healthy for her spine.

The audacious chuffle of laughter from her Queen and long time best friend, Akeno Himejima, is the only thing that kept Rias from sighing again.

"Relax, Rias-tan~." The ravenette says with a coy smile as she slinks up behind the downtrodden redhead to rub her shoulders. "We still have plenty of time, don't let him get into your head with these petty letters."

Said letter, of course, was from her dreadful would-be betrothed, Riser Phenex, enunciating her many failures as a King and Governor of Kuoh alike while doing his best to hype himself up as a magnanimous choice of lovers.

"Who does he think he is?!" Rias finally explodes after reading the letter for a fourth time, said article disappearing into nothingness after she loses grip on her inherited Power of Destruction. "Why does Greyfia-Onee keep bringing these to me?!"

"Perhaps as a reminder, Rias." Akeno muses as she produces a brush from her pocket space with a quick snap of her magic before beginning to run it through the still damp crimson tresses of her King. "This is no joke. Riser's peerage is quite the force to be reckoned with, while we-"

A loud snap drowns out anything Akeno would have said further on the subject, followed by a crack suddenly appearing that stretches across the night sky that illuminated an otherwise dark night in a phantasmagorical glow that couldn't be natural by any stretch of the definition.

Strange, ephemeral colors that don't exist in the visible spectrum shone through the cracks, and faint whisperings of futures long passed harkened on imaginary winds as Dream and Reality trade places, if only for a moment.

"What the hell-"

A flash of golden light erupts from the strange crack in the night sky, falling at such an angle that it would end up landing somewhere in the vicinity of Kuoh proper without a shadow of a doubt.

The resounding impact and burst of golden light that washes over the entirety of the small town Rias co-governed with her other best friend rattles the magically reinforced windows that protect the two Devils from any damage that might have befallen them otherwise. The sound of shattering glass and screaming alarms fills the night soon thereafter, as did a cacophony of screams from the scared and wounded alike.

"-was that?!" Rias finishes Akeno's stalled question with gusto, on her feet and alert in an instant as she watches the crack in the sky rapidly fade into the nothingness it had sprang from.

"Rias, wait-"

But before Akeno could do much as advise her King against recklessly running into a chaotic and unknown situation without reinforcements, she went and did exactly that.

Later, Akeno would readily admit that she was glad that Rias did so, as the results more than spoke for themselves in spades.


Death, Jaune Arc had found, wasn't as bad as he was expecting.

There didn't seem to be an afterlife involved, unfortunately, but nor was there really anything else.

It was just dark.

A deep darkness, as far as the eyes can see, or can't see.

Time, too, seemed irrelevant in that place, since he could neither guess when he arrived, nor guess when he might leave.

For all he knew, maybe he had always been there, and the memories he thought were his were merely figments of his imagination, dreamed up to stave off the madness of eternity.

He didn't think that was the case, but he had no way of disproving it, either.

The darkness was not at all completely unwelcome though, as it gave him time to think, and adjust.

To come to grips with his failures, and scream his anger into the uncaring void without a voice of complaint to silence him or a Grimm to be drawn to his negative emotions.

It gave him release, and eventually, acceptance.

From fraud, to failure, Jaune Arc was never much of anyone's hero in the end, but damn if he didn't try his best. When his greatly beloved partner was taken from him after she confronted a foe she could never hope to face alone, he continued moving forward. When he failed to kill Cinder in Haven and instead saved Weiss and thus discovered his Semblance, he continued to move forward. Even when he decided to believe in Ruby when it came to informing the world about Salem against the better wishes of General Ironwood, only for Atlas and Mantle to both go down in flames soon after, he continued to move forward.

Even after driving a blade through the heart of a dying Maiden in an effort to prevent Cinder from becoming even more powerful, and thus killing one of his closest friends, just like his partner before him… well…

Jaune supposed he didn't keep moving forward for very long afterward, but he knew he would have until he couldn't have anymore.

He liked to think he did good for himself, and that his death wasn't in vain. Somehow… someway, he knew Team RWBY would make it back to Remnant from that bizarre place that was somehow just beyond Jaune's reach, back to Ren and Nora, and Oscar too… and that was good enough for him. He hoped they would tell his family that he died a Hero, and he knew in his heart they would.

Little Adrian was still going to have extra aunts and uncles alike, and would undoubtedly grow up hearing stories of his fearless Uncle Jaune, Leader of Team JNPR and undefeated lord of the dance floor among his generation.

His chapter in Ruby's story had finally come to an end, and Jaune Arc allowed himself to relax into that comforting darkness he was lost in, content with the role he had played in the real Heroes legend in the making.

Eventually, much to his surprise, the darkness began to give way, and the lack of sensation he had begun to lose himself to reversed its course.

Electricity skittered across his skin, and he found himself slowly rousing from the grave as if it were just a small pit stop and not his final destination.

Creaking his eyes open slowly, the blond Huntsman stifled the urge to yawn as he focused on the blurry image of a naked redhead resting across his equally naked chest, the unfamiliar pressure of a woman's body pressing into his being enough to rouse his attention in more ways than one versus the absurd comfort provided bed he found himself resting in.

Her long hair splayed out in cascading waves, rising and falling as gently as she breathed, as red as the setting sun the eve before battle.

She was just as beautiful as he remembered, if not more so, and for a moment, Jaune was back at Beacon.

Except, the room around him wasn't Team JNPR's dorm room, nor was this beautiful redhead resting with him, his long dead partner.

And just like that, the moment was gone, and Jaune Arc was left dazed as he tried to piece together who, where and when he was.

It came to him quickly, his mind sharpened by years of hardship and dedicated training tailored to his every need thanks to Beacon Academy and then later, Atlas.

Atlas…

With growing horror, the blond recalls the fall of the once mighty kingdom, and the many, many failures that eventually led to ally turning against ally in more ways than one.

From the evacuation of Atlas and Mantle, to the fight on the bridge in that deep black space between worlds, Jaune recalled every step he took, and every swing of his blade, and finally, every prayer he made as he somehow missed the strange, tropical, fairytale-like land that he saw Team RWBY fall into.

He remember the fall, and finding both Crescent Rose burning red with Ruby's Aura and Penny's still-warm body falling alongside him, as alight with emerald green Aura as he was with gold, and how desperately he cradled them as he begged them both for forgiveness.

He remembered dying, choking for air that wasn't there in that expanse of nothingness, and his final, desperate grasp at the darkness around him in an effort to fight off the inevitable end.

So how…?

Where?

Who?

The more Jaune looked around at the room he found himself in and the beautiful redhead softly murmuring sleepy nothings into his chest, the more confused he became.

If he died, was this the afterlife?

If this was death, then what need did he have for a heartbeat loud enough to be heard by entire voting districts over?

It dawned on Jaune that perhaps he wasn't as dead as he assumed he was, despite clearly remembering his untimely demise quite vividly. In fact, doing a quick survey of his body with minimal movement of his body, a trick he learned from Marrow, it wasn't incorrect to say that he was feeling better than he had in… well… ever.

He felt strong, and tactile in a way that was hard to explain.

Thrumming beneath the surface, his Aura felt white hot and ready to explode into action, enough so that he was surprised he wasn't already displaying the usual radiance his active Semblance produced.

When was the last time he felt so… brimming with energy?

If this was how Nora constantly felt, then he absolutely forgave her for her many years worth of hyperactive shenanigans that had been otherwise unexplainable for the less energetic humans among her friend group. If anything, he felt she had been rather tame with her outbursts, all things considered.

It wasn't hard to imagine how run down he had become over the months leading up to the fall of Atlas and subsequently his failure to reach the portal to Vacuo in time. Mission after mission, assignment after assignment, with absurd training every waking moment between and very little time to just digest it all or decompress.

Beyond his Aura, there was something else there, coiling through his veins like lightning, and suffusing his body with a strength he had never known before but felt enough in passing to recognize.

Magic.

Jaune Arc, in an act of defiance against the Gods themselves, had somehow become a male Magic user without otherwise being granted it by the Brothers themselves or someone Brother-Adjacent.

Compared to his Aura supply, it seemed… somewhat lacking, but if he could somehow figure out how to use his Semblance to just recharge when need be, did that truly matter?

It was a large assumption for him to make, and something he refused to test while enjoying the company of a stranger who didn't feel like they had their Aura unlocked, but there was a nagging feeling in his gut that told him that the lines between his Aura and Magic were nonexistent when it comes to his Semblance.

All of these small discoveries eventually led Jaune to ask the pertinent question and address the Megoliath in the room.

So, what then?

Did this hauntingly beautiful redhead somehow… bring him back from the dead?

Like… Ozma, and Salem?

Does that make the gorgeous stranger using him as a body pillow some sort of Goddess?

Staring down at the wondrous mounds of flesh pressed tightly against his own much harder musculature and further beyond at the wide hips and long legs that hardly hid the plump mound of her womanhood, the blond Huntsman found himself unable to deny that she certainly had the otherworldly beauty befitting a Goddess at the very least.

Call it intuition, but Jaune was willing to bet that he wouldn't be alive right now if not for the timely intervention of the redhead in his arms, and for that, he was willing to let her sleep for as long as she wanted.

Even if she wasn't, he wasn't one to turn down such a wonderful front row seat to such wondrous sights, high strung as he'd become after years of being surrounded by beautiful women that he couldn't even see, let alone touch.

This seemed like one of those kairos moments that Pyrrha often spoke about, that he could look back and say that it was right now, in this instant, where his life changed completely, even if he doesn't realize it in the moment itself.

At least, that's the definition he took away from her nervous ramblings at the time. Looking back at it with fresh eyes, Jaune saw the champion's unheard confession for what it was, and the pain that usually gripped his heart when reminded of his past ignorance came and went like the breeze.

For some reason, it didn't hurt as much as it usually did, and once more he found himself thanking the stranger who pulled him from the arms of death like a jealous wife.

At least he's alive enough to have regrets.

That means his chapter isn't as complete as he thought it would be.

And so, Jaune Arc would keep moving forward, until he was finally the hero he set out to be.