A/N: Volume 3 OP: "The World" by Jonathan Young

Chapter 3

To Walk with Death

Ruby Rose scratched at her head with the back of her pen as she looked over the copious notes she had taken. She was currently sitting in the chair in Emiya Shirou's room with her notebook opened on her lap while Shirou stood a bit away from her. "So, by activating my magic circuits, I can use the od made by my body to manipulate the inner workings of the world and bring about certain effects, right?" she asked in summary.

"More or less," Shirou confirmed with a nod.

Ruby collapsed into the chair and let out a groan of frustration before saying, "Man, this is so confusing!"

"I'm sorry. I've never taught anyone this stuff before and I'm not very good at it. I'm probably not explaining things very well," Shirou apologized almost reflexively with a bashful smile.

"Oh, nonononono! You're doing fine!" Ruby reassured him with a rapid wave of her arms as if to dispel Shirou's self-depreciation. "This is just a lot to take in, is all."

Shirou nodded, "Magi spend their entire lives studying and perfecting their magecraft. Most people start learning at a very young age. I started learning when I was about eight years old and even that's considered a bit of a late start."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm a fast learner!" Ruby gave him a big smile before moving on. "Now that I've got all this theory, how do I start actually practicing? How do I activate my magic circuits?"

Shirou grimaced, "That's a bit complicated. Well, the process is pretty simple and straightforward no matter how you look at it but our current situation is what makes it complicated."

"What do you mean by that?" Ruby asked with a tilt of her head.

"Normally, a person activates their magic circuits through a slow, gradual process as they grow and learn more of the theory. We don't have that kind of time, though, and you learn best through experience anyway so we'll have to take a shortcut. I'll have to forcibly activate them."

"That sounds kinda painful…" Ruby said hesitantly.

"It's not a pleasant experience but it doesn't hurt. Well, normally. It'll hurt a fair bit for you, regrettably."

"Wh-what do you mean?" Ruby asked, sweat starting to form at her brow as her skin paled slightly.

"In order to forcibly activate your magic circuits, I need to flood your body with my prana. There are three ways we can do that. The first would be for you to drink some of my blood. The bodily fluids of a magus are naturally filled with prana, you see."

"Ew! I'm not doing that! That's gross!"

"I figured you'd refuse," Shirou said with a small chuckle. "The second would be to transfer prana into you using a highly sympathetic medium. Given my Element and Origin, that would mean I'd have to stab you with an athame."

"W-wait, stab me‽ You'll have to stab me‽ Wh-what about the third option‽"

"The third option is completely off the table so I won't even tell you what it is." Shirou very purposely avoided looking at Ruby as he said that; a light blush dusting his cheeks. This greatly confused Ruby but she put that aside for now.

Ruby looked down at her notebook for a long moment as she considered this. After a time, she asked without looking up, "Learning magecraft will help me save people, right?"

"It will. There are a lot of people that I wouldn't have been able to save without it. However, magecraft is not magic; learning it won't solve all of your problems. There are countless more people that I was unable to save despite knowing it. Furthermore, there's an inherent risk to it. To be a magus means to walk with death. If you try to perform a magecraft that you don't have the energy for, it could take years off of your lifespan at best or outright kill you at worst. Even if you do have the energy for the spell, something could go wrong during the casting and the backlash could cause massive damage."

Ruby was silent for another long moment before looking up at Shirou and saying, "I'm going to be a Huntress. I'm going to be putting my life on the line constantly anyway. If it means I could save even one more person, I'll gladly take the risk. I'll do it. I'll become a magus."

Shirou beamed at Ruby's declaration as her words brought to mind a beautiful ideal that he had once held. He was shown once again that Ruby was on the very same path he had been a lifetime ago and he silently reaffirmed the promise he had made to himself that early morning on the day of the entrance exam.

"Alright. The first thing we need to do is find out how many magic circuits you have and of what quality. That way I can make sure I put enough prana into the athame."

"How do we do that?"

"Simple. Just hold still." Shirou walked up to Ruby and placed a hand on her head, much to her surprise and confusion. "Trace, on." Shirou sent a wave of prana through Ruby as he used his Structural Grasp to analyze every part of her body and soul. What he found absolutely shocked him and made him instinctively take a step back as his mouth hung open.

"Shirou? Is everything alright?" Ruby asked, more than a little worried by his reaction.

"That can't be right. I must have done something wrong," Shirou said more to himself than to her. He stepped back up to her and replaced his hand. A moment passed and then another as Shirou stood stock still, his skin completely pale and his eyes wide in shock.

"Sh-Shirou?"

Ruby's words seemed to snap Shirou out of his daze as he removed his hand and staggered toward his bed before sitting down heavily on it. He looked straight on unblinkingly at Ruby with an expression somewhere between amazement and disbelief. "If my scan was accurate," Shirou started slowly, "you have over one hundred magic circuits of exceptionally high quality."

"I take it that's a lot?" Ruby said, a little unnerved by Shirou's reaction.

"Let me put it to you this way: Your average magus has about 20 magic circuits. I have 27. The most powerful magus I knew personally had around 70. Furthermore, magic circuits are graded by how much magical energy they can store. Mine can hold about 10 units apiece. That other magus could hold about 14 units. Yours can hold about 16. That means you can store about 1,600 units of magical energy, if not more. That's— I don't think 'absurd' covers it."

"That's a good thing, though, right?"

"I suppose it is. Although, this means that I'll need a bit of time to charge the athame." Now back under control, Shirou quickly traced the Azoth sword. This ornate dagger with a jewel in its pommel was the perfect athame for this kind of thing so Shirou quickly got to work filling it with his prana while also drawing in mana from the atmosphere to replenish his reserves.

"While we're waiting, there's the important matter of your first spell. Once your magic circuits are activated and you know what they feel like, you'll need to learn how to activate them yourself."

"And that's a spell?"

"In a sense, yes. However, unlike most spells which are done to bring about a change in the outer world, this spell is more like a form of self-hypnotism used to bring about a change in the self. It's a word or phrase combined with a mental image that signals your change from a Human to a magus."

Ruby's face lit up in recognition, "Oh! Is that what you're doing when you say 'Trace, on'?"

"That's right. I also accompany those words with the image of the hammer of a gun falling."

"Do I have to use those, too?"

"No. I suppose you could but the words and image don't terribly matter in the grand scheme of things. In my experience, they're not really things you choose so much as things you discover, though. I didn't really choose my words or image, they're just what felt right and natural."

"How long will that take?"

"Who knows? It could happen today, a week from now, or years from now. Knowing your aptitude for just about everything, though, I don't think it'll take that long."

From there, the topic shifted to schoolwork and general gossip for several minutes as they waited for the Azoth sword to be sufficiently charged. When it was, both parties stood up and approached each other; Ruby slightly rolling up her shirt to reveal her stomach.

"Are you ready?" Shirou asked as he placed his left hand on Ruby's shoulder and held the Azoth sword in his right.

Ruby swallowed nervously and nodded as she dropped her Aura, "Ready as I'll ever be."

"Oh, one last thing: Don't tell Yang." Before Ruby could properly react to his words, Shirou quickly and carefully stabbed Ruby's exposed stomach and released the stored prana with the command word "läßt."

Ruby's eyes widened and the words she had been about to say died in her throat, the air coming out as something between a gasp and a squeak as her flesh was pierced for the first time that she could remember. Her mind struggled to process the pain for a moment before that sensation was overwritten by a feeling unlike any she had ever experienced. It was like every nerve in her body was set on fire at once as her entire being was filled with a terrifying yet oddly soothing power. All of her senses were sent into overdrive as she became almost painfully aware of all of the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations around her. She could feel every last inch of the blade embedded in her abdomen, could feel as the cold metal was quickly extracted, could feel as her wound started to heal itself as she instinctively reactivated her Aura.

This is what it meant to walk with death. This is what it meant to stop being a Human and turn yourself into a magus. It was at this exact moment that Ruby Rose died and it was at this exact moment that Ruby Rose was born. It was a feeling that she could barely comprehend and certainly couldn't put into words yet it was a feeling that was warm and welcoming; like coming home after a long trip. Just as Ruby Rose knew deep down that she needed to be a Huntress, Ruby Rose now realized that she also needed to be a magus. This was her fate.

A moment passed and then another, Shirou watching carefully as the stab wound on Ruby's stomach quickly healed itself before using a projected cloth to wipe off the blood. It happened at a far quicker rate than he expected and he couldn't help but wonder if Ruby was instinctively using healing magecraft as well in order to heal nearly as fast as a Servant could. When Ruby was silent for another few moments, unmoving and unblinking, Shirou tentatively asked, "How do you feel?"

Ruby started at the sound of Shirou's voice and shook herself from her stupor. "I… I feel… amazing," she said almost breathlessly. Shirou smiled somewhat uncertainly. It hadn't been quite what he was expecting but he wasn't about to complain.

"Congratulations, Ruby. You've taken the first step to becoming a magus."

OoOoOoO

Cinder Fall was just about as happy as she had ever been. Who could blame her, really? When all of the various plans you had been working on for so long started to come together so absolutely perfectly, who wouldn't be happy? Things hadn't gone precisely according to plan, sure, but the beauty of these plans was that they still worked even when they were "thwarted." The people of Vale were riding high and would no doubt only climb higher in the following weeks as their so-called heroes shine ever brighter. However, the closer one gets to the light, the longer and deeper their shadow becomes.

Not even the recent revelation changed matters. "So, Emiya Shirou is, indeed, a magus?" Cinder asked in confirmation from the safety of her magically protected dorm room.

Emerald Sustrai nodded, "There's a bounded field around his room. I could barely tell it was there even when looking for it and I couldn't figure out what it did beyond basic detection so he must be a very talented one."

"Do you think he'll cause problems?"

Emerald made a face as though she tasted something sour, "It's hard to say. The only people working for us who saw what he could do and lived to tell the tale are Roman and Neo. I can assume that he has a Mystic Code lance lying around somewhere and has knowledge of bounded fields but that's about it and neither of those things really tell us anything."

"Why don'tcha fight him and find out?" Mercury Black asked from where he lay on his bed reading a comic. Cinder honestly had no idea where he got those things from or where he kept them since he seemed to have a new one every day.

"It's not that easy," Emerald said with a glare that Mercury ignored. "We're not dealing with your average Hunter-in-training trying to keep their Semblance a secret. A magus lives and dies by their mysteries and they put a lot of effort into making sure no one knows exactly what their mysteries are and how they work. If he didn't use his magecraft even when fighting Pyrrha, he wouldn't use it when fighting anyone else unless we were trying to kill him."

"Then we just kill him and get it over with."

"That's not an option yet," Cinder interjected, already growing bored with the constant bickering of her subordinates. "Emiya Shirou is too high profile right now and the timing isn't right. The people of Vale need to be completely confident in the strength of their so-called heroes if the plan is going to succeed."

"Yeah, yeah. I know," Mercury said with a dismissive wave. "That's why I'll just kill him during the tournament. Then I'll just hide his body somewhere and no one will be the wiser until everything's over."

"If anyone's going to assassinate him, it should be me. You don't know the first thing about fighting a magus," Emerald countered.

"Maybe but all the magic bullshit in the world won't matter if he doesn't see me coming."

"An interesting proposition," Cinder interjected, "but no. I need both of you to be at the arena and perfectly healthy. I need both of you at your peak to make sure the plan goes off without a hitch and the risk is too great. Besides, he'll likely be spending all of his time at the arena watching his pathetic little friends; he's hardly ever apart from them. If he does decide to interfere, he'll be too late and too far away to do anything.

"One last thing: Emerald, I need you to deactivate the bounded field we have in this room. We can't have him finding it and getting suspicious."

"Yes, ma'am," Emerald said with a nod. She crouched down and placed a hand on the floor and muttered "Actualization" before sending out a weak pulse of prana. "Done."

"Very good. We'll just have to be a bit more careful about what we say here and when. All of the pieces are in place and now we just have to be good little students until the time is ripe."

Yes, just a little more until the house of cards that Ozpin had so carefully built came tumbling down. A lot of people would die and the destruction would be massive but it was a small price to pay.

After all, there is no price too great when one is trying to save the world.

OoOoOoO

"I see. Ruby is making great progress as a magus, then," Ozpin said from where he sat behind his desk in his office. Across from him stood Shirou who had just finished giving his progress report.

"I suppose," Shirou said reluctantly, "but you know as well as I do that I can't teach Ruby much more than the basics. You're a magus, right? Wouldn't it be better if you taught her?"

"From a certain point of view, yes," Ozpin said after taking a drink of his cocoa. "However, you know how Ruby learns far better than I do and you're just as knowledgeable of the basics as I am. The wonderful thing about magecraft is that, since its rules are dictated by the Root, they remain the same regardless of the world."

"So I've noticed. Even the influence of the World isn't all that different. I still feel a bit out of my depth here, though. It's always been other people explaining these things to me, not the other way around."

"I'm certain that you'll do fine. You'll likely want to pass your knowledge on to your children, if you choose to have them, so just consider this practice for that, especially if you decide to pass down a Magic Crest. I won't leave you completely on your own in this, though. I happen to have a book or two on the subject that you might find quite useful."

"You're willing to give away information like that?" Shirou asked with some surprise. "Magi in this world really are different."

"Not really. What I'm doing is certainly unusual but neither you nor I were usual to start with. Personally, I find your typical magi's desire to hoard all knowledge for themselves to be particularly grating. I, perhaps more than anyone, certainly understand the need for secrecy but there are times when secrecy is detrimental."

"Fair enough. Thank you very much. I'll be sure to put the knowledge to good use," Shirou said with a bow.

"I'll have the books for you later today. Moving on, have you found anything during your survey of the grounds?"

"I found a lot of things. Recreational drugs, a few illegal drugs, a number of gambling rings, some porn that I'm pretty sure will give me nightmares, and way too much gossip. The only magical presence I detected was a bounded field around Team CFVY's dorm, though." Shirou had also found quite a few alcohol stashes but that was one thing he would never report due to having one of his own for cooking purposes.

"As to be expected. Fox Alistair hails from a family of magi; one of the oldest known lineages, in fact."

"Then why is he training to become a Huntsman?"

"His family is unfortunately no longer with us. Since Remnant doesn't possess anything like Earth's Mage's Association, there was no way to easily place him in the care of another magi family. Thus, he eventually found his way here."

"Ah, I see. Well, since my search came back empty, what should my next move be?"

"I believe that you should stay the course. Keep training Ruby and helping your friends in whatever way you see fit. The Vytal Festival is close at hand and it will be a great learning experience for them."

"So, we just wait for them to make their next move?"

"That's right. When the enemy's next move is unknown and they cannot be found, the best course of action is to build your strength so that you may be ready to react and hopefully have the power to thwart their scheme."

"I can't say I like it but I also can't really think of anything else I could do. Do you really have no idea what they could be planning?"

Ozpin hummed in thought as he took another sip of his cocoa, "I do, actually, and I'm certain you do as well. The knowledge isn't particularly helpful, though."

"The Maiden and/or Relic," Shirou said with a slow nod.

"Precisely. Furthermore, they likely intend to interfere with our CCT Tower in some fashion."

"Didn't you and General Ironwood have people go through all of its systems?"

"We did but just because our finest minds found nothing doesn't truly mean that there was nothing to be found. Salem has an even finer mind working for her, after all. Of course, it's equally possible that Ruby managed to stop our infiltrator before she could do anything."

"And, since it's impossible to tell either way, there's nothing we can do short of replacing all of the hardware."

"Precisely, and that's not an option given how close to the Vytal Festival this happened."

Shirou let out a weary sigh, more than a little frustrated, "It feels like we're playing right into their hands. I don't even know if stopping that train and the raid was really a victory anymore."

"It most assuredly was. Even if your victory there was accounted for in their plans, that does not change the fact that your interference saved an untold number of lives in the short term, as well as a not-insignificant amount of property damage. That was a hard-fought victory. Do not let the ongoing war make you doubt your victories no matter how insignificant they may seem."

Shirou hummed thoughtfully as memories of Saber's life that he had seen during his dream cycle came back to him. "You're right. We might not be in the best position but that doesn't mean we can't still win. If that'll be all, I should probably be going now."

Shirou turned and started to leave but stopped near the door as Ozpin called out, "Oh, one last thing before you leave; consider it a bit of homework since the process will help you more than if I just gave you the answer outright. I want you to consider the following term given what you currently know of Remnant and magecraft as well as what will be in those books: Mystic Eyes of Purification."

"Mystic Eyes of Purification…" Shirou parrotted thoughtfully before shaking his head. "I'll be sure to do that. Goodbye, Professor," Shirou said with a bow before making his way out of the room.

"Goodbye, Shirou."

OoOoOoO

Beacon was a veritable hive of activity. While it was normally fairly active between classes and especially when school was not in session, the number of students who attended arguably the most prestigious Hunter academy only number in the 60s. Now, however, as the day of the Vytal Festival drew ever nearer, that number had more than doubled as students from the other three major Hunter academies poured in.

The process of their arrival was as odd as it was interesting. Three of the four academies prided themselves on letting their students express their individuality and letting these young adults have a level of freedom greater than that of most other schools. As such, it was standard practice that, once the Festival was only a few months away, students were allowed to make their way to the chosen school whenever and however they wanted with an official transport being reserved for the faculty and any stragglers the week before.

The only exception to this was Atlas Academy of the country of the same name. Atlas Academy, perhaps still clinging to their old ways from before the Great War, prided itself on raising up soldiers rather than true Hunters. The entire academy was incredibly rigid and militaristic in its structure with very specific wake up and lights out times as well as dress code and regulations. In fact, the vast majority of graduating "Hunters" from Atlas went on to join the nation's military rather than taking on the mercenary life of more typical professional Hunters.

What the arrival of all these students meant for the students of Beacon was that things were changing in ways unexpected by most of the student body. All physical demonstrations and tests were put to a halt and were replaced by classes that focused more on strategy and theory over anything else. The logic behind this change was very simple once explained or thought about: Keeping those physical activities would reveal the capabilities of Beacon's students and thus give them a handicap in the upcoming tournament. Thus, all such activities were halted once the number of expected foreign students reached half and any extracurricular training was heavily discouraged on school grounds. This was a logic that all academies, even Atlas, followed.

As such, when the physical lessons came to an end, Team RWBY reached an agreement and approached Shirou, who was currently studying in the library.

"Shirou, we need to ask you something," Ruby said as she and her team stopped at the table Shirou was working at.

"Why do I have a bad feeling about this?" Shirou asked sardonically. "What is it?"

"We want to fight you. Not one-on-one but all of us together and to Aura break," Ruby said.

Shirou closed the book he was reading and leaned back in his chair as he calmly observed the four girls. "What makes you think four-on-one would be a fair fight?"

"Oh come on, Shirou," Yang Xiao Long said with the slightest bit of heat. "We have an idea of what you're really capable of now. You've been holding back like crazy this entire time. We're pretty sure you weren't even going all out against Pyrrha that one time."

"I was, from a certain point of view. It's not like I was trying to kill her, after all."

"Even so, we only saw you use two swords in that fight and we all saw how radically different your fighting style was when using that lance or that golden sword. You were fighting at a level way higher than usual with those," Weiss Schnee pointed out.

Shirou eyed them for a moment, weighing his options. "When and where do you propose we have this fight?"

"This Saturday at noon in the clearing you fought Pyrrha. You can use your magecraft to make sure we don't draw too much attention," Blake Belladonna said, knowing that such a thing was well within Shirou's capabilities. Today was currently Monday so that left everyone with roughly five days to prepare.

After weighing his options for another long moment, Shirou finally said, "Very well, then. However, I want Ruby to deploy a sound dampening bounded field with a silent alarm large enough to cover the entire clearing and ten meters beyond it in every direction without my help. You already have everything you need to do that. Consider it a test."

"I won't let you down, Shirou!" Ruby said with a sharp salute.

"Well, I suppose we all have a lot of preparing to do. Ladies, if you'll excuse me."

A/N: There's something that I need to address up top that I'm kinda amazed that I need to that's really. Just because something is unexplained when it's introduced doesn't mean that there's no explanation or reason for it. Feel free to continue to ask for clarifications since I might not have done the best job explaining something or maybe it's something I didn't think needed explaining. Just be aware that it's likely that a lot of questions will be met with the same answer: It'll be explained later. The most important question that has that as the answer is why Shirou can't just go kill Salem with Harpe.

The next chapter is going to be real fun since I'm going to have to address perhaps the most common complaint I've gotten in the closing A/N but I'll just say this much for now: Shirou is one of the strongest characters in this story at this stage. There are people who stand head-and-shoulders above him- pretty much all villains- and there are people who outclass him in any given category but that's it. If you really stop and think about his past encounters, you should see that this holds true and it will only be made more apparent in this volume. I'll do a breakdown of everything in the next chapter.

As a final note, I went back to the Shirou VS Pyrrha fight and changed it to where Shirou doesn't use the Overedge form of K&B... on AO3. Updating chapters on is still a pain. If you want to see the definitive version of this story- and all of my stories- and want to ensure that I see your review and get a notification when/if I respond, please go there. If nothing else, the story tags will be enlightening. The synopsis is also longer over there, too.

Oh, and the interludes are back, baby!

See you next week!

Interlude 9
Elementary, My Dear
During V3C3

Emiya Shirou and Ruby Rose sat in the former's room on the floor. Between them was an array of cards that Shirou was shuffling with practiced ease.

"How are these cards gonna tell my Element, again?" Ruby asked.

"There's a degree of fate when it comes to magecraft. Any type of divination that relies on what could be called luck can work, this one is just what I know." Shirou finished shuffling the cards and held the stack out to Ruby. "Here. Place your hand on top of them and channel your prana through them." Once she had done so, Shirou shuffled the cards one last time before placing five of them face down in a star array and one card face up in the center.

Shirou looked at the card then at the book laying open next to him. He flipped through it to a different page and Ruby watched as a look of confusion passed over his face. Before she could ask what was up, he regathered the cards, shuffled, and dealt them in a different pattern. He then looked at the book once more before looking back at the card in intrigue.

"So? What's my Element?" Ruby asked somewhat nervously.

"It says here that your Element is Bloom."

"What does that mean?"

"Apparently, you'll be good with magecraft that stimulates rapid growth and explosions of power."

"Oooooo. That sounds fun!" Ruby said as she clapped excitedly, stars in her eyes.

"It might be. Other than prana burst and maybe strengthening, I don't know any spells that fit that description. I'll have to see if I can learn some."

"That's still really cool! Thanks for the help, Shirou!"

"Anytime."