Chapter 27 – Oztin

(in case you didn't get it)

"But as I said, all my friends call me Austin. Though, truthfully, I suspect I'll only be keeping the first syllable."

I guess we're friends, then? How utterly special.

Blake had no idea why the young man was putting such emphasis on his name, like it was some grand revelation. It was the exact same thing as the first time he'd mentioned it to them, nor did it have any unique meaning that made it more significant all of a sudden.

"Alright, Austin," she said calmly, hoping it didn't come across as condescending. "As my colleagues and I were discussing, we think it would be best if you came with us to Vale." She looked across the failing farm, stopping when she reached the torched house in which he used to reside. "There's nothing for you here."

"I heartily concur on the latter, but the former is regrettably inaccurate. Vale is not where I am most needed." He stroked his chin with the fingertips of one hand, continuing to move the digits long after he'd let go of his face. It was like he was pretending to have a beard or something, and it didn't look natural at all. "I think you three deserve an explanation, but I wouldn't burden you with my life story. I scarcely think we possess the time."

It was difficult for Blake to decide if insane ramblings about assassins was better or worse than cryptically talking in circles. Both were grating on her nerves, but the second of the two could probably do so much faster if she continued to allow it.

"Sir, we –"

"I have a semblance. A…A unique one, which has burdened me with great grief over the many, many years."

Mr. Alizarin, or Austin as he wanted to be known, raised a hand, and a green light appeared on his fingertips. He held his arm out in front of him, and the light shimmered along the length of it all the way to his shoulder blade, then rapidly expanded to encompass his entire body. Then, as quickly as it began, the normal coloration of his skin returned, once again starting with the fingertips and spreading outwards like a fire.

"But it's also a powerful one. My body can be destroyed, but my soul will never cease. It passes on from one host to another like a parasite…and sadly, in my case, the relationship is not mutualism or symbiosis. My mind eventually consumes my hosts."

Weird semblance talk…Blake had heard similar stuff before. Every now and again, some tabloid published the odd piece of pseudo-religious malarkey about a miracle huntress born with miraculous powers to return life to the dead by speaking their name or a huntsman with glowing eyes that instantly killed Grimm just by looking at them. The claims were always unfounded, and the claimants usually fizzled out of popularity when they were unable to prove their boasts.

That didn't mean this guy wasn't legitimate, though. He clearly possessed some sort of semblance or aura control, given the way he manipulated the light over his skin, but whether he was speaking the truth about rebirth was something Blake wouldn't rule on until she saw proof with her own two eyes.

"My previous host, Osrynne, was an aged man who took my soul at the age fifteen and carried it for the next ninety years. He was killed by assassins – one tends to rack up powerful enemies when one cannot pass – hence young Augustine's paranoia."

He was talking about himself in the third person, and Blake was really starting to get worried that this was a mental breakdown or cry for help. That would certainly be easier to swallow than mysterious, godlike powers of immortality.

"Are you…e-even…Mr. Alizarin?" Velvet asked. "You don't talk like him…"

Blake hadn't even considered that. This could be an imposter, as semblances of faking appearances were also far more common than rebirth.

"I subsume my hosts over time, as a side effect of my presence in their mind. However, as I had no pressing obligations and Sal…and my enemy has been inactive for generations now, I felt no need to rush. Augustine wished to stay on his farm, and I permitted him to do so for as long as I could. For most of his life, he wasn't even aware of my existence. However, when the process of our minds merging began, my old memories began to cross over into his. He saw my desires to leave and battled them with his own need to remain, hence his temperamental behavior in the past few days. Furthermore, specific memories, those of hundreds of my lives being killed over the centuries, compiled themselves into a specific belief that he was being chased by hundreds of people, even though the passage of time itself has slain all those who killed me."

This was starting to get weird. If this guy was speaking the truth about it all and had been inside the minds of hundreds of people…

Assuming an average of fifty years, that means he's five-thousand years old or longer. That would put him at being born right on the verge of humanity and the Faunus coming together as a civilization from isolated hunter-gatherer tribes. And hundreds of assassins? It's bizarre that he's been killed by people every time and not disease, hunger, or accidental injuries.

Again, that was all dependent on whether or not he was lying.

But he didn't sound like he was lying.

He really is acting changed. It could be split personalities or just good acting, but odd semblances do exist in the world. Mantle has a human lie-detector in their army, and the vice headmistress of Shade is said to be able to turn any metal to gold with just a touch. A mind controller was arrested in Vacuo for terrorism and human trafficking just two years ago. In a pool of infinite powers where there's never been an example of an overlap, isn't it possible that someone has the power to transfer their mind from body to body?

"A-Are you…are we safe being around you?" Jaune asked, stepping just a few paces backwards. Blake could have scoffed – it wasn't like a single stride of distance would make a difference against mind jumping.

"It's no risk. The powers choose a random host, and it's only when I die." Austin folded his arms behind his back. "However, as I mentioned prior, it is time for me to resume my journeys. The world of Remnant is a vast place, and with Augustine gone, there's no more need for me to hide myself away from it. To that end…"

He stepped forward towards Jaune, who once again took another step back. Austin just smiled and shook his head.

"I mean you no harm. There is merely a gift I must bestow upon you for your generosity. Augustine's last few days could have been far less pleasant had he not been in the company of such pleasant people. You were his only source of comfort in a turbulent, changing state of existence, and for that you must be rewarded."

Austin gestured his arms wide open.

"You may have the farm."

Okay, Blake was really starting to believe this was a mental breakdown. He'd been obsessed beyond reason about keeping his land within his grasp and not even letting farmhands, veterinarians, or any helpers onto it, and now he was just handing it away? As a gift to three people he met a week ago?

"It's not as though I need it. I won't even be able to make use of it, traveling the lands as I shall soon be. Consider it a token of gratitude from the kindness of my and my host's heart to the three folks who safeguarded our shared body in the time of greatest need."

"W-We don't…" Blake had been about to decline, but she rephrased it out of politeness. "…we can't run a farm."

"Then sell it. It would sit here and rot if I left it unattended, or perhaps the kingdom and council would claim it via eminent domain due to my la…due to Augustine's lack of a will. As I understand it, you three could use the funds that would come from the purchase of such a tract of land."

He knelt down and ran a hand along the grass. Plucking a single blade from the field on which they stood, he lifted it up to eye level, then let it fall from his hand.

"Would that it could be mine, if only to keep the legacy within the body of one bearing the Alizarin bloodline, but a farmer I am not. My thoughts remain, but his are no longer a portion of this world's collective thought space. His wish to remain on his homestead until the ends of his natural life has been realized, but for all intents and purposes, Augustine Alizarin is deceased."

Team Job didn't really understand, but they had no means to protest it. Austin's explanation was a bizarre one, but it had no visible holes in the story, and the evidence supporting his otherwise psychotic claims was there, in the medium of his own changed demeanor. No human or Faunus, regardless of their acting talent, could forge such a performance. Whatever change had happened to him inside of that barn, be it a veritable mind merge between a farmer and an immortal, the emergence of a new personality from Augustine's schizophrenia, or something different, this Austin person was what remained. All that remained.

They agreed to take the farm, since he'd explicitly told them it was going to 'go to waste' if they didn't, but it wasn't some simple handoff of a piece of paper with the word 'deed' at the top. Since the new Austin was the same person as Mr. Alizarin, the quadrilateral plot of land was listed in his name at the Valean Bureau of Land Management and Registry (actually under the name of his grandparents, since it hadn't been updated when they died), and he could prove his identity using his fingerprints.

Velvet and Jaune were left behind to tend to the farm as best they could (mainly to keep the cows and sheep from dying) while Blake flew out and arranged the transfer of ownership. They'd conversed about what exactly they wanted to do with the random farm bequeathed upon them before Blake and Austin had flown out, and Team Job had unanimously agreed that selling it to the bank would be the best course of action.

"We aren't farmers, and neither was the previous manager of the farm," Velvet pointed out. "It's going to take professionals to turn this place around. We probably won't get much."

"But the land should be worth a lot, right?" Jaune asked. "Everyone always says Vale is overcrowded, and this area is huuuuge."

"It's not worth as much as you'd think," Velvet, their resident Valean and expert on the kingdom, explained. "Land inside the walls is highly valued, but you can go out and claim any plot of land outside of it, and unless someone else already has it registered in their name, it's yours. Space itself isn't valuable, though the fact that this forest has been cleared down will make it worth more…probably a few K. The barn, the workshop, and the livestock will be worth something as well. The crops themselves will last a while, but not indefinitely. We might not get millions, but we'll be getting something we can use if we sell. I think it's the best thing we can do."

Blake promised them she would do just that. She might have been the leader, but Velvet, as a citizen of Vale, was the expert, and Blake knew to defer to her wisdom here.

To streamline the process, Blake mostly just joined Austin as he spoke to the suits and got to selling his property. There was no need for him to transfer it from his name to their if it was going to then be sold to the banks once again, so he did all the work. She did sign a few documents, but solely as a witness as per some Valean property clause that she'd never heard of. It was extremely boring to just wait around, but the payday at the end was enough to keep Blake interested.

Eight hours later, the bank account that Austin had set up for this was swelling with a large sum of lien.

Eight hours and three minutes later, Austin's bank account was closed out, with all of the money now in Blake's hands.

"You may not need your farm if you're going to travel, but you need something to start with," Blake explained, handing him the money.

Velvet had been the one to convince her to sell, but Jaune had been the one to insist upon this one. Austin wouldn't get far in his new life if he didn't have some starting cash on hand, and with the countless fortunes that they were getting, they could afford to spare fifty thousand of it to him without risking ruin.

It's his money, anyways. He's giving it to us out of generosity, and we'd be fools not to take it, but we'd be set with even a quarter of it. Jaune's right – we'll all sleep better if we know he has some of it.

"I can't take this," said Austin, as she tried to hand him the withdrawn lien chips. The two of them were in the lobby of the bank at which they'd finished the business.

"It's yours," Blake said, pushing them into his hands again. "And it's only 10% of what you sold your land for. We appreciate your generosity, but you need some of your own money if you want to…travel, or whatever you plan on doing next."

Austin shook his head surely. "It's no more mine than it is yours. It belonged to Augustine, and he's no more."

"You're giving it to us because you said we cared for him in his final moments. Well, if I understand your story correctly, you left him to his own peace for years when you could have taken control or revealed yourself sooner. Consider this your cut of the rewards."

She kept shoving the money his way, and eventually he relented. "Th-Thank you. I shan't forget this."

Blake offered him her hand, and he shook it.

"I wish you well wherever you find yourself, mister," she said.

"Perhaps a time shall come when our paths cross again," he responded, taking back his hand. "Until then, I shall bid you goodbye. Farewell, my friend."

And then, pushing out of the doors, he stepped out onto the streets of Vale. Blake followed him at a slight distance to see where he would go and what he would do, but the young man just drew in a hearty breath of air, slowly let it out, and smiled.

It was only a second that she looked away, the honking of a passing car in a traffic jam involuntarily drawing her attention, but when she turned back, he was gone. And perhaps it was Blake's imagination, but the brick of sidewalk on which he'd been standing seemed to be faintly tinged green.

After putting the money they'd made (which was a large amount) safely under her bed, for Blake didn't yet know what they were going to do with it, she went back to Benson's to fly back and pick up Jaune and Blake. It was just as short a ride as the other two times she'd gone out to the farm, but this time she felt a whole lot lighter.

We've made enough money to retire, and it only took us one week. It's like fortune has rewarded us for all the shit we got put through before this.

The farm was now teeming with people when she arrived, but Jaune and Velvet were waiting at the outskirts, ready to be picked up.

"I'm a little surprised that you can just, you know, sell everything like that in one day," Jaune said once he'd loaded onto their airship. "Like, that was more land than my entire home village of Ansel, and it traded hands that fast?"

"It was nearly eight hours," grumbled Blake. To her, sitting around and waiting for nearly a full day's shift wasn't exactly 'fast.'

"Banks get a lot of leeway from the government when they want to purchase real estate," Velvet explained. "If we sold the farm to a normal person, they would need to do all sorts of paperwork, inspections, visits, and whatnot. A bank has those forms pre-filled our and ready to be signed and people on hand to go and look at the property in question at a moment's notice."

"Was that the people there?" Blake asked. She'd seen a cluster of people, some wearing suits and others wearing construction clothing, who'd been congregated around the barn. "Were they inspecting it?"

"Not quite. They were people sent from the bank, but they came hours ago, when you were still with Mr. Aliz…with the guy. They ran the inspections, asked us…well, asked Jaune a bunch of questions, and then spread out to look it over. I think they assumed we were employees or something."

Blake looked back out the window at the bank inspectors. "So what are they doing now?"

Velvet shrugged and collapsed back into her seat. "I don't fucking know. Preparing to flip it? I'm not a real estate agent or something; I just learned a lot of this stuff back in Beacon, because they thought we needed to know how villages came and went out in the wilds."

They flew the rest of the way in relative silence. Blake could tell the other two were eager to know just how full Team Job's coffers were, but an airship in the sky wasn't the ideal place to conduct their business, not when it was the single biggest change to their company to date.

Once again, Team Job was in possession of a large case of money. It was about the same size as usual, little bigger than a briefcase or laptop bag, but the chips inside were of a much larger denomination than last time. Fifty times larger, to be precise.

They were in Jaune and Blake's apartment once again, with Velvet as a visiting guest to discuss their business. Jaune and Velvet could clearly see the money, for the case was opened and on Blake's dining table, but they both just impatiently stared at Blake for her to tell them what they actually had.

"You could probably mathematically determine the haul by the size of the case and the dimensions of the –"

"Blake…"

"Velvet, you're drooling."

"I'm not!"

"She's not, Blake!"

Blake forced herself to sigh. Velvet may as well have been drooling. It was a lot of money, and Blake could understand how they were excited, but she really wanted them to back out of her personal space a little bit.

"Okay," she said at last. "Factoring out expenses like our larger than normal Dust expenditure, double airship flights to and from the farm, and the 10% we gave to Austin, we made a profit of…"

The others leaned in even closer, and Blake really started to get uncomfortable.

"Can you guys back off a little bit? Please?"

"Just tell us!" they shouted in unison.

Blake sighed. These kids are gonna be the death of me.

"Four hundred and seventy-nine thousand, f–"

"FOUR HUNDRED TH–"

Blake reached forward and flicked Jaune's chin, clapping his trap shut before he could go and shout out just how loaded they were to the neighbors. Vale was typically safe, but until Blake had deposited the lien in their bank account, she wasn't going to be giving robbers, thieves, or other criminals any help.

And that was what they were here for. Their contract with Velvet entitled her to 30% of the profit, and the rest would be left with Jaune.

To that end, Blake began to remove some of the chips and slide them towards Velvet. Fourteen of the forty-seven she was owed, plus change.

"We probably won't need to take missions for a while after this," Blake said as she took out the tenth chip. "I think a well-deserved vacation is due for the team. Twelve, thirteen…fourteen. Here you go, Vel."

"Heh…C-Coco used to…" Velvet awkwardly shook her head. "N-Never mind. B-But Blake, I was thinking –"

"This should set you up nicely for the duration of your pregnancy," Blake said. She'd nearly forgotten about that little nugget during the excitement with their mind-swapping employer and sudden swell in wealth, but it was still there in the back of her head, especially when she looked at Velvet and that slightly tubby stomach of hers.

"Blake, I…I have a suggestion."

"Okay. Uh, shoot."

"I think…I-I think…look, I wanna clarify that I'm not trying to tell you how to run the business." Velvet began to tap her foot nervously. "I'm just giving my advice. I know my place is –"

"We don't have places," Blake quickly said, fearful that they'd ever given that impression. "We might each be good at stuff, but that doesn't mean we can't help one another out."

"Okay." Velvet inhaled and nodded. "My advice is that we should invest in the company."

It was a strange and bizarre thing, to see someone willingly slide one hundred and forty thousand lien away from themselves when it was rightfully theirs, especially when that someone was a single mother.

"Y-You don't want it?"

"I do. I want it a lot, but it's not like it's going to last me for the rest of my life. My rent and other weekly expenses are over seven thousand lien per month, so this won't even last me a full two years. A-And yeah, that's a long time, but I'm going to eventually need to start hunting…starting providing security again, and my expenses will only go up when the baby is born.

"The company that invests in itself will always succeed over the one that doesn't. We have a lot of capital on our hands, and there's no lack of ways to spend it. We regularly pay three thousand lien each flight on an airship…you guys, we could buy our own airship. And we're meeting in your apartment to do our work. If we got an office space to actually operate out of…"

Velvet looked down longingly at her share of the profits, but her face hardened, and she nodded to herself.

"This could be an interest free loan that we use to make Team Job a company…a real, actual company instead of three dropouts doing their best. We don't have to give up all of our money, and it'd be prudent to save some for a rainy day, but investing a little bit now can make everything easier for us in the long run."

Blake looked at what remained in her and Jaune possession and ran some quick numbers in her head.

70% of about five hundred grand, with ten grand rent a month…we'd only last two and a half years if we decided to settle here and now. It's not like we're set for life.

It wasn't like Blake had intended on retiring after this job, but her big plan had just been to deposit the money in her bank account and let it sit there. It would collect a little interest in there (about 0.1% annually), but it would otherwise just stagnate.

She's probably right. The point of money is to spend it. If it's just sitting around collecting dust, we may as well have never earned it.

In the end, it came down to whether or not Blake thought having a fat wallet or a prosperous company was better insurance in the event that they ran into some hard times.

"Damn it," Blake said, taking back the lien chips. "You're right."

Velvet nodded forlornly, and Jaune actually had the audacity to pout, but he had probably learned somewhere in his general education economics class that a steady source of income was always a surer prospect than a single lump sum.

Blake sealed the case of lien. "I guess we'd better start airship shopping, then."

"It sucks butt," Jaune griped, reaching into his pocket and taking out a small piece of paper. "We finally get enough money to buy our own airship, and we were on the ninth punch of our punch card with Benson. The next flight would have been free."

Mission Complete: Assassins at the Alizarin Farm

Client Review: I wasn't murdered in my sleep by assassins, so I can only conclude that Team Job's mission was a resounding success. [5/5 stars]

Current Holdings (lien): Ⱡ 497,430

Current Holdings (assets): Benson Airship Rental punchcard (nine punches)

Current Holdings (realty): none

Employees: 3

Coming Soon: New Digs

Spending money has never been so stressful for Jaune.

Author's Notes

So that's the source of our canon divergence. Ozpin isn't Ozpin - he's just Pin. He's just a run of the mill guy with nothing going on for him, which is why he didn't sign Jaune and Blake up for Beacon. His primary concern isn't keeping Remnant united against Salem; it's keeping the school he's charged with administrating safe against threats (including ones to their reputation like Team Job). He doesn't need every blade he can get; what he needs it to send frauds away and make an example of them.

Ozpin didn't die. Ozpin has no relation to Ozma, in this lore. As the new Oztin said, the previous host died a while ago and he's just lurked in child Mr. Alizarin's mind for as long as he could to give the man a chance at life. But now, that time has passed, and Ozma's soul is the only one left, so he has nothing to do but traverse the world and unify humanity in his new body.

A lot of people thought that it was Ozpin dying in Vale and becoming this guy, which makes sense given what I told you, but that is not the case. The craziness was not likemindedness, it was Ozma already being in this dude . That means Ozpin is still out there, ready to cause headmasterly problems to Team Job. And to make matters worse, he isn't a kindly infinite wizard, he's just a plain old human prick.

On the plus side, Team Job now has the starter dough they really needed. And it's debt free :)

I'll be playing fast and loose with the conversion of lien to dollars, so having 400,000 lien might not equate to having 400,000 dollars' worth of purchasing power.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!