"I thought you might know what was going on with me." leon said seriously as he took a seat at his usual spot on the couch. "how did this happen?" ozpin asked without a shred of warmth. this was possibly one of the worst situations ozpin had never even conceived as possible. yet here in front of him sat leon , who was for all intents and purposes immortal , with the same signs of corruption as his ex wife. one corrupted immortal who was only slightly above average when they got corrupted had brought the world to it's knees.
A corrupted immortal who was also a once in a thousand years genius may well end the world in it's entirety. ozpin was merely thankful that the corruption was much weaker than it was with salem as leon seemed completely unaffected in all recent videos of him. "i wouldn't have noticed the problem if weiss hadn't pointed out the rotation of the tomoe's in my eyes. usually this was a sign of evolution in my eyes , however the known conditions , which you are aware of , have not been fulfilled so i went to verify this personally and discovered the change."
"After looking through my memories as well as the videos going back i narrowed the time of the change to when genesis and myself killed one of the goliath herds. i admit that have have scoured my body in every conceivable manner for any cause. but i have found none and all the research on spiritual things are useless to me. you were my last hope of understanding what has happened." leon explained seriously. "was there anything unusual about when you killed the goliaths? try to remember the details. anything that was different then usual no matter how small." ozpin said genuinely trying to help.
"The only thing i can remember that was different was getting swamped with that black sludge that grim are filled with every time i killed one of the goliaths." leon said frustrated. ozpin went silent for a moment to ponder about this to try and figure out how this was relevant. then it hit him when he remembered the source of the grim from his first life as ozma. the origin of the grim had always been lost to most of the world after the gods wiped out all life on the planet thanks to salem's actions.
Only those that ozpin or salem had told were aware that the grim were in fact failed attempts by the god of darkness to create life that he used special pools filled with his power to create. ozpin knew that the grim continued to be born from these pools even now but had always assumed that the effect of the sludge inside grim to be harmless and different than the pools themselves. but what if this belief was wrong and the effects were simply weaker than diving into the pools like salem had done in a vain attempt to kill herself.
Leon could see that ozpin had come to some sort of conclusion "what is it?" he asked. ozpin looked conflicted however as on one hand he had indeed figured out what the problem is but on the other he would need to reveal salem to leon in order to explain it. this topic was one of the most secretive ones in the world with only a handful of people being aware of it. leon was the one person ozpin never wanted to share this information with , not out of spite or anything like that but because leon was the type of person to go challenge salem directly if he thought he could grow from the experience.
In the end ozpin decided to mix a bit of lies in to the truth. "you have a very rare affliction called grim corruption that only happens if someone is exposed to large amounts of the black sludge inside grims." ozpin said seriously. "let me guess there's no cure either?" leon asked with a sigh. "i'm afraid not." ozpin said honestly. "well how long do i have?" leon asked sadly. "i think you may have misunderstood me , as far as i'm aware it's not terminal but more the type of mess with your mind disease then anything." ozpin clarified.
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