Well, first of all, I'd like to thank everyone for the messages regarding my recovery. Thank you very much, everyone!
Regarding my health, I'm better, not completely cured, but better, in the famous 'post-flu state'. Everything is still a bit slow, but I'm doing well.
Anyway, I'll be back to posting regularly. Just to let you know, tomorrow there will be a chapter of Hunter's story, and on the 9th, another chapter of SITO.
Of course, as always, if anyone wants to support me or just read 3/7 chapters ahead of my tough stories, that's possible on my (P)(A)(T). If not, I still appreciate you reading my stories!
As always, have a good night and happy reading!
(P)(A)(T)/CalleumArtori
[...]---[...]
Before Lionheart's head flew, the man seemed to change, perhaps a final act before death, a surge of courage before falling off the cliff, who knows?
"What are your last words?" I raised Houtengeki into the air. I expected fear, despair, words begging for mercy. Lionheart surprised me.
He calmed down, as if accepting his death, knowing it was inevitable.
"The password is Alice... For what little it's worth, know that I regret everything I've done... But... I was afraid..." Lionheart didn't focus on me or Ozpin, but rather on the painting on the wall.
I didn't know what he was talking about, but I had an idea of what it could be; Ozpin, on the other hand, knew what it was and nodded with a sigh.
I lowered Houtengeki. Even in the air, Lionheart's head had a sad smile on its face.
I pulled the body, the head, and the blood into the VoidBag before the floor got stained. I threw the Bone Helm and Hontengeki in there too since they had no more immediate uses.
"Do you want to bury him?" I asked. I didn't know Mistral's funeral customs, maybe it was burial, or something more poetic.
"I'll cremate him later." Ozpin replied, still looking at the air where Lionheart was. I nodded slowly and stored the Bone Helm in the Voidbag and looked at the painting on the wall.
The painting was simple, a depiction of Lionheart in armor and his weapon on his wrist, a paint palette serving as a wrist crossbow to shoot Dust arrows.
The painting was well done, conveying an air of glory and ferocity, worthy of the animal part of the man, a lion. Lionheart looked brave in the painting, something he failed to be in reality.
How easy it was to convey a lie in art...
It was so easy to deceive people to convey a lie... To put sins on an innocent child...
I frowned at the memory that surfaced and crushed the thoughts with force and extreme bias before pulling what was behind the painting into the inventory and placing it on the ground.
It was a safe, something old, with no technology whatsoever, with a number-based password system. I could have easily taken the items out from inside, but I let Ozpin input the password to open the thing.
One, twelve, nine, three, five.
"Alice was Leonardo's wife's name. She died in a Grimm attack years ago, when he was young, younger than his current age." Ozpin slowly opened the safe. "This motivated him, made a man who hated fights and conflicts train, grow stronger. Even though afraid, shy, and cowardly, Leonardo fought."
Ozpin pulled out a box from inside the safe and a painting, the painting of a woman and a man. I didn't recognize the woman, but the man I did. It was Lionheart.
"Something happened to Leonardo for him to make this choice..."
"Maybe, maybe not. Men change with time, for better or for worse." Ozpin was old, he knew this fact. "Do you blame yourself?"
"I can't say I don't. If I had supported Haven more, maybe this wouldn't have happened. Leonardo said I left him alone, maybe that's true." Ozpin looked at the painting of Alice and Lionheart for a moment before picking up the box.
"Lionheart was an adult, the headmaster of Haven, not a child who needed supervision." I didn't mince words. "You may not have done your best, but that doesn't make his sins any less."
Lionheart made his choice, Ozpin may have a small share of guilt in that decision, but in the end, it was just that, a small share. Lionheart was responsible for his actions and suffered the consequences.
Ozpin didn't reply and sighed. He wasn't angry or mad, but more sorrowful, melancholic.
"What's inside the box?" They were papers, I could sense that with the VoidBag, but didn't know what was written on them or if there was anything written.
"Old letters that Leonardo wrote to Alice. I helped the man write some of them, his courtship idea was horrendous." Ozpin squeezed out a laugh before standing up holding one of the letters that looked newer, the paper wasn't as yellowed as the others.
"Leonardo must have written these not long ago, months or a little over a year." Ozpin explained.
"Need privacy? I can take a walk if you want."
"It won't be necessary. Whatever is written here, Leonardo must have written thinking more than just I would read it." Ozpin opened the letter and pulled out the paper inside starting to read.
"I don't know who is reading this letter, but if it's being read, I'm probably dead or will be soon. By the Brothers, I hope it's you, Ozpin, who is reading this, maybe Qrow or Glynda, at least this last weak act of courage won't have been in vain."
"I'm writing this thing after sending eight good men and women to death. Two teams of Huntsmen and Huntresses who studied at my school, ate under my roof. I'll probably send many more to the same fate afterward."
"I wish I had more strength, courage within my chest to react, fight, and die, it would alert the kingdoms, my death couldn't be covered up for long. Maybe that would save more lives. It doesn't matter at this point, I know myself well, I know how weak and flawed I am, how mediocre..."
"Ozpin, old friend, if you still call me that, of course. You made the wrong choice, anyone else would have been a better headmaster than me. But it's late, what happened, happened..."
Ozpin stopped reading. His face was blank, his emotions weren't. As controlled and crushed by the weight of decades, perhaps even centuries or even millennia, the sadness emanating from them was indistinguishable.
Ozpin resumed reading without saying anything.
"As for why I'm writing this letter and not digitizing it, it's for the same reason why I didn't send you a message, a name: Arthur Watts. I'm sure you'll recognize the name, if not, James will."
I recognized. Tyrian had thrown the name a few times when talking to me, always with contempt, claiming that the man only knew how to hide in his room and play with his technology, without giving his 'Goddess' the proper respect.
The guy gave off a vibe of a mad scientist, from what James had said when I tossed the name along with Hazel's just before we descended to Amber's 'meeting', it seems I was right in thinking so.
"That and of course the strange Grimm that the Queen put to watch over me here scares me, seems to be able to think for itself..."
The rest of the letter was more of the same, Lionheart apologizing and self-pitying. Even the names he 'revealed' were something we already knew.
Cinder, Emerald, Mercury, Hazel, and Arthur. All known names, he didn't even know who Tyrian was, just writing that there was another guy that nobody seemed to like.
Tyrian was quite the charmer, wasn't he? Even his allies hated him.
No truly useful information, well, at least we knew it was indeed him who forged Cinder's documents.
Ozpin stored the letter and placed it back with all the others in the box before closing it and putting it back in the safe.
"You can keep it for me. I'll cremate them along with Leonardo." Ozpin requested. I pulled the safe and everything inside into the inventory.
The room fell silent for a few seconds before Ozpin asked me.
"You didn't use the same interrogation method you used on Tyrian. Why?"
"I didn't find it necessary. No one gives much information to a traitor." I replied, almost completely honest.
I also didn't want to reveal that I could, besides creating Nightmares, also pull a person's consciousness and turn it into a Shadow Puppet.
Not that Lionheart didn't deserve that fate. His sins were different but just as grave as Tyrian's. How many innocent men and women did he send to their deaths, and how many more would he have sent if we hadn't uncovered his betrayal?...
"This is going to turn into a mess, isn't it?"
Ozpin didn't answer me, the response was obvious.
[...]
Two days was the time it took us to contain all the mess that Lionheart's betrayal was. Well, to be more specific, two days and a few hours. Jarvis should know down to the minutes, but I didn't bother asking.
I moved my fingers slowly, tapping them rhythmically on the floor beside my body, where I lay. Haven's rooftop had a view as beautiful as Beacon's.
The Emerald Forest might be broader, with an almost unnaturally green hue coloring the leaves, but the forest and mountains surrounding Haven were just as beautiful, with a greater diversity of colors, whether from the leaves of the treetops or the flowers I could see in the distance.
It was almost ridiculous to think that I could literally see miles away so clearly, discerning even the engravings on the petals of a rose from such a distance as if the flower were inches from my face.
I probably should get a bow. Weapons were excellent, enchanted ones even better, but it was good to diversify as well; I could think of a few situations where a bow would be better than a sniper rifle.
My aim wouldn't be perfect, but nothing that good old-fashioned training couldn't solve...
I didn't waste much time on the rooftop, as good as the view was, I had things to do, as always.
"How's the weather down there?" I asked after entering Lionheart's office, ex-office, actually, since Haven had a new director now.
"Bad, but better than expected." Ozpin sighed, massaging his forehead. "Did you find anything unusual?"
I shook my head and slouched on the couch.
"Nothing. Everything's in order, well, at least for a kingdom that just found out one of the most important men in the realm was a 'puppet'." I scoffed and adjusted myself on the couch.
"Better a puppet than a traitor, I guess... Even though Lionheart didn't deserve it."
"Maybe he didn't deserve it... But it's the best..." Ozpin didn't seem so sure of his words.
Ozpin tossed the 'Mind Control Semblance' card. It was a rare thing, but it existed, even though most of the time it was either ridiculously weak or complicated to use, with many caveats.
With that, Lionheart's crimes were mitigated; he still bore the blame for being weak and falling under that control, but less than if he were a mad traitor who had started sacrificing people to the Grimm.
I didn't blame Ozpin for doing that. Lionheart was his friend; I didn't know what I would do in this situation, I hoped this situation would never arise, actually.
The idea also helped us. A headmaster being controlled by a psychopath was better than a traitor.
I tossed Tyrian's body to take the blame; some people knew the guy's reputation, no one doubted he would do something like this just for fun, even better that no one knew his Semblance.
People were less hysterical thanks to this; tensions didn't rise too much, and negative emotions were mitigated and didn't attract too many Grimm.
There were some, of course, more than usual, but nothing compared to the damn army I was expecting to have to fight.
I didn't idle away these two days and patrolled Mistral, plugging the hole that Lionheart's deaths had left in the defenses; I must have killed a few hundred Grimm, maybe more.
I also prevented some crimes. With Lionheart dead, gangs and crime syndicates took advantage of the chaos to try to grow. They quickly learned that this was a bad idea when I started throwing back some broken bodies into their headquarters. Not hospitals; I wouldn't litter them with trash.
I avoided killing; deaths would only help attract Grimm, but I wasn't Batman, when I saw a worm trying to abuse a little girl the age of Alice, I did what needed to be done.
When I returned the unconscious little girl to her mother's arms, who was desperately searching for her on the street, the woman thanked me in tears, hugging her daughter as if she might disappear at any moment.
The number of times I heard "Thank you" must have exceeded a hundred. My only response was a "You're welcome" with a slight smile on my face and a piece of advice.
"Tell your daughter, if she wakes up frightened, that the eyes aren't real."
It was fortunate that this happened when the stream was offline, since for a moment, I accidentally let the eyes slip out...
... The worm ended up being devoured by them.
[...]
"You know what's your obsession with damn slow elevators?" I sighed.
After we finished everything that needed to be done, Ozpin appointed Lionheart's vice-director, a woman who really didn't know anything. Lionheart managed to keep her blind to everything that was happening. We waited until nightfall and went to the statue of the woman, which was an elevator to the relic vault.
I should have guessed that this elevator would take forever to come down...
After a long ten minutes, during which I seriously contemplated whether it was worth blowing this thing up and falling to the vault or not, the grates that served as the elevator gate opened.
"Quite a view," I remarked. It almost made the wait worth it... Almost.
The vault, or its entrance since I could see a gate, was a huge dark cavern, leaving the walls around almost completely black.
In the center of the cavern was where the entrance to the vault was, a platform with three crescent circles, linked together, ending in a faded gate, just below a large tree with some bright orange leaves.
The mana in this place was almost triple the density and quantity of mana on the surface.
"I suppose the gate is the entrance." That thing emanated the same feeling I had felt in Beacon's vault, only stronger.
"Yes. It's been a while since I've been here." Ozpin replied, looking around. "One hundred and fifty years, I think. Time gets blurry sometimes."
"Time gets blurry in an afternoon nap, not in a century." I scoffed. Problems of an immortal.
The moment Ozpin and I touched the ground, I felt the mana of the place react, illuminating the circles on the platform up to the gate, which remained inactive.
"Well, let's see how this thing works..." I pulled the vault key from my inventory. I deliberated for a few seconds on what to do before simply inserting it into the metal gate.
My genius knew no bounds. The key slid into the gate as if entering a lock, and then I turned it.
The instant I turned the key, the entire gate began to glow in golden light, with blue leaves and branches, at the same time, I felt the mana of the place start to overflow.
It almost felt like I was back in Terraria...
The gate retracted quickly, spinning and folding in on itself before opening, revealing...
"A desert?" I looked around confused. "What the hell does a desert have to do with spring?"
"It wasn't one of my best ideas, but in my defense, I did everything on the fly," Ozpin replied, walking up beside me.
"You made this thing?" I had some theories, but confirmation was good. "Why the hell did you put this restriction on the Maidens?"
"Yes, but it was quite challenging even when I had all my power. If it weren't for the use of the relics, I don't think I would have managed it. Manipulating space is quite complicated... As for the restriction..." Ozpin scratched his chin, and I could feel the embarrassment emanating from him. "I... forgot."
"You forgot?!" Are you kidding me?
"Cut me some slack here, I created these vaults a long, long time ago. My memory isn't perfect; I barely know how I remember everything I do." Ozpin sighed and took the lead, walking towards the relic.
The desert was, well, a desert. Aside from some sand and floating rocks around, charged with mana, it looked like a typical desert, only with three circular platforms, just like the ones outside.
On the last, largest platform, was the relic, the Lamp. It was almost entirely golden, with only its center, where the flame would be, being blue.
The thing exuded divinity, and not only that, my minimap indicated there was something inside it.
"Is it alive?" I stopped in my tracks and prepared myself. If some kind of guardian jumped out of that thing to attack us because we weren't a Maiden, I wouldn't be surprised.
"Yes and no... The relic doesn't offer knowledge by itself; it needs to be explained, in a way. The one who does that is Jinn, the being living inside the relic," Ozpin explained.
Jinn... Djinn... Three questions... Three wishes...
I should have made the connection earlier. Damn Aladdin rip-off... Was this whole world some kind of parody?
"So... How does it work?" I wasn't touching the thing. I looked around as I asked. The place should be four kilometers, maybe more, but less than five, which was the minimap's maximum range. Seeing a boundary on the map in real life was kind of strange...
"You need to call out the name of the guardian of the relic with the intention of asking a question," Ozpin explained, approaching the Lamp.
"Jinn..." The man said in a low tone.
The moment the words left his mouth, I felt all my instincts explode into alertness with something I didn't know what it was, just knew it was dangerous.
In a fraction of a fraction of a second, I armed myself, then...
[...]
POV: Ozpin
It was instantaneous. The moment I called out the name of the guardian of the Relic of Knowledge, I felt Devas's mana explode... Then everything fell silent.
The time around me froze, and with it, the Lamp began to spin and glow, before Jinn appeared.
"Hmmm... Wonderful... How long has it been since I moved like this?" Jinn stretched in the air and turned to me, before grimacing. "It's just you again, old man..."
She seemed disappointed that it was me who had come here and not someone else.
"I fear you are mistaken, Jinn." Which was very strange, actually, "I am not alone this time." I turned and pointed to Devas, who was... Frozen in time?
What?...
Devas wasn't in his casual clothes, but rather in his armor covering his body. Not only that, he was also armed with his halberd in his right hand and an ice sword in his left hand.
Additionally, he had the deer mask over his face, which was turned towards Jinn, looking at her alertly, his eyes shining in a dense orange hue beneath the mask, like two flames.
The air around him, even frozen in time, was also distorted thanks to Devas's frozen mana.
Why did Jinn freeze him? It wasn't the first time I had come to ask her a question with someone accompanying me. Of all the times, this was the first time the person accompanying me was frozen.
Actually... Did Devas react to time being frozen?
"What do you mean you're not alone, old man?... Who is this?..." Jinn followed my gaze and stared at Devas. The surprise on her face was obvious, as was the curiosity in her voice. "I... Can't see him with my powers?... I don't know who he is..."
Why her?... Oh. Devas's title. That must have hidden him from Jinn. Him being from another world might have something to do with it too.
"It's a rather complicated story..." I hadn't considered this possibility of Jinn accidentally freezing Devas... Damn, I'm too old for this...
I sighed and took out my cellphone.
Meanwhile, Jinn was circling Devas and poking him randomly with her finger in shock and surprise. From the growing smile on her face, it seemed like she was happy with something new happening that she didn't know about.
I was curious. Devas was frozen, and the stream?... No, the stream was normal, the (CHAT) was normal, and to my surprise, even team RWBY and Miss Winter were commenting in the (CHAT).
[(MOD)GeniusBillionairePlayboy]: WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED? DID TIME STOP? IS THAT A GIANT BLUE WOMAN?! WHY IS SHE CENSORED? IS SHE NAKED?! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?! (Iron Man emote screaming 'WTF').
[AdvocateOfGenderEquality]: I came expecting a relic containing all the knowledge in the world and found a three-meter-tall blue naked woman?... I CAME LOOKING FOR GOLD AND ENDED UP FINDING DIAMONDS?! (Generic guy emote shooting fireworks into the air).
[AinzOoalGown]: Temporal freezing magic? It seems to last more than 10 seconds too, how curious. Devas seems to have been frozen but the camera hasn't. We can see Ozpin moving and talking to Jinn. (Curious skeleton emote scratching chin).
[(MOD)RedHuntressLive]: Yang! I can't move properly, I'm stuck in the bathroom! HELP! (Little Red Riding Hood emote knocking on the bathroom door).
[(MOD)WhiteHuntressLive]: We're stuck too, Ruby. We can't move more than thirty centimeters around, it's like there's an invisible wall holding us. (Snow White emote poking 'air').
[YellowHuntressLive]: A blue, naked, I'll emphasize, giant woman who stops time... Why is nothing Devas touches normal? Why does he always seem to attract these absurd things? (Yellow bear emote massaging forehead).
[BlakeHuntressLive]: WHY DID I GET FROZEN WITH THIS DEMON!?
[YellowHuntressLive]: Zwei isn't moving either, Blake. And he's more than a meter away from you, don't be a scaredy-cat... Hehe.
[MagicalGirlSera-Tan]: I can't say I was expecting this, but I'm not going to complain either. (Magical girl emote shrugging). I think I'll add a character like that to my show too, the audience will love it.
[TohsakaHeiress]: Time stopped... You know what, anything is possible here, I won't be surprised anymore! (Chibi Rin emote huffing).
[BestToadSannin]: WHY DOES THIS CENSORSHIP EXIST!? THIS ISN'T FAIRRRRR! (Crying frog emote).
"What are you laughing at?" Jinn didn't turn when she asked the question, her face inches from Devas's face, or his mask's in this case.
"Nothing, just seeing how differently people can react." It hadn't been long since Devas invited me to the stream, but reading the (CHAT) was already one of my favorite pastimes, it never got boring.
"People, what people?" Jinn turned and looked around before glancing at the cellphone in my hands. "Old man, what is this?... I... My head hurts when I try to look at it... My head hurts?... Is that possible?..."
"I... Why is everything strange?" Jinn raised her hand to her head and furrowed her brow, "Some things that were supposed to happen didn't, others that weren't supposed to happen did... Why is my vision blurry?!"
As much as she yelled, it seemed more like happiness than anger.
"First things first, Jinn. Could you unfreeze my friend over there?" I pointed to Devas still frozen in time. "I'm sure the questions you have can be answered by him."
Let's throw Devas under the Beowolf and let him answer the thousands of questions I'm sure Jinn will ask.
"Can he?... What's his name?..." Jinn laughed, turning back to Devas again. "I don't know his name, age, nothing! I don't know anything about him!"
Jinn didn't wait for any kind of signal to raise her hand and make time run normally instead of just unfreezing Devas.
I wasn't sure, but... For a moment, before Jinn unfroze time, before she made everything return to normal and sound returned to the world... For a moment...
... I thought I heard Devas breathe.
[...]
POV: Devas Asura
I had no idea what had happened. One moment my instincts screamed: 'Danger, screwed!'. And the next, I was completely armed to the teeth and staring at a pair of those with huge blue tits!
The change of scenes was so bizarre that I didn't even react. My instincts had also calmed down, stopped blaring like sirens.
Seriously, what the hell happened here?!
"I'm confused as fuck," I commented still staring at the pair of blue tits before raising my head to face the owner of said pair.
A blue woman about three, almost four meters tall, very naked, who was hovering in the air staring at me, which left my face basically at the level of her breasts.
I won't lie, it was a beautiful pair of breasts.
She was also wearing various golden accessories all over her body, a tiara, necklace or collar, I couldn't tell, belt, and bracelet with chains. Not that it mattered really because, you know...
"Why are you naked?" was my best question. The recent events had kind of caught me by the balls.
I was confused, my status screen flashing in the corner of my vision didn't help the situation either, neither did my Aura being depleted. Why the hell were my teeth itching?!
"Why wouldn't I be naked?" was the incredible response that I can only assume was given by Jinn. She seemed cheerful for some reason.
"Touche..." I wasn't going to complain anyway. Just curious. I tilted my head and looked at Ozpin, who was looking at the two of us with an amused smile. Even with my head almost turned, I could still see the pair of blue mountains in the corner of my vision. "Can you explain to me what the hell happened?"
My question seemed to amuse Ozpin, who pointed to the blue woman.
"Jinn whenever she appears, freezes time around, leaving only her and the user of the relic free to move," he explained.
I nodded slowly... "Okay..." I had my doubts that she could really do that, but whatever.
From what I knew about stopping time, which wasn't much and basically amounted to knowledge acquired from movies, anime, and books, this wasn't something simple to do.
Stopping or slowing down time in a specific location was easier, there was no shortage of time chambers in fiction, but stopping time worldwide?... Damn, the level of power that would require is kind of absurd, isn't it?
Jinn, from what I could feel, had a ton of mana within her. She was, in fact, the second person with the most mana I had ever felt in my entire life, second only to Alalia.
I'm not the expert here, but I don't think that amount of mana is enough to stop time worldwide. That's Marvel-level bullshit and we're not there.
Interestingly, I could also feel spiritual energy within her, almost as much as mana actually, something I hadn't felt in anyone in this world since I arrived.
"What's your mask made of? How did you get it, did you make it?" Jinn snapped me out of my thoughts with a question... Several actually. "Is your sword made only of ice or is there something else? What are those symbols on it?"
"One moment, please." I sighed as she fell silent and stowed away my armor and weapons in my inventory. I don't think I'll need them here, for several reasons, but the main one was: The point representing Jinn on the Minimap was green.
Why that was, I didn't know, but it was green. Come to think of it, it wasn't the first time that a woman with immense power from another species had been considered my ally by the Minimap the moment she met me, it had been the same with Alalia, right?
It's not much, but it's curious that this has happened twice.
"Space magic? I couldn't sense mana, is it another type of energy or is it a Semblance?... I couldn't sense any fluctuation of Aura either..." Jinn began to murmur rapidly without averting her gaze from me.
I looked at Ozpin from the corner of my eye and then at Jinn.
"Is she always like this?"
Ozpin shrugged. I'll guess that meant a no.
I sighed and took advantage of Jinn being more curious about analyzing me than talking and pulled up my status screen to find out why it was flashing.
Curiously, I didn't just find out that, but also why my Aura was depleted and my teeth were itching before.
-//-
[Semblance: Mystery Devourer - Ranking C (Evolutive)]
Description: Your body has a vague and ancient memory of a world where the supernatural was just a distant dream, where mystery was just that, mystery.
Your soul, on the other hand, was unaware of this sensation and since its birth, like everything else in your body, it tried to copy it.
But how could something like the soul, created and born in a supernatural and mysterious manner, imitate something that denied its existence?... The answer was simple: It couldn't.
So, like your body, your soul adapted, adapted to the sensation of a world where the supernatural didn't exist.
If your soul couldn't deny mystery, then it would devour it until nothing remained.
[..]
Function: Devour and consume anything considered a [Mystery] and then digest it.
The stronger or more resilient the [Mystery] is, the more Aura will be consumed in the whole process.
[..]
~ Devour and consume ~
-//-
That explains, in fact, a lot... Nothing like something as abnormal as time stopping to awaken my Semblance…
[...]---[...]
Finally, Devas's Semblance is revealed! Of course, not less important: Jinn!
Well, I won't keep Jinn's character the same as the show. There she was impartial, or almost, but that was due to the restrictions she had because of the gods, here that will change, any theories on what will solve that?
As for his Semblance, I was in doubt for some time about what it would be, I had two ideas of what would be best, I ended up sticking with this one, the other I will use at another time in the future.
Well, I won't drag on here, it's late already and I need to go to bed.
As always, good night and happy reading!