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Oscar sleeps away from the others.
The old farmhouse is big, it’s not that hard. While the girls, Qrow, and Ms. Maria are talking, he slips away to find the furthest possible room he can. No one notices except Ruby, who only watches him go with a sad eyes.
Logically speaking, walking away isn’t a good idea. They are in a Grimm-infested area and sticking together is the best way to stay safe. But safety is why he’s choosing to stay away.
Oscar doesn’t feel particularly safe around any of them right now, especially not Yang or Qrow.
So he finds a room- an old master bedroom by the looks of it. He pulls out his sleeping bag and curls up into it as tightly as he can. He just wants to rest—today has been long and exhausting: physically, mentally, and emotionally. He prays for a dreamless sleep he can lose himself in, where he doesn’t have to think about monsters, lies, and the old wizard living in his mind.
Of course, given he’s recently learned the gods are massive jerks, it’s no surprise those prayers go unanswered.
Oscar opens his eyes and he’s in a forest.
It’s not the same one he spent hours trekking through. There is no snow, and the leaves are the reds and golds of autumn. He is currently standing in the middle of a dirt path, and in the distance he sees the outline of a house. Something beckons him to walk forward and he does.
The house grows clearer as he approaches. It’s a dilapidated cottage, with broken windows and a roof in desperate need of new shingles. The fence is missing posts altogether, and a withered garden covers most of the lawn—
Oscar freezes. There is someone is the garden, tearing up dead plants and tossing them into a basket. Though he has never seen this man in person, he instantly recognizes the silver hair and green clothes.
He runs the rest of the way, hopping over the crumbling wooden gate and skidding to a halt behind the man. “Ozpin?!”
The Professor Ozpin in Oscar’s inherited memories is a sophisticated- if quirky- figure, from his neat green suit to his tinted button glasses. This man is simply wearing a green dress shirt, dark green pants, and no shoes. When he looks over his shoulder in response to Oscar’s shout, he isn’t wearing the glasses. His expression is completely blank.
After staring at Oscar for a few moments, he looks away and returns to ripping up a shriveled grape vine.
“What is this place? What’s going on? Why did you just vanish like that?” Oscar asks heatedly.
Ozpin doesn’t reply. He continues to garden.
“Are you ignoring me? Oh, real mature.” Oscar crosses his arms. “You know, they’re taking it out on me. I’m your reincarnation, so that automatically makes me untrustworthy. I swear, if I so much as look at Yang I feel like she’s going to tear me to pieces.”
No response.
“Why’d you have to lie? Was it worth it all this?”
Ozpin stands and picks up a hoe. No response.
Oscar scowls and marches over to him. He knocks the hoe away and grabs the older man by the shirt, forcing him to look at him.
“SAY SOMETHING, YOU OLD-!”
“I was devastated.”
Oscar lets go and looks up at Ozpin. His face is emotionless, but his eyes are burning with something unidentifiable that makes the boy’s stomach turn.
“I was devastated, when Jinn answered my question,” he continued in monotone. “If Salem could not be destroyed, then surely my mission was hopeless. Humanity would be divided, the gods would return, and we would all be obliterated. The sheer despair... I had not felt anything so encompassing, so crushing in centuries. I nearly gave up then and there.”
It isn’t right. These are not words that should be spoken so plainly, without emotion or inflection.
“But then I realized that maybe it wasn’t hopeless.” Ozpin’s tone lightened just a fraction. “I could buy us time— keep the relics separated so the gods couldn't be summoned, then work on the humans and Faunus. If I could keep everyone united, forge the people of Remnant into something that not even Salem could destroy, then I would succeed. The suffering and sacrifices, mine and others’, would not have been in vain.
“I lied, Mr. Pine, because I wanted them to hope that a better world could be achieved, and have the drive to fight for it. Because I believed in the possibility of a better world, and did not want them plagued by the same despondency.”
Oscar just stares, words failing him. The fact the wizard didn’t use his first name doesn’t escape him.
Ozpin chuckles- a dry, humorless sound. “But I was wrong.”
The boy startles. “What?”
“Salem can’t die. No matter what I do, what I try to build, she will be there to tear it down.” Ozpin walks over to the cottage and sits down, leaning against the wall. “And all my efforts are only prolonging the inevitable. They're hurting the people I’ve come to care deeply about. I’m done.”
“Done?” Oscar echoes. "What do you mean ‘done?’”
“I will no longer lie. I will no longer wage a fruitless war. I will no longer steal young men away from their lives just because they were unfortunate enough to be my reincarnations. I will no longer have friends fight for me when all it does is bring them pain. I’m done.”
“You’re… you’re giving up?” Oscar says, voice shaky. “After everything, you’re just giving up? What about Team RWBY, and Qrow, and the relics, and…” He swallows the lump in his throat. “What about me? Was all this for nothing?”
Ozpin shakes his head. "It’s always been for nothing. I’m seeing that now.”
Oscar feels his blood boil as overwhelming anger surges through him. What… what the hell is this? He storms up to the old wizard and grabs him once again by the shirt, shaking him.
“No. You do not get to do this!” he snarls. “You can cut out this pathetic pity party right now, because you sure as hell don’t get to leave us all behind! What are you thinking, that you can-“
“And what is exactly is waiting for me that I can leave behind?” Ozpin hisses, pushing Oscar’s hands away. He stands and starts counting off on his fingers. “Team RWBY? They’ll never trust me again. I’m just the old liar who got them involved in a war I have no idea how to win and they have every right to hate me. Qrow? He basically just said he wishes he never met me. He’s possibly the only friend I have left and I’ve hurt him in a way he can’t forgive, not that he should. You? You despise me. You’ve made that abundantly clear.”
He starts walking forward, forcing Oscar to walk backward. As he continues to speak, his voice grows louder, gaining an echoing quality to it as though thousands were speaking at once.
“I look back on my life and all I can see are my mistakes. I never should have asked Pyrrha to be a Maiden, I never should have let Amber take that trip alone, I never should have recruited Team STRQ, I never should have given those girls magic, I never should have let those girls give me hope, I never should have tried to leave with my daughters…”
Oscar is pressed up against the fence now, and in his rising panic he can’t bring himself to jump over it. Ozpin moves closer.
“… I never should have accepted the God of Light’s deal, and I certainly NEVER SHOULD HAVE EVER LET THAT BITCH OUT OF HER TOWER!” he roars. He’s right in front of Oscar, gripping the fence and caging the younger boy in with his arms. “FOR ALL THE ‘GOOD’ I HAVE TRULY DONE FOR THE PEOPLE OF THIS WORLD, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER IF I’D STAYED DEAD! SO WHAT I’M THINKING, MR. PINE, IS THAT-“
Oscar shuts his eyes and flinches. He’s not sure if he’s expecting his second punch of the day or something else, but whatever it is, it never comes. He creeps one eye open, and sees that Ozpin has fallen to knees. His head is lowered and he is hugging his arms.
“I’m tired,” he says in an exhausted, sobbing tone. His voice is normal again. "I’m so, so tired, and I will never be able to rest because Salem will never die. I can’t do this anymore.”
Ozpin looks up, and suddenly he isn’t Ozpin anymore. He’s Ozma- the first Ozma- and tears are streaming down his cheeks.
“Go home, Oscar,” Ozma says, smiling weakly. “The others have no right to take their anger with me out on you. When you get to Argus, get on the next train and go home. This isn’t your fight-- it’s not anyone’s. You will never be bothered by me again, I promise. The same goes for any that may come after you.”
“But… but what about-?” Oscar tries to argue.
“The others can do what they like. They can go home as well, or continue to fight on their own terms.” Ozma stands, still hugging his arms and stilling smiling that heartbreaking smile. “I just won’t be there to interfere with their lives anymore.”
“Oz, I… you can’t…” Tears begin to prick at the corners of Oscar’s eyes.
Ozma reaches out and cups Oscar’s cheeks, wiping away the tears with his thumb. Oscar lets him.
“Just tell Qrow and Team RWBY ‘thank you’ for me,” he says. “And that I’m sorry, for what little another apology from me is worth.”
With that, the forest grows dark and everything starts to dissolve into ash. The trees, the house, the garden, even Ozma. He’s falling apart right before Oscar’s eyes, and there’s nothing he can do about it.
“I don’t hate you!” Oscar says, finally finding his voice. The tears are running in full force. “I just wanted the truth. We all wanted the truth!”
“And truth is what you received,” Ozma says. “I'm sorry it wasn't a better one."
He is almost entirely gone, and right before he vanishes—
"Goodbye."
All goes black.
Ruby sneaks down the hallway as quietly as she can muster. She volunteered for first watch precisely so she could do this unheeded.
However she and the group felt about Professor Ozpin right now, Oscar does not deserve to receive the brunt of it. Once he’d left, she’d taken the liberty of laying into Qrow about the punch. He needed to remember Ozpin shared Oscar’s body, and punching him was punching both them.
Qrow hadn’t said anything. Ruby figured he wouldn’t.
Thus Ruby is now checking on the younger boy. Being Ozpin’s host, he is surely feeling worse than the rest of them, and everyone else is too busy being angry at Ozpin to do anything about it.
She is approaching the door she thinks is his and reaching for handle when she hears the shouts.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
Ruby gasps and kicks the door open. “Oscar, are you okay? What-?!”
She is greeted with the sight of Oscar curled on the floor, wailing and clutching his head… at least, she thinks it’s Oscar. His eyes are glowing gold, not unlike when Ozpin takes over. But the visceral, childish crying is completely unlike her image of the professor that she doubts it’s him.
… Then again, Ozpin had been crying after Jinn left, hadn’t he.
Ruby rushes over to him, falling to her knees at his side. She shakes his shoulder. “Oscar-Ozpin- whoever! What’s wrong?”
“It’s too much, too much!” he cries. “I’m sorry!”
Ruby lifts him by the shoulders and wraps her arms around him, hugging him close. Oscar/Ozpin flinches violently. It occurs to the huntress that he expects her to hurt him.
Thanks a lot, Uncle Qrow.
“Shhh, it’s okay,” she whispers, rubbing his back. “It’s okay, I promise. I won’t hurt you.”
“But I hurt you,” Oscar sobs, causing Ruby to stiffen. “I... he hurt all of you. But we hurt him too. This isn’t what I wanted- what he wanted. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
The glowing stops, and Oscar is just bawling now. He is clutching to Ruby like she's his only lifeline, and she lets him. She doesn’t know who is in control right now, but she can’t bring herself to care.
They stay that way the rest of the night. Come morning, Yang is the one who finds them. Ruby is still awake and is running her fingers through a sleeping Oscar’s hair.
“What happened?” Yang demands to know.
Ruby looks up, her face solemn. She shakes her head.
She has no answer.