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Weiss tiredly gazed up at the crimson-grey sky of the Underworld, leaning back against the dead bark of a barren tree. Her mind swam, her vision clouded, and her wounds screamed. Her left eye was sealed shut by a vertical gash across its middle, down her cheek. Dazedly in a sort of morbid fascination, she stared at her left hand through her sole good eye, blood from her marred right shoulder coating it in a grotesque scarlet sheen.
Myrtenaster, holstered at her side, was absolutely covered in the pitch-black ichor of fallen Grimm. Just a week ago, the magical rapier of the Goddesses still possessed a brilliant white-blue shine. Weiss distantly remembered how she’d sit alone on her balcony at night, holding the blade between her fingers, admiring the dazzling way in which it sparkled and glimmered under the starlight. She recalled how on grassy fields she’d just ever so slightly push a tiny bit of her Aura into the blade, and it would channel the very essence of winter itself, discharging beautiful streams of ice and snow in hypnotizing ribbons, like glitter from a wand. She’d watch in adoration as Ruby would chase errant strands with her Semblance…
One would glance at the piteous rod at her hip and would never guess that it was the fabled Sword of Winter. Its blade was dull and sullied with grime, blood, and soot. Her Aura was completely drained, so it no longer cast its spells of ice. Its tip grew dull from ceaseless encounters with Grimm and demigods alike. As a weapon, Myrtenaster was now no more useful than a metre stick.
Weiss knew she was at the end of her rope. She was for hours now. She depleted her rations days ago, and medical supplies were low: only a few tablets of Ambrosia remained. Some part of her acknowledged that she should’ve died—by exhaustion, blood loss, dehydration, insanity, the works—a long time ago. When the tides of battle ebbed and Weiss was left alone, she’d always question if this fight, if this wound, would be the right time for her to stop. But every time she considered giving up, going to sleep, abandoning her mission, she would see renewed images of Cinder Fall, the Witch and Goddess of Hellfire, adorned in her carmine robes, cloaked in flame. Cinder would gloat and she would sneer at Weiss’ weakness over the corpse of her beloved, and her entire being would be consumed in this reignited hatred for the woman who took everything from her.
No, she won’t stop. She can’t stop. Not until Cinder Fall laid dead at her feet. Until Weiss killed her by her own hands, Ruby Rose, her partner, lover, and only friend, would never know peace.
This singular obsession was what led her to sneak into the Underworld and into Cinder’s domain, where even the Goddesses of the Council dared not enter, by herself to enact her crusade for vengeance. It was what forced her heavy arms to push her up every time an unblocked attack sent her reeling to the ground, just as it forced her legs to march her forward to the massive obsidian castle where the witch no doubt hid. After so long, it was so tantalizingly close…
Just one more tablet of Ambrosia , Weiss thought, hoping that its rapid healing and Aura regeneration properties would re-energize her. She was aware of the risks of overdose. For most demigods like her, just four tablets taken in quick succession could result in acute health complications and burnt out Aura circuits. Unfortunately, she had already surpassed three times that. Again, a miracle she was still alive, but all she needed was just that last final stretch. Just one more, and she could kill Cinder herself.
After this Ruby’s spirit would be content.
And Weiss would finally be free.
“Weiss… if you eat that, it will kill you.”
Weiss couldn’t believe it. She would recognize that voice anywhere: its high pitch; its gentle, pleading tone; its innocence. Even the simple way it called out her name. It was the voice that polluted her dreams, nightmares, every thought till it drove her mad. It made every waking hour ache with the reminders of bygone days.
Blearily, as if dreaming—she must’ve been, right?—she turned her neck to take in the sight of an ethereal light, gently enveloping the figure of a girl in its glow.
“…R-ruby…?” Her voice came out cracked and hoarse from dehydration and disuse.
The light faded, and the silhouette lightened to reveal a pair of gleaming silver eyes, moist from tears, and short, red-tipped brown hair.
“It’s me, Weiss,” Ruby replied with a loving smile, before she kneeled down to Weiss’ side and embraced her.
A surge of emotions welled up from within Weiss as they struck her like a tidal wave. How long did she yearn to hear Ruby’s voice again? To feel her touch again? To bask in her warmth again? She honestly couldn’t remember. It felt like months, even years, while it could have simply been weeks. The lonely days after Ruby’s death all seemed to melt together, dilating and contracting as she silenced her wayward thoughts with drinks and Ambrosia.
The two girls just sat there for minutes, satisfied with nothing more than the other’s company, Weiss sobbing all the while in a cathartic release of happiness and grief.
“I thought you were dead,” Weiss finally spoke, still not able to accept that Ruby was really there.
Ruby returned another smile, this one sad, regretful. “I am.”
“Then how…?”
Slowly Ruby ended their embrace and got up. Weiss was nearly sent into panic—she was about to be alone again, and she wouldn’t be able to handle that—when she noticed that Ruby had no intention of leaving. Instead she just stood there in front of her, holding her arms out, fists clenched around something they couldn’t see.
A moment later, Ruby’s fists gleamed as she conjured a shaft within her grasp, emanating outwards across its length. At one end, a wicked curved blade of pure silver jutted out one side, and the full length of Ruby’s new weapon—a massive, deadly scythe—was on proud display.
Upon such a sight, so many things for Weiss simply clicked into place.
“Your mother is the Goddess of Death,” Weiss concluded. She knew she was right. It was the only plausible explanation for Ruby’s effortless control of the flow of time by her Semblance. After all, the passage of time was the death of all things, from men to entire civilizations to the distant stars. It explained why the rose petals she shed whenever she used her Semblance carried the same essence as blood. It explained why Ozpin kept such a close eye on Ruby’s development as a leader of demigods.
It explained why, at every turn, Ruby was always that much more brilliant than Weiss pegged her to be.
“After I… left, I reunited with my mom at her Palace,” Ruby recounted. “Imagine my surprise when all this time, she and Ozpin were essentially next-door neighbours.”
“…Death’s Palace is in Heaven…?” Very unorthodox, and nothing like the fables if true.
Ruby grinned. “Seems that way.” A pause, and Ruby’s expression grew forlorn. “…My mom intends for me to some day inherit her position and take over her duties.”
Weiss released a clipped laugh. It was a mocking one, though directed at herself more than anything. “Are you here to take my soul, Reaper ?” The title laid heavy on her tongue, the idea that Ruby was now a servant of some Goddess would’ve made her quite ill in a better state of mind. “Sorry, but I’m going to ask you to wait just a little longer. I have a job to finish.”
This time, it was Ruby’s turn to cry. “I just… I don’t want to see you destroy yourself anymore.”
“You were watching me, all this time?”
Ruby nodded. “I was with you, every step of the way.”
“Then why show up only now?” The tone was probably more confrontational than Weiss intended, and she regretted her utterance as soon as she saw Ruby flinch.
“You don’t have to do this anymore, Weiss. You can still go home. I could send you back. Please.”
Weiss merely closed her eye and shook her head. “There’s nothing left for me there.”
“Your friends worry for you. Yang, Blake, Jaune… they’re all searching for you, fearing the worst.”
Weiss nearly scoffed. “They’re cowards. They enslave themselves to their Goddesses, as if puppets to their wills and laws. After you fell to Cinder, they stood by and did nothing. They continue to worship the same deities who forced us to fight their wars, who forced you to die.”
Ruby denyingly shook her head in solemnity. “I didn’t die for my Goddesses, Weiss. I was never forced to lose my life. I chose to make a sacrifice to keep you safe.”
"You shouldn't have. You shouldn't have sacrificed everything for me. You should never have had to make the choice."
“We know you’d do the same for me.”
It was Weiss’ turn to shake her head in denial. “No, I… I’m not like you. I’m not strong like you, or sharp like you, or kind like you. You always were the best of us. I don’t deserve to be left behind. But you do.”
“…Oh, Weiss, you know that’s not true!” Ruby cried out as she knelt forward to begin their embrace anew.
Minutes passed, and in Ruby’s arms, Weiss felt even more exhausted than before. She could barely keep her remaining eye open, and darkness encroached on her already blurred field of vision. She felt light yet immovable, as if her soul and body were starting to separate.
Somewhere, deep down, Weiss realized that her time had at last come. She failed.
But with Ruby in front of her like this, she realized that she didn’t really mind. For the first time in a long time—since she first fell in love with Ruby, actually—she was at peace and content with her inadequacy.
“I missed you,” Weiss eventually confessed.
Ruby returned an understanding nod. “I know.”
“I hate how cold our bed is every morning without you in its sheets.”
“I know.”
“I hate that you decided to play hero and left me behind.”
“Yeah.”
“…I hate that after everything, all I can think about is how much I love you, and how much I want to go back to how things were.”
“…I love you too, Weiss.”
A silence followed. Weiss was now, for the first time in what felt like a lifetime, at a crossroads. She made a choice.
“Take me back,” Weiss finally spoke, in barely a whisper.
Ruby’s grey eyes widened in shock, as she pulled back from their hug. “What?”
“Take me back home,” Weiss repeated, this time firmer with a new-found conviction. “Take me back to the Mortal Realm. Take me back to our friends, the ones whom I abandoned and betrayed when they all moved on without me.”
Ruby’s lips curved upward in elation that Weiss at last agreed to stop. Ruby knew that despite her enormous skill with a blade and prodigious affinity with Myrtenaster, Weiss always hated fighting. She knew that every time Weiss killed a Grimm or a rogue demigod, it was for her sake—because she was the foolhardy idiot who agreed to face her Goddess-given destiny head-on. Weiss never wanted any part of this war between Goddesses—she despised the deities above, after all—but she joined it anyway because Ruby was her friend and partner. As far as Ruby was concerned, Weiss was the one who sacrificed everything for her. Not the other way around.
As she scanned across Weiss’ many fatal wounds, she comprehended the deadly consequences of driving oneself into a corner of one’s mind. After so long, Weiss was finally able to find her way out.
“I miss you, Weiss. I miss you so much. I want nothing more than for us to be together again,” she began. “It’s just not the right time yet. You still have so much to live for, so much to accomplish in your brilliance.”
Ruby leaned in once more, and Weiss reciprocated, lips meeting in a quick, brief kiss.
“I’ll miss you, too,” Weiss replied. The world began to spin. “Wait for me.” She saw Ruby nod as they both began to fade away.
The spin became a vortex as earth and sky blended into an incoherent swirl of red and black. Then new colors bled into the nothingness, blues and yellows and browns and whites, swirling into the mix until the spinning stopped and the world oriented itself anew. She was now standing in front of a familiar door—her team’s dormitory door—and she heard panicked voices from within the room.
“Still no signs of her? It’s already been over a week.”
“…Nothing. We checked everywhere. All of Cinder’s follower camps are untouched. It’s as if Weiss just vanished.”
“D-don’t tell me she went to Cinder’s domain itself…!”
“Oh, fuck .” Coarse language. That had to be Yang.
“We need to inform Ozpin right away! We need to let him open a gate for us!” Loud and boisterous, if kind and sweet. That was Jaune.
“He wouldn’t let us enter. And Weiss was the only one who figured out how to open a gate without aid from a deity. We’re stuck here.” A calm voice, with only the slightest tick betraying fear. Blake.
“Damn! Is there nothing we could do?”
That was Weiss’ cue to enter. With a bloody hand, she gently twisted the knob and pushed open the door with the last of her strength before collapsing face-first into the floor.
“What the-” Yang began in confusion, only to widen her eyes in shock at the sight in front of her. “Holy shit, Weiss, is that you?!”
Everyone in the room immediately rushed to her side. Yang gently grasped her frame and flipped her onto her back, taking in the sight of her ruined clothes, slashed eye, gaping shoulder, all covered in blood and ichor.
“My God… Jaune, quick! Heal her as much as you can!” she yelled out in urgency. “Someone call Ozpin and Goodwitch!”
“On it!” came the reply, and Weiss immediately felt the soothing sensation of foreign Aura entering her body, beginning the long, slow process of mending her wounds.
Yang’s eyes glowed just the slightest tinge of red as she took in Weiss’ piteous state. “Who did this to you?”
I did, Weiss wanted to say, if she had any strength left to form words. Instead she just let unconsciousness begin to take hold as her mind, body, and soul all decided to simultaneously give. She was in good hands. Now embraced by the warmth of her friends and the memory of her partner, Weiss felt hope.
“Don’t you dare die on me now, Princess,” Yang pleaded, faux anger a rather transparent mask for her fear. “My sister would be so mad at me if I let you meet her so soon.”
You have no idea , Weiss thought, as she finally blacked out.
~ End ~