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Ozpin was dead.
He was dead for a long time.
Nobody knew he was down there.
None but the one who had killed him.
The story before the autopsy came back was that Professor Ozpin was Missing in Action. Qrow had waited for him at the usual hideouts for him to make his appearance, but he never showed. Glynda had the other professors keep their eyes open for Ozpin in hospitals and clinics. Maybe even the illustrious Ozpin had been injured in the Fall.
They didn’t expect that he’d…
The story was that Professor Ozpin was MIA.
The truth was that Professor Ozpin had been gravely injured down there in the Vault.
Nobody knew he was down there.
Not until Glynda went down to clear out the debris and unearthed the body from under the rubble.
He bled out long before the debris crushed him.
It was speculated he’d been down there for hours.
Nobody had known…
It had to have been a long and cold and terrible death.
But nobody had known he was down there, until Glynda called Qrow.
Qrow had never heard Glynda like that. He’d never be able to get it out of his ears. It pierced his brain. It—it…
He never wanted to hear her like that again.
She sat across from the corpse for ten minutes before he got there. She’d been shaking when he arrived.
He never wanted to see Glynda like that again, either. Pale as a ghost, eyes wide and face blank with shock, unable to look away from the face that was no longer a face, the bones that were no longer bones, crushed to dust. The body that was no longer the Headmaster of Beacon Academy.
Qrow withheld the bile that nearly rose into his throat.
That’s not Oz. It can’t be. That’s not Oz…
And then Glynda started sobbing and screaming, there on the floor beside the Body That Couldn’t Possibly Be Oz. And Qrow couldn’t stop himself from breaking down a little, too. To feel complete and utter guilt.
He stepped back and something cracked under his heel. He bent down to pick up a pair of shattered sunglasses. The familiar cane lay further away, crusted with old blood.
I didn’t know you were still down here…
It was a few days more before a funeral was arranged.
Qrow stood in silence, staring down at the casket holding the body of his best friend and mentor.
The funeral was small. Only a select few knew about it. There would be no media. No cameras. No interruptions. Some higher ups on the Vale Council were here, whispering amongst themselves about what to do next. Arrangements needed to be made. Who would replace Ozpin as Headmaster? What of the Academy? What would it cost to get rid of the Grimm surrounding it and rebuild?
Insufferable, businessmen talk that revealed that they truly didn’t give two shits about Oz. Oz was dead and they were talking about who would replace him at his own funeral.
Some others from the Inner Circle—like the other Headmasters—and those who were supposedly other spies that even Qrow hadn’t know about until now, were also there at the funeral.
Some other teachers were, too.
Port. Oobleck.
Glynda stood beside him.
Even Ironwood had managed to make it, albeit briefly. He patted Qrow on the shoulder, and Qrow allowed the contact, the brief moment of reassurance, before Ironwood unceremoniously killed it.
“He’ll be back eventually. We just have to be patient.”
Qrow couldn’t manage words. Even when Oz reincarnated, it wouldn’t be the same. It would be a whole new face—a whole new person. It wouldn’t be Oz.
Behind him, he heard Oobleck mention something about the funeral’s strange atmosphere.
There was a lot of strangeness about the funeral, really.
And there were more people than Oobleck questioning it.
Why the secrecy? Why be so secretive about Professor Ozpin’s death? Surely the world ought to know the truth, rather than just believing him to be MIA.
Did Ozpin have no family members—not a mother, nor father, nor siblings or cousins or uncles or aunts? Had the poor man lived alone his entire life?
And why were there not more people here?
How had he died? To the Grimm that had overtaken Beacon?
Apparently, his death was gruesome enough for a closed casket funeral.
There were no pictures of Professor Ozpin.
There was no first name.
Some whispered that they thought Ozpin was his first name.
“Always was a weird naming choice,” someone whispers.
“Not even associated with a color. I’ve never heard of anything like it before.”
Others commented on the stillness of the room. The murmurings of those they’d never seen before.
The hushed, quick mutterings from those of the Inner Circle on what to do next.
The wonder. The fear. The despair.
Strange.
The funeral was strange.
And, in a way, it almost had no purpose. No point at all.
Even though Qrow hated to admit it, James was right.
Ozpin would come back. Not in the same body, but…
He would be back.
So that called into question who this was all for.
He had the strange feeling that Ozpin would hate this funeral.
In general, the man had hated funerals.
It was just a very long goodbye. And Ozpin had always hated long goodbyes.
He would’ve rather been cremated.
He already was mostly cremated anyways, when his body was found.
It would have been far kinder, maybe, to have simply tossed the remnants of Ozpin to the wind. There was something reassuring about that thought. Like releasing his soul alongside his ashes, so that he may go on to find his next body.
Qrow would have preferred cremation to this.
This was…
Painful. And long. And so distinctly Not Ozpin, just like the corpse in that casket.
Qrow really wishes he could scatter him to the winds instead—instead of… instead of locking him away. Qrow can’t fly beside him, if he’s locked away and buried deep, in an unreachable place…
The winds would have carried him far, far away.
Maybe Qrow would have released his ashes in the middle of a tornado. And flown beside him for as long as he could before he got sucked up. Watched Ozpin disperse everywhere, like glitter during festivals and parties.
That would have been far more like Ozpin.
He would have laughed if someone inhaled at the wrong time and choked on his ashes.
He’d probably apologize for it, too.
Qrow cracked a smile. Oz was always apologizing.
Nobody had moved in over several minutes, standing still and staring at the casket, as though waiting for Ozpin to burst out of his coffin and say, “Well now, this is depressing, isn’t it? How about you all stop staring at my cadaver and go home to your families. I see no reason to prolong this rather awkward reunion. I am already dead. It wouldn’t exactly hurt my feelings!”
Qrow lifted his head and swore he could see the humor in Oz’s eyes. Swore he could see him standing over his own casket and shaking his head.
“No, no, this is all wrong.”
“I know,” Qrow replied to the mental delusion.
“Cremation, Qrow. I said cremation.”
“I know, Oz,” he repeated, an annoyed edge to his voice. “You’ve got bad timing, you know that? Absolute worst time to die like that.”
Ozpin sat down on top of his coffin. “I didn’t exactly plan for it to turn out this way, you know.”
“Who are half these shmucks here, anyway?”
“I’m just a coping mechanism, Qrow. I can’t know something if you don’t know it.”
“So I’m crazy.”
“You’re human.”
“You’re dead. And what am I supposed to do now?”
“The opposite. You’re supposed to live.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re dead.”
“I’ll be back.”
“It won’t be the same.”
“Why not?”
“You know why. Because you won’t always be… just you. You’ll be… apart of somebody else…”
Ozpin sent him a calm stare. “What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t want you to say anything. I want you to burst outta that coffin right now before I pry you out of it and try to find some ungodly way to resuscitate you!”
Ozpin smiled a sad smile. “You feel guilty.”
“Of course I feel guilty!”
“You’re not. Isn’t that what the real Ozpin would say? That none of it was your fault? That you should go on living?”
“He would, but…” Qrow shook his head. “I just want you back, Oz… I just want you—the real you—here with me… I wish I could… I just wish I could’ve—!”
“You can drown on wishes, Qrow. The what ifs. The maybes. But there’s no point in that. What’s happened has happened. How do you choose to move forward—to progress?”
“Apparently, by talking to some figment of my imagination.”
Ozpin chuckled. “Apparently.”
“Also, I want to punch something.”
“Well that’s not very productive, is it?”
“What am I supposed to do, then?”
“There’s nothing you’re supposed to do. There’s no easy way to go about loss. I think the real question is: What do you feel like you need to do?”
Qrow swallowed. “I-I don’t know.”
“But I know that’s not true, because you already know it to not be true.”
“Even in my head, you’re weirdly cryptic.”
“Ah. Well, we all play our parts.”
“And yours is to be a cryptic bastard?”
“It was indeed.”
Qrow blinked, and Oz was gone.
And suddenly, it was like looking through a blurry pair of glasses. Or like he was standing underwater.
He felt like he could barely breathe, so maybe that second option was possible. The funeral was taking place at the bottom of the ocean, and he couldn’t see, and he couldn’t breathe.
A hand touched his back.
Qrow looked at Glynda.
“You okay?” she whispered.
He shook his head. With how wobbly his voice was, he even sounded like he was underwater. “I didn’t know he was down there, Glynda… I didn’t know he was still down there…”
She hung her head, obscuring her own tears. “I know.”
“But he will be back.”
“It won’t be the same.”
They were in agreement, then.
At long last, the funeral ends.
No eulogy. No words spoken. No long goodbyes.
Ozpin would have wanted that.
----
The last mental image Qrow had of Ozpin was when he was down there in that Vault.
When he was the Thing that was Not Ozpin.
Just an empty shell. A husk.
Whenever Qrow tried to think about him, all he got was a glimpse of that Face that was No Longer A Face—no longer Ozpin.
Qrow really wished he had a picture of him…
But Ozpin lived a life full of secrets. No documentation.
Ozpin wasn’t even his real name.
Even Qrow didn’t know what his real name was.
Ozpin didn’t really exist. Or, if he ever did, his soul had been overwritten by somebody else’s.
Qrow sometimes wonders what the Original Ozpin was like.
Maybe it doesn’t work like that.
Qrow didn’t really know, in all honestly. Ozpin was secretive. He was just… an enigma…
And yet Qrow missed him. The Man Who Was Not The Real Ozpin. The Man Whose Face Wasn’t His Own. Whose Soul May No Longer Have Belonged to Him.
Overwritten.
Who was the man Qrow had known, anyway?
Who was the man he was missing right now?
Sunglasses. Green turtleneck. Dark vest and coat. The overdesigned office with all of its gears and fancy desk and weird chair and grand windows and too much empty space.
Was that all Ozpin? Or whoever had come before him? Or some weird combination of both of them?
Who had enjoyed that hot chocolate? Who’d dawned that slightly chaotic humor? Who’d decided to wear those ridiculous sunglasses, anyway?
All Ozpin? All the One Who Came Before? Or did they both agree on these things? Did they both agree to drink hot chocolate? Did Qrow ever talk to The One Who Came Before? Or was it always Ozpin? Or was it always both?
Qrow didn’t know, and it irked him.
His friend was dead, but he didn’t even know which friend—if he was a friend with either of them or both of them or…
He tries to think back, but all he can see of Ozpin now is Death.
The image of that body—the thing that was No Longer Anyone—kept surfacing back up.
Qrow sighed. He was already tipsy. He wanted to take it further. He wanted to forget.
He downed this next drink quickly, then leaned back in his chair.
“E-excuse me…”
Qrow turned around. There was a kid behind him. He looked lost. Probably got separated from his parents and wandered into the wrong place. “I don’t think they allow kids in here, pipsqueak.”
The kid shifted awkwardly, muttering something to himself.
It was strange.
A small memory resurfaced in Qrow, of when he first met Ozpin. All mutter-y and aloof.
Huh… That’s right… I guess… I have met Ozpin—the Real Ozpin. A long, long time ago…
“Um,” the kid piped up again.
Qrow studied him closely. Every nervous gesture.
Ozpin wasn’t ever immovable. Never invincible.
He’d always been tragically human, too.
Qrow looked at this kid, barely breathing, barely moving.
The Face that was No Longer A Face started to crumble at the back of his mind, replacing itself with tan skin and freckles and hazel eyes.
It was so…
It was so distinctly Not Ozpin.
“I’m… supposed to ask you for my cane back?”
Qrow smirked. He nodded, and then tossed the cane over.
“It’s good to have you back, Oz.”
Across the counter, he swore can see the ghost of his friend shaking his head.
“Not for long. Not forever.”
Qrow raised another glass of alcohol to his lips.
I know.
“Did you figure out which one of us you were missing?”
I don’t know. Someone. I buried a body, but I don’t know whose it was.
The imaginary Ozpin clicked his tongue. “Cremation would have been better.”
Qrow looked to his side, at the kid that had slid into the seat next to him. Hopefully, I’ll be dead by the time this one is, so I won’t have to worry about that.
“What’s your name, Kid?”
“Oscar. Oscar Pine.”
“That your actual name?”
That seemed to startle the boy. He pulled a confused face. “Y… yes?”
“Ah. I never knew Oz’s full name.”
The kid stiffens, hissing “shut up.”
“Was that Oz?”
“Yeah. He’s laughing at you.”
“Tell him I buried him.”
The kid paused. “Oh… he’s, uh… not very happy… about that? He says… ‘cremation. I told you cremation’?’”
Qrow laughed. “Yeah. I know. Whole experience was weird. I’ll never understand funerals… Would you mind if I talked to him?”
Oscar fidgeted, looking hesitant. Eventually, he nodded. “Yeah… Go ahead…”
His body suddenly stiffened, a golden gleam flashing over those hazel eyes.
“It’s good to finally talk to you again, Qrow,” the boy said in a particularly articulate voice.
Now that was Distinctly Ozpin.
“I’d offer to toast your return, but I don’t think you should be drinking.”
Ozpin laughed, and it’s a laugh that’s distinctly Not Ozpin. It’s too airy, too light.
“No, I’d wager that’s not a very good idea.” And that face pulled into a distinctly Not Ozpin smile. The freckles. The mouth. The eyes. The lack of wrinkles—not that Ozpin had ever had very many wrinkles. The loss of Oz's slight overbite in spite of perfect teeth. The kid’s smile was fine, just….
It was also Distinctly Not Ozpin…
And for some reason, despite talking to his friend—or at least the man Qrow assumed he had buried—he feels like, for some reason, he’s back at that funeral.
It’s not the same…
This face… it was No Longer Ozpin’s Face.
Qrow takes down another shot.
He drinks so much, that he kills this horrible revelation of his.
Makes it easier, when the truth comes out, to punch Oz square in the jaw.
Eventually, they all become Not Ozs. And Not Oscars. And Not Whoever’s.
Eventually, they all just become liars.
Qrow finds himself more comfortable with that.
His friend was dead long before he was buried.
As Oscar will be dead long before he’s buried.
“You’re your own person.”
Qrow can’t help but reject that idea.
“Don’t lie to him, Ruby. We’re better than that.”
----