The city stretched beneath him like a living map.
From his vantage atop the glass-and-steel crown of Vale's tallest high rise, Ozpin stood with the poise of a man that was neither subject to vertigo, gravity, or anything as mundane as weather. The wind tugged at his coat and hair, but it might as well have been no more than a sigh from the earth itself. His cane rested loosely in his right hand, its weight familiar feeling, while his left hung behind his back, clasped in quiet contemplation.
Yet none of this was what held his attention.
The subtler threads—the intricate, endless lattice of his Master Rune—flowed through his mind with a precision and clarity that left no room for doubt. He could feel the city of Vale. All of it in its entirety. Every flicker of force, every brush of movement against reality's surface, every pulse of movement in the veins of the city. If he willed it, he could drown them all. Snuff out every light, soul and song, like fingers pinching the wicks of candles one after another.
He rarely allowed the full force of the Master Rune into his awareness. The temptation was too much like staring into the abyss, only to find it eager to stare back. But tonight… tonight, with the weight of fresh knowledge, he had allowed himself to pull aside the veil and look at the truth of his domain.
This is what gods must have felt like, he mused, as his eyes traced the glowing web of movements that only he could perceive. Omnipresent. Omnipotent. And yet, shackled.
It had been three years since he had breached the final wall, risen to Rank 3, and claimed his place at the peak. The air at that height was thin. Few had ever stood there, and fewer still had lived long enough to describe it. But the so-called peak was not a pinnacle to rest upon—it was a narrow edge that was both jagged and cruel, where every step had to be measured against oblivion.
The Grimm that prowled those heights of power were no longer beasts like their lesser ranked ones. They were empyrean predators of thought and patience. They didn't throw themselves against humanity with blind hatred anymore. They waited in silence. Watching for hesitation, for a moment when one of humanity's defenders would falter. And then...
Well... needless to say, this was why Ozpin could never truly rest.
Not when the weight of Vale, Beacon, and of the world itself pressed against his shoulders. Not when even a moment's indulgence could spell catastrophe.
He lifted his foot and placed it onto the empty air, as naturally as if stepping onto a cobblestone path. Reality bent to the pattern of his Master Rune. The air hardened beneath his sole, each step ringing faintly with the crystalline tone of bending laws. He strode across the void between buildings with the unhurried pace of a man walking through his own garden.
He came to rest at the edge of another rooftop, his eyes drawn to the horizon.
Vale glittered, radiant and alive. Neon pulsed from advertisements far below, weaving with the slow crawl of traffic, the laughter and chatter spilling from streetside cafes, the music that leaked out of clubs and night markets. All of it so small from here, so fragile. And yet so beautiful.
Ozpin breathed out a long, measured sigh.
"What a peaceful world," he murmured, his voice lost to the rushing wind. "May it remain so."
But he knew peace was always fragile. Always temporary.
Today's events had reminded him of that fact in a way both undeniable and unwelcome.
The ritual.
The impossible, reckless, idiotic ritual carried out by a naïve girl named Mocha had cracked open a door that had been locked for generations. A door that LUCID had spent decades researching an believing to be merely myths.
And she had done it in a classroom.
Ozpin's mouth tightened as he replayed the reports from Oobleck and Goodwitch. Every detail painted a picture that should not have existed. A girl performing a ritual that shouldn't have even worked. One that didn't even make sense. Well, it was now catalogued in LUCID's vast archives.
And then there was the presence.
He felt his fingers tighten slightly on the cane. That name and invocation.
"She who sleeps Eternal. We have found your honorific name."
Even in his rank, with his depth of knowledge, there were things Ozpin did not like to remember. Not because he could not face them, but because acknowledging them meant acknowledging just how thin the walls around humanity truly were.
The ritual's success answered questions LUCID had carried like festering wounds for decades. Could one force Awakening without natural timing? Could a human breach the veil on their own? Could knowledge be… granted, not earned?
Yes.
And the answer was the worst outcome possible.
Because if such power could be given so freely, it could be given again. And again. And to whom? To what? Not all who dreamed deserved to awaken. Not all would wield power responsibly. The thought of humanity swelling with an influx of unstable, unready Awakened was dangerous enough. The deeper thought—was that entities beyond their comprehension could choose who received power—was worse. Especially... when it concerned... that being.
The girl's success had not opened a door. It had shattered the lock entirely.
The Master Rune thrummed at the base of his skull, as if echoing his unease. He pushed it back, narrowing his focus until only the wind and the skyline filled his senses again.
He leaned on his cane, eyes on the shimmering horizon.
The other Rank 3's couldn't see it yet. To them, this was only an anomaly and an oddity, perhaps even a stroke of fortune if they were shortsighted enough to see it that way. But Ozpin knew. He had a sinking suspicion that this was going to mess up many things.
This was not fortune.
This was warning.
And though the city gleamed beneath him now, alive and unaware, Ozpin could not shake the knowledge that the light was only temporary. He tightened his grip on the cane until his knuckles whitened.
"You will not take this world," he whispered to himself, the words carrying like a vow across the empty rooftop. "As long as LUCID lives, you will never awaken from your slumber."
The wind howled back, cold and indifferent.
And in the distance, beyond the glittering veil of reality, where the shattered moon of the Nightmare realm lay, something dark seemed to pulse once, with an eye half-lidded, gazing back at him.
Ozpin did not move from his place at the ledge. His eyes remained fixed on the horizon, the glittering city alive beneath him. But when he spoke, his words were not meant for the streets below, nor for the stars above.
"Investigate," he murmured, calm as ever. "See if any others have attempted the ritual."
It would have seemed absurd to anyone watching—a middle aged man addressing empty air, cane in hand as though dictating an order to the wind itself.
But the place was not empty.
The shadows on the building's rooftop stirred. They rippled unnaturally, pulling away from the edges of the area like liquid tar, dragging themselves upward until they coalesced into shapes. Massive, distorted and monstrous.
The first shadow on the ground appeared to have blackened feathers stitched together with strands of night. It resembled a Crow, but twisted—its proportions were off. It had broken wings which stretched too far, a jagged beak, and eyes like red pits where light went to die.
The second shadow on the ground was sleeker and sharper. A Raven. It slid into existence with elegance, head cocked and its gaze keen and watchful. Where the Crow was like a brute shadow given weight, the Raven was precision, its edges too clean and too defined, like a blade disguised as a bird.
Both stared at him.
The Crow spoke first.
Its voice scraped like broken bellows, half-wheeze, half-growl, alien and echoing as though from a throat never meant for words.
"How…" it rasped, "…could the ritual have succeeded?"
Ozpin did not answer immediately. He kept his gaze on the stars, on the fractured glow of the shattered moon above. His silence stretched until the shadow on the ground—the Crow's feathers shifted restlessly, its shadow-edges twitching.
Finally, he spoke.
"She was infected by a Nightmare."
The words hung like frost in the air.
"That infection must have tethered her to the Dream in ways we... apparently still do not yet understand. Every other ritual attempted in the past—every controlled experiment, every research attempt by LUCID—was performed by those who were untouched. By those uninfected and normal."
He finally turned his head, his green eyes cutting toward the Crow.
"No one thought to test the rituals on those who were marked. It was a blind spot. An oversight, if you will."
The Crow tilted its monstrous head, then gave the faintest incline—acknowledgment, agreement. The sound it made was almost like the grinding of stone.
And then, it rose.
From shadow into mass, its form expanded, unfolding into sheer immensity. Wings that could have covered entire city blocks unfurled with silent weight, blotting out the stars themselves. It towered over the buildings, a living eclipse of black.
And yet… no one below noticed. The people of Vale continued their lives beneath it, oblivious to the cosmic thing looming above them.
Ozpin lifted his cane slightly, voice calm but firm.
"How far along are you?"
The Crow's vast head lowered. For a moment it only stared at him with its red hollow pits of eyes.
Then it spoke.
"One mastery. Two comprehension."
The words carried like thunder across the rooftop, though no glass rattled, no ears but Ozpin's heard them.
Ozpin closed his eyes briefly and exhaled a long, tired sigh. He tapped his cane once against the rooftop, the sound swallowed by shadow.
"…I see."
The Crow gave no farewell. It simply turned, wings sweeping wide as it dived back into the shadow of the buildings. Its massive form bled away into the night, swallowed by the empty pockets between the high-rises until it was gone.
The Raven's shadow, left behind, tilted its sleek head toward Ozpin. Its eyes glimmered with quiet intelligence, waiting.
Ozpin regarded it for a long moment, then gave the faintest nod.
"Join him," he said simply.
The Raven bowed its head once, then flew from shadow to shadow—feathers ruffling with a scent of death—and slipped soundlessly into the urban dark, weaving into the angles of glass and steel until it vanished.
Ozpin remained at the ledge, alone once more, the cityscape glittering as though nothing had stirred.
But the air carried a faint scent of bitterness.
.
.
AN: Who is this Crow and Raven?
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