Gwi-Ma was angry. Gwi-Ma was furious.
He had failed.
His manifestation had been so close to completion, the mortal world was almost within his metaphysical grasp, and yet, in the final moments, everything had unraveled.
Those damned girls.
They hadn't just finished the Honmoon, they had forged a new one, an abomination(To him at least) of fresh design… and still, somehow, it sealed him completely.
It wasn't even golden.
Whether it could truly rival a Honmoon tempered over generations of demon hunters remained to be seen, but that detail was irrelevant. It had been enough to cage him.
It was his right to rule the mortal realm. It was his birthright to feast upon human souls, to add their essence to his ever-growing might.
And Jinu… that treacherous wretch. He had turned on Gwi-Ma at the most critical moment, snatching away the pleasure of crushing the half-demon Rumi, the one who had defied him since the day she was born.
He should have seen it coming. He should have seen it!
Jinu cared only for himself. His sudden change in behavior should have been a warning, yet Gwi-Ma had dismissed it.
The plan had been flawless. The carefully woven misery, the orchestrated shame, it had all been enough to shatter the demon hunters' unity. But in the end, Jinu's petty sentiment for the half-demon had ruined everything.
Gwi-Ma was angry.
Months had passed since that day, and every moment since had been spent in destruction. The underworld burned with his wrath, the ground quaking constantly under the force of his rage.
Today would be no different.
"Damn you!!!" Gwi-Ma's roar shook the very sky, a bellow that tore through the endless lattice of threads above. Flames erupted from his fire-shaped maw, staining the woven heavens in shades of pink and crimson.
For months, he had tried to incinerate the Honmoon's sacred threads. For months, he had poured his fury into the assault.
And, for months, the threads had endured, looking as pristine as ever, shimmering with translucent light.
Not even a ripple to be seen.
In the midst of his rampage, Gwi-Ma felt a disturbance tugging at the edges of his senses. His awareness stretched across the entirety of the underworld, every stone, every shadow, every trembling demon lay beneath his dominion. So when a gathering of his servants stirred in one place, he noticed instantly.
That, in itself, was strange.
Since the beginning of his wrath, his demons had learned to scatter, to cower in the deepest pits and hide in the cracks of the abyss. To be caught in his presence during one of his episodes was a death sentence, and even the most loyal of his creations dared not approach. He preferred it that way. Gwi-Ma had no patience for the sight of his failures.
Yet now, they were not only emerging, they were gathering.
And vanishing.
At an alarming rate.
He counted their deaths in real time, his vast awareness marking each extinguished ember. More than twenty every second. Snuffed out like candles before a storm.
"What is this?" Gwi-Ma hissed, his voice rumbling like shifting magma. His body of flame peeled away from the obsidian altar upon which he rested, surging across the ground in a searing wave. In an instant, he had traveled hundreds of miles, halting just short of the disturbance.
Through his blazing form, his eyes narrowed.
Then widened.
"A soul?" The word slipped from him like a crack in stone. His voice trembled, not with fear, but with wonder. "Here? In the underworld? And one so… so vast."
The closer he drew, the clearer it became. Stripped of the smothering haze of dying demons, the energy revealed itself in its full, intoxicating splendor.
A construct of immense magnitude pulsed before him, luminous and defiant. Its resonance was unmistakable, the signature of a human soul.
But never had Gwi-Ma witnessed one like this.
It was colossal, a blazing ocean of essence condensed into a single, perfect storm. Dense beyond comprehension. Radiant. Unfathomably powerful.
And so very, dangerously intoxicating.
"I must have it." The words slipped from Gwi-Ma's burning maw before he even realized he had spoken them. He almost barked an order for his demons to seize it, only to pause. They were already throwing themselves at the prize, and if he spoke his desire aloud, their frantic desperation would only make the task twice as difficult.
His eyes burned brighter as he focused on the source. What he saw made him hesitate.
It was not some formless energy. Not some weapon, relic, or stray essence.
It was a girl.
She moved with terrifying grace, darting through the horde with a speed that made even his Reapers look clumsy and incompetent in comparison. Her cloak, a flowing red, snapped behind her as she carved through demon after demon, her form blurring into streaks of motion.
Yet Gwi-Ma's true senses told him something different. Beneath the radiance of that magnificent soul, there pulsed a torrent of shame. So much shame that once he noticed it, he wondered how he had missed it at all. The sheer density of it was staggering, pressing against his awareness like a storm against glass.
Even he had never induced this much shame into a single being before. He didn't think it was possible.
"How… does a single being possess so much shame?" Gwi-Ma murmured, both intrigued and unsettled. His flames crackled in rhythm with his fascination.
His voice dropped to a whisper. "And how did you get here, little one?"
The girl gave no answer, for she could not hear him, only continued her merciless slaughter. Every swing of her weapon reaped another dozen demons, cleaving through his creations as if they were fragile parchment instead of forged from his own essence.
Gwi-Ma stretched out his power, threads of his being extending toward her, seeking to burrow into that ocean of shame. If he could tether himself to it, even for an instant, the secrets of her soul would be his.
The connection was instantaneous.
And for the first time in countless ages, Gwi-Ma nearly gasped.
Even without lungs. Even without a body.
What he touched was beyond anything he had expected.
Gwi-Ma's essence recoiled in shock. The moment his tether brushed against her shame, it was as though he had thrust his hand into a sea of molten iron, overwhelming, in every aspect of the word. It wasn't a mere reservoir of guilt or regret.
It was a labyrinth.
Every layer of her shame folded over itself, spiraling endlessly, deeper and deeper, each thread heavier than the last. Whole lifetimes of anguish pressed against him, compressed into this single, radiant soul. Each echo he touched was raw and painful. Failures, betrayals, broken promises, the weight of countless deaths carried as though they were her own.
It was beautiful.
It was horrifying.
It was intoxicating.
"This…" Gwi-Ma whispered, his voice trembling with the resonance of discovery. "This is no ordinary soul. A creation wrought by pain itself."
His flames flared violently, licking the cavernous air, the underworld itself groaning beneath the weight of his awe. He longed to devour her then and there, to tear that labyrinth apart thread by thread and weave her essence into his own. The thought alone made his flames surge higher, hungrier.
His tether dove too deep, too quickly, into the labyrinth of her soul. And then, too late, he realized his mistake.
A surge of power, violent, and electric, rushed back through the tether and into him.
"ARGHYSJEIDHJSHNHHHH!!!"
Gwi-Ma convulsed, his entire flaming form spasming, flickering in and out of reality as pain unlike any he had known in centuries ripped through him. His infernal body, ancient and immovable, shuddered like a dying flame.
But he was not the only one.
The girl froze mid-strike, her blade halting in the air. A scream tore out of her throat, raw and piercing, echoing through the abyss. Her body arched, trembling, as if the very same power that had lashed him now burned its way through her veins.
And then it happened.
Her eyes blazed, erupting into a blinding silver radiance. A burst of incandescent light tore out from her, flooding the underworld with brilliance it had not seen since the dawn of creation. The nearest demons didn't even have time to cry out. They simply evaporated, their forms dissolving into nothing beneath the searing purity of her gaze.
Even Gwi-Ma recoiled, retreating from her in a reflex born of instinct. His flames hissed and warped, recoiling from the silver radiance. For the first time in centuries, something warned him. Do not touch this light.
He prepared to strike her down, to silence this anomaly before it grew further, when her spasming form tilted upward.
Her gaze rose toward the heavens.
And the light rose with it.
The silver beam tore through the sky, lancing upward like a spear. The woven threads of the Honmoon, those pristine, untouchable chains that had resisted his fury for months, shattered before it. They evaporated, dissolving into mist beneath her power.
A hole yawned open in the lattice of the heavens. A wound in the Honmoon itself.
The light lingered only for a breath, then sputtered out. Her body collapsed to its knees, trembling, her breath ragged. She clutched her arm in surprise, her cloak slipping to reveal a shallow wound. At some point in her agony, one of the demons had managed to land a desperate strike, leaving a crimson line against her pale skin.
She stared at it in shock, but no one else paid it any mind.
The underworld had gone utterly silent.
Every demon had frozen, their gazes turned upward to the sky, to the torn threads already struggling to mend. A tremor of disbelief rippled through the abyss, through every dark corner and crevice.
And at the center of it all, Gwi-Ma stared, stupefied.
"She… punctured it," he whispered, voice cracking with something he hadn't felt in ages. "She pierced the Honmoon."
His flames flickered violently, echoing his words.
"She can tear through the Honmoon."
In only a few seconds, the tear had sealed itself, leaving the sky pristine once more, an undeniable sign that the Honmoon was not going anywhere.
'The tear won't last long enough for me to pass through. But…'
A plan began to take shape in his mind. He turned his focus back to the girl, catching fragments of her mutterings, strange words like aura and semblances that meant nothing to him.
He had been reckless with Jinu, but perhaps…
His flame-like body drifted toward the girl with measured calm.
---
Ruby stared at the blood on her arm, confusion etched across her face. Her aura should have protected her from cuts like this as long as it was active. She tried to recall, she hadn't taken any hits since waking up, had she?
But when had she even woken up? How long had she been lying there in that endless fog of misery? Minutes? Hours? Days? The memory was a blur.
"I feel exhausted," she murmured, resting her weight against Crescent Rose. "But I've been like this since the moment I woke up here. Guess I really burned through my aura just… lying down for days. Another thing for the list."
The wound had already stopped bleeding, the skin knitting back together on its own. Odd. Her aura wasn't even active.
"Come to think of it," Ruby murmured, her voice unsteady, "I've been using my semblance for hours now… without aura. What's going on here? Where even am I?"
{} Such a heavy soul. A burden no one should ever have to bear. {}
Her eyes snapped up. Crescent Rose whirled in her hands, unfolding into sniper form with a sharp click. She edged backward, the barrel sweeping the shadows. "Who's there?"
{} You failed them. You failed them all. {}
The voice was a cavernous echo inside her skull, rattling through her bones. Ruby spun, gun aimed, searching desperately for a figure, anything, but found only the emptiness pressing in around her.
[ Can you imagine what that's like? To be failed, completely and utterly, over and over again… by someone who meant the world to you? ]
The words weren't hers. They sounded like Penny's, or maybe Neo's, her semblance playing tricks on her again. Or maybe it didn't matter. Either way, they weren't wrong.
{} You let them die. You couldn't save anyone. {}
Her hands shook violently, Crescent Rose trembling in her grip. Normally its weight steadied her. Not this time.
[ How many more people are going to die because of you? ]
Pyrrha's voice, sharp and accusatory, cut straight through her. She couldn't summon an argument. Couldn't muster even a whisper of defiance.
[ How many more lives must you ruin before you finally realize, you're not cut out to save anyone? ]
"Please… stop." Ruby's voice cracked. She squeezed her eyes shut, as if that could shut the voices out. Ozpin's face flashed in her mind. He had never looked at her with eyes like those. Never like this.
"Make it stop."
{} Why would you cling to life, when all you bring is death? {}
Ruby staggered back, the words searing her from the inside out. Her knees threatened to buckle beneath her as Crescent Rose's weight pulled harder on her trembling arms. She wanted to scream that it wasn't true, but the memories rose up faster than her denials. Penny's lifeless eyes. Pyrrha's final breath. Yang's broken body.
Each name carved another line into her heart. Each failure stacked atop the last until she felt as though her chest would collapse inward from the sheer pressure of it.
{} You were supposed to protect them. {}
Her vision blurred. The silver light that had erupted from her moments ago flickered faintly in her eyes now, but there was no resolve behind it.
"Stop… please…" Ruby whispered, her voice almost inaudible. She didn't know who she was begging. The voices. Herself. Or the monstrous shadow lurking just beyond her senses.
Gwi-Ma did not move closer yet. His flames curled and writhed, restrained for once, as if drinking in the sight before him. He had expected her to fight the voices, to lash back, to resist. Instead, she folded beneath them.
Marvelous.
He could taste the anguish radiating off her, every whispered plea a note in a symphony only he could hear. The labyrinth of her soul expanded with each crack in her spirit, a banquet laid bare before his hungering eyes.
{} They'll all die. Just like the others. And it will be your fault. {}
Ruby fell to one knee. Crescent Rose clattered to the stone at her side, its crimson edge catching the faint light. Her fingers pressed against her head, as though she could claw the voices out by force.
"I… tried…" Her words broke into sobs. "I tried so hard. I never wanted any of them to… but they kept…"
Her chest tightened, breath ragged. "It's all my fault. Every time. It's always my fault."
The words slipped past her lips before she could stop them. And once spoken, they rang true, irrevocable.
"It hurts..." She cried, tears falling freely from her eyes. "It hurts so much. I'm so sorry. It's all my fault."
{}I can take it all away. The pain...{}
Ruby heard the words within her mind, still clutching crescent rose for comfort.
{}...The memories.{}
Ruby's breath hitched, the whisper coiling inside her skull like smoke.
{} I can strip it all away. The hurt. The failure. The guilt that drowns you. {}
Her hands clutched Crescent Rose tighter, the cold metal digging into her palms. She wanted to scream "No," to reject it, but the word snagged in her throat like a fish caught on a hook. Her whole body trembled with the weight of what was being offered.
To forget Penny's broken form, replaced with a human body. Pyrrha's fall. Yang's broken screams.
To forget herself.
[I don't want to be me anymore.]
Her tears blurred the edges of the underworld around her. For a heartbeat, the horde of demons, the broken lattice above seemed to fade into nothing but that voice.
{} You don't need to be the one who remembers. You don't need to be the one who suffers. {}
The words pressed against her heart, soft and poisonous.
Her lips parted. "If… if I let you… will they…" Her voice cracked, the question unfinished, but the ache behind it was clear.
For the first time, silence answered.
A silence too heavy. Too deliberate.
Her stomach knotted. Her soul screamed at her to resist, yet her body remained still, caught in the web of temptation.
{} You were not made to carry this. Let me carry it for you. Just open the door. {}
Ruby's breath quickened. She pressed her forehead against Crescent Rose's stock, eyes squeezed shut, desperate for something to hold her steady.
She reached out, desperate to hold on to something, anything.
Then, Gui-Ma's tether found her.
A faint purple pattern bloomed against the side of her neck, glowing softly like ink etched into her skin.