Chapter 238: Final Strike

Chapter 238: Final Strike

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryuugi. This has been pulled from his Spacebattles publishment at threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/. Anyway on with the show...err read.

Final Strike

I came back to my body with a crash, the power of Ohr Ein Sof leaping from my fingers in a rush of annihilating light. I saw it rush over Gilgamesh's body, a thin line piercing through the center of his chest and the portal therein, before the blast expanded. It lost all semblance of shape as a beam as it expanded, growing into a wave of light that could have dwarfed mountains and devoured cities. It blotted out the world in front of me as if someone had taken an eraser to a whiteboard, clearing it of everything in sight.

When it faded, everything in front of me was gone as if cut away by a surgeon's knifeand so were Malkuth and Gilgamesh.

Slowly, I let me hand drop to my side, the tension that had built up within me over the course of the fight easing as I relaxed, receiving what was perhaps the best possible confirmation I could ask for.

Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one! Your level has increased by one!

I'd won.

I wanted to smile, laugh, cheer, and celebratebut I didn't. I couldn't muster up the will to, in the end, couldn't relax quite that much. Because even though things had gone well, even though they'd gone better than I could have expected or hopedthat had been close. Too close for even me to be comfortable with, to not feel just a little tired and worried. It wasn't the fight, which had gone better than expected, all things considered, but what had come after; the negotiation between Malkuth and I. If I'd been wrong, if I'd made a mistake in my assumptionseveryone I loved would be dead right now, or in the process of getting there.

On a level, I'd known it would come to thisI knew better than to focus on an event to the exclusion of what came after. Defeating Gilgamesh and Malkuth was necessary to get to the computer and whatever laid within it, but even that was almost secondary to my real goal.

Buying time.

I had no other choice, when it came right down to it. I'd needed to find a way to forge a temporary armistice with Malkuth, because I'd known full well that if I let him out as I was, if I faced him at my current level of powerI'd lose. With Metatron active, it was possible I could have made it a fighting defeat, but I'd had no delusions about how that fight would have endedI would have died, followed by everyone I knew and loved.

And I couldn't allow that, not when I might have been able to stop it. But I'd also known that the moment I proved myself strong enough to do whatever it was Malkuth intended, he'd try to force my handto make me give him his freedom. I knew how far he could go to do it, too, and so there'd only been one way to go about doing it; putting us in a situation where neither of us could win, even if it meant gambling my life, with all of our lives.

But if I'd been mistaken about him, if he had been willing to wait, if I'd been wrong

I hadn't been I reminded myself. It was okay. I'd bought them, all of us, a bit of time.

How much timethat I wasn't sure of. I wasn't foolish enough to believe that Malkuth was going to stop being an assholesure, I could bend space and time to my whim, but I knew to keep my goals realistic. He wouldn't have agreed to my plan unless he'd had something in mind as well, I just wasn't completely sure what. Was he counting on Cinder's plan? Death? Or something else? How did any of those play into getting one over on me and making me obey?

There was no way of knowing yetand depending on what he was scheming, I might not see the knife coming until it was too late.

That was one of the downsides to this little arrangement of oursneither of us wanted to obey the rules; we just wanted the others to obey them and didn't want to suffer the consequences of breaking them ourselves. We'd both be trying to push the boundaries of the agreement, seeing which rules we could bend and which we could break. The only problem was that Malkuth was better equipped to skirt the edges of it than I was. His threat was that he'd start wiping nations off the map if I did anything, whereas mine was that I'd die fighting before letting him out. Sadly, he could do quite a bit without ending civilization, whereas I wasn't going to make him give a shit by doing anything less than dying. The deal had been in his favor in that regard at least.

But then, it had to be. If he hadn't been able to see some advantage to it, he wouldn't have accepted the dealand I stood to profit in other ways besides. It was unfortunate and less than ideal, but that was compromise, I suppose; everyone was a little bit unhappy. But I was happier then I would have been watching everyone die and however long I had, I'd just have to make the most of it.

I had to make the most of what I'd been given, by both life and my past self. Use this time to figure out a way to finish what I started.

It was almost funny, really. I couldn't go any further without the knowledge within the computerand to reach that knowledge, I'd had no choice but think of a way to survive just a bit longer. That was my life, I suppose.

For a moment, everything was silent, muted by the simple fact that just about everything capable of making noise was gone. It was only after several seconds passed and she saw me relax that Raven spoke.

"Jian," She said. "Is it over?"

"Almost," I said, opening my eyes again. "We still have to get what we came for."

Raven nodded once, expression tight and hand still hovering by her sword; she was still expecting a trap, which seemed wise. I just wasn't sure if it would be a physical trap.

Either way, we'd just have to deal with it.

Before that, howeveras the items appeared before me, I snatched them up with my Psychokinesis and held them in the air before me. The exorbitant amount of money, I simple stored away, having no real use for it, but the othersa mask, a suit of armor, and one of those trange metallic plates like the one I'd gotten from my father.

You have obtained the item 'Enkidu.'

You have obtained the item 'Utnapishtim.'

You have obtained the skill book 'Shutur Eli Sharri.'

I added them to my various collections as well and held out a hand to Raven, who took it.

Then, I gathered the power of Metatron around myself and slipped through the dimensional barrier that yet remained untouched, Trespassing with a simple act of willand we entered the ancient city that had been left behind. In a way, it felt like venturing into the unknown, but in another

It was like coming home.

And with a sensation like the final keystroke on a computer, I felt a lock give way and a doorway openand with a sensation like breaking glass, time stopped.

"Hello," A voice said. "You must be me, then."

I would have blinked once, had my body not been halted as well. I tried to hone in on the source, but found that my senses weren't working as they were supposed to, failing to reveal anything out of the ordinarybut then I mentally clicked my tongue, understanding what was happening. Slowly, carefully, I stood up from my own body, Projecting myself but differently, letting Metatron color the results. My spirit left my body behind and I closed my eyes for a moment before turning around and opening them.

As I did, I saw a figure who didn't appear to any of my other senses, because he existed only in mynot quite my mind, as such, but within the system I was now a part of. He had no physical presence, no spirit, beyond what I created with a self-imposed illusion, but as I crafted the Delusion it slipped from my hold in an odd way and the figure began to move in his own right. He was about my height, perhaps a little shorter, with hair somewhere between auburn and blonde and lightly tanned skin. We didn't look much alike build-wise, either; I was taller and built stronger, while he was morehonestly, the only word I could really use was statuesque. He looked like an actor to my warrior, which probably wasn't a coincidence given our natures, and I wondered absently precisely how much was defined by our powers. It must have been at least a few things, seeing as our eyes were the same color.

Exactly the same color.

"Hello," I greeted, smiling slowly. "That would be me, yes. Should we bother with introductions seeing as we're the same person or just skip the formalities?"

"I wouldn't consider it a bother," He said. "Unlike you, my knowledge of the situation is somewhat limited. It's rather difficult to prepare for something so far in advanced. By now, you no doubt know me as Keter, seeing as you must have already remembered our true name, and it's hopefully safe to assume you're my reincarnation, unless I failed and made some dramatic oversight. May I ask for your name, then?"

"Jaune Arc," I said. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Keter. I assume you're a record of some kind? Not quite an AI, but"

"Not quite a person," He finished, smiling. "Yes. There was only so much I could do on short notice, especially with so much uncertainty involved, so I borrowed this trick. To make things simple, you could consider me an interactive daydream of sorts; I contained what I could within this place, keyed it to parts of our soul as tightly as I could, andhere we am. I'm not an independent being, per seif anything, I'm just a projection of your soul upon itself, drawing from what was locked within this."

He tapped a foot on the platform and I imagined it making a sound.

"Interesting," I mused. "We couldn't rely on our own memories, so we hid them somewhere elsesomewhere Malkuth couldn't risk tampering with."

"Precisely," He agreed. "Though memories might not be precisely the right word. Matters of the soul do have a tendency towards the complex, ours in particular. In a way, it's more like I locked some of our time away. Our past and future history? Our life? I apologize; I don't think there's a word in your language for it."

"I figured a few things might be lost in translation," I told myself. "Don't worry about itwhatever the case, I'm glad for this chance to finally see myself. I was a bit worried, you see; as you probably expected, I don't remember much about my previous lifeand I remember more of the early days than the later ones. Death's work, but you obviously suspected much."

He nodded in understanding.

"It wouldn't make sense for Malkuth to leave us with much, given the chance to take things away," He said. "It'd leave us with too many advantages, after all, too much knowledge of how things work. Returning to our full power would still have taken time, but vastly less than he would have liked. Luckily, it seems you didn't have too much trouble making progressI hope you didn't have too much trouble on the way in."

"I had to fight Gilgamesh," I said before shrugging. "And Malkuth, through him. I managed."

"That's good to hear," He replied. "And Death?"

I sighed, shoulders falling slightly.

"Not here, as near as I could tell," I answered and at that, the memory looked surprised. "Unless he has some means of hiding extremely well that I couldn't counter, which could be bound. I take it he was supposed to be here?"

The image of Keter hesitated.

"I don't know anything for certain, of course," He began, musing as much to himself as to me. "I wasn't active for any of the intervening time. ButI'd suspected he would be here."

I nodded, having figured as much myself. Having seen this place now, knowing more about it, things didn't add up. It didn't make sense for Malkuth not to leave anyone inside, just in case. It was always possible, after all, that I might have snuck in without Gilgamesh or his cronies noticing, so it only made sense to have someone stand watch within, to sound the alarm if nothing else. That was, in part, why I hadn't tried to sneak inthe last thing I needed was to run into one problem, have them say a word, and end up as the meat in a Grimm sandwich.

And if it were to be anyone, I'd thought it would probably be Death. The one who'd scrubbed me clean last timeif I were to learn of anything untoward, something Malkuth hadn't expected and couldn't handle, it made sense to have him on hand to make sure I didn't get a chance to use it. Failing that, Death seemed pretty much bound to be the greatest of the Riders and the most likely to still be able to ruin the day of someone who made it past a small army of super Grimm. It even fit with the general state of things here, the emptiness and lack.

And yet, there hadn't been anyone waiting for me. It had been suspicious as all hell from the very beginning, leaving only a small handful of options.

The first was that it was a trapwhich was still a possibility. Death could be lying in wait, positioned somewhere I couldn't see even with Metatron active. That'd take some pretty serious space-time fuckery at the very minimum, but Malkuth probably could have managed it if he'd had a chance. If so, I could expect unpleasantness as soon as I left this dream sequence.

As much as I dreaded the possibility of that happening, though, I almost hoped it was the casebecause the second was, if anything, even more worrying, though for different reasons. That Death simply wasn't here, that something had convinced it to leave its position, something that changed things. But Death was a Rider and must have had a host, and I knew of one person who might have served that purpose. Was this the proof I'd needed to prove Ozpin's true nature? The inconsistencies, the lack, everything?

Maybe. I really, truly hoped not, but maybe.

If there was ever a time for me to be wrong, though, I'd really like for it to be now.

Either way, thoughI'd have to deal with that as I came to it.

"I'll handle Death, one way or another," I said. "For nowyou know what I'm looking for."

He looked at me for a moment and then smiled, lifting an empty hand.

"It may not be what you wanted," He warned before lifting the other as well. "But it may be what you need. Would you like to know? The reasons behind it all andthe nature of Metatron's Cube?"

I nodded and reached out to grasp his handand the world dissolved beneath my feet.