The end of war

Professor Ozpin always, at least in the eyes of those who occasionally paid him a glance, looked the same. The same stature, the same manners, even the same way of dress.

Politicians drooling over the next debate, teachers cheerfully seeing off their graduating class, newly minted Hunters weeping at feeling the first bitterness of loss that came their way, but Professor Ozpin always remained immovable. In a way, almost always unchanged like a statue.

His posture might be slightly more relaxed or tense, his cane might be placed an inch to either side, his glasses might rest lower or higher on the bridge of his nose, exposing or hiding his sharp eyes. Throughout his tenure as headmaster, he rarely changed the way he dressed, despite some fashion magazines decrying his lack of ostentatiousness.

No, through generations of Hunters that had graduated from his school, Ozpin remained unchanged.

Should one of his past students, or a passing acquaintance, be asked to describe him, no matter how long they had graduated or how brief their acquaintanceship, their description would not deviate far from reality.

No matter how much time passes, or how many tragedies happen, even if they're at his hands. Ozpin remains the same.

Of course, Ozpin was not a heartless machine, he was capable of feelings and even expressing them. He could at least act like he does.

Having spent millennia in his war against Salem, living through hundreds of generations of humans, Ozpin had long since weaned himself from many feelings. The most horrifying tortures, the most grandiose triumphs, the most tragic defeats – none of them reached the soul of the immortal manipulator. It was simply nothing more than another small detail in his eternal life's journey.

What was the point of a man worrying about something that would only be meaningful for a day or a few hours? For a person, a tragedy that would destroy their life, is nothing more to Ozpin than hitting a pinky toe on a sharp corner, a flash of pain that would soon be forgotten.

What was the point of Ozpin worrying about something that would only be felt for a few decades, a lifetime for a normal person, but barely a blink of the eye for Ozpin. The loss of a friend, the death of a subordinate, the betrayal of a family? Just a few decades and the past would be erased into a single gray mass of events.

So, was it worth it for Ozpin to worry about it?

Until recently, Ozpin had thought that such strong emotions had completely left him. That there was barely any emotion left in him to react to something like a death with more than a stoic acceptance.

But, as it turned out, despite what felt like an eternity of attending funerals of those close to him, he would still feel something for someone's impending death. He had stood by many a close subordinates, some that he even personally liked, as they were wasting away at their deathbed, sometimes for years, and he had felt nothing.

Turns out, his deadened emotions could still feel something. It just needed to be about a singular person in particular.

Salem.

It's quite funny really, no matter how Ozpin could see the similarities between them, just how extensive his information networks, and his personal brilliance, Jonathan was never quite able to solve the mystery. He never quite understood why Ozpin had shown up at Kali Belladonna's birthday banquet, eventually coming to the conclusion that it was to change Jonathan, to push him down a new path.

Well, that was true, from a certain point of view, however Jonathan was unable to reach the last, necessary step, to reach the end of this chain of thought.

Was Ozpin interested about life in Menagerie? Slightly, it barely matters in the grand scheme of things. After only a few hundred years, if even that, and Menagerie would remain only in the pages of the history books. A state ruled by great rulers, a flourishing culture, or it would be a state of decline, torn apart by outside enemies – in a few hundred years Menagerie will only be a paragraph in the history books.

Why should Ozpin care about their condition?

Jonathan believed that Ozpin wished to show him his sad journey from savior and hero to dictator and politician, though he repeated himself, but in this case he was confusing the side objective with the main objective.

And it has always been the same for all his life, so it's surprising that Jonathan would miss it.

It was, is, and will always be the destruction of Salem.

Ozpin didn't care whether Jonathan tried to change the terms of the contract with Menagerie or went back to destroying it right after Salem was destroyed. He could decide to reinstate Faunus slavery again for all Ozpin cares.

What Ozpin cared about in this case was merely the matter of Jonathan's excessive preoccupation with political squabbles in lieu of fighting the eternal enemy, not the manner of the political squabbles themselves. Well, if all else fails, and Jonathan proves to be too preoccupied in playing Remnant politics to get back to defeating Salem, Ozpin still has his original plan to provoke him… Or eliminate him entirely from the board.

He was glad that he didn't need to rely on his more drastic measures.

Ozpin however has other things to worry about, especially with Aifal's imminent death, and the last play he did. Relying on Salem's own wishes and Aifal's work, this time, as one would expect from a man who had never kept loyalty to anyone but himself, decided to support the destruction of his mistress. Coinciding with the gathering and analyzing of legends and tales that Jonathan had finished, which Ozpin himself had helped in no small measure… And Ozpin, for the first time in a long time, felt something of the approaching death of a human being.

For despite all the manipulations that had taken place, Salem was still a human being, if only to Ozpin.

Surprisingly, it was not regret. What regret could there still be in his soul about death, much less the death of his eternal adversary? Once upon a time, so many years ago that it was pointless to talk about it at the moment, Ozpin had treated Salem differently, he had loved her with all his heart and the family they had created… Only for Salem to destroy it all when she killed their children and then decided to kill humanity.

She proved to be quite successful at that.

Of course, there was no regret in him for Salem's death, just as there was no doubt about the necessity of such an event, for all of Ozpin's entire life, his infinitely long existence, it was dedicated to Salem's destruction. However… What then?

If, just like that, Ozpin's entire life, Ozpin's entire infinitely long existence was dedicated to the destruction of Salem, what would happen after? For thousands of years, Ozpin's entire existence revolved around Salem's destruction. Either fighting openly or by weaving intrigue, winning or losing, he threw himself headlong into that maelstrom losing his humanity, regaining it, and losing it all over again.

Ozpin's entire existence could be viewed through the prism of his battle with Salem, this unchanging war against an immutable adversary, a never-ending battle…

And now, it seemed, the finale of such a drawn out long play was about to come.

Did Ozpin ever contemplate this day coming, the day when Salem would be finished and their eternal war would be put to rest? Certainly he had pondered it, even dreamt of it. An end to his eternal struggle.

Once, long ago, many rebirths and lives ago, when Ozpin had been far more naive and eager, but also filled with far more unfulfilled hopes and dreams, Ozpin had pondered this day, the day of ultimate victory. He had imagined many ways on how it would happen.

He imagined himself as the victorious knight, leading Salem to the execution scaffold, or perhaps a pyre, preparing to burn her in the flames, or to see her hang. How many times that fantasy had saved him when he'd been forced to protect the last remnants of Remnant's population, warmed by the blood of palms cut open to sate thirsts in a desperate escape and thoughts of terrible revenge?

He had imagined her murdered in secret, dying in the darkest corner of Remnant after his victory, and in some moments of particular heartache, he imagined what a world would look like in which she didn't exist at all. How beautiful the world would be, rid of Salem and the Grimm, where the wilds only hid wild beasts, as Remnant prospers.

Of course, other thoughts visited his head, darker thoughts, when victory seemed so distant and far away. Thoughts about her victory, how she would chain his soul in moments of his utmost despair, where she would stop him from reincarnating. About how he would wish to spend his last days in this world, how he imagined his own death, so near and familiar, and yet so infinitely distant from him,

But all these were nothing more than idle thoughts, a waste of time, a rare indulgence that Ozpin allowed himself. Distracted thoughts, on which Ozpin soon ceased to have time and energy to have, immersed in his eternal affairs and problems.

He had stopped having these idle daydreams, the last one was perhaps about a hundred years ago? Ozpin probably hadn't seriously considered for hundreds of years what his victory over Salem, his eternal enemy, might look like. Salem herself was unchanging, and so the endless dance of the two old adversaries went on and on, with no end in sight.

But now, Ozpin had found himself, for the first time in countless years past, close to the end of the battle, close to Salem's demise. Even if the centuries had etched almost everything that could be called 'human' from his soul – he couldn't help but feel something as he approached such a monumental event.

As for the inhabitants of Remnant, none of them knew of Salem's existence, nor did their parents, nor did their parents before them, nor did generations of their ancestors. So for what would be a momentous event for Ozpin, would just be another day for them.

Entire generations, nations even, had aged and died knowing nothing of Salem, all by Ozpin's own decision to keep this information from them. There were many reasons for this, protecting the people, keeping them safe from the corrosive influence of his eternal enemy, and at the same time, to continue the endless struggle in the shadows.

Even if they knew Salem, the ruler of the Grimm, existed, what could they do about it? They were so limited in capability, in the sense that only a few decades seemed to them a gigantic span of time, during which states, nations, and cities could arise and disappear. How could such a brief moment of perception contain thousands of years of unceasing warfare between two witnesses of the living Gods and magic? How to perceive the monumentality of such an event, the demise of Salem?

Ozpin felt… A strange feeling regarding such a development.

There was no regret for what Salem had once been or what she might once have become. Ozpin had lived too long in this world with those thoughts to revisit them now. But at the same time, he couldn't help but feel something regarding the event itself. Ozpin had fought Salem for so long that time had lost all meaning for the two of them in describing their eternal war, and had completely stopped thinking about the fact that one day this eternal war would end.

And now, the end, for her, is coming. The finale for everything.

Ozpin could not put into words his feelings about this event, despite the years he had lived, he had never managed to come close to such a comprehensive knowledge of language to find a suitable expression for his feelings. Or maybe such words had never been invented in the first place.

After all, mankind was so limited in their perception, of large numbers and long periods of time. They simply did not need words to express the end of a war that had dragged on for millennia.

He felt joy, certainly, but along with it was the bitter tang of sadness and regret. He was relieved that a burden that he had to carry for so long was finally going to be lifted from him, it was a triumph, a victory. And yet, he couldn't help but feel lost…

And all of it, even exhausted by an eternity of war, the complex cocktail of emotion that didn't seem to be an emotion at all at that, Ozpin couldn't help but feel. But above it all was a simple question…

What would follow next? After Salem's demise… Once upon a time, Ozpin could not even dream, let alone seriously plan for a future without Salem. But, if such an event was near, if Jonathan had really prepared his magic for that final battle… What followed after eternity?

The sole reason for Ozpin's life, existence even, was to fight Salem. The Brother Gods had cursed him to fight Salem, and all his subsequent rebirths were all for his eternal battle with her. But now that this mission was accomplished, now that Salem was to perish, finally and irrevocably.

Where did that leave Ozpin?

What was next? How was he, who had accomplished his goal, ending the eternity of his battle with Salem, to live? What was his immortality supposed to lead to now that there was no reason for his eternal nature?

Family? Friends? Career? All these petty things that hadn't troubled Ozpin in hundreds of rebirths, peeling away from his personality like old paint falling off a condemned building… Was he supposed to live that now?

But how?

Ozpin had lived living lives after lives, familial relationships meant little to him, he had lost his humanity in such aspirations and attitudes. If not from devoting his life to fighting Salem, but simply because he had lived for hundreds of generations. He had seen his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren die, and many more down the family tree, not from terrible cataclysms and tragedies, but of old age.

It was necessary to make sure that he would always have a fallback plan should Salem decide to wage war openly, and Humanity was at the edge of extinction again. But he didn't enjoy it. How could he? When he still remembered the deaths of his daughter so vividly?

Such was the inevitable fate of the ever-living. Time after time he was condemned to see those who were dear to him disappear in the passage of time. And for a career? He could do it, very well indeed, there was no one else more experienced than him, in all sorts of positions and jobs, after all. But all that was just a means to an end, it was much easier to conduct his secret war with Salem with a powerful position after all, He never found any satisfaction from it.

Not to mention how difficult it was to maintain career achievements when being reborn again and again in new bodies, not knowing whose body you would occupy again after your rebirth. He could maintain a secret society of those who were willing to fight Salem in this way, but nothing more, not to mention how useless such a society was now without the presence of Salem herself.

Perhaps he could guide mankind further, with Salem out of the way they could achieve more, with Ozpin's endless stores of its generations of experience? Perhaps, but then again, all of Remnant's culture was built upon the battling of Grimm, surviving against them, and indirectly, Salem. Without Salem, Ozpin needed to be more proactive, controlling, guiding it from the shadows, he could lead Humanity in whatever direction he wished.

But what was he supposed to lead Remnant towards? Was he supposed to guide Remnant further at all? Ozpin's entire existence hung on the existence of his eternal nemesis, his invincible enemy.

Without this eternal enemy, Ozpin was…

An anachronism, a relic of the past. New and yet old, a strange and incomprehensible object, a stranger in this world, someone the world just didn't need.

Ozpin and Salem, Salem and Ozpin. Their fate had been tied to each other for so long, two eternal enemies, always against each other, that by removing one the other was useless. Take Ozpin out of the picture, and Salem would devour the world. And equally, by removing Salem – Ozpin was completely without purpose.

The war with Salem deprived Ozpin of everything – except the war with Salem itself. As soon as he won and killed Salem, Ozpin was… unnecessary

What's next? A question to which Ozpin searched for an answer but could not find.

No, he had found the answer, but what he had he found, he couldn't accept.

Nothing. There would be nothing.

That was the answer to the question 'What comes next?' that Ozpin had found.

Nothing, Ozpin, was no longer needed in this world. He no longer has a place in this world without Salem. And if that was the case, then perhaps Ozpin should no longer exist in this world.

And so, after the destruction of Salem… Ozpin planned to accept his fate from Jonathan's hands.

After all, if the latter could destroy one immortal entity… He would have no trouble ending two.

What was it worth for him to end the suffering of another?

***

Once upon a time, many years ago, Salem could still count the days and years, the events of the past crystal clear in her head. Her own age, the beginning of the war against Ozpin, the holidays of her now long-vanished homeland… But no more.

Slowly, they were all fading into history, slowly, one by one.

What was the point of keeping the memories of her home if there was nothing left of it? No ruins, no songs, no history, not even legends.

Then her age and the names of her old acquaintances followed, simply because without reminders, she began to forget the names of those she had once cared for. Her daughters, her friends, her followers. Then she began to falter trying to remember the current date.

After only a couple of thousand days cut off from calendars, distinguishing the passing of days solely by the moving sun in the sky, became unreliable. It was only a matter of a couple of times of confusing the days and nights, of missing just a few days from her mind, that her perception of time began to dissipate.

It was only a matter of time for her to lose all sense of time. Months began to blur into one another, until she could no longer perceive years, and counting the years that had passed her by became a meaningless activity, a waste of time… Which is ironic, since time is something she has in abundance.

At some point, Salem herself stopped thinking about things in the perspective of the past, present, or future. Of course, she understood the concept of time, but her perception of it became completely different, blurred, until it became completely perverted, turning into one continuous stream. Something which made her found strange the act of distinguishing time passed by sunsets and sunrises.

Why, if a thousand sunrises would bring her nothing new? Why, if she had been one and the same a thousand sunsets ago?

In the end, time became nothing, and with her lost sense of time, Salem lost her taste for life. If time meant nothing to Salem, if what felt like only a hundred days could leave no imprint on her and eventually fade? Then victories had lost their flavor and defeats had become petty events unworthy of her attention. And if there was no desire left in her to move towards victories and even towards avoiding defeats… What was the point of her existence?

Things had once been different, of course. Once, Ozpin's furious or pained screams, she wasn't choosy, had seemed like music to her soul, and destroying people had seemed to her a fitting payment for their betrayal of her reign. But even that enjoyment had eventually gone away.

Salem couldn't even tell who was the first – her or Ozpin, to lose their taste for their endless war. The battle between two great minds had become routine, commonplace, and with it, a burden. A curse for the two of them.

Salem had once wished to die when she was only cursed by the Gods to never meet her lover in death. Then came their reunion, their love, and she had found another reason to live. Then came their discord and war, and she had lost all reason in making sure that Ozpin hurt.

And then, finally, it all came back again to where it all began, her desire for death.

Now, however, her death had nothing to do with her lost love, only bone-deep fatigue. An endless fatigue that only immortals like her could experience, a fatigue of her endless life.

Everything in life manages to bore a person if it is repeated a hundred or a thousand times. The most favorite thing needed time in between, the closest people need some distance from each other sometimes, the most favorite food would cause one to vomit if they only eat it every day.

So what about a million days? A billion? All things soon lose all meaning and enjoyment.

Endlessly, with each new sunrise and sunset, one step after another, she would create and command an endless horde of unintelligent Grimm. Every day the machinations and plots of faceless and interchangeable servants, the same plots at that. Victory, defeat, the quagmire of an eternal stalemate in an endless struggle.

Salem was tired, tired of everything. Of the world, of people, of Grimm, of the Sun, of losing, of winning… She was tired of life and tired of herself.

But deliverance never found her.

Just as she had tried thousands of years ago to find the possibility of her doom, so did thousands of years later, with all of Ozpin's possible help in this endeavor, Salem could not find it. A path to the blissful end of everything.

A path that was to finally put to s final end to Salem's existence, a life that had dragged on and bored her immensely without end. For so long, Salem had been looking for a way to die, had tried every magical and technical invention Remnant had to offer, and found no release.

Until she finally glimpsed something that she thought she had lost long ago.

Hope.

Jonathan Goodman, someone who had appeared out of nowhere as if out of thin air, distracted by his own petty problems and plans, desires, family, politics… Had showed Salem a glimpse of hope. A way for her to finally die.

The man that finally managed to become an opportunity for her, an opportunity to put an end to the vicious cycle of her endless life. There wasn't a thing in the world that Salem wouldn't do for an opportunity to finally end her life, and Jonathan holds that opportunity in his hands.

Provocations by hordes of Grimm, mixed with carefully fed information about her existence to Jonathan. Fairy tales, legends, real-time information…

All for the sake of finally realizing her end.

Aifal had passed on the information that could lead to Salem's impending doom, justifying with that one piece of news all the previous times he had betrayed Salem's loyalty for his own amusement. But even if she hadn't had such a co-conspirator, Salem wouldn't have missed the moment when she felt the magic.

Not the kind of magic that she herself, Ozpin, or the people of her past home possessed, but Salem had no desire to be picky about such things at the moment. As long as that magic could fulfil her cherished dream, even the Gods were her allies in that endeavor. Was it not the Gods' 'help' after all that had led her to this cursed life?

Salem wished to know the time and place for her doom, wished to know the moment when her dream would be fulfilled… And she knew that it was today.

She didn't know exactly what her doom would look like, but she didn't care, it was quite literally the last thing on her mind.. What was the point of pondering the possible forms of her doom, if each of them was a conduit to her doom in either path?

Jonathan Goodman's birthday. The final day of her life…

The happiest day of Salem's life.

The day Salem, perhaps for the first time in remembered memory, though that perhaps that didn't mean much, sincerely thanked someone.

"Happy Birthday, Jonathan Goodman." Salem could only say quietly, as she looked out at the vast black fields around her, feeling the end of her life approaching with each passing second. Perhaps she could see it coming? It would be quite beautiful to see.

"Happy Birthday... And thank you for everything."

***

Jonathan Goodman thought a lot about his life.

In fact, he had been doing this sort of thing a lot of times. Repeatedly, in his life, returning to the picture of his life, time after time, and after every decision he makes. Constantly, investigating it from different angles, almost every day.

Could he have done anything differently? Do something differently? Make a different choice in his path? And if so, where could he have made that different choice in the past?

What would have happened if he had not retreated in the face of Ghira's resolve and continued his pressure on Menagerie? If he hadn't intervened in Mantle's revolution? If he hadn't saved Vacuo, destroyed the super horde, escaped to Glenn, robbed a bank, met Cinder, ended up in Atlas, got caught in a storm, travelled to Umbra, became a mage of the Order of Hermes, and discovered magical abilities?

Which particular link in that chain changed everything? At what point could he have made a different choice? And if he could have done so, what would that choice have led to?

It was impossible to predict how Jonathan's life might have turned out differently with each decision he takes, willingly or not.

Perhaps he could be a great Hunter now, slaying hordes of Grimm. Or perhaps he would be an elusive criminal, the headache of all Remnant's law enforcement and politicians. Or perhaps he'd be the most efficient courier in the world…

Dozens? Thousands? Millions?

Countless choices along Jonathan's path had led him to his current life. An infinite number of decisions, a drawing on a notebook as a child, a random decision to try coffee, a decision to destroy Salem… Jonathan did not know and could not know how his life would have turned out if he had changed even one of the decisions he had made in the past.

Turning down a different street, saying different words, thinking about other things… All were possible branches that could lead to radically different lives. There's no way for him to examine them all.

All that was left for Jonathan to live was to live the life that the infinity of his choices had led him to.

Jonathan Goodman. Could he call himself a good man?

No. Never.

Fifteen years. For fifteen years, Jonathan Goodman had lived in this world.

He had accomplished many things, experienced many things that occupied his mind. He could barely remember the lines of the houses and the look of the streets of his distant home world. But like the lines of his hand, he could read any report from his countless deputies and recite the latest Menagerie's political debate.

But once again, he had to ask himself, where was this musing leading to?

Jonathan… Probably would never know what decision had led to the fifteen years he had lived in this strange world he had now called home. There was no final opportunity, looking back over his past, to pick just one decision that would describe his entire life. There was no single event that had made him the way he is today.

Jonathan Goodman. The man who…

Who what?

Jonathan closed his eyes, then exhaled as he looked at the group in front of him, noting the approaching figure of a young girl, who appeared to be from Mistral… In her hands was a rolled up piece of paper.

"Your Majesty!" She took a step closer to him, and Jonathan had to move his hand slightly to stop the RATS agents protecting him from intercepting her before he could accept the letter.

After a moment, he opened the small note. Then, after only glancing at the words, he closed it and tucked it away in his pocket with a quick movement of his hand before smiling at the awkwardly bowing girl. Pyrrha, was it?

As he continued to address the newcomers, noting Blake and Yang amongst them, "Please don't be shy, as prospective applicants, you may only now have the opportunity to speak to the Headmaster of your Academy…"

He is Jonathan Goodman.

A man who never got to know how to be good.