"This isn't 'Senseless' Feugo, the hell do you think you're doing?!"

I know, I know. Trust me, it's coming, gimme another 15 minutes or so. I've just been sitting on this one for a little while, and I wanted to get this out into the world.

Reiterating what was said in the summary, CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR VOLUME 6, CHAPTERS 4 & 5 (potentially more). CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Cover image: Screencap from Rooster Teeth's RWBY Volume 5, Chapter 6 "Known by its Song". All credit to the original artist and owner

This version of Ozpin was very much different once again. Jinn was showing them all this moustached man with his well-tailored waistcoat and sharp look grabbing the cane from the safe the Old Dad-Bodzpin put it in earlier that flashback. Snazipin then disappeared from the vault door as the Entity of the Relic continued.

"Knowing he could never rid the world of her through any mortal means," Jinn said, the Genie's storytelling having captured the attention of all present, a trait she clearly had amassed in her centuries of existence, "Ozma sought out the power of the Relics. Armed with my knowledge, he believed he could fulfill his promise to the God of Light."

In a flash of blue smoke, Snazipin was next shown holding the Relic of Knowledge, having just summoned Jinn for the first time in their cycle of questions and answers throughout his many lives. All of Team RWBY were present as he asked his questions. But so again was Qrow, silently observing from back, incorporeal and invisible to everyone else around him.

"Where are the other Relics?" the man inquired.

"He asked me his questions," the Knowledge Entity intersected.

"What powers do they possess?" came his second question as he continued forwards towards her.

"And though I gave him my answers…"

"How do I destroy Salem?"

"...not all of them were to his liking."

Team RWBY watched as Jinn gave the man an answer none of them wished to hear.

"You can't."

Each of the quartet reacted differently. From where he had been positioned behind the team, Qrow saw that Weiss seemed saddened at the knowledge, and Blake appeared defeated. Yang was undoubtedly angry, if her attitude before and the clenched fists now were anything to go by.

But Qrow felt panicked. Qrow, the nigh-unflappable man with seemingly more alcohol in his system than blood, hadn't felt this terror stricken since the day he nearly had to return his nieces to their father in bloodied shreds.

'You… can't defeat Salem?!' he thought to himself as the image of Snazpin fell to the floor, its form fading into that of the young boy now subject to the torture of having the man in his head that carried a task they now knew as impossible to complete.

He had dedicated a large portion of his life to this cause. The plan was supposed to be for him and his sister to infiltrate Beacon, learn how to kill Huntsmen by studying them at a close and personal level, and spread the terror of the Branwen Tribe throughout the land by killing all who dared try and cross them.

That plan fell through spectacularly, and both he and Raven started to enjoy their time at Beacon. They gained friends, they fought on Ozpin's side for years and they moved on from their bandit lives - even though Raven would later return to it.

But that was when another thought crossed his mind, and the panic he felt morphed and transformed itself into pure, unadulterated dread.

'Oh no...'

Everything suddenly started fading back to normal after that. The unyielding expanse of flat white void slowly started to materialise texture and terrain, and the snowy landscape they were in prior to the vision of the past came to them all once again. The flakes, once suspended magically in place by Jinn's arrival, now drifted down to the floor uninterrupted, indicating her departure.

"Salem can't be killed…" Yang muttered aloud in a panic. "You all heard her too, right?" No one spoke up, but the sheer fact no one questioned her on what she meant was enough of an answer.

"I-"

"There was so much you hadn't told us," the blonde brawler told her old Headmaster. Despite multiple instances where she had asked him to no longer give her and the team any more lies or half truths, here he was again holding back information from them all. "How could you think that was okay?"

Ruby spoke up after Yang had finished, simply asking, "Professor? What is your plan to defeat Salem?"

"I… don't have one," he admitted.

In the skies of Remnant, a single bird flew silently, letting the wind guide its path through the world on which it resided.

It was rare that the creature did this anymore. Normally, it would go where it was needed, and that need dictated where it would go. But now, there was no need to go where she was needed, because in its eyes, it was not needed anywhere anymore.

But the winds whistling through its wings had other ideas.

They 'spoke' to it, and informed it of what was going down a long way away. Much like the flapping wings of a butterfly leads to a hurricane down the line, the sudden absence of a wind that once was could be felt halfway across Remnant. Curious, it glided down to a large tree branch to rest and feel whether this was true, or just it misinterpreting what had been felt.

The bird shifted as it landed, kneeling down now to look in the distance the wind had told her to. She felt through her links for the two in that direction. And what she felt was oh so sweet.

And for the second time in mere months, she let her feelings sit on the surface. She grinned, and let her smug joy be known.

Qrow felt that. It was undeniable what he was feeling. And when he heard Ozcar say those words - "I don't have one" - he absolutely lost control.

With an almighty cry, he ran across the distance and delivered a powerful right hook to the jaw of Ozcar, sending him flying into a tree with force. The reincarnator sat aghast for a long while as he came to realise just what had transpired. "No one wanted me," Qrow began, clenching his shaking hands as reality crept up on him. "I was cursed. I gave my life to you because you gave me a place in this world. I thought I was finally doing some good."

"But you are," Ozcar argued.

Qrow, however, was accepting none of that. "Meeting you was the worst luck of my life."

Once again, Ozcar remained silent. Clearly, the man was dealing with a lot of things in the past half an hour. The secret, his big secret about how he will reincarnate until the relics had been reunited and Gods had been called to judge the world had been unearthed, but also he himself had learnt that the woman he fell in love with had doomed everyone, had kept secrets of her own even after he had spilled everything to her, and now he was being judged by those who had learnt all this too.

It lead to the man making a real but painful conclusion. "Maybe you're right." And with that, Ozpin retired into the deep recesses of Oscar's mind, leaving the boy with the pain of an angry Huntsman's punch on his cheek, and sitting at the sharp end of everyone's wrath.

Team RWBY, Qrow and a very sore and sour Oscar, accompanied by Maria hitching a ride on Yang's motorbike in the interest of time, travelled down the path pointed out by the mysterious woman.

Nothing was really said by anyone for large stretches of the trip down the track, save for the odd complaint here and there about getting out of the growing snowstorm and the ever present chill.

That was when the sound of a Scroll ringing broke everyone from their stupors and shivers.

"Is that… a Scroll?" Yang questioned, her bewilderment rocking Bumblebee enough to nearly cause Maria to fall into the snow, earning the bad mouthed blonde a scowl from behind the blue lenses of the elderly woman's 'eyes'.

"I thought the lack of the CCT meant that nothing could come in, save for local towers," came Blake's confused addition. "Weiss, would anything like that work here?"

The ex-Heiress, whilst not perfectly versed in the ins and outs of all known Atlas Tech - a fact coming from her own mouth many a time, causing the disbelief of many - knew enough to answer with confidence, stating that, "there are no major tower comms in this area. Even if there were, the growing snow would disrupt communications as is. It's not an impossibility that someone could get through, but there's a significantly small success rate in doing so."

Most of the group slowed down to listen, but felt like they were collectively losing their minds when the sound just faded away from them.

"We can't be going crazy, can we?" Weiss asked with a shudder, unsure if that came from the wind that suddenly picked up again, or thought of having been driven to insanity in the snow.

Fortunately for them, Blake's Faunus heritage let her keep a track of the sound, tracking its source further up the path. "It's still here. This way." Leading the young adults forward, the girls all started hearing the sound again the further they trekked.

"It's close." But then it stopped suddenly.

"Wha- where'd it go?!" Yang cursed.

"I… don't know," Blake responded, confused. "It just stopped." Not for long it didn't. Soon after, the sound came back again. "It's back! Ruby, go!"

Listening to her teammate's order, the red reaper dashed forward with her semblance, unintentionally spraying snow onto all those behind her. She zoomed past her Uncle at the front of the pack too, halting herself a few metres ahead of him.

"There's nothing!" she called out to those near the back. "Nothing out here making any noi- wait… it's getting closer!" She followed her ear, realising that the sound was no longer in front of her anymore, but behind. Spinning, she jogged towards the sound. Stopping right in front of the source. "Uncle Qrow?"

"You have a working Scroll?!" Yang cried out. "Why didn't you tell us? What is it with you and keeping things from us?! What, are we not good enough to warrant knowing this sort of shi-"

"Yang, that's enough!" Qrow stopped her before things got worse. "I don't know why this is ringing, and-" he looked at the screen, seeing who exactly managed to get through to him. It was the same as last time. Grumbling, he continued, cancelling the call. "And that's all that matters. It'll pass."

"Are we supposed to believe that?" Blake asked. "Someone managed to get in contact with you in the middle of nowhere when the CCT Towers are down, something is definitely up, and you're not sharing."

"I don't need to share anything with you."

"So this is another Ozpin scenario, huh Qrow?" the blonde spat back.

"Don't compare me to him, this is different."

"How exactly?"

"Not knowing what Ozpin kept from us makes saving the world an impossibility," he reasoned. "It'll affect everyone. Not knowing this means nothing to you!"

"How can you be-"

"That. Is. Enough." Maria finally interjected, hitting her cane against the side of Bumblebee, much to Yang's vocal dismay. "Must I be the mediator to you all? How did you cope without me?" Shaking her head, the blind lady stated that, "In case you have forgotten, negative energy attracts Grimm, and right now you all might as well be holding a sign above our heads. Let's get out of this cold first, then have a discussion later."

The group shared a look amongst themselves before silently agreeing on moving on. Qrow took the lead once again, the rest falling a little further behind than before.

A few minutes down the line, it happened again. Qrow sighed, pocketing his Scroll once more. "This doesn't look like it's gonna let up," he mentioned, not being specific on whether he was on about the weather, or the calling on his Scroll.

The Huntsman reentered the house covered in snow, having walked around and looked inside every house in Brunswick Farms, braving the biting cold after every trip.

"It's the same in every house."

"What?"

"Bodies," he clarified, moving over to the fire to warm his hands. "Every bed, in every home. 'Slike the whole estate went to sleep and never woke up."

"Then were not… staying here, right?" came the very warranted question from Weiss.

Grim as the situation may be to some like Blake and Qrow, both of whom had seen horrors equal to and far worse than dead bodies like that, this was truly the worst thing Weiss had ever seen. When the White Fang accosted her father and raided her house when she was younger, many of them took the lives of servants protecting her, whilst losing their own lives in the process.

Weiss never witnessed any of carnage herself, only hearing gunfire and the occasional loud death cry from afar as it raged, and never seeing any of the aftermath, leaving the house at the earliest opportunity and not returning until every trace of the attack was erased. She was ordered to shield her eyes and keep them closed, not bearing witness to anything as a result.

Grimm dissolved into ash after defeat. They die with the only reminder being the effort taken to do it, and the damage potentially taken to end it.

Humans, faunus. They were different.

When one of them dies, they don't disappear. At least, not immediately. They lay where they fell, and rot away until time itself ceases.

This was Weiss' first dead body. And it wasn't like it was a pleasant experience to begin with, but this was something else.

"We don't have a choice. Storm outside's getting worse; we'd freeze to death before we'd make it anywhere."

And that threw any hope she had out of the window. The people upstairs had all but traumatized her, why did she have to stay here?! Sadly, it came out of a necessity to do so, not a want.

Maria, ever shrouded in a cloak of unbridled realism, broke the silence. "Well, might as well get comfortable."

Before Yang even got a chance to make a snide remark, a new yet familiar voice rang out through the house. "And why should you even do that?"

At once, everyone was on guard. The place was creepy enough as it is without the added bonus of terrifyingly unexplained voices responding to their questions, and yet here they were. Yang jumped up in front of Blake, her weapons deploying ready to attack whoever came close to them. Qrow too unsheathed Harbinger, sword tip aimed at the doorway.

"Stay behind me," he ordered.

"Yes, because that always works," the voice said, the person rounding the corner and giving it form, "hasn't it brother?"

"Brother?"

"Ah yes, the one who was away from the main fight, battling her own little battle at Haven," the bandit leader observed through her mask at the Faunus' confusion.

"Blake," Yang near enough growled at the older woman, hopefully getting the point across to her, "let me introduce to you Raven Branwen."

"That's… your Mom?"

"What are you doing here, Raven?"

The Bandit Leader rolled her eyes beneath her mask, removing it and clipping it to her belt before answering. "Can I not simply visit my little brother as he travels the world?"

"Quit with the games," Yang bit back, earning a raised eyebrow from her mother. Their talk down under Haven Academy had made her bolder and more ready to fight back against anything Raven said or did. "You don't just 'visit your brother' on a whim, especially after Haven. You came here with a reason."

"And a good one at that," Qrow added.

"Surely you should know why I came here Qrow," she reasoned, stepping further into the room. Oscar and Weiss backed away, Qrow and Yang stood their ground and readied their weapons further, Blake and Ruby moved to better aid in fighting the woman should the matter arise. Maria didn't care, and sat near oblivious to everyone's standoff. "I would have sent a letter, but I fear it to be too slow to have reached you before you moved on from that place you called a home in Haven."

"You knew where we were staying? How?"

Crimson eyes of the Branwen Leader narrowed and faced focussed on Ruby. "It seems you didn't inherit your mother brains-"

Raven suddenly found a golden gun pressed right into the side of her neck, stopping her speech in its tracks, and when she turned she saw crimson eyes staring straight back at her, burning with a subdued but still ferocious anger. "You take that back," her daughter demanded.

The pair remained unblinking at one another, until the older of the two sighed and raised her hands in defeat, prompting Yang to remove the barrel of her gun from her mother's neck.

"If I didn't know where you were holed up, how could I have sent Yang and the Schnee to your location? I would have needed to know that I wasn't sending you to the middle of the ocean, or half a mile in the sky." Ruby's resolve grew smaller and smaller as Raven's reasoning continued. She was right, but she didn't need to be so mean about it.

"So why are you here?" her daughter pressed, not completely letting her guard down - her mother was a Maiden, even if she was the only one to know so other than Raven herself, and even taking that advantage away, she was still the most formidable combatant in the room.

No one was expecting when the otherwise stoic woman cracked a smile and began chuckling, but a few of them weren't as surprised when she raised her hand to point at Oscar.

"Ozpin had been hiding things from you. Many things, all of which caused massive rifts to form, and trust to be lost."

"How could you-"

"Years of being one of Ozpin's spies lead me to picking up on a few tricks. Being able to turn into a bird meant I learnt to read the wind, and listen to what it whispered and interpret it. When it stopped all of a sudden, I knew the Relic had been used."

"Why do you know what the Relic can do?" Weiss asked with as little accusation in her voice as she could muster, remembering her time at the Bandit camp and not wanting to rile her up once again.

"She was there Weiss. You didn't see because you were…" Yang couldn't bring herself to finish her sentence, try as she might. "But she went down to the Vault at Haven with Cinder and Vernal. She knew about the Relic, the Maidens, everything. She was there when the Vault opened." Raven's face was neutral throughout it all, unfazed at her daughter expositing everything to the group.

Well, nearly everything.

"And what did you learn from it all?" she asked.

The group remained silent, glancing amongst themselves in a worry, asking one another silently who was going to say what they all had on their-

"Salem cannot be defeated." It was Qrow who broke the silence, Harbinger lowering in defeat. "Not now, not ever."

And then it happened.

Raven Branwen laughed. Hard.

"What-"

"After all this time," she managed through her delight, "after countless instances of me telling you, telling Tai, that following this man was pointless, I was proven right!" She couldn't stop herself from laughing harder.

"That's why you came here?!" Blake deduced, "to gloat?!"

"Of course I have come to gloat, girl," Raven offered, "years ago I told my brother that this cause was pointless, and here we are. On that note, why weren't you answering my calls brother?"

"Why am I not surprised?" Yang grumbled.

Qrow simply leveled his gaze at his sister, stating, "I was not giving you the satisfaction."

"Of what?" Weiss asked.

"He didn't want to pick up his Scroll… because I fucking called it!"

"Mind your language, young lady!" Maria finally said to the Bandit Leader. The sight of the old woman not even half her height but undoubtedly double her age reprimanding her brought forth another bout of chuckles.

"You came all this way… out to the middle of nowhere… to this abandoned and terrifying village… all for a punchline?!"

"I have to say," the Nevermore Queen admitted, wiping the trace of a tear from her eye, "your father may have left a little more of an impression on me that I perhaps cared to remember, Yang. According to him, I was as humourless as a Grimm with a stubbed toe, and twice as feisty."

"Gross!" her niece gagged.

"But yes, yes I did."

"Oh, you-" Yang was cut off when her mother removed her sword and slashed at the air, forming a portal of swirling red in front of them all.

"Now now, let's not get aggressive here."

"What is that?" Blake questioned fearfully, having never been witness to Raven's semblance before now.

"This," the woman answered, "will lead you all back to my camp."

"Great, I need to go back there as well," the Atlas native groaned. "You might as well send me straight home at this rate. I'm sure father would be so happy to see me back in his clutches."

"What's the catch?" Yang probed. "You told me 'one time', and you did that. There must be a catch."

"No catch," came the honest answer. "This will lead you back to my camp. You may rest there of an evening, we have enough food to feed you for the night, and then I will bring you somewhere further along the trail tomorrow morning with supplies to last another day."

"And in return?"

Raven sighed. "Dear brother, do you trust me so little? After I have proven I know what I am talking about when it comes to this world?" With a shake of her head, she moved towards the window, peering out at the snowstorm through the drawn curtains. "This town is dead for a reason. Brunswick Farms holds a terrible curse, one that brings out the greatest fears for those who fall asleep within its borders. They experience their greatest nightmares, and never wake, dying in their sleep."

"The bodies…" Oscar said, having pieced it all together.

"I do not wish that to come of you. So I am simply offering you a way out. Unless you wish death upon you all."

"Well, my mind's made up," Maria nonchalantly claimed, slowly making her way to the portal. No one made an effort to stop her, but similarly no one had followed her towards Raven's escape offering.

"We've not got a lot of options," Ruby mentioned. "It's stay here and risk the curse, or go there and be safe from it. I mean, we know what happens if we stay." Her eyes glanced up towards the bedroom they found the bodies. "I say we go with Raven. At worst, we fight our way through a group of bandits."

"They're not that tough," Yang mentioned with a smirk, recalling the beating she handed out when first reaching the tribe. "I'll grab Bumblebee."

"There is a trailer cart in the barn as well," Raven mentioned. "Go with someone and hook it up."

Blake jumped at the chance, calling out a slightly over enthusiastic "I'll go" before anyone else had a chance. The duo headed out into the storm once that had been resolved.

"C'mon guys. The quicker we get out of here, the more rest we can get." Ruby ushered Oscar towards the portal, but Raven used the flat of her blade to block his path.

"Anything else you want to share Ozpin?"

"Ozp-"

"He's not there anymore," the red reaper stepped in, "he locked himself away inside Oscar's mind." Raven simply hummed at that, raising the blade and letting the pair through. Weiss joined them not too soon after that.

Only Qrow and Raven remained in the room.

"And the real reason?" Qrow asked, cutting to the chase.

Raven smirked as she answered. "Because I want to rub this into your face for as long as I possibly can."

The younger twin grumbled at that answer, wanting to ask Jinn how it was his older sibling was somehow less mature than he was.

Deep in the wine cellar of the house, a Grimm heard the entire conversation upstairs.

~grrr~, it growled.

"Well, shit…" came the disappointed sounded translation.

Whacky and out there. Tada!

The inspiration for this came from a post of Tumblr [I can't find it again to give proper credit, so sorry to the originator of this all!] that basically said "Qrow is angry with Ozpin not because he was lied to, but because now he has to live in a world where Raven was proven right"

As always, feedback - good or bad - is most appreciated

Until next time,
FeugoFox42 :)