The King of Steel (RWBY/ Ozpin SI): Chapter 1

Author Notes: A random thought that I believe you guys would love to read.

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“…..”

“…..”

“….Yeah. I’m cooked.”

“That is an extreme assumption. At best, we are in a bad spot, but not an unsalvageable one-“

“Can it, Wizard of Oz. I’m not in the mood.”

The cursed soul within my mind wisely fell silent at those words as I glared at my reflection.

The white hair reflected in the mirror is cut into a neatly arranged style while the black glasses hide the glaring brown eyes, my rage, and helplessness at my current situation quite apparent in them.

While the body felt a little different, it was not something that I couldn’t get used to since it was similarly well built like my original one, albeit built more for actual combat instead of for having a healthy body like mine.

No, the thing that I can’t get used to is the discount Wizard of Oz residing within my mind, or my mind residing in his? This is such a confusing situation, what with our souls being one and the same and all that.

And all of this because some stupid god out there could not accept the reality that he fucked up and forcefully awakened me to fix his mess.

“While I won’t comment on the God of Light’s methods for my own safety, I do agree that this is a stupid situation. I had everything handled, there was no need to pull another unfortunate soul from their well-deserved rest for assistance.”

“Well, clearly your god thinks otherwise, hence my presence here. Besides, you are incorrect in your assumption, Ozma.”

Ozma, currently going as Ozpin, fell silent at those words as I continued speaking, quickly adapting to my new body and moving towards the coffee machine that is barely used by anyone.

As I brewed a particularly strong blend for my current headache, I continued speaking.

“I was not just pulled from the afterlife by your ‘God’. No, the situation is much worse. I am you, Oz. Or rather, an incarnation of you from long before you were Ozma, the mage knight born in this world.”

“My name was David. And I was from a world called Earth.”

“…WHAT!??”

I smiled wryly at this shock because I felt the same way when I suddenly found myself in a white void and had information directly implanted into my mind.

It really was a doozy to learn that not only did my soul reincarnate after my peaceful death in the modern world, but that my incarnation after was none other than Ozpin, the headmaster of Beacon from the famous web series from my past life called RWBY.

Putting aside the existential crisis of knowing that fictional worlds could be real in some other dimensions outside my own, there were many issues that I felt peeved about when I was unceremoniously dumped in Ozpin’s body like this.

Given that I never got past Volume 2 in the web series before I had to focus on reality, and ended up spending all my life in search of wealth and status, I did not know many details about this world that would have been revealed up to Volume 9.

Of course, I used to read through the wikis here and there so I had some knowledge that could be useful, but everything else was something that I needed to learn properly.

Now, as a previous incarnation of Ozma’s soul awakened by a god of all things, I did have the advantage of directly accessing Ozma’s memories and learning things that way, just like I already did a few minutes ago, hence leading to my conclusion that I am doomed.

However, the problem with learning things this way is that all the information that I’ve gleaned from Ozma/Ozpin is how things are portrayed from his perspective. This means that the information is inherently biased and has to be taken with a grain of salt.

I opened my mind and allowed Ozpin to look into my memories, of everything related to my life and what I gleaned from the info dump thrown at me by the God of Light.

It did not take long before I felt Ozpin’s despair from our bond.

‘…What does this mean for me? Am I no longer needed? Am I to be erased from existence altogether since you were called forth to fix my mistakes?’

“On the contrary, Ozma, I need you now more than ever since I need to learn everything from scratch thanks to this bizarre situation.”

I watched Ozpin’s reflection in the mirror show a worried expression while my smile warped into a wicked expression that anyone who knew me in life would have seen as a sign of trouble.

“Besides, as I said before, you are a part of me, and I refuse to allow something that belongs to me to die without my permission. Even if it is a god of all things that wishes to kill it.”

Yes, nobody is allowed to touch something that belongs to me. Never.

Speaking of.

“You make many foolish mistakes just from what I understand from the surface memories, but I think the biggest mistake was giving away the majority of your magic to four girls.”

“…I was in a bad place, I did not intend-“

“Ozma. I am not going to blame you for it. What you did was foolish, yes. But emotions are hardly rational and you were drowning in emotions in those days from what I can tell. Thankfully, not all is lost.”

I started walking towards the elevator with my cane, the Long Memory, clacking as I allowed muscle memory to take over.

Ozma immediately realized what I was about to do and started to struggle against me within my mind.

“NO! DON’T DO IT!! IF YOU DO THIS, YOU WILL KILL HER!! THE POWER IS NOT WORTH THE LIFE OF AN INNOCENT GIRL-“

I smiled warmly at Ozpin’s reflection in the elevator who desperately tried to take control of my body but failed to since I was now in full control of ourselves.

“It makes me happy to see that you did not inherit my ruthlessness and cold attitude, Ozma. A great blessing that I am grateful for. However.”

My eyes grew cold as the elevator reached the underground vault, revealing the room where the current Fall maiden, Amber Autumn, was currently being trained and served as her home/prison until Ozpin felt she was ready.

“Sometimes, to fight monsters, we need monsters of our own. And there is no doubt in my mind that I am that monster.”

The teenager must have sensed my arrival since she walked out of the small room built for her in the vault with an annoyed expression on her face.

“What do you want? Old man. I am not in the mood for training today so you better leave-“

Her words were cut short as I placed my palm on her shoulder and pulled.

The harrowing screams of the girl would probably haunt my nightmares forevermore, but this is not the time to allow emotions to cloud my judgment.

This world doesn’t need the gentle but reckless Ozma to save it. No, the information from the God of Light has shown me clearly that this world cannot move forward with that kind of emotion.

No, what this world needs, is the cruel, ruthless, cold-hearted, and logical mind of David Thornton.

As I felt a power both familiar and foreign finally fill the empty void within my soul just a bit while leaving the girl with dregs just enough to keep her alive, I let go, allowing her to collapse to the ground in pain and directly fall unconscious.

Magic, according to Ozma’s memories, is something that is connected to the soul of a person on a fundamental level.

This meant that when Ozma had given away the majority of his magic to these ‘Maidens’, he had literally given away parts of our very souls to them.

The funny thing, however, is that he could have just as easily pulled back these parts of our soul whenever he desired, regaining our true strength. However, his kindness stopped him from doing so since the process of pulling out our magic from the Maidens would leave them on death’s door since, as I mentioned before, our magic is connected to our very souls and the Maidens inherited part of our souls which are directly linked to their own souls.

‘….You are a monster.’

“I know. I have always been a monster, Ozma. But, I am not so monstrous that I would kill a defenseless girl.”

Once again, I placed my palm on the unconscious girl’s forehead while gently connecting my Aura to hers.

“See for yourself.”

And see he did. Through my senses and magic, I felt Ozma’s presence search the girl’s body for any signs of vitality. And I felt his relief when he found that while weak, her vitals were still very much in a safe threshold as a small fraction of our magic kept her soul intact.

‘..How did you do it? I never realized that we could have had our magic back without killing the Maidens.’

“A ‘blessing’ from that stupid god of yours. It is a part of the large information pack he thrust into my mind. Necessary for ending this conflict, once and for all.”

I picked up the teenager and put her on her bed while sending a message to Glynda through my scroll.

Now that I think about it, why is it called a ‘scroll’ anyway?

Shaking my head to get rid of those thoughts, I waited patiently as the elevator opened once again, revealing the agitated form of my deputy.

“Ozpin! What happened?”

I smiled as I motioned her to move towards us.

“Look after Miss. Autumn will you? I’ll have our medical staff come here to check her over. Once we are sure she is fine, move her things to one of the empty dorm rooms. Since it is summer break, no students should be present here so nobody would know about it.”

The alarmed look on Glynda’s face was understandable since, as an untrained Maiden, it was very likely that Amber would have lost control of her powers and damaged something in the dorms or made a scene that would expose her presence to any potential spies from Her.

I just smiled at her look.

“Also, once she wakes up, tell her that she no longer has to live her life in fear or be confined to Beacon indefinitely. Tell her, that I have taken away the burden placed on her because of my foolishness. Tell her, that she is finally free to live her life as she wanted to.”

“Because she is no longer the Fall Maiden.”