Finale time. This took a while. I even took a trip to China and wrote about 3k of this there, which makes this the first internationally "sourced" fic that I've wrote :P

Where I begin, this fic ends.

-SpiritOfErebus

The grimm invasion had... stopped?

All of a sudden, every single malicious creature surrounding Atlas's skies and Mantle's walls had evaporated into dust, and began to swarm around a singular location. Then, the skies cleared up. The sun could finally go past the wingspans of the nonexistent manticore and the endless flocks of vaporized nevermore to grace Atlas's city walls and Mantle's frozen streets.

All across the borders, huntsmen looked up in wonder. It was almost as if a sun god had been called upon to destroy all of Atlas's enemies. Fists went up and weapons were raised in celebration. Huntsmen clapped each other on the back, glad to have survived another-

A gigantic roar and a pulse of darkness made them pause their activities.

"Look! Near the west wall!" somebody shouted. "It's... Sasaki Kojiro! And some sort of dark beast thing!"

...

"The north wall is running out of ammunition!"

"Then send some from the south wall over." Ironwood said, flipping through a couple of documents. "They should still have some extra boxes of fire dust ammunition that were the excess from last week."

"Mantle's southeast corner is running out of Atlesian Knights!"

"Send in the heavy artillery." Ironwood said, turning and dragging a figurine of a cannon to the southeast wall from the center of a Mantle projection.

Suddenly, for a moment in the command room, there was silence. Ironwood continued flipping through files and monitoring statistics, his mechanical fingers humming and twitching in a manner that suggested the fact that Ironwood hadn't been maintaining his robotic half recently.

Sleep was also a rarity.

"Well?" Ironwood said impatiently. "Reports?"

"...The grimm..."

"Yes? Where's the breach?" Ironwood said. "We'll send the specialists in to take care of it."

"...The specialists have collapsed of sleep deprivation." the operator muttered. "And there is no breach."

"What? Then stop wasting my time. Where's the next resource deficit?" Ironwood shouted, slamming down a fist. "We don't have all day."

For a moment, the room fell silent.

"Should I tell him?"

"Yeah, go for it."

"No, let Amaranth take care of it. He's in charge of the drone cameras."

"No way, dude! I just got promoted!"

"Do it."

"...Fine." the operator called Amaranth said. "The grimm... according to all of our cameras... have disappeared."

"You're fired." Ironwood said. "Now is not the time to make jokes. Specialists? Escort this man out of the room."

"What can you possibly do to me?" Amaranth said, standing up and laughing crazily. "I haven't slept in three days! And all of your specialists are in a coffee overdose induced coma! How are you going to- ack!"

Ironwood leapt up from his chair and threw the man into the door, before standing up and looking around the room.

"Okay." he said, his vision sweeping from right to left. "Which one of you wants to waste my... time..."

He looked at the screen that Amaranth had been looking at. There was bright, blue sky all around. Not a speck of black in sight. Not a speck of red in sight, either, save for the robes of a dual-wielding mistralian huntress waving in the winds.

"They're gone..." Ironwood muttered. "There must be a maintenance failure. Contact tech support."

"Yes, sir." his backup secretary said, gently pushing away his first secretary's spasming hands (a condition induced by caffeine pills) away from the call button and pressing down on it. "We're on hold, sir."

"How can we possibly be on hold?" Ironwood demanded. "We're at the top of the command chain! Let me speak to them."

As the secretary staggered out of the way of the chair and settled into yet another small nap, Ironwood took hold of the speaker, pressed the button, and began to speak.

"This is General Ironwood speaking." Ironwood said into the microphone. "Send technicians to the Atlas central command center and take a look at the situation monitoring drones."

"Look, it doesn't matter who comes asking for repairmen." the voice said impatiently. "Mantle City Watch has already requested that their drones be fixed first, so unless you're General Ironwood, wait your goddamn turn."

"Oh, fine." Ironwood shouted, before slamming down the microphone onto the table. Blinking rapidly to keep his eyes open, he shook his head before he started to think again. Now, how would he get the drones fixed so that he could accurately determine the situation on the battlefield?

"Sir."

"Yes?"

"You are General Ironwood, sir."

"Oh, wait. I am." he said, picking up the microphone.

"I'm telling you, we're out of repairmen! If your idiot brain can't even comprehend that-"

"Listen to my voice."

There was a moment of silence.

"Oh, fuck." the person said through the microphone. "Well, I really can't do anything. Mantle City Watch has requested aid and we've sent out all of the repairmen that are still conscious, so there's nothing that our department can do. But, well... you guys can send some live agents?"

"Fine." Ironwood said, watching the purple-robed huntress appear on the west wall's barrier through the cameras. "Let's go outside."

"Outside?" his secretary muttered.

"Where?" one of the quartermasters said. "I only know boxes. Can I just go sleep in the warehouse?"

"No." Ironwood said, grabbing his pistol. "Everybody! On high alert!"

With a groan, the uniformed officers stood up. Some adjusted ties. Others put their shoes back on and attempted to move their toes through the pained numbness of their legs, sleeping from a long period of inactivity.

Or maybe that was necrosis.

It probably wasn't, but they certainly felt like the dead.

"Order up!" he shouted. "Left face!"

The ragtag group of officers groaned and spun to the left, their supposed line fracturing completely. Some officers spun too far. Others fell asleep as they stood up, their snores reverberating around the small, central office in the city of Atlas.

The elevator ride up was like herding cats. No, cats that were constantly trying to rub catnip off of everything but the elevator while sleep deprived. There was absolutely no sense of order, and only Ironwood (and his semblance that could be likened to a mental illness) persisted.

At last, they emerged into the city. After squeezing his way out of the tight, metal coffin that was the elevator, Ironwood looked around the city.

Martial law was still being maintained. Soldiers patrolled the streets and civilians were nowhere in sight. Huntsmen slept everywhere they possibly could that was out of the way of the light snow, and the sky was clear.

Perfectly normal.

Ironwood nodded and was about to turn back to the elevator when he noticed that everything was perfectly normal.

He looked up again.

"What the fuck?" he shouted very uncharacteristically.

"Yeah." one of his officers said, pointing to something much lower than what Ironwood was looking at. "What is that?"

Ironwood instantly looked down. Maybe the oddity was caused by the fact that all of the grimm were crawling in the streets.

He looked down again. There was still nothing… other than an unfamiliar shade. Following the officer's finger, he saw something that looked… foreign. It was growing out of a brown structure that vaguely resembled a coffee cup, but which had a larger rim than its bottom and no handle. Inside of it was a suspicious compound that was definitely not what Ironwood was familiar with.

"I've never seen this before in my life." the officer said. "And it's just… put here? Outside the headquarters?"

"Don't approach it." Ironwood said, drawing his gun and slowly circling around the creation. On top of what looked like a clay structure was a substance that branched out into several swaying strands. It writhed menacingly in the Atlesian winds, threatening to strike.

"The grimm have infiltrated us!" Ironwood shouted. "Full alert! Full alert! Get back into the headquarters!"

As the officers whimpered and began to run back behind the blast doors, tripping over each other's feet, a normal soldier ran over, holding a watering can and pouring some into the strange creature.

"Back, soldier!" Ironwood warned. "That's a dangerous creature!"

"Sir, are you okay?"

"You're not about to be." Ironwood said, pointing his gun at the… the… thing.

"Wha- General, you need to calm down!"

"That's a dangerous creature! An unknown grimm! Step away from it so I can destroy it!"

"That's a potted plant!" the soldier shouted. "This color is green! I can't believe that… How sleep deprived are you all?"

"Green" Ironwood thought, before asking. "Isn't that the color of… of… what's that called?"

"Grass, general?" his backup secretary spoke, having poked her head out from the pile of officers still struggling in the doorway.

"Yes. Thank you." Ironwood said, slowly putting his gun away. Looking up at the clear skies, he felt the influences of his semblance slowly fade away. His sanity returned as he blinked several times, shaking his head. Robotic implants whirred and adjusted for lower processing power as Ironwood slowly squatted on the ground, looking at the plant that he had nearly shot.

It had been a long couple of weeks.

Then, a pulse of black flashed across the sky, and at that moment, Ironwood knew it wasn't… exactly over.

"Get me on an airship to where that light came from." Ironwood said. "Now!"

This time, nobody disobeyed the slightly more sane general.

…

Kojiro impatiently dodged a slash. He flipped over a low swing with a sigh and poked at the beast, which just disregarded the attack and continued to trudge forwards.

All in all, it was pretty anticlimactic.

And… Kojiro knew that this wasn't actually the challenge.

The beast was too slow. It was interesting, but only theoretically. Its footsteps sank into the permafrost and created more of the black goo that the creature's entire body was made of… and that was it.

Kojiro didn't want to touch it, given the fact that it was probably some sort of black magic. But at the same time, Kojiro's sword didn't do anything to the beast, either. Each Tsubame Gaeshi just sank into the creature, not exactly doing anything. Each aura-empowered slash was no different from a regular slash.

Thus, this duel was… incredibly boring. Kojiro would be defeated whenever he collapsed of exhaustion, because the monster only wanted to attack him. Raven had tried to bait the monster into attacking her… setting it on fire… electrocuting it…

And nothing happened.

What was the goo surrounding its body made of?

Suddenly, a blob of goo forcefully ejected itself from out of one of the corrupted footprints of the creature, and

…Neo had already fallen asleep.

Just then, there were foreign footsteps behind him. Kojiro sighed and dodged another telegraphed, two-handed swing that sank into the permafrost, before the beast pulled its sword out. Kojiro mimed smacking the beast on the back of the head twice, before stepping back slowly and doing a twirl, looking at the newcomer.

"Oh…" he thought, bored. "It's just a person wearing a farmer's hat."

He looked at the pulsing red katana going for his throat, sighed, and ducked under it.

"Wait, what?" Kojiro said, spinning around. "Is that you, Musashi?"

"How do you know me?" the figure shouted back.

Kojiro almost dropped his sword. After his lax fingers felt the katana fall backwards in his grip, he used the momentum to reverse his grip and score an… ineffective cut… on the creature, before lunging to the side, scratching the beast's side, and looking at the approaching figure once more.

"It's me! Sasaki Kojiro!" he shouted, jumping onto the creature's shoulders and leaping into the air, spreading out his relatively signature (if singed) purple robes and smiling hopefully.

For a moment, there was silence. Kojiro gently fell back to the ground, his robes fluttering in the cold air. The indecision and the silence ate at him.

Was he still Sasaki Kojiro?

Would he be recognized?

Did he… do good? In these years of living on this weird world?

"Why the hell is your hair orange!" Musashi shouted back, her speed slowly picking up. "I almost didn't recognize you."

Kojiro smiled.

And that was all that she really needed to say.

The beast, however, was doing something different. It emanated a booming, black pulse, the area of effect beam impacting Kojiro akin to the force of being classified as an assassin instead of a saber and sending him flying… straight at Musashi.

Kojiro…

Sasaki… Kojiro…

"What the hell is that thing?" Musashi said. "I thought we were done with strange, incomprehensible, corrupted demons back in Shimosa!"

"You." Kojiro said, landing on Musashi's braced dual blades before sliding onto the ground once more. "Just you. I was an antagonist, remember?"

"Nah. You were just a callback." Musashi said, grinning. "I mean, you could only really have appeared in your specific interpretation because you were also summoned in… the proper human history version of the holy grail war? It''s weird."

"Since when were you an expert on my timeline?" Kojiro said, raising an eyebrow.

Kojiro…

"Hey, Kojiro?" Raven shouted. "You might want to get back to your fight."

Slowly, energy began to gather. The beast's skin began to bubble and writhe as it grew several more fingers, before a wolf head appeared out of its shoulder, its eyes marred by a scar in the shape of a claw scratch.

"Since I spent several nights traveling with a heroic spirit that has a triple arts deck and a defense-ignoring noble phantasm." Musashi said, completely ignoring the beast's transformation. "I was really good at pestering him, and he seems to have a weakness for white-haired people nagging him."

"Is it okay if I don't understand a word that you're saying?"

"It's fine. Somebody out there probably understands that, though, and it's good enough." Musashi shrugged.

"Fine, then." Kojiro said. "Do you want to get our customary duel started?"

"Nah." Musashi said.

Sasaki…

"...No?" Kojiro said, freezing. The howls of the beast felt like nothing but whispers. The grip on his sword tightened, and Musashi could feel the fear in his eyes.

After all, Kojiro was nothing but a convenient fantasy. Even he knew that.

"Not yet, I mean." Musashi said. "After we defeat that boring creature howling your name."

I… Kill… You…

"Can you please stop talking?" Kojiro shouted. "We're trying to have a very important conversation!"

Neo woke up from her nap, heard Kojiro's complaint, and drew a finger across her neck, then pointed at the beast. The beast ignored her.

"I see you've picked up a companion." Musashi said wistfully, before closing her eyes and grinning at Kojiro in a carefree manner. "Must be nice. You're not like me, wandering across space and time aimlessly."

"You're not like me, either." Kojiro said, grinning back. "At least you're more real."

Neo popped back into existence next to Kojiro, and pointed at Musashi, before raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, Neo." Kojiro said. "She's that Miyamoto Musashi."

Neo made the fingers-across-the-neck gesture again.

"No, Neo." Kojiro scolded. "She's the one that's going to kill me in a duel, probably. You're not going to interfere."

Neo looked at Kojiro, as if judging whether he was serious or not. After a second or two of observation, Neo staggered as if she was struck. For the first time in… probably years… fear crept past her dual-colored eyes. She drew Kojiro's broken Odachi, Summer Rose's emblem still on the hilt of what blade that remained, and pointed it at Musashi.

"Now, come on." Kojiro said, watching as the beast split into what looked like a humanoid shape and a cocoon made of goo. "We have a demonic beast to slay."

Musashi approached the beast, dodging a blast of gunk that was aimed at Kojiro, and slashed at the forming cocoon. The substance sizzled, as if struck with

"Whatever it is, it's probably demonic!" Musashi said, grinning. "That means that I can cut it!"

"That body…" Kojiro said, looking at her strikes while dodging an oddly familiar red slash. "Is that of a heroic spirit?"

"Yeah!" Musashi said. "I got contracted somehow to the master of Chaldea, and now apparently, I have a spirit origin?"

"What the fuck is this all about?" Raven said, portalling in front of Kojiro. One of the beast's gunk shots hit the portal and zipped out of the corresponding tear in space where Raven had been standing just moments before.

"Don't worry about it." Kojiro said. "This creature is just kind of an embarrassment anyways. I'm sure that Musashi will be able to-"

…Embarrassment?

The beast rumbled, slowly bulging in size. Kojiro stepped past Raven as the beast began to talk in coherent sentences.

All this time… All this chaos that I've caused… All of my rage… And I'm still an embarrassment? To you? Is this what all of this is? Some sort of sick joke?

"...What do you mean by 'all this time'?" Kojiro asked, scratching his head. "Have we met before, or something?"

I see… You do not recognize me in this form. But I'm sure that this face will be familiar!

From the swirling, dark mess that was now circular in form and levitating, for some reason, a head emerged. Kojiro looked at the red-black hair and the words SDC stamped onto one of the head's eyes… before his own eyes widened.

"You're that disappointment!" Kojiro shouted. "Adam… Adam…. what was his last name again?"

"I don't know…" Raven muttered. "I don't watch the news in Vale."

"I don't know either." Musashi admitted. "I'm pretty new to this world, and I did not have internet for most of my stay here."

Neo, very uncharacteristically, did not choose to taunt their opponent.

Kojiro paced on the frozen soil, his sandals protesting loudly as he trudged along. He began to snap his fingers and mutter incessantly as the beast watched them in disbelief.

You… you… don't remember my…

"I got it!" Kojiro said. "Adam Tartar-sauce!"

Aaaarggh!

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say, because the next thing Kojiro knew?

The monster had blotted out the sun.

Every single piece of its flesh was a snarling, howling wolf. Or an Ursa. Or… whatever those worm things are called, crawling around, their carapaces

"Its goo… is made of condensed grimm stuff…" Kojiro muttered. "Neo?"

Neo did not respond. Kojiro looked around. Somehow, she was already gone. No doubt about to sneak attack the monster after Kojiro dismantled its large, outer shell.

Kojiro cracked his neck and limbered up his shoulder, before he looked up at the beast to end all beasts, the grimm to end all grimm.

Somehow, a dragon's head roared out of the monster's chest.

Shrugging, Kojiro charged forwards. Musashi did the same, swords drawn and glowing purple with mystical energy.

One aura slash from Kojiro was enough to bisect two ursa, but the beast was so large and constantly regenerating that it didn't matter. Slowly, a glowing, red sword made out of bloodstained bone appeared on the monster's hand, and the attack fell relatively swiftly, with the force behind it to cleave a mountain in half.

Of course, there was no need to defend if you just weren't where the attack was going to be. Raven portalled next to Kojiro to stay out of the way of the slash, while Kojiro ducked under the blade and continued to sprint.

"Haah!" Musashi yelled, a particularly densely colored dual slash coming out of her motion. The massive, intimidating blade was snapped like a… bone… against the force of… a literal magical attack. The beast, having lost a significant chunk of its mass, staggered and fell to one knee.

"We need some way to separate all of this gunk from Adam Tartar-sauce or something!" Kojiro shouted. "Or else, there's no way that our blades can cut through any of this."

"But there's the guy inside it, too!" Musashi said back, dodging a descending fist and stopping a foot from stepping into the pit of black goo that resulted from the attack. "If we don't get rid of him and the monsters, then they'll probably just fuse back together again."

"...Is that how it works?" Kojiro said, cutting off one of the monster's finger's wolf heads before rolling back and lashing out at its wrist.

"Well, we won't know unless we try, right?" Musashi said, sheathing her swords and closing her eyes. Around her, an aura of red emerged, before slowly, mist that appeared out of nowhere began to a gigantic, four armed figure.

Raven dropped her sword.

"With my blade, I shall sever your essence!" Musashi intoned, her light magenta eyes opening with a definite glow. the figure behind her hefted its swords, its threatening face staring at the gigantic beast that somehow still dwarfed the projection.

Then, the projection swung its swords. One gigantic sword struck aside what remained of the bone sword, scoring deep into the shoulder of the beast. Grimm fell out of the wound, dismembered or bisected by the blow. The second gigantic sword struck in an upwards strike, striking across the creature's knees, ripping past the torso, and ending its strike by severing a bicep. The third sword stabbed forwards striking deep into the monster's stomach area, while the last sword, in a flat arc, almost sliced off the creature's neck.

"This sword is the path to the void, and my very life!" Musashi shouted, clasping her hands together as a beam of purple light emerged and shot towards the heavens. Holding said pillar of light, Musashi closed her eyes and brought it down in a swift slash.

"Ishana…"

The purple light impacted the ground, vaporizing everything it touched. The beam, once piercing the sky, was now directed at the creature.

"Daitenshou!"

Everything was split. The creature's gigantic shell was cut in half, and in the middle of the air, one edgy, extremist teenager appeared out of the gunk, still wearing his slightly trash-stained outfit from back when Kojiro hit him with a truck and sent him flying into a dumpster.

Then, the bull faunus shouted… something inaudible… given the distance between Kojiro and the creature's head… before the black mass surged back at him, reforming the giant perfectly.

You think that's going to be enough to stop me? To stop my rage?

Kojiro ignored him.

"In comparison to that, I'm a lot more unimpressive, huh." Kojiro said ."Musashi, do you have enough magical energy to do that again?"

"I'm… pretty sure." Musashi muttered. "But I won't have the energy to fight afterwards."

This is a fight for the faunus! A fight for the oppressed and the downtrodden everywhere! And you still stand in my way, Sasaki Kojiro?

"You're nothing like Spartacus!" Musashi yelled back. "Spartacus wouldn't attack a city filled with innocent people and other members of his oppressed race with the intention to destroy!"

"None of our history existis here." Kojiro remarked.

"Then where did he rip the speech from?" Musashi said, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't know." Kojiro said, shrugging. "Violent extremists are always good at improvising. Raven, can you drop me right on top of his head when Musashi unleashes the beam?"

"If I can fly up high enough." Raven said. "Then, I'll have to make a portal for you to step into midair… You're pretty good at improvising, too."

"That works." Kojiro said, shrugging. "Musashi? You should probably start."

"Okay!" Musashi said, gathering her mana once more. "I'll basically be out of strength after this, so… be warned. With my blade, I shall sever your essence!"

The phantasmal giant appeared again, his four swords waving menacingly. The multicolored lights and aura made it feel like a battle of the primordials… or a battle between the gods.

Raven flew up into the air, her bird form struggling to climb higher than the giant's head in the cold air. With a burst of aura-enhanced wingbeats, however, she was able to elevate herself. A subtle use of the Maiden's power for wind didn't hurt, either.

Just as the giant waved its sword forwards, Raven slashed her own. Kojiro fell out of the portal, his robes billowing out as he fell towards the beast's head.

The swords struck. The beast's left arm came off. Then, two of the swords stabbed into the monster at an angle, before-

Musashi staggered forwards, looking down at a hilt protruding from her abdomen. Blood, looking almost artificial, began to flow down her kimono. The red and blue patterns saw their balance disrupted as she staggered and fell to one knee.

With the final dividing slash not arriving anytime soon, the beast looked at a descending Kojiro, roared, and slapped him out of the air. Kojiro's controlled descent was rendered into an uncontrolled tumble. With his robes torn and most of his aura gone from the sudden, unexpected slap, he impacted the ground roughly, his aura shattering and the residual damage wracking his body with bruises and broken bones.

Stepping away from the catastrophic scene, Neo brought her two hands up. A hilt clattered to the ground.

Those hands were stained with blood.

From the sky, Raven gasped and almost fell out of her circling flight pattern.

Neo had betrayed them. Neo had stabbed Miyamoto Musashi in the back.

And they were probably all dead because of it.

…

Kojiro stood up.

This wasn't the worst he'd been through.

He had remained standing after Medea had made his heart literally explode out of his chest, after all. It was in no way romantic.

Slowly, he turned to see Musashi clutching her stab wound, already radiating gold particles at what he knew from experience to be the preamble to exponential decay and disappearance.

Then, slowly, with his blurry vision, he looked up at Neo.

Kojiro took a breath. His cracked ribs ached and pulsed with pain. Above him, lightning crackled and fires raged as Raven presumably attempted to stall the beast.

"...Why?" Kojiro said, looking at Neo. The short girl -no, thirty something years old woman- looked back defiantly, almost like a defiant small child.

You don't need her. Neo's semblance wrote.

You've always been strong can defeat that thing alone.

"...And you chose to stab her because?"

I… I don't want you to die. I don't want to be alone again. You've always faced the worst on your own. The worst opponents were always yours. I never really helped.

"You helped me against the dragon."

That didn't really matter. Somebody else tried to stop you, so I stepped in. I never thought you would ever be defeated.

"...What changed now?"

You said you lost to her. You never say that about anybody.

"...So you killed her so that she wouldn't be a threat to me."

I don't want you to die.

"But it's my destiny." Kojiro said, smiling sadly. "Every single Sasaki Kojiro will fight a Miyamoto Musashi and die. Every single one. That's just how it works."

And every Neo out there will follow their Sasaki Kojiro to the very end. Neo wrote with her semblance, her hands trembling. Because without you… my life is meaningless.

Kojiro remained silent.

Don't you get it? Neo wrote in increasingly sloppy text. The once pristine, pink font lost its color. It became a garbled and chaotic mess. All this time, I've been going along with you. I've been living for you. You gave my life now to me. And you're just going to throw away your own just like that?

"...If I have to." Kojiro said, smiling sadly. "That's just how life goes for me. That's just why I exist. I exist to be defeated by Miyamoto Musashi, and that was the last chance I had."

Kojiro slowly sat down on the ground. The cold seeped into his aching limbs, numbing the pain and the fractures with one gigantic, bone-deep ache that seemed to course through his marrow.

"And now that she can't use her noble phantasm, it's over." Kojiro sighed. "We're done. We can't defeat the beast."

Neo stared at Kojiro.

You're going to give up… just like that? After everything you've been through? After all of the ridiculous creatures you slew with just your sword skills… you're just going to give up?

"I've lost my purpose." Kojiro said. "Miyamoto Musashi will fade away soon, and with her, my only chance to live up to my name. And I… I don't even know whose body I stole back when I saved you in that alley. Perhaps he had a different destiny. With you. With all of this. With this god-forsaken world that doesn't have swallows in it. For what it's worth… I'm sorry."

Neo looked at Kojiro.

Kojiro looked at the horison.

…No.

He raised an eyebrow.

That's not it.

"...What?"

Your story won't end here.

Neo raised a hand. Abruptly, Raven flickered to look like Kojiro.

The beast lunged at her airborne figure, with all of its condensed, grimmified mass and power.

Sasaki Kojiro, face me!

And Raven, stuck concentrating on her elemental abilities, was only able to do one thing. The ice construct building up in her hands swung in the air, creating a swirling, black-red vortex. A similar vortex appeared right next to Kojiro's sitting figure.

The wind was loud. The beast's lung organ equivalents, still working through the portal, screamed… as with a snap of her fingers, various illusions of Sasaki Kojiro appeared right before its eyes.

Amidst the constant screaming, Neo picked up one of Musashi's swords and brought it down on the beast's neck. The black goo parted before the fading purple glow of the sword, exposing human flesh.

Then, kicking up Kojiro's sword hilt into her empty left hand, she stabbed down with it. The rose emblem drank blood once more, tearing into the figure controlling the grimm beast.

Abruptly, the mountainous figure grew still as a statue. Every single grimm part of the gigantic construct froze. Each glowing red eye and snarling face stopped mid-motion.

And it began to dissipate.

Adam Taurus fell out of the disintegrating head, a wound carved deeply into his chest. Looking at Kojiro's shocked expression, Adam slowly dragged himself towards Kojiro.

"Did I finally surprise you?" he muttered manically. "Did… did I do it."

"No." Kojiro said. "But somebody else did."

"Damn… you…" Adam muttered, his body slowly going still. The blood that spilt out of his chest became one with the soil, freezing solid almost instantly.

Neo looked at Kojiro, before hoisting him up.

Let's go.

"...No." Kojiro said. "There's something that I have to finish first."

…Please.

"I have to do this."

I can knock you out and take you away.

"And I'll live the rest of my life, unfulfilled." Kojiro said. "Besides, I've already been on enough adventures. This life isn't that precious to me."

It is to me.

"I know." Kojiro said, grinning. "That's why I'll be doing this differently."

He walked up… and nudged Musashi with his foot.

"So… She's not going to finish me off?" Musashi said, slowly standing up and grinning, one hand on her wound. "I mean, when I die, I get sent to another world, but I really wanted a duel with you again before I left."

"How many worlds have you been through?" Kojiro asked. Neo tossed Musashi's katana back at her, staring at Musashi the whole time.

"...I don't know anymore." Musashi sighed, sheathing the katana. "I've killed actual demons made by blue flowers. I've taught a blond kid how to hunt demons too, in a world kind of similar to this one. I think… I may have barged into one too many stories."

"Well, it's been thirty something years for me." Kojiro said, just as Raven dropped onto the ground.

"What. The fuck. Happened." Raven growled at Neo, her katana pointed straight at her diminutive figure.

Without looking, Kojiro spun and kicked Raven in the hand. Her odachi, a similar length to the one he was supposed to wield, spun in the air. Spinning back himself with an agility that really shouldn't' be available to somebody as injured as he was, he caught the blade and pointed it at Musashi.

"You ready?"

"I should be asking you." Musashi said, drawing her own two swords. The rate of radiation for her gold particles had increased, but she moved as if she wasn't affected by the stab wound at all. "Are you ready to lose?"

"No." Kojiro said, grinning and looking up at Musashi's eyes. "I'm ready to win!"

With a kick, dirt sailed up into the air. There was a reason he had looked at where Musashi's eyes were.

Musashi spun backwards, her robes whipping in the cold wind. Holding her two swords defensively, she grinned as she saw Kojiro go in with an overhand swing.

"And here, I thought that I was the tricky one." Musashi said, taking the heavy blow and staggering back. She winced as her wound was pulled, more blood trickling out of the

"We had our ultimate duel last time." Kojiro said, the corner of his mouth twitching as the bones in his arms ached. Red slowly began to blossom within his flesh.

"There's literally no topping that. This time… I'll beat you, but not with swords."

The sword flicked midair, its tip dancing upwards to strike at Musashi's eyes again.

"There aren't any wooden oars around for you to club me with, though." Musashi smirked, her eyes totally unharmed and dancing with a humorous light as

Kojiro aimed a kick at the side of Musashi's knees. Musashi took the blow, but struck down at his leg with her shorter blade. More blood seeped into Kojiro's robes as Kojiro ignored the pain to press his advantage, sliding his odachi's blade down Musashi's katana and impacting her sword's guard, sending the metal bits into Musashi's fingers. With a crunch, two of Musashi's fingers were broken and unresponsive. However, Kojiro's arms were almost screaming with pain, and by the time they disengaged, they were on about equal standing.

One? An almost critically injured human. The other? A heroic spirit, fading away because of a lack of mana.

Their last battle had almost approached the root. A beautiful clash of the infinite and the void, the victory decided only because of a spectator's wish.

This one? It was a dance of desperation.

Both of them were dying. Both of them knew that.

And, despite not wanting to kill each other, they continued to clash. Because that was what swordsmen of their caliber did. It was the only thing to do.

Kojiro limped towards Musashi, his quadriceps nearly bisected.

Musashi carefully approached Kojiro. Her stab wound festered as her body attempted to impossibly keep its homeostasis.

They clashed.

Kojiro's left arm became a swollen mess of internal bleeding. He powered through the pain with what seemed like nearly no effort, hefting the long, metal blade with agility that even the most elite swordsmen of this world couldn't do with a fresh condition.

Musashi's right shoulder was incorporeal. Her hair was disappearing into nothingness. And yet? She fought. Switching her longer blade to her stronger, more solid left arm, she had to resort to reversing her normal forms in order to defend against Kojiro's rapid attacks.

And as suddenly as the attacks came, the tempo switched.

Musashi's two blades met to stop one of Kojiro's flourishing strikes in place, sending vibrations into Kojiro's almost unusable arm, before she pushed forwards, overpowering Kojiro's footwork by the virtue of having two unhurt legs. After gasping in pain as her stab wound forced organs to misalign, she used a combination of force and skill to force Kojiro onto the backfoot.

Neo and Raven watched as two people who had never met on this world slowly dragged each other towards the end. They watched as the situation waxed and waned, as the battle leaned in one side's favor and the other.

Slowly, the sun went down… or was that just the clouds casting a shade? The sky became dark as a battleship hovered over the duel and a man watched the fight, observing very clearly through a camera… the smile on both of their faces.

After a soul-pounding five minutes, Kojiro's sword came up with one final arc. As he exhaled and tried to send the sword into Musashi's ribcage, her short blade weakly knocked the attack to the side, before Musashi's left arm swung with her own attack. Twisting his own blade from within Musashi's hold on it, he blocked the attack.

Raven's odachi, a huntress quality weapon, shattered.

Metal shards went flying everywhere, stabbing into Kojiro's forearms. They were so swollen and red with internal bleeding that it didn't really matter.

Musashi, however, was not so lucky. One particularly large shard stabbed into her shoulder. Even if the position wasn't fatal, the damage to her body was enough to finally tip her exponential decay over the edge.

"...So, this is it." Musashi sighed. "We couldn't even finish our duel."

"It doesn't matter." Kojiro said, grinning. "It's already been settled before. There's no real reason to do it again other than having fun."

Raven wanted to mutter something about psychopaths, but with a glare from Neo, she held her tongue.

"There is a way that we can decide this, however." Musashi said, holding up a hand. "Rock-paper scissors?"

"Really?" Kojiro said, raising an eyebrow and looking at said hand. "You would settle this in such a… childish manner?"

"Somebody has to win this duel." Musashi said, shrugging. And we aren't dying in a fire this time. Well, you're probably not going to die. So it wouldn't exactly be fair to judge based on who disappears first."

"...Fair." Kojiro said, raising his own fist.

"Ready?"

"Okay." Musashi said, giggling. "I can't actually believe we're doing this."

There was a moment of silence. Kojiro looked into Musashi's purple eyes. Musashi stared back at his green eyes and orange hair, before bursting into laughter.

"I… I can't believe that you haven't done something about your hair yet."

"It's the person on the inside that matters." Kojiro said, sharing a laugh. "Rock…"

"Paper…"

"Scissors!"

The two cast forth their fists. Kojiro's hand fanned out into paper, while Musashi…

"Damn it." Musashi sighed, looking at the two broken fingers that refused to make the sign for a pair of scissors. "I guess I played rock."

…

"So, was that how the founder of our dojo died?" a disciple said, sitting cross-legged while staring up at a man with white hair.

"No." the man grinned, turning another page. "That actually happened fifty years later after the duel."

…

Gently, Kojiro was pushed through the forest. His blurry vision couldn't exactly see anything other than what vaguely resembled brown and green. He couldn't exactly tell anymore.

From behind him, Neo reached over and touched his shoulder.

"...Not yet. I don't want to go back to the farm." Kojiro muttered. "I… I…"

Behind him, a seventy-five year old Neo sighed. With her semblance on, she still looked exactly the same as she was fifty years ago, but without it, all that remained was a short old lady pushing a senile old man around.

But Kojiro was anything but senile. Despite everything, despite all of the old injuries and efforts to start his own dojo, despite eventually retiring to start his own farm, and despite having been told that he was clinically insane several times by doctors that he had visited and told his stories to… his mind was still clear.

His mind was still clear as Neo pushed him back to the farm, past the singular rice field that Neo tried her best to maintain while Kojiro had been chair-bound for the last three years, and to the traditional-looking rice storage.

Taking a laundry-drying pole off of a fence post, where a drying towel fell to the ground from the pole, he slowly stood up, before using said pole as a cane to inch his way to the door of the rice storage. Fumbling for the doorknob, he opened the wooden construct and took in the aroma of slightly aged rice grains.

He turned once more to see Neo still standing by the chair, looking at the towel with what he assumed to be an irritated expression on her face, before smirking and turning back to the rice.

A flicker of black flashed past the corner of his eye.

Kojiro turned suddenly, his waist cracking from the effort. He looked on as the bird circled and circled his rice storage.

Suddenly, his body felt incredibly light. His eyesight had returned. His skin was no longer leathery and gray. His legs were no longer suffering from old injuries and his lungs took in a full breath.

His arms, once almost rendered unusable by heavy amounts of internal bleeding, felt as fresh as the day he was born.

The laundry drying pole felt like another laundry-drying pole as the bird, with two feathered tails, dived towards him.

Kojiro swung the pole… but he missed.

As the bird, no, the swallow, turned incredibly swiftly to evade his first attack, Kojiro twisted.

His grip reversed. The direction of his force reversed. Everything about his body, about physics, about his destiny screamed that he couldn't do it anymore.

The pole, no, sword, arced up once again… and everything went white.

…

"...And then, Sasaki Kojiro died, slaying a new, mutated variant of bird that his companion, Neapolitan, later declared to be a very dangerous pest, before declaring that said creature was a Swallow. Having potentially saved countless rice farmers from these incredibly swift and voracious pests, Sasaki Kojiro died as he lived, benefiting the world with his final battle."

"...So what does this have to do with me?"

"Your teacher, Pyrrha Nikos, was his very first disciple, and took over the dojo after he died." the old man said. "The world was at peace for a very, very long time. Humanity pushed back the grimm and has expanded their territory further than they ever had. But now?"

"...The fall of Vacuo." the young disciple said, his purple hair waving in the slight breeze that blew through the tattered walls of the old location of his dojo. "Remnant is in danger again."

"Indeed." the old man said. "And as Oscar Pine, headmaster of Haven Academy, I am here to give you a task."

A sword was taken out from behind his back, and the old man placed the sword onto the aged mats. The young man grabbed the sword and inspected the blade, before giving it a swing. Without using any aura, the attack almost seemed… to multiply.

Was it an illusion? Was it just Oscar's eyes playing tricks on him?

It didn't matter. This was humanity's best hope. This shadow of what Sasaki Kojiro had once achieved… this interdimensional slash… could potentially kill Salem forever.

"There is a woman that can control the grimm." Oscar said seriously. "She has been orchestrating the destruction of the four kingdoms for… decades… and now? She approaches Haven."

"So what do I have to do? And why this sword?"

"You just have to approach her… and kill her. A woman called Salem with white hair and red eyes. She'll be in the middle of the hordes of grimm. And the sword is a special one. From Vacuo. It'll hopefully work on her unique biology."

Taking a sheath from Oscar and stowing away the relic of destruction, the young man stood up. With long, purple hair that flowed to middle of his back tied into a ponytail and a set of orange robes draped across his body, he walked out the decrepit dojo. His footsteps caused an old photograph, a man with orange hair and purple robes hugging what looked like a personified cup of ice cream, to tip its frame over.

"I just have to kill her, right?"

"...Yes."

"Then she is just a bigger Swallow." the young man said. "Whatever that bird really is."

AN

…And, scene.

Man, this is the first fic that I've completed. Like, ever. And this might be the only one, if college really destroys me as I move in next year.

…I don't know what to say anymore.

It's honestly surreal. A couple of days/weeks ago, some person on my discord server asked how I felt ending my first fic. I… didn't feel much back then, not having actually written out the ending yet (obviously, given the posting date). But now? It feels almost empty. Like another void to be filled. Like something passed that'll never come back.

Thank you to the 2,153 people that favorited and 2,732 people that followed at the time of me writing this message.

Check my profile for other fics if you're still bored after reading this.

The adventures of Sasaki Kojiro may live on, if I have enough time in college. I might plop him in some other fictional world and watch that world squirm. I have… a couple ideas, but I have to finish my other fics first (if I ever manage to achieve that).

Thanks for supporting my first crossover fic. Remember, whatever you have to face out there? Is just a bigger swallow (Or a smaller one, if it's a mosquito).

-SpiritOfErebus, one last time.