Chương 103: Chapter 96: The Value of Life

The freezing, churning waters of the northern ocean violently parted, displaced by a nightmare of unfathomable proportions. The Leviathan marched. It was a gargantuan, ancient horror, a bipedal aquatic Grimm boasting heavily armored, bone-plated scales that glinted sickeningly under the bruised, turbulent sky. Around its towering, spiked crest, swarms of airborne Grimm, flocks of Manticores and Alpha Sphinxes, darkened the horizon like a plague of locusts.

High above the freezing waves, multiple Atlesian Manta aircraft darted through the storm, engaged in desperate, high-speed dogfights. Plasma fire and Dust missiles streaked across the sky, exploding against the leathery wings of the Sphinxes, but the aerial superiority of the Grimm was suffocating. The Leviathan paid no mind to the buzzing machines above. It trudged slowly, deliberately through the deep water, its glowing red eyes locked entirely on the coastal city of Argus.

A squadron of Mantas broke formation, diving low over the ocean to execute a strafing run directly on the towering beast. High-caliber rounds chewed into the monster's armored hide. The Leviathan merely let out a low, rumbling hiss, tilting its massive body forward before diving smoothly beneath the freezing waves, its sheer mass displacing a localized tidal wave.

"Air control to all units, be advised!" The frantic, static-laced voice of an Atlesian dispatcher echoed across the military frequency.

"Leviathan-class Grimm has submerged but is still on approach. Preparing hard-light shields, over!"

"Command, we're getting slammed out here!" a panicked Manta pilot screamed over the radio, the sound of tearing metal bleeding through the transmission.

"Where is Special Operative Cordovin?! We need the Colossus on the frontline! Over!"

Miles away on the snowy cliffside, the vanguard stood huddled together, shivering in the biting wind. Qrow's scroll was tuned to the open military frequency, broadcasting the terrified screams of the Atlesian pilots directly into the freezing air. Ruby Rose stared out at the churning ocean, her silver eyes wide with absolute, suffocating horror. Weiss, Blake, and Yang exchanged heavy, guilt-ridden glances.

Jaune, Pyrrha, Ren, Nora, and Oscar stood in a grim, paralyzed circle, the adrenaline of their previous victory entirely evaporated. They slowly turned their heads toward the shoreline below. Inside the cockpit of her colossal mech, Special Operative Caroline Cordovin was screaming in sheer, unadulterated, impotent rage.

"This is your fault!! YOUR FAULT!!!" She violently wrenched the control yokes, trying desperately to free the machine.

"This is..." She tried to yell again, but realized that her frantic was meaningless." Ma'am, what's your status?" A voice of a panicked soldier is heard from the radio in the Colossus' cockpit " We need an answer, over!"

"... your fault..." Cordovin looked away sadly. She also realized that this mess was also her doing. Her blind pride has costed the city. The Colossus was crippled. Its massive right arm cannon, destroyed from the inside out by Ruby's sniper round, was hopelessly encased in a gargantuan, jagged block of solid ice and rock Dust. The sheer weight of the frozen, ruined limb anchored the mech to the earth, rendering it completely immovable.

"I ruined it," Ruby whispered, her voice cracking as she watched the elderly operative fell in despair.

"I broke the only thing big enough to stop that monster."

"Ruby, we didn't have a choice," Pyrrha said softly, placing a comforting hand on her leader's shoulder.

"If we didn't disable the cannon, she would have killed us."

"But now the city is defenseless," Blake murmured, her feline ears pinning flat against her head.

"And it's our fault."

In the heart of Argus, the warning sirens wailed a mournful, apocalyptic tune. A massive crowd of terrified citizens had gathered at the coastal barricades, looking out past the military blockade toward the churning ocean with unbridled concern. Pushing frantically through the dense, panicked crowd was Terra Cotta-Arc. She held her coat tightly against the freezing wind, her eyes scanning the sea of faces until she finally spotted them.

"Saphron! Adrian!" Terra cried out, rushing forward. Saphron turned, tears streaming down her face as she clutched her baby tightly to her chest. Terra wrapped her arms around her family, burying her face into Saphron's shoulder as the baby began to cry from the noise of the sirens. Terra looked up, her brown eyes tracking the distant, flashing explosions over the ocean.

"The shields are going up. But Saphron... Jaune and his friends..."

"They're out there," Saphron choked out, looking toward the military base.

"Please, Gods, let them be okay."

Out in the bay, the water began to violently bubble. With a deafening, earth-shattering roar that physically shook the foundations of the cliffside, the Leviathan erupted from the shallows. The water cascaded off its armored scales like a waterfall as it stood to its full, terrifying height, casting a massive shadow over the coastal walls of Argus.

"Argus Base, this is Manta 3-4! Leviathan has hit the shallows and resurfaced!" a pilot shrieked over Qrow's scroll." We need those shields up now, over!" Across the bay, massive generators hummed to life. A towering, translucent hard-light Dust barrier shot up from the water, forming a glowing blue wall that halted the Leviathan's progress. The colossal Grimm slammed its fists against the shield, the impact rippling across the hard-light surface but holding firm." Target stopped! Engaging, over!"

Seeing the target temporarily stalled, a pair of Manta aircraft swooped in, unloading their entire arsenals into the beast's back. The Leviathan turned its massive head, its glowing red eyes narrowing in deep annoyance. Its jaws parted. A blinding, terrifying sphere of concentrated, superheated atomic energy gathered in the back of its throat. With a guttural screech, the Leviathan unleashed a devastating, continuous energy beam from its mouth.

It swept the beam across the sky, completely incinerating the two Mantas, before shifting its head to drag the destructive laser directly across the nearest shield generator pole on the coastline. The metal tower exploded in a shower of molten slag. The hard-light barrier immediately flickered and died. The Leviathan roared in triumph, taking a massive, thundering step closer to the city. Back on the cliffside, Qrow Branwen gritted his teeth, his hand tightening around the hilt of Harbinger.

"That's it! The outer perimeter is breached!"

"Where are Saitama and Neo?!" Nora yelled frantically, looking around the snowy cliffs as if hoping the bald man would magically drop from the clouds.

"Didn't they say they were going to the laundromat?!"

"Argus Express Cleaners is in the commercial district," Ren stated, his voice tight.

"Even with his speed, if he is inside a building waiting on a machine, he might not even realize the scale of what is happening until the Grimm breaches the city walls."

"We can't wait for him," Oscar Pine said, gripping The Long Memory tightly as he stepped to the center of the group. His hazel eyes were burning with sudden, unyielding determination.

"By the time we find him, the city will be destroyed."

"Oscar is right," Jaune Arc declared, his jaw set in a hard, resolute line. He looked out toward the city, thinking of Saphron, Terra, and baby Adrian.

"My family is in there. I am not standing by and watching it burn."

"Neither am I," Pyrrha agreed, stepping flawlessly to his side, her shield raised, as she thought of her mother.

"Whoa, hold on a second," Qrow interjected, stepping in front of the students.

"You kids are running on fumes. Your Auras are practically drained from fighting the Colossus. That thing out there is a walking natural disaster. Going out there right now is suicide."

"Since when did that stop us?" Yang Xiao Long challenged, stepping up beside Jaune. She cracked her knuckles, the golden metal of Ember Celica gleaming.

"Saitama didn't break our bones in the courtyard every morning just so we could sit on the sidelines when things got scary."

"He told us to keep pushing our limits," Blake added, her amber eyes fierce and unblinking.

"To never give up, no matter how impossible the wall in front of us seems."

"We ruined their defense," Weiss Schnee stated, drawing Myrtenaster with a sharp click.

"It is our responsibility to fix it." Maria Calavera leaned heavily on her wooden cane, her cybernetic goggles whirring as she looked at the bruised, exhausted, but entirely unbroken line of teenagers standing before her. A slow, genuinely proud smile stretched across the old woman's wrinkled face.

"You've got a good bunch of kids here, drunkard. Don't dull their shine," Maria chuckled raspy.

"Ah... Makes me remember of my old days." Qrow looked at his niece. Ruby offered him a fiery, confident nod. Qrow sighed, a small, proud smirk touching his lips as he unfolded Harbinger.

"Fine. But we do this smart. Everyone, into the ship!" Cordovin, still desperately struggling with her frozen console in the Colossus, looked up in absolute bewilderment as the battered, smoking Manta airship lifted off from the snow and banked sharply out over the ocean, flying directly toward the apocalyptic monster. Inside the Manta, the radio crackled wildly.

"All squadrons, fall back! Initiate evacuation procedures!" the Argus Air Control commander ordered in a sheer panic." Disengage Leviathan! I repeat, disengage! Over!" Ruby sprinted to the co-pilot's console, snatching the radio microphone.

"We can stop it!" Ruby shouted over the roar of the ship's engines." Who is this?

"Argus Air Control asked." Identify yourself!"

"I'm a Huntress," Ruby answered through microphone.

"My team and I are heading to the Leviathan and can weaken it for you to attack!" For three seconds, there were no answer.

"Manta 5-1,"Then the commander spoke again." Your ship is currently flagged as hostile by Special Operative Cordovin. You will receive no support. Over." Ruby's silver eyes narrowed. She pressed the comms button one last time.

"Then we'll do it on our own," Ruby dropped the microphone. Down in the bay, Cordovin listened to the hijacked frequency. Her eyes widening in stunned silence as the children she had just tried to kill flew forward to save her city.

The Manta wove aggressively through the chaotic aerial battlefield, Maria Calavera handling the yoke with absolute, master-class precision while Oscar monitored the failing stabilizer outputs. The airship banked, rolled, and spiraled through the crossfire, dodging flaming debris and diving Sphinxes.

"Open the hatches!" Jaune commanded from the cargo bay. The side doors hissed open, letting the freezing, deafening roar of the ocean storm flood the cabin.

"Form up! Aura link!" Jaune roared. The blonde knight slammed his shield into the metal floorboards, triggering his Semblance. A blinding, pure white light erupted from his body, expanding outward in a massive wave that enveloped Pyrrha, Nora, and Yang. The sheer, surging power of his amplified Aura supercharged their reserves.

"Light it up!" Yang screamed. Pyrrha transformed Miló into its rifle configuration, leaning out the left hatch to fire a relentless, hyper-accelerated volley of armor-piercing rounds. Nora laughed manically, firing a continuous barrage of pink, electrically charged grenades that exploded against the Leviathan's shoulder plating. Yang unleashed a devastating barrage of explosive shotgun blasts from Ember Celica, her golden Aura burning like a miniature sun thanks to Jaune's amplification.

The Leviathan roared in annoyance, swinging a massive, clawed hand through the air to swat the buzzing metal insect.

"Hold on!" Maria yelled, violently jerking the yoke. The Manta executed a flawless barrel roll, the giant claws missing the roof by mere inches.

"Switch!" Jaune ordered. Yang, Nora, and Pyrrha fell back, panting as Jaune shifted his glowing hands to Ren, Blake, and Weiss. Ren moved to the edge, StormFlower popping rapid, highly concentrated bursts into the monster's gills. Blake used her shadow clones to anchor herself outside the ship, firing the pistol form of Gambol Shroud with lethal, pinpoint accuracy at the beast's exposed joints.

Weiss summoned a massive, rotating glyph just outside the door, multiplying and accelerating their projectiles with Ice Dust to freeze the monster's scales. The Leviathan thrashed, snapping its jaws and whipping its spiked tail. Maria danced the Manta through the deadly obstacles, reading the beast's movements with her preflexes before they even happened.

"Ruby! Qrow! You're up!" Jaune yelled, his white light shifting to the final duo. Ruby and Qrow stepped to the edge. They didn't just fire. They unleashed devastating, high-caliber sniper rounds that struck with the force of artillery shells. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. But as the smoke cleared from the relentless barrage, the horrifying reality set in. The Leviathan's bone-plated armor was completely unscratched.

"Our weapons aren't piercing the primary plating!" Blake yelled over the wind, pulling herself back into the cabin. The Leviathan ignored them entirely, wading through the water until it reached the second line of hard-light defense poles. It opened its jaws, the terrifying sphere of atomic energy gathering once more.

"We're too late! Pull up!" Qrow screamed.

"Brace yourselves!" Oscar yelled, helping Maria yank the flight controls backward. The Manta shot straight upward, narrowly avoiding the catastrophic beam of concentrated energy. The Leviathan fired, obliterating the second shield generator and dragging the beam through the city limits, cleanly toppling a massive stone cupola off one of the high-rise buildings in Argus.

"That was too close," Oscar breathed, his heart hammering against his ribs.

"It's moving again!" Blake warned, pointing out the window as the colossal beast took another thundering step toward the civilian populace.

"What do we do now?!" Maria asked frantically. Jaune looked down at his own hands. The white light of his Aura pulsed steadily, but beneath it, the raw, hyper-dense muscle fibers forged by Saitama's agonizing, tear-inducing daily routine thrummed with explosive potential.

"I have an idea," Jaune said, his voice dropping into a dead serious register. He looked up at his team.

"But you're gonna have to bring the ship practically touching its face."

"Jaune, what are you planning?!" Weiss gasped, staring at him.

"I'm going to punch it," Jaune stated flatly.

"You're going to what?!" Yang yelled, her jaw dropping.

"Vomit Boy, that thing is a walking skyscraper! You can't just punch a colossal Grimm!"

"I can if I use everything I have," Jaune insisted, stepping toward the open hatch. He turned to look at the Invincible Girl.

"Pyrrha. I need a distraction. I need you to trust me." Pyrrha Nikos looked at the blonde knight. She remembered the ravine in Forever Fall. She remembered the sheer, god-like impact of his fist against the Beringel. She didn't doubt him for a single second. Pyrrha gave a firm, absolute nod.

"We trust you, Jaune. Everyone, lay down cover fire! Aim for the eyes!"

"You heard her! Light it up!" Ruby ordered. The Manta dove back into the fray. The entire group unloaded their arsenals simultaneously, creating a blinding, chaotic fireworks display of Dust and explosive rounds directly in front of the Leviathan's face. The beast shrieked in annoyance, closing its glowing red eyes and raising its massive hand to block the stinging barrage.

"Now, Maria! Bring us in!" Oscar yelled. The airship banked sharply, diving directly underneath the monster's raised arm, flying so close to the Leviathan's cheek that the students could smell the rotting sea salt on its breath. Jaune Arc stepped out onto the very edge of the open hatch. He closed his eyes, dropping his sword and shield onto the floorboards. He channeled absolutely every single drop of his massive, oceanic Aura reserves into his right arm.

The brilliant white light condensed, swirling around his fist like a localized hurricane, imbuing the hyper-dense muscles with terrifying kinetic weight.

"Here goes nothing!" As the Manta flew parallel to the beast's temple, Jaune drew his fist back. He roared, putting his entire body weight, his soul, and the agonizing memory of ten thousand push-ups into a single, devastating strike. WHAM!!! Jaune's bare fist collided with the impenetrable bone-plating of the Leviathan's skull. The impact sounded like a detonating depth charge.

A massive, concussive ring of displaced air violently exploded from the point of contact, shattering the raindrops for hundreds of yards in every direction. The Leviathan's eyes snapped open in sheer, unadulterated shock. The colossal, skyscraper-sized monster was literally thrown off balance. The sheer kinetic transfer of the punch snapped its massive head violently to the side.

The beast let out a gargling, disoriented shriek, stumbling heavily backward through the freezing ocean, creating a massive tidal wave as it nearly toppled over onto its back.

"Whoa!" Jaune yelled, the recoil of his own punch entirely destroying his center of gravity. He fell backward out of the open hatch, plummeting toward the ocean.

"Gotcha!" Yang and Pyrrha screamed in unison, their hands shooting out to grab him by the collar of his hoodie and his chestplate, violently hauling the exhausted knight back into the safety of the cabin. Jaune collapsed onto the metal floorboards, panting heavily. The white light of his Aura completely sputtered and died, entirely depleted. His right hand was bruised and smoking, trembling violently.

"Ouch..." Jaune wheezed, clutching his wrist.

"Okay. Its skin is definitely way harder than a Beringel." The entire cabin stared at the panting blonde boy in absolute, profound shock.

"You... you just staggered a Leviathan. With a right hook," Yang whispered, her violet eyes wide with profound, brawler-to-brawler respect.

"Incredible," Pyrrha breathed, looking at him with immense pride. Saitama's ridiculous, maddening training had truly forged a monster out of the weakest student in Beacon.

"Jaune, that was amazing!" Ruby said in excitement.

"Yeah! The Saitama Training Regime truly paid-off!" Nora gave him a thumbs-up.

"Don't celebrate just yet!" Maria yelled from the cockpit, furiously banking the ship as a shadow blotted out the windows. The Leviathan recovered its footing. It wasn't dead. It was absolutely, unconditionally enraged. The monster let out a roar that shattered the remaining windows of the Manta, lunging forward with terrifying, aggressive speed. It swiped its massive claws through the air, narrowly missing the tail of the airship and sending the vessel spinning erratically." You're making it angrier, kid!

We can't get close enough to try that again!" Qrow shouted, bracing himself against the wall.

"Does anyone else have any bright ideas?!" The group fell into a frustrated, terrified silence. Their weapons were useless. Jaune was incapacitated. The Leviathan was preparing to charge the city walls.

"I'll do it." Everyone turned their heads. Ruby Rose stood near the open hatch, her red cloak whipping violently in the freezing wind. Her silver eyes were fixed intensely on the approaching monster. She remembered Maria's words on the porch. A trial by fire. The moment was now.

"Maria! Oscar!" Ruby called out, her voice unwavering.

"Position the ship so the back hatch is facing the Leviathan! Give me time!"

"Ruby, that's too risky!" Weiss panicked, stepping forward.

"If you fail, we're sitting ducks!"

"It's the only way we have left," Ruby countered, looking back at her friends with a pleading, desperate sincerity.

"You trusted Jaune. Please... trust me." The group hesitated, the sheer terror of the gamble weighing heavily on them.

"The girl is right," Maria stated firmly from the pilot seat, her hands tight on the yoke.

"We have no other choice. Hang on!"

"Thank you, everyone," Ruby whispered. Maria swung the damaged Manta around in a wide arc, leveling the ship out so the open side hatch directly faced the incoming, roaring Leviathan. Ruby stood in the doorway, planting her boots firmly against the metal. She let her arms drop to her sides, exposing herself entirely to the monster. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and slowly closed her eyes, shutting out the deafening roar of the ocean. Focus. Ruby told herself. Dive deep.

She reached into the well of her own memories. She pictured her father, Taiyang, laughing as he watered the sunflowers in Patch. She thought of Yang, carrying her on her shoulders when they were little. She pictured Zwei's happy, barking face. She thought of her first day at Beacon Academy, the sheer wonder of walking through those grand halls. She remembered meeting Weiss, Blake, Jaune, Pyrrha, Nora and Ren. And thinking of her friends, her mind naturally drifted to the Vytal Festival.

To the sweet, innocent smile of Penny Polendina. A faint, ethereal silver light began to glow beneath her closed eyelids. However... The memory of Penny's smile twisted. The brilliant green blades snapped. The wires pulled taut. Ruby's breathing hitched. The terrifying, agonizing memories she had buried deep in her subconscious violently surged forward. She saw Penny torn apart. She saw Beacon Academy burning to the ground. She heard the horrifying shriek of the Wyvern.

She saw Pyrrha on her knees, inches away from death. The silver light beneath her eyelids violently sputtered and faded into darkness. Ruby's eyes snapped open, her pupils shrinking in absolute, hyperventilating panic.

"It's not working!" Ruby cried out, her hands flying to her head.

"Ruby! Hurry!" Weiss screamed over the wind.

"It's charging its beam!" Ren shouted, pointing out the hatch. The Leviathan had opened its jaws, the blinding, superheated atomic energy gathering rapidly in its throat, aimed directly at the hovering Manta.

"Hold on!!" Maria yelled, desperately yanking the flight yoke to the side. The Leviathan fired. The massive, devastating energy beam tore through the sky. Maria managed to evade a direct hit, but the superheated shockwave violently clipped the Manta's right wing. KABOOM! The starboard engine exploded in a shower of sparks and black smoke. The airship violently bucked, the gravitational stabilizers completely failing.

"AAAAAA!!!" Ruby, Jaune, and the others screamed in terror as they were thrown against the walls and ceiling of the cabin. The crippled airship spun wildly, plummeting through the freezing sky in a terrifying, nauseating nosedive. With a deafening, metallic screech of tearing hull plating, the Manta crashed heavily into the rocky, frozen shoreline at the very base of the Argus cliffs. The ship carved a deep trench through the snow and gravel before finally grinding to a smoking, catastrophic halt.

The side doors of the ruined airship were completely torn off their hinges. One by one, the battered, bruised, and thoroughly exhausted Huntsmen and Huntresses crawled out of the smoking wreckage onto the freezing shoreline.

"Is... is everyone alive?" Jaune groaned, clutching his ribs as he helped Pyrrha out of the snow.

"We're here," Qrow grunted, leaning heavily on his scythe as he pulled Oscar from the debris. Ruby stumbled out of the wreckage, her knees buckling instantly. She collapsed into the snow, tears of pure, agonizing guilt streaming down her dirt-stained face.

"I'm sorry," Ruby sobbed, her voice breaking.

"It's my fault... I couldn't do it. I couldn't protect you."

"Ruby, stop," Yang said gently, limping over to kneel beside her sister.

"You tried. We're still breathing."

"She's right, child," Maria added softly, hobbling out of the wreckage with her cane.

"The mind is a battlefield. You cannot command the light when you are drowning in the dark." But Ruby's doubt was absolute. She stared at the snow, the heavy, suffocating fear that she wasn't worthy of the Silver-Eyed legacy crushing her spirit.

"I... I don't think I can--" SKREEEE! Ruby's words got cut by the horrifying roar of the Leviathan that shook the very earth beneath them. The group looked up. The colossal Grimm had completely ignored the crashed ship. It waded directly through the final perimeter, its massive claws tearing down the last hard-light shield protecting the city of Argus.

"It breached the wall!" Blake yelled in horror. The Leviathan turned its massive head, its glowing red eyes locking onto the tiny, broken group of Huntsmen stranded on the shoreline. It opened its jaws, the blinding atomic energy gathering once more, preparing to incinerate them before it destroyed the city.

"Watch out!" Qrow screamed, diving forward.

"Run!" Weiss shouted, grabbing Ruby by the arm and hauling her to her feet. The group scrambled desperately across the rocky beach, diving behind whatever cover they could find as the Leviathan fired. The concentrated energy beam struck the crashed Manta airship dead center. The resulting explosion was apocalyptic, a massive fireball that vaporized the wreckage and sent a devastating shockwave ripping across the shoreline. The kinetic blast caught the fleeing vanguard.

Team RWBY, Team JNPR, Oscar, Qrow, and Maria were all violently thrown through the air, crashing heavily into the snow and gravel. Ruby groaned, her ears ringing with a high-pitched whine. She forced herself up onto her hands and knees, spitting a mouthful of ash. She looked around the smoking beach. Weiss and Blake were unconscious, slumped against a boulder. Yang was bleeding from a cut on her forehead, struggling weakly to push herself up. Jaune was desperately trying to shield Pyrrha with his own broken body.

Nora and Ren were completely incapacitated. Qrow, Oscar, and Maria lay motionless in the snow. Ruby looked out toward the ocean. The Leviathan was still walking. It was massive, terrifying, and its jaws were already glowing with the buildup of another, final beam attack designed to wipe them all out. No. Ruby thought, her silver eyes widening in sheer, desperate terror. I can't lose them. Having absolutely no other choice, Ruby closed her eyes. She forced herself to dive back into the depths of her own memories.

She thought of the happy moments. She pictured the Great Food Fight in the Beacon cafeteria, laughing as Yang armed herself with turkeys. She thought of the warm, comforting bowls of noodles they had eaten after their tournament victories. She pictured the smiling faces of her team. A faint, ethereal light began to glow beneath her eyelids. However... The vision of her smiling friends suddenly twisted.

The smiling faces morphed into the bloody, unconscious, near-death reality currently scattered across the beach around her. The terrifying thought of losing them dragged her mind violently backward, plunging her into the deepest, darkest trauma of her childhood. She saw the cold, lonely gravestone standing on the snowy cliff of Patch. Summer Rose. Thus Kindly I Scatter. Ruby's eyes snapped open in pure, paralyzing panic. The silver light vanished instantly.

She stared at the charging Leviathan, then at her broken, dying friends, her breathing completely erratic.

"I CAN'T DO IT!" Ruby screamed to the empty sky, tears of absolute despair pouring down her cheeks as she shook her head rapidly.

"I CAN'T! I... I can't..." The Leviathan roared, the atomic energy in its throat reaching critical mass. Ruby squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for the end. But then, in the darkest, most terrifying moment of her life... a single, annoying, raspy voice echoed in her mind.

'It is the desire to preserve life which fuels the light inside you.' Ruby's breath caught. Preserve life. She stopped trying to force the power. She stopped fighting the fear. She took a slow, deep breath, letting the chaotic noise of the battlefield fade away. She closed her eyes and dove back into the memories. Not looking for power. Looking for life. She thought of the quiet, beautiful moments. Team RWBY staying up late to decorate their dorm room with absurd bunk beds.

Weiss handing her a warm cup of coffee with a soft, hidden smile. Blake cheering loudly for Weiss during Professor Port's class. Yang holding her hands, teaching her how to punch before she left for Beacon. Ruby smiled, as she remembering more. She thought of the Beacon Dance, laughing as Team JNPR executed their ridiculous, perfectly choreographed routine. She thought of Uncle Qrow ruffling her hair. She thought of Oscar's brave smile.

She thought Maria's cynical laughter She thought of Penny's mechanical, beautiful soul. And then... She thought of Saitama. She pictured the absolute, mind-boggling absurdity of the moment he fell from the sky. A bald man in a yellow suit stopping the apocalypse, saving Pyrrha, and saving Beacon, only to scream in agony because he missed a Saturday grocery sale. She remembered him casually petting Zwei while her dad stared in utter bewilderment.

She thought of him walking through the streets of Mistral in a terrible, spiky brown wig. She thought of him aggressively complaining about the price of cabbage. She remembered him gently handing Neo an ice cream cone. She thought of the comical terror on his face as he sprinted away from the mob of fanboying First-Years. She remembered the profound, awkward hilarity of standing in Glynda Goodwitch's office, watching the invincible god of Remnant get scolded like a truant toddler for ruining his dry-cleaning.

She thought of the quiet evenings at Beacon, Saitama sitting on the edge of the fountain, lazily swatting away her questions while just... being there. The sheer, beautiful, mundane humanity of those memories. The laughter, the annoyance, the quiet, unspoken safety he brought to their chaotic world, washed over her soul like a warm, cleansing tide. The darkness of the Grimm, the terror of the past, it all simply evaporated in the face of such pure, uncomplicated life.

And in that moment, Ruby realized the absolute truth. She didn't just want her friends to live. She wanted to live with them. She wanted to go back to the dorms. She wanted to eat noodles, complain about classes, and buy discount groceries with everyone. Even the ones who were gone... they weren't dead. They were alive, preserved forever within her heart. Finally, Ruby thought of Summer Rose.

She pictured her mother standing on the edge of the cliff in Patch, her white cloak blowing majestically in the wind as she watched the sunset. In the memory, Summer turned around. She offered Ruby a warm, beautiful, eternally loving smile. Her own Silver Eyes shone brightly, reflecting perfectly into her daughter's. Ruby opened her eyes. A massive, blinding, apocalyptic dome of pure, divine white light erupted from Ruby Rose's pupils.

The silver light expanded outward with the force of a sun, completely engulfing the entire frozen shoreline, the crashing waves, and the towering monster. The Leviathan was caught mid-roar. The blinding light struck its dark flesh, and instantly, the divine power of preservation took hold. The monster's roar was silenced as its leathery skin rapidly calcified, turning stark, petrified gray.

The transformation swept up the beast's colossal body, freezing the atomic energy in its throat and turning the towering nightmare into a massive, immobile statue of solid stone. Up on the city walls, the citizens of Argus and the Atlas military ceased their panicked screaming. They stared out at the frozen, petrified titan in the bay, before erupting into a deafening, ecstatic roar of absolute triumph. Saphron, Terra and Adrian were among them.

Down on the beach, the blinding white light slowly retracted back into Ruby's eyes. She stood for a single second, the sheer, unimaginable toll of unleashing the divine power for the first time crashing down on her nervous system. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and Ruby collapsed unconsciously into the snow. A few minutes later, Qrow, Oscar, Maria, Weiss and Blake woke up. Jaune and Pyrrha helped them to stand. Ren and Nora also began to stand up, with Yang helping the two.

The battered group slowly managed to push themselves up from the dirt. They looked at the massive Grimm that has been turned to stone. Then, they turned around to the one who caused it.

"RUBY!" Weiss, Blake Yang, Team JNPR, Qrow, Oscar, and Maria stumbled across the frozen beach, gathering around the unconscious form of their young leader.

"She did it," Jaune whispered, a proud, exhausted smile breaking across his face as he looked at the massive stone statue in the bay.

"Thank you, Ruby," Pyrrha murmured softly. Weiss and Blake knelt beside her, their expressions filled with profound, overwhelming gratitude. Yang gently brushed a strand of red hair from Ruby's forehead, her violet eyes shining with fierce, sisterly pride, while Maria leaned on her cane, breathing a heavy sigh of relief. Oscar knelt in the snow, gently grabbing Ruby's cold hand.

"You did it, Ruby." Oscar gave her a warm, relieved smile.

"You finally did it..." The wholesome, beautiful moment of victory was suddenly interrupted. CRACK. The sound echoed sharply over the ocean waves. The group froze. They slowly turned their heads toward the bay. Deep, jagged fissures were violently spider-webbing across the petrified surface of the Leviathan. Because it was Ruby's first time consciously using the power, and the sheer scale of the monster was so massive, the petrification was imperfect.

The glowing red, atomic energy beneath the beast's hardened shell began to pulse aggressively. With a sickening, deafening crunch, the Leviathan shattered the stone casing around its jaw, letting out a furious, muffled shriek as it began to rip its arms free from the rocky prison.

"No..." Qrow breathed, his blood running entirely cold as he raised Harbinger.

"It's breaking free!" Ren yelled, panic seizing the exhausted group as they desperately raised their weapons.

"Her power is not perfect yet," Maria said.

"Not to mention that the first Grimm she used the power to is this giant!" They were completely out of Aura. They had no airship. They had absolutely nothing left to fight with. As the group braced for the inevitable end, a flat, entirely unbothered voice drifted down from the snowy cliffside directly above them.

"Ah, there you are." The entire group whipped their heads around, looking up at the high ridge. Standing on the edge of the cliff, looking down at the ruined beach, was a certain bald man. He was dressed sharply in his black suit, the pristine bowler hat resting on his head. In his left hand, he held a plastic hanger draped with his freshly dry-cleaned, immaculate white trench coat. In his right hand, he carried a cloth bag containing his folded yellow hero suit and a grocery bag.

He trudged down the icy slope slowly, his red boots crunching loudly in the snow. Walking right beside him, entirely unbothered by the freezing temperature or the towering, half-petrified sea monster groaning in the bay, Neopolitan twirled her pink-and-white parasol, a smug, highly entertained smile resting on her lips.

Saitama looked at the crashed, burning airship, the exhausted, bruised teenagers, the elderly woman with the cane, and the colossal, half-petrified sea monster currently trying to break out of a stone shell in the ocean. He let out a long, heavy, comically exaggerated sigh.

"Seriously?" Saitama asked, his voice echoing with profound, deadpan annoyance.

"I leave you guys alone for about three hours to do laundry, and you're fighting a Kaiju?"