RWBY Through Worlds

53: Hopelessness Sinking In

"And you'd be all right with that?" Oscar said.

"I am well used to reincarnation," Ozpin said.

"I mean inflicting it on some other poor sod." Oscar was growing more terse the longer he was stressed. "If I step down, someone else has to step up. It won't fix anything."

"No...but still, you wanted a choice," Ozpin said.

"I never even thought about that," Oscar said. "I mean, that I could just be done with this completely. I wanted to be done with this curse, but if I passed it on...I don't know. I remember Pyrrha was so horrified at the idea of doing that." He shivered. "I hate it, but would I be able to live with that?"

"It is up to you," Ozpin said. "As said, I should not influence you...but in all fairness, you should not decide on any consideration for me. I think I have long since forfeited that. Perhaps I never should have agreed to this curse. Had I known how bad it would be for my hosts, I don't think I would have. But the curse has...become more and more corrupt with time. All the gods' spells seem to have unforeseen side effects."

"Which just makes me think they really aren't real." Oscar stared at the book Shine had given him and fingered the edge. "So different from what's in here. It's all about doing the right thing and not doing the selfish thing. Somehow it's not much like the fairy tales though. It's just...what you have to do. There's...not always a magical ending." He shook his head. "A lot of the people die because of what they do. I was reading this section called...Jeremiah...?"

[I doubt Oscar would pronounce that right, personally. But usually we say it Gery-my-ah.]

"I was there," Ozpin said.

"Yeah, remember that part that went 'His word was like a burning fire in my bones' or something?" [He's referring to Jeremiah 20:9.]

"I recall," Ozpin said meekly.

"Kind of reminded me of how I felt about telling everyone the truth," Oscar said. "But the story doesn't end very happy. I read ahead. I'm not really sure what happened. Some note said he just died in captivity."

"Well, the hard truth about life is that doing good is not always rewarded," Ozpin said, "not by this world. I may have made many mistakes, but I can't say that thinking that is one of them. Even in my first life, I died young."

"The thing is you can't count on things to go right for you no matter what you do," Oscar said. "Bad or good. Salem does bad, and she wins over and over again."

"There is some reward for good, perhaps," Ozpin said.

"But what does it mean in the long run?" Oscar asked. "So people think well of you, but you don't always get what you want. You might even die. Get tortured..." He looked at his hands. "And at most you just hope it was for something, anything, substantial. Risks without a lot of reward. Why do we all keep trying? Because people are important to us? But we can't really be sure that we'll save them. Even if we could save them from every monster out there, there's still accidents, illness...starvation... I mean, things aren't exactly better here."

Pause.

"Truly, Oscar, I've been trying to answer that question for thousands of years," Ozpin said. "I did what was right, or tried, simply because I had no other hope. The gods' curse would not allow me to rest. But in a way, for many lifetimes, I came to hate that I was compelled to serve them. And I wondered if even what they wanted was so very preferable. It has seemed to me that we could muddle on well enough without them, if Salem and I were just not here. But I can't leave, and neither can she."