Chương 91: Chapter 84: The Dreamers and the Abyss

The icy gale howling across the roof of the speeding Argus Limited threatened to throw anyone without a solid center of gravity straight into the snowy abyss. Yet, standing tall amidst the blizzard and the dissipating ash of the Alpha Sphinx, the silver-haired Hunter lowered their Dust-pendulum with flawless, aristocratic grace.

"Shion?!" Ruby gasped, a massive, genuine smile breaking across her wind-chilled face. She lowered Crescent Rose, her silver eyes bright with relief. Qrow Branwen blinked, lowering Harbinger slightly as he stared at the elegant, lavender-clad stranger.

"Uh... friend of yours, kid?"

"They're a Nightmare Hunter!" Yang called out over the roaring wind, stepping up beside her uncle, her golden gauntlets still radiating heat.

"They helped us out back at Beacon when Weiss got infected by a parasitic Grimm!"

"It has been a long time, Team RWBY. Team JNPR," Shion Zaiden greeted, their voice a calm, melodic anchor against the storm. Shion turned their sharp, discerning gaze toward the grizzled Huntsman.

"And you must be Qrow Branwen. Ozpin has spoken of you often. It is an honor to fight beside you."

"Yeah, great, nice to meet you," Qrow grunted, gesturing wildly with his scythe toward the swirling black clouds above them and the shifting snowbanks below.

"But unless you brought an army on that hover-bike, we've still got a situation here!" As if answering Qrow's claim, the remaining flock of Manticores shrieked, diving from the clouds in a synchronized, lethal formation. Simultaneously, the last two massive Geist Golems hoisted their stone-and-steel bodies over the embankment, reaching out to crush the train cars.

"Let us handle the ground!" Jaune ordered, his voice booming with absolute, unshakeable authority. He didn't even draw Crocea Mors. He simply planted his boots, raised his shield, and faced the towering rock monster on the left flank.

"Ren! Nora! Blake!" Pyrrha commanded, her magnetic Aura flaring to life around her hands.

"Keep the sky clear!" Shion Zaiden stepped forward, whipping the golden chain of their Dust-pendulum in a wide, glowing arc.

"I will assist! Watch its core!" What happened next left Shion Zaiden completely and utterly speechless. Shion remembered these students. Back at Beacon, they were talented, yes, but raw. They possessed the clumsy, unrefined energy of children playing at war. Shion threw their pendulum, expecting to have to babysit the students through the brutal onslaught. Instead, they watched a masterclass in hyper-lethal combat. A Manticore lunged at Ren, its venomous stinger aimed directly at his chest.

The ninja didn't just dodge. He moved with a sub-atomic twitch of his muscles, a reflex burned into him by months of trying to spar with an untouchable bald god. He slipped completely beneath the beast's guard with zero wasted motion, firing a concentrated burst from StormFlower directly into its unarmored underbelly.

Shion swung their pendulum, sending a blade of Wind Dust to cover Ren's retreat, but Blake's ribbon had already snapped around his waist, yanking him out of the blast radius with flawless timing just as Nora descended from the clouds.

"BOOP!" Nora roared, bringing Magnhild down with a localized, thunderous shockwave that vaporized three Manticores at once. On the ground, the massive Geist Golem brought a boulder-sized fist down on Jaune. Shion gasped, readying a Gravity spell to pull the blonde boy out of the way of certain death. Jaune caught the blow on his shield. The earth beneath the train tracks cracked, but the boy didn't budge a single millimeter.

With a terrifying roar of sheer, hyper-dense physical power, Jaune parried the colossal strike, forcing the Golem's massive arm backward and exposing its chest. Shion capitalized instantly, throwing the pendulum to wrap around the Geist's wrist. A burst of Gravity Dust erupted, pinning the rock monster's arm in place.

"Now, Pyrrha!" Jaune called out. Pyrrha didn't hesitate. She threw Miló, using her Polarity to accelerate the javelin to railgun speeds. The weapon pierced that creature's exposed armor, shattered its glowing red core, and ricocheted perfectly back into her hand. Above them, Weiss Schnee glided across a sequence of black, gravity-infused glyphs, defying the blizzard's winds. A Manticore swiped at her blind spot. Shion moved to intercept, but Weiss didn't even use her rapier.

She stepped seamlessly inside its guard and delivered a brutal, bare-handed palm-strike to its jaw, a heavy brawler technique she had learned from Yang, shattering its skull before Yang followed up with an explosive, mid-air roundhouse kick that reduced that creature to ash. Shion watched, their eyes wide as they swung the pendulum to sever the wing of a diving beast, allowing Ruby to cleanly decapitate it with Crescent Rose, while Qrow slashed the final Manticore out of the sky. Such flawless synchronization...

Overwhelming physical density and reaction time. Shion thought, breathless, catching their returning pendulum. They aren't just surviving. They are dismantling Alpha-class Grimm as if this is a casual training exercise. In less than a minute, the sky was clear. The earth was still. The only sound was the rushing wind and the heavy chugging of the train engine.

"Area secure," Blake announced, retracting Gambol Shroud with a sharp snap. Ruby turned back to Shion, grinning proudly.

"So! What brings a Nightmare Hunter all the way out to the northern tundra?" Shion's expression, however, did not reflect the students' victory. The Hunter's face was remarkably grim, their eyes fixed on the ventilation shafts of the train car beneath their feet.

"Your martial improvements are staggering, Ruby Rose," Shion said urgently, stepping forward.

"But you are celebrating a hollow victory. This entire assault, the Sphinx, the Manticores, the Geists, it was nothing but a noisy diversion." The triumphant smiles on the students' faces vanished instantly.

"A diversion?" Weiss repeated, her grip tightening on her rapier.

"For what?"

"A swarm," Shion answered, pulling a specialized, glowing Dust-vial from their belt.

"I have been tracking a rare, highly aggressive migration of Nightmare Grimm. They do not fight in the open. They hunt in the shadows. While we were distracted up here... they slipped through the train's exhaust vents." Qrow's blood ran cold. He looked down at his boots, the horrifying realization slamming into him.

"Oscar... the civilians."

"Saitama!" Jaune gasped, his eyes widening in pure panic.

"He doesn't have an active Aura! He can't passively deflect a Grimm's physical infection!" Without another word, Qrow ripped open the emergency roof hatch. The Huntsmen poured into the passenger car, dropping from the ceiling and landing in the aisle. The interior of the train was plunged into darkness, illuminated only by the faint, pulsing red glow of the emergency lights. It looked like the inside of a thorny, demonic heart. Thick, pulsing red vines coated the walls, the floorboards, and the windows.

The air was heavy with an unnatural, suffocating chill. Sprawled across the aisle near the front of the car were Dee and Dudley. The two "professional" Huntsmen were out cold, their weapons discarded, with thick red thorns wrapped tightly around their necks and chests. The civilian passengers were slumped over in their seats, equally ensnared by the creeping parasitic plants.

"Oscar!" Qrow yelled, rushing toward the middle of the car. The young farm boy was slumped against the window. His face was pale, covered in a sheen of terrified sweat. His hands were clenched so tightly into fists that his knuckles were white. The Nightmare's vines were pulsing rapidly against his neck. He's fighting it. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Qrow realized, a knot forming in his stomach.

Ozpin is fighting a war inside the kid's head just to keep him from shattering.

"Guys... look," Yang whispered, her voice cracking. Across the aisle, Neopolitan was curled into a tight ball on her seat. The pristine bowler hat had fallen into her lap. For the first time since they had met the smug, untouchable thief, she looked completely and utterly broken. Silent tears streamed down Neo's cheeks, her breathing hitching in small, agonizing gasps as the Nightmare's vines dug into her tailored coat. In the waking world, she was a master of illusion, hiding her pain behind a mocking smile.

But in the dreamscape, stripped of her defenses, she was entirely at the mercy of that creature.

"And over here," Ren said quietly, gesturing to the seat behind Neo. Saitama was slumped backward, his mouth hanging wide open in a comical, vibrating snore. The red, thorny vines of a remarkably large Nightmare Grimm were wrapped tightly around the collar of his white trench coat, its roots sunk deeply into the back of his bald head. Unlike Oscar's terrified trembling or Neo's weeping, Saitama's face was contorted into a deep, intense scowl.

A prominent, throbbing comical vein pulsed angrily on his forehead, as if whatever he was dreaming about was the single most annoying inconvenience in the history of the universe. Shion Zaiden stepped into the aisle, their silver hair catching the red emergency lights. They looked at the infected passengers, their expression hardening with grim resolve.

"The Nightmare feeds on fear, trauma, and negative emotion," Shion explained rapidly, unraveling the golden chain of their Dust-pendulum.

"If we do not sever the roots within their mindscapes quickly, the Grimm will completely drain their life force. It will use that energy to spawn colossal, physical manifestations of their darkest fears right here in the waking world. We would be completely overrun."

"So how do we kill it?" Qrow demanded, gripping his scythe.

"We cannot kill the roots from the outside without killing the host," Shion warned.

"We must dive into their dreams. We must slay the Nightmare at its core. But time is critical. I cannot clear all of these minds alone before that monster matures. I need your help."

"Tell us what to do," Jaune said, stepping forward, his shield raised. Team RWBY and the rest of JNPR flanked him, their faces set with absolute determination. Shion nodded, quickly assessing the room.

"We must divide our forces. The civilians and those two mercenaries are experiencing standard terrors. Once we destroy the primary, most powerful Nightmares anchored to your companions, the swarm's hive-link will break, and the lesser vines will wither." Shion pointed their pendulum toward Oscar.

"The Grimm attached to the boy is gorging itself. The soul within him is ancient. The sheer volume of accumulated grief, the weight of countless lives lost, the sorrow of fallen kingdoms... the Nightmare will use that trauma to build a fortress."

"We'll take Oscar," Weiss declared, stepping forward alongside Blake, Ren, and Nora.

"I'm going too," Pyrrha added softly, her green eyes locked onto the sweating boy. She remembered the burden Ozpin had placed upon her at Beacon, the impossible choice of the Maiden's power.

"Professor Ozpin carries the weight of the world. He blames himself for everything that went wrong. I need to tell him that he doesn't have to carry it alone." Shion nodded respectfully.

"Be warned. Do not pry into the ancient, locked doors of his past. Focus only on the immediate sorrow. Bring him back to the light." Shion then turned their gaze toward the weeping thief.

"And the girl?"

"I'm going in," Ruby said, stepping forward without a second of hesitation. Yang immediately moved to stand beside her sister, her fists clenched.

"If Ruby goes, I go. I'm not letting her face that psycho's mind alone."

"I'll provide Aura support," Jaune offered, standing tall beside the sisters. Ruby looked down at Neo, her heart aching.

"She hates me. She blames me for what happened to Roman. If I want to bridge this gap between us, I have to face her grief directly. I have to pull her out of the dark."

"A noble choice, Ruby Rose," Shion said softly.

"But be prepared. The grief of a survivor is a violent, unpredictable storm. The monster waiting for you in her mind will wear the face of the man she lost." Finally, Shion Zaiden turned toward the back of the car, their eyes locking onto the bald man snoring loudly against the glass. Shion's expression grew incredibly solemn, carrying the weight of a seasoned veteran preparing for a suicide mission.

"I will personally dive into his mind," Shion declared, their voice dropping to a hushed, reverent whisper. The students exchanged nervous glances. They knew Saitama was invincible in the waking world, but they had no idea what lurked inside his head.

"This man..." Shion continued, taking a slow, cautious step toward Saitama.

"I sensed his physical presence the moment I landed on this train. He possesses a power that defies the very laws of Remnant. He is a god among mortals." Shion gripped the pendulum tightly, their eyes wide with terrible anticipation.

"But absolute power comes with a price. To achieve such impossible strength, a warrior must endure hell. He must have faced apocalyptic horrors, witnessed the breaking of worlds, and sacrificed his very humanity. The trauma buried deep within a mind of this magnitude... the cosmic, eldritch horrors that that creature is currently feeding upon... it will be unlike anything I have ever faced." Qrow swallowed hard, taking a step back.

"You sure you can handle that, Shion? If he's dreaming about a monster that can actually challenge him, you might get wiped out just standing in the crossfire."

"It is my duty as a Hunter," Shion said bravely, closing their eyes and taking a deep, centering breath.

"I must brave the abyss of his broken soul." Shion raised the glowing Dust-pendulum.

"Link your hands with your targets! Close your eyes, and clear your minds! We dive... now!" Ruby grabbed Neo's trembling, gloved hand. Pyrrha placed a gentle hand on Oscar's shoulder. Shion Zaiden pressed two fingers against Saitama's forehead. The emerald light of the pendulum flared, blinding the red emergency lights of the cabin. The physical world faded into a rushing, ethereal slipstream of sound and color, dragging the Huntsmen deep into the darkest corners of the mind.

Weiss, Blake, Pyrrha, Ren, and Nora opened their eyes. They were no longer on a train. They stood in the center of a colossal, shattered clocktower. The sky above them was a swirling vortex of ash and bruised violet clouds. Massive, golden gears rained down from the heavens like heavy tears, crashing into a fragmented, black-and-white checkered floor that stretched endlessly into the void. The air was heavy. Suffocatingly heavy, dripping with a sorrow so ancient it made it hard to breathe.

Shadows moved in the peripheral vision of the students. Faceless Huntsmen and Huntresses, phantoms of lives lost to a shadow war, whispered echoes of failure and regret into the icy wind.

"Over there!" Blake yelled, drawing Gambol Shroud as her amber eyes pierced through the swirling ash. In the center of the shattered clock face stood Ozpin. His spectral form was translucent, his cane planted firmly into the glass floor. He stood in front of a curled-up, terrified Oscar Pine, projecting a fragile dome of emerald Aura. Pressing relentlessly against the glass of the dome were the massive, thorny red vines of a colossal Nightmare Grimm.

That monster was a chaotic amalgamation of shadow and red thorns, feeding eagerly on the Headmaster's bottomless guilt. Ozpin's spectral face was drawn and weary, the sheer weight of countless lifetimes threatening to crush his spirit entirely.

Ruby, Yang, and Jaune materialized on cold, metal grating. A torrential downpour of freezing rain and fiery ash pelted their faces. They looked around, realizing they were standing on the tilted exterior hull of an Atlesian airship. The sky burned crimson. The horrific, unmistakable silhouette of Beacon Academy collapsing in the distance loomed ominously on the horizon. The wind howled with the deafening roar of falling Grimm.

"Guys..." Jaune breathed, his eyes wide with horror as he raised his shield against the biting wind.

"This is..."

"Her memory," Yang finished grimly, her fists clenching as the golden metal of Ember Celica clicked into place.

"It's the night it all fell apart." Standing near the edge of the airship's tilted deck, dressed in his pristine white coat and bowler hat, was Roman Torchwick. He was brushing a speck of ash off his lapel with his cane, looking as smug and untouchable as ever. A few feet away from him, Neopolitan was on her knees, reaching out frantically. Her smug smile, her illusions, her confidence, they were all stripped away.

Her mouth was open in a voiceless, agonizing scream, tears streaming down her face as she tried to crawl toward him.

"Oh, cheer up, Neo," Roman said smoothly, offering her a confident, arrogant smirk.

"It's just a minor setback. I'm a professional, remember? I always survi--" A massive, terrifying Griffon, a dark, twisted manifestation born entirely of Nightmare vines and shadow, plunged from the fiery clouds. Its jaws clamped down violently, snatching Roman Torchwick entirely off the deck in a fraction of a second. Neo slammed her hands against the cold metal grating, her face contorted in a silent, heart-shattering wail of absolute devastation as the Griffon vanished into the sky.

And then, with a sickening, dizzying warp of reality, the sequence violently reset. Roman was back on the deck, brushing off his lapel. The Griffon swooped in. He was snatched away again. Neo was trapped in a horrifying, inescapable loop of the single worst moment of her life. Ruby watched the mute thief cry her voiceless tears, the raw, unadulterated grief hitting the young Huntress like a physical blow to the chest.

"Neo..." Ruby witnessed her suffering in a profound sadness.

Miles away in the ethereal void, Shion Zaiden braced their mind. They gripped the Dust-pendulum tightly, their heart pounding against their ribs. Shion prepared to witness the breaking of dimensions. They prepared to face eldritch horrors, blood-soaked battlefields, and the apocalyptic trauma of a man who possessed the strength of a god. Shion opened their eyes. Smooth, cheerful elevator music drifted through the air. Shion blinked. They lowered the pendulum.

They were standing in the middle of a brightly lit, perfectly mundane Mistralian supermarket. The fluorescent lights hummed softly overhead. Row upon row of perfectly stacked instant noodles, discounted vegetables, and canned goods lined the pristine white aisles. There was no fire. There was no blood. There was absolutely zero trauma.

"It says it's valid until noon!" a loud, incredibly annoyed voice echoed from the front of the store.

"It is exactly noon!" Shion slowly turned their head, their silver hair falling over their shoulder, utterly baffled. Standing at checkout lane number three was Saitama. He was wearing his casual yellow suit, leaning over the conveyor belt and slamming a brightly colored piece of paper down on the counter. Standing opposite to him was the Nightmare Grimm. That creature had manifested into a humanoid shape made entirely of thorny red vines, complete with a little green cashier's apron and a nametag.

"I apologize, sir," the Nightmare cashier droned, its voice devoid of emotion as it tapped a digital register made of thorns.

"The system indicates that the coupon for eighty-percent off the premium Wagyu beef expired at 11: 59 AM. It is currently 12: 00 PM. I am going to have to charge you full price." A prominent, incredibly thick vein bulged on Saitama's bald head. His face darkened, his jaw clenching as his fists trembled at his sides.

"The clock on your wall is fast!" Saitama argued furiously, pointing an accusing red glove at a clock hanging above the aisle.

"My watch says 11: 59 and forty seconds! You still have to accept it! I ran across three districts for this sale!" Shion Zaiden stood motionless in the aisle next to a display of discounted toilet paper. The seasoned Nightmare Hunter, who had braced their soul to confront the cosmic horrors of a broken god, stared blankly at the bald man throwing an absolute tantrum over a piece of meat. Shion's jaw slowly dropped. What... what is this?