The Games We Play

Chapter 171: Illumination

DISCLAIMER: This story is NOT MINE IN ANY WAY. That honor has gone to the beautiful bastard Ryuugi. This has been pulled from his Spacebattles publishment at threads/rwby-the-gamer-the-games-we-play-disk-five.341621/. Anyway on with the show...err read.

Illumination

At once, light began to emerge from my shadow, as if it were nothing but a thin curtain blocking the sun. I felt the presence of my other Elementals dull in their position at the edge of my thoughts, their minds fading from my own. As they did, my shadow writhed and tore away from my feet, the light within it seemed to lift it from the ground, forming a sphere of light-concealing shadow that seemed to bend and shift until it turned inside out in a sudden burst of luminescence and became a perfect glowing orb.

And then it began to unfold. Pair after pair, the thirty-six wings spread wide, revealing the curled up figure within who slowly extended his limbs to set foot on the ground. Then, in a wave the spread from his face to his wings, his million eyes opened, followed by the empty slits that served as his mouth.

"I have come," Keter answered in a chorus of a million voices.

Raven jerked slightly in her place at my sideeven for someone who'd been overexposed to my weirdness, Keter was rather odd.

"Keter," I greeted as if I didn't notice her reaction. "You know Raven."

Keter inclined his head silently, waiting. He knew more than thatbeing my soul, he knew exactly why he was here. Keter had no need to communicate when it came to my thoughts, he simply did so for my sake or, as in this case, someone else's. This was nothing but a show.

But as we both know, sometimes a show can put people at ease.

"Why have you summoned me?" He asked pointlessly.

"Something's come up," I answered. "Unfortunately, it's a bit outside my area of expertisebut not, I'm hoping, outside of yours."

"Jian," Raven whispered, body tense as she focused on my manifested soul. Keter spared several thousand eyes to look at her and the others, but the majority of his attention remained focused on me. "What's going on? Who is this?"

I nodded at Keter once, as if asking him to wait for a moment, before turning towards my companion.

"That is a complicated question," I replied, sighing slightly. "Which is part of why I was hoping to introduce you under different circumstances. However, to put it simplyhe's me."

Raven tilted her head slightly, expression serious as she waited for further explanation. There was no doubt or incredulity in her expression, though, simply a desire to understand.

"I told you before that I have reincarnated," I continued. "Keter could be thought as a manifestation of my reincarnating soul. In fact, the name Keter belonged to me. The first time."

I put a gentle emphasis on those words to get the point across and saw Raven's eyes widen slightly in understanding.

"A pleasure," Raven said after taking a moment to recover her composure, inclining her head towards Keter.

"And you, Lady Raven," Keter replied. As almost the entirety of his body glowed brightly, Raven didn't look directly at him, but lifted her head at the sound of his voice and focused her eyes just to the side of his head. Keter, meanwhile, focused his eyes pretty much everywhere.

"In a scientific sense, he is a Light Elemental," I proceeded to explain. "But that is another complicated topic that I'd hoped to explain in-depth at a later time. With your permission, I'll postpone that conversation until after more important matters are dealt with and then make introductions."

Raven quirked an eyebrow, shifting her gaze to look at me.

"There are more?" She asked.

"Yes and no," I answered with another sigh. "Technically speaking, all of my Elementals are gathered before you in Keter. But at the same time, they have other forms, yes. Think of it as dividing water amongst differently shaped containersexcept the containers are sapient in this case. It's complicated."

"Then by all means, let us discuss it later," Raven allowed, skillfully hiding the slight edge of bafflement that tried to crawl its way into her voice. "You were saying?"

"I have only regained Keter recently," I continued. "Even now, I am still not what I once was. Nonetheless, as my soul given form, Keter is capable of remembering things that were never stored within my physical brain and he has been of great help to me as a source of information about our mutual enemy. I had hoped to relay some of this to you today, along with the information I've gathered on Cinder's movements, but that can wait for a moment. If you have any questions to ask him, feel free to do so."

She took a breath and nodded.

"What happens to souls after death?" Raven asked, going right for the throat. I covered up my own surprise at the question and looked towards Keter, who was as unflappable as ever. As a guy with a million eyes and at least some of a thousand years of memories of godhood, I assumed he'd seen some shit.

"Any number of things can occur, depending on the circumstances of the death," Keter replied. "Though my knowledge of the matter is largely limited to the physical realmI'm afraid I cannot confirm or deny the existence of an eventual destination for souls, that of an afterlife, or of a creator deity. My knowledge comes only from scientific investigation of the soul and from personal experience."

Raven nodded as if that was to be expected.

"However, within this world, several things have been definitively proven," Keter began again after seeing her nod. "The most obvious is reincarnation, of which we are a prime example. This process is not immediate, however"

"Why?" Raven interrupted.

"Opportunity, I presume," Keter answered, unbothered by it. "While I do not think anyone has a precise count of the number of humans that have lived since the beginning of our species, I believe it is safe to say we have number well over one hundred billion. Meanwhile, the current population of our planet can be measured in millions. Added to that, while it's difficult to judge how many, it seems that new souls are born regularly and may in fact make up a sizable portion of the population."

"So there's a line," Raven stated, nodding to herself before pausing, probably to do some math in her head. "A very long line."

"Indeed," Keter agreed. "There are, however, alternative. Though the aforementioned timeframe involved makes keeping track difficult, it has been theorized that might leave the cycle in the same way that new ones entered, though whether that is true or notto say nothing of why or how oftenis unknown. Other than that, actions in the physical realm can create different options."

"Such as?" Raven prompted, causing Keter to look my way, as if asking for permissionagain, just for show. If I didn't want it brought up, he'd never have said anything.

I nodded anyway.

"They can be contained," Keter said immediately. "It requires a certain amount of knowledge and the right tools, but a soul can be caught as it leaves the body. In the land you know as Babel, it was a common practice to collect souls as people died and gather them for experimentation."

"Experimentation?" Raven asked, apparently surprised by the idea of gathering souls en masse for the sake of science. "What kind of experimentation?"

"Whatever they were capable of," He answered, pausing for another moment before continuing. "For instance, the creation of superweapons."

"Like me," I added as I felt Raven glance my way. "We can't be sure of the specifics as it happened before our first birth, but from the records they left behindthey tore apart billions of souls to get the raw material they needed to make us."

"Do you me us as in you," Raven asked, making an encompassing gesture at Keter and I. "Or do you mean"

"There are more of us," I confirmed. "Ten in all, of which I'm only the first. Of the othersI only know the current location of one for sure, and believe me when I tell you that you'll hate him."

"Indeed," Keter agreed again. "But there were other experiments performed upon the gathered souls as our creators tried to push the limits of their ability. If a soul is captured and properly prepared, it can be transferred to a new body, though this generally causes a significant loss of memory, owing to the different brains involved. Generally, it was agreed that some things remained regardless, but it was an unpopular method when it came to the pursuit of immortality. Instead, it was more common to bide the soul back to the body upon death. With proper care and medical attention, a person could be revived with potentially minor or nonexistent loss, depending upon how long the body was dead and the resulting effects upon the brain. It required a careful set up as it had to be caught quickly, but it was a popular method at the time."

Raven pursed her lips for a moment and then nodded, filing that away.

"Can anything else be done to a soul?" She asked. "What would happen if a soul was torn apart?"

"It would depend on the extent of the damage," Keter answered. "It's possible to render a soul unable to reincarnate by inflicting enough damage and to cause it to lingerto create 'ghosts', as it were. Generally speaking, these entities are incapable of thought or action; to my knowledge, the efforts made to allow people to exist without a body bore no fruit and so it was mainly used to ease storage. Beyond that, the precise effects depend on the composition of the soul in question and the areas damaged. While some damage can be recovered from, others can cause the death of a soul, reducing it to its component pieces or even causing it to fade entirely."

Raven didn't quite flinch at that, but it was a near thing. Smoothing her expression over, she glanced back at me uncertainly before pressing on.

"What if someone tore their own soul apart?" She asked. "Summer Rose possessed a Semblance that allowed her to scatter anythingif she used it upon herself and ripped herself apart, what would have happened? If she was unable to reincarnate and was uncontained, could she have found a new body?"

Keter was silent for a long moment, apparently mulling over the possibility.

"Perhaps," He said after a long moment. "Tests in uncontrolled settings were rare, as controlled setting were needed for most of the machinery used. That is to say, a brain transplant is fairly difficult to do in the middle of a battlefield or with ones bare hands. Similarly, removing souls, mangling them, and then simply releasing them was seen as wasteful when there were more convenient uses for such things. However, that is not to say it was never tested."

"And?" Raven prompted, eyebrows furrowingthe only sign she was giving that she was worried.

"Results were mixed," He stated. "It depends on the precise structure of the soul and upon the surroundings. Does she know of the Sephirot?"

That question was directed towards me and I answered it with a shake of my head.

"Not yet," I replied before turning to meet Raven's questioning gaze. "I intended to explain it to you later. To simplify things, consider it the periodic table of the soul."

"I see," Raven answered, frowning slightly as she did. I figured she was trying to wrap her brain around the idea of soul's having periodic elements.

"To build upon that, the soul requires several basic parts to function," Keter continued. "A chain must be created between the highest and lowest spheresbetween Keter, my namesake, and Malkuthfor a soul to exist at all, because one of the functions of the soul is to serve as a conduit between the reals above and below. Connecting Keter and Malkuth in such a fashion requires several other pieces along the Tree of Life, with a minimum of two more; Tiferet and Yesod."

I gestured absently, conjuring a diagram of the Sephirot so Raven would have some idea of what we were talking about, writing the names upon the associated spheres. Raven reached out to touch it, tracing a line straight down the tree before nodding.

"I believe I understand," She said. "The top of the tree must be connected to the bottom to stand. From the way you spoke, I assume the side paths are also viable?"

"Any path is viable, so long as it bridges Keter and Malkuth within the bonds set by the diagram you see," Keter replied, inclining his head towards my illusion. "The spheres that compose a person's soul and their proportions are what makes each person different. I assume you can see the problem with damaging the soul?"

"It risks breaking the connection," She confirmed, frowning as she waved her hand through the illusion.

"Indeed," Keter said. "With grave repercussions for the soul in question, if so."

Raven pursed her lips and nodded at that before switching tracks.

"You said that Keter and Malkuth are required for a soul to function," She stated. "Why is that?"

Keter smiled at her with a million mouths, with was as odd a sight as ever, and inclined his head in approval.

"Keter is the top of the tree, which draws in the Light from above," He said. "You can think of it as the source of a soul's power, if indirectly."

"Then it's like a tree absorbing sunlight?" She guessed before pausing in consideration. "Or maybe the part of a wire that connects it to a battery."

"In a way," He replied. "Though it has other purposes as well and the process is rather complex. The other spheres proceed to shape the energy provided by Keter, passing it down the chain of a person's soul until it reaches Malkuth, which is where that power is given form."

"Like with a Semblance?" She asked.

"Indeed," Keter confirmed. "That is one way for the Light to express itself, but it exists in many different forms. The word Malkuth means 'Kingdom' and was used to refer to the entirety of the physical realm."

Raven was silent for a moment, considering that.

"I see," She said at last. "Then Keter is needed, because it's where the soul draws power from, while Malkuth is needed to express that power in a way defined by the other spheres. Without Keter, a soul cannot do anything, because it lacks any power to act with, and without Malkuth it cannot act at all."

Keter inclined its head again, giving her another multitude of smiles.

"But then" Raven cut herself off to think her words over carefully before continuing. "But then, if the chain of a soul is broken, could the pieces come back together on their own? If they can form such a chain naturally"

"It's possible," Keter allowed. "Indeed, depending on the amount of damage, a soul may attempt to reform naturallybut there is no guarantee that it will do so in precisely the same order. If a new chain is formed, the result is, effectively, an entirely new soul and if the soul is damaged significantly, it is likely to disperse before being remade."

"What if the scattered soul attached itself to something else?" Raven asked, glancing between us. "You were created from a mixture of harvested souls, correct?"

"In that case, none of the souls in question were in possession of bodies," Keter reminded. "They had all been gathered, contained, and broken down. Our creators then linked those pieces carefully to create a new soul, artificially creating and connecting the Sephirot in question."

"But is it possible?" She asked. "For the pieces of a broken soul to bond with another?"

"Perhaps," Keter allowed after a long moment of silence. "But it would be very, very difficult. Changing a human soul while it's within a living body is exorbitantly difficult. For an extremely damaged soul to do such a thing alone and without outside helpcalling anything impossible given the matters we're discussing is rather ridiculous, so let us simply call it absurdly difficult."

"What if she wasn't alone?" I asked, seeing my chance to step back into the act. When Keter and Raven both turned my way, I continued. "We are all but certain that Summer Rose was infected by the Red Riderby War. With the aid of one of the Qliphoth, willing or no, would it have been possible?"

Keter was silent for a moment before nodding.

"Possibly," He allowed. "Those creatures were designed to affect the soul. If she'd been taken by War at the time she dissolved herself, it's possible that something unusual could have occurred. Do you know how it might have happened?"

"Nothing certain," I admitted. "However, the evidence we've gathered so far does paint something of a picture."

Raven raised an eyebrow, frowning at me again.

"Ruby," I answered the unspoken question. "She was infected by the Red Rider as well, if you recall, which means she must have had contact with Summer at some point."

"Ah," Raven said quietly, understanding sinking in.

"I believe that War returned home after seizing Summer's body," I continued, talking to myself. "And I believe its intention at the time was likely to infect her family. As teachers at a combat school, Taiyang and Qrow would be ideal targets for any of the Riders, as it would allow them to infect their students and seize the student body and faculty. From there, it would be trivial to spread the infection to Beacon through graduates and meetings, and many students would also seek employment in the military and police force. Strategically, it would be a great move to infect at least the two of them and both Ruby and Yang would be easy to take as well."

Raven took a careful breath at that and then nodded her head, accepting it as a truth, however unpleasant.

"And yet only Ruby was taken," She added, looking at me carefully. "You think you know why?"

I smiled slightly at the observation.

"I do," I confirmed. "I think that when War returned, it found Ruby and tried to infect herand I think that's when Summer acted to try and save her daughter. I've seen how the Riders keep their victims locked up, but if Summer's power works the way you said, she might have been able to use it even so. Faced with the choice of seeing her own daughter infected, I believe she made the natural choice and turned her power on the only thing she had access to."

"Herself," Raven whispered. "Her soul."

I nodded in confirmation and she fell silent for a moment.

"But" She started before stopping just as quickly, taking a slow breath and trying again. "But Ruby was still"

"I said she tried," I answered quietly. "I didn't say she succeeded."

Raven had no answer to that. As a Huntress, she knew full well that you could give it everything you had, fight to your last breath, and still fail in the end.

But

"But I don't know if she failed, either," I said reassuringly. "Ruby, for whatever reason, isn't currently under the Red Rider's control. The infection is in her blood, but appears to be dormant. I wondered if it was waiting for something, but the strategy that worked in Summer's body would have still worked in Ruby'sperhaps even more easily, since it would have been done by a small child. And yet there's no sign that she has and Yang is uninfected. I wondered why that was, but what you said gave me an idea. It's just a theory, butRaven, you said that Autumn's silver eyes meant something?"

"Yes," Raven replied, nodding sharply. "Itwas the color Summer's eyes took while she was using her Semblance."

"I see," I answered, nodding back. "ButAutumn's not the only one with silver eyes."

I looked at Keter.

"If it's possible for souls to merge, however difficult," I continued. "Then what about the souls of a parent and a child?"

There was a moment of stunned silence on Raven's part and careful contemplation on Keter's.

"If it was a mother and a daughter, in close proximity, and aided by one of the Ridersthen" Keter mused aloud before flicking a wing and nodding. "It might be possible. Yes."