From my spot, miles away from Beacon, I used Sonido and the Afterimage technique in conjunction to appear before the madman killing people inside the school. It only took five steps — four of which were only required to change directions — to appear within reaching distance of him. With a single look, I recognized him as Tyrian Callows.

He was one of the few people I would kill regardless of their background or possible motivations given his history as a psychopathic cult follower of Salem. In most situations, I might have first tried to talk to him; maybe asked to get a look into his warped perspective. Right now, however, I was probably in the most unforgiving mood possible, so I punched him as hard as possible.

He didn’t even have time to deploy his Aura, which left my very strong hand crashing through him like it would a sandcastle. The exit wound was not a pretty sight, leaving gore and viscera all over the floor where he collapsed while a bloody spray painted the wall behind him.

Whatever.

I didn’t have time to care about that lunatic’s tattered remains. There were still people around I could save. People who were likely classified as clinically dead until I busted out the Soul Restoration Potions and Health Potions. People, like Amber, Yatsuhashi and Fox.

Coco and Velvet for whatever reason had been spared in his rampage and taken by some of the strangely soul-attuned people in my sensing range for Pesquisa. They were among the only people not hurt by Tyrian or the oddities and were currently being taken toward the person who had somehow beaten the Unique Summon, Nohemon.

Another few bursts of movement later and I found myself standing before the man; Hazel Rainart. He looked pretty beaten up, bloodied, with fresh electrical and burn scars running all over his body. By the way he was panting for air and lying down on the ground, it was clear his victory was hard won or perhaps even pyrrhic.

Still, this was a guy involved in the plan that would see hundreds of casualties and likely dozens of deaths I couldn’t prevent even with my bullshit potions. So, I made my way over to him and broke his arms and legs.

“Gah! What?!” He cried out in pain as I attacked him faster than he could perceive. Huh, guess his Semblance needed to be active for the pain to not come through. If I really wanted him dead, he would be, but someone needed to answer my questions after all of this was over with and it was either going to be him or Watts; Salem and Tyrian were forgone conclusions.

After another use of Sonido, I stood before the two people carrying Coco and Velvet. One was a man who looked old enough to be a professor at the academy and the other was a woman who looked young enough to be a student.

“What are you doing?” I asked. This being the first time I spoke in this form, my voice came through like it was layered with Katayoki’s after his most recent development.

Instead of responding, the two people threw the bodies of Coco and Velvet to the side and tried to rush me. They both lost function in their arms and legs after I broke them just like I did to Hazel before I flickered through space to catch both Velvet and Coco before they could hit the ground.

I looked at the downed people I had absolutely no information on and felt my eyes widen just the slightest bit by the sight of Grimm-entities flying out of their bodies and rushing once more toward me.

With the girls in my arms, I decided to eliminate the Grimm by opening my mouth and firing off a low-power Cero. At Level 10, I could charge one from just about any point in my body. Both Grimm were vaporized before the center of the energy beam even hit them. Fortunately for everyone else, I’d made the effort to shoot them from a low to a high angle so that the energy would dissipate over the course of its flight instead of detonating a massive explosion somewhere off in the distance.

A couple more movement techniques later, I found myself inside Team CVFY’s dorm room. Velvet and Coco were deposited on the unoccupied beds before I created nearly a hundred Shadow Clones and handed out droves of potions to start the rescue effort for all who still had a chance at being saved.

“Ugh, my head…” Fox groaned as he came back to life from a slash to the jugular that should have rendered brain dead depending on how long he’d had it.

“Hey, in case you can’t recognize me, it’s me, Lapis,” I said while using another Health Potion to revive Yatsuhashi. When his throat wound sealed up but his Ki and Spiritual energies continued dwindling, I brought out a Soul Restoration Potion and that combined with another Healing Potion successfully resuscitated him.

“What happened and… Why does it look like there’s a hole in your chest?” Fox asked as Yatsuhashi slowly stirred awake.

“I’ll explain later, just make sure everyone in here is safe until I get back. There was an attack on the school and I’m running damage control on the aftermath,” I said before vanishing from the room.

Already, a few dozen clones had popped to provide me with an overview of the casualty rates. Of the 241 attacked, 21 had been left with wounds they could have survived even without my timely arrival. Of the remainder who would have died, 166 had been successfully resuscitated with Health Potions. That still left 54 people who might have a chance if I had the Soul Restoration Potions to spare and Amber was among them.

Forming a new batch of Shadow Clones, what remained of the first batch soon dispelled themselves. Then, I distributed all my remaining Soul Restoration Potions to the new Shadow Clones except for the one I took straight to Amber myself. Along the way, the Shadow Clones had orders to deal with any of the Grimm possessing people they came across.

When I made it to the room she was staying in, I fed her the Soul Restoration Potion and frowned when it didn’t bring her back. Her spiritual energies had been stabilized and could theoretically restore themselves as Aura would after being exhausted, but her Ki was still fading.

Healing Magic staunched the rate of her Ki loss, but even at Level 10 that would not save her. At last, the time to bring out the Skill Advancement Token had arrived just as I’d anticipated all those… days? Weeks? It couldn't have been more than a few weeks at most even if it felt like it’d be forever since I’d gotten the Consumable.

Anyway, I used it, brought my Healing to Level 11 and… It still wasn’t enough!?

Her Ki was no longer fading but it wasn’t recovering either and after trying another Health Potion, there was no change to her condition. The moment I stopped healing her, her Ki would continue to fade so I needed something else. Something better. Something… Like that L.I.F.E. Gadget I’d gotten as a Unique reward for blowing up one of the motherships in the “From Earth Without Sam” Scenario.

I felt the slightest sense of loss from being forced to accept that reward and use it now when I might end up regretting it at another critical moment in the future. But, that loss was quickly replaced with relief when injecting Amber with the syringe-like end of the device instantly brought her out of her pseudo-dead state. The L.I.F.E. Gadget aside, I still had a copy of a H.E.A.R.T. Gadget in my reserves; that one would probably tide me just as well as the one I’d used on Amber if or when I needed it.

I left Amber in her room before she fully regained consciousness as I made my way toward Ozpin, Glynda, Team CEM, and what was almost certainly going to be Salem and Arthur Watts’ energy signatures.

One of the Shadow Clones I’d made had dispelled itself after discovering the alarms currently blaring over at Beacon Tower. After its investigation revealed the elevator had gone down, it dispelled itself and thus I’d learned how it was that I would be making my way towards them. Summarily, I forced my way into the elevator shaft before propelling myself thousands of feet downward, through the elevator at the bottom and out the side towards the energy signals once they were offset horizontally and not diagonally from my position.

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By the time I managed to appear between Ozpin and Salem, the two appeared to have entered negotiations. Whatever these negotiations were promptly ceased when my appearance as well as the sudden appearance of hundreds of massive ghostly Grimm identical to the ones possessing the people carrying Velvet and Coco appeared out of thin air before rushing towards me.

I raised a finger and fired off an even lower-power Cero than the one I’d cast on the surface. Tracing a path cleanly through the face masks of all the Grimm, a fraction of a second right after they all started evaporating, explosions from the beams having made contact with the walls, ceiling or floor behind them began to shake the labyrinth world I’d found myself in.

I’d cast out Semblance on the way over so now that Salem was in range, I wouldn’t be caught off guard by whatever bullshit power she might have through it. I summoned my knife and did as was customary for the use of a Final Release.

“Bankai: Kanzenten Katayoki,” I felt like I should have cringed at the fact that I had actually called out the power like some middling shonen character. But, my attention was focused on the atmospheric shift in my immediate surroundings and the fact that Katayoki was phasing out of my body and into the real world.

“Couldn’t keep your hands to yourself now, could you?” Katayoki laughed as he walked over to Cinder and stabbed her in the heart. His knife glowed with an orange tint as he pulled it out of her without a trace of it having pierced through her physical body.

“Don’t you know it’s wrong to steal?” He laughed as he vanished with the use of my movement techniques.

I knew he was going to try to work something out with his powers to maybe give them back to Amber, so I took this time to question the group that stood paralyzed in my presence.

“You’re not at all what I expected,” I said as I took in the view of the Grimm Queen smiling at me. Cinder had actually soiled herself and was catatonic after collapsing in on her weakened knees. While everyone else was just staring at me in a mix of caution and dread.

“You speak?” Salem asked, looking even happier for some reason as she said, “That wasn’t a part of my vision.”

I looked between her, the podium behind her, and the Relic of Choice currently in Ozpin’s hands. Supposedly, it should have shown her the future and hers probably would have ended already had she not been so passive with my arrival. I didn’t have high hopes for being able to give Amber her powers back, so if I’d encountered even the slightest bit of resistance from her, I would have killed everyone around her and dealt with her before she could surprise me.

“Sorry to rain on your parade lady, but whatever way out of this you may or may not have seen from the crown, you’re not escaping me today.”

“Oh, I have absolutely no plans to,” I might have called her creepy smile “charming” had it not been for the context of our current topic of conversation.

“So you really did have a death wish, huh?” I said as Katayoki reappeared right next to me. He shook his head with a helpless smile and I knew that giving Amber her Fall Maiden powers back was a lost cause.

He stabbed himself and the orange glow of his knife came out the other end an inky black void as was its default state.

“Well, any last words?” Katayoki asked Salem as he casually approached her as he did Cinder.

“May I know what method you managed to use to bypass the curse?” She politely asked as she proudly stood before the Zanpakuto Spirit.

“I just went over this,” he snorted as he stabbed her in the heart. “It’s called stealing.” When he pulled his knife out of the Grimm Queen a black and purple current of electricity pulse followed. “We’re taking your curse for ourselves,” he cheerfully said before hurling his knife at me.

The moment the knife sunk into my body, I felt the change take hold immediately. Outwardly, nothing had changed but I knew inherently that I could no longer die by conventional means. This curse was on a level even beyond material regeneration. Even if every single cell, every single strand of DNA, every single atom that at one point made up my body was destroyed, I’d still be brought back so long as a particle of the curse’s energy existed.

“Hmm,” Katayoki hummed as he idly flipped his knife. “I guess being so respectful and compliant should be rewarded even if my master hates you. Oh, I know, how I about I let you decide who gets to kill you for good? So long as it’s anyone in this… place, wherever the hell it is that we are, I’m fine with not being your executioner if you don’t want me to be.”

“I—”

Ozpin smote her with a blast of highly charged energy before she could speak.

[Congratulations! For facilitating Salem’s death, you have earned a Legendary Meta Gacha Coin!]

“Welp, that was way more anticlimactic than I was hoping for,” Katayoki said while staring at Salem’s broken and steaming body. Her spine had snapped while her head had been bent to a fatal degree.

He turned to look at me and asked, “I guess my job here is done?”

Rolling my eyes at him, I dismissed him and he faded along with my Semblance.

After undoing my Vasto Lorde transformation, I looked at the horrified faces of what remained of Salem’s still-conscious people. I then turned to Ozpin and Glynda and they seemed similarly as shellshocked.

I decided to start with Salem’s group first, asking them, “Now, am I going to have to break your legs and drag your unconscious bodies with me to the surface or are you going to behave?”

Mercury and Watts remained unmoving while Emerald took out a pair of handcuffs and put them on herself.

“Why do you have those?” Mercury asked as he narrowed his eyes at her.

“S-shut up,” Emerald swallowed forcefully as she avoided eye contact with me. “Our weapons weren’t anywhere near the place they were keeping us and I didn’t want to move without something to use as a weapon. This works out perfectly, since… I don’t want to die.”

“Proactive and with a glowing review from Cinder when I interrogated her on Truth Serum?” I muttered out loud, “There is hope yet for at least one of you.”

“Lapis… What— Just What?” Glynda said or asked. To be honest, I couldn’t tell and she herself probably didn’t even know.

“Go ahead, ask whatever you want. It’s going to be a long walk back over to the elevators,” I said.

As Mercury moved to pick up Cinder’s unconscious body and Ozpin did the same for Salem's corpse, Glynda began her questions with, “What made you come here? I know for a fact that neither Ozpin nor I had the time or energy to spare messaging anyone for backup with intruders already on the way to the Relic of Choice’s Vault.”

“Ever since I captured Cinder, I’ve been leaving Summons to guard Beacon while I stay at my apartment in Vale. When my Summon for yesterday, which was due to expire later this morning, sent me a psychic message, I woke up and came over here to help. By the way, I already dealt with Tyrian and Hazel.”

“The former is dead while the latter… may or may not also be dead depending on whether any Grimm has found him or not. I broke his arms and legs and left him miles away from the campus before getting to the possessed people and resuscitating Tyrian’s victims; the ones I could save, anyway,” I sighed, feeling bad about the dozens of people that I couldn’t save.

This wasn’t like in a Scenario where reality was simulated. All the people that were dead almost certainly could have been revived — since they weren’t given the Soul shredder treatment Amber got — if I’d kept up with my Alchemy and made some more Soul Restoration Potions beforehand. Because I hadn’t, this emergency situation had come to pass without me being as prepared as I possibly could have been.

“Summon— No, never mind that. What was that transformation?”

“Negative spiritual monster. It’s a thing in another world, not really comparable to anything for Remnant except for maybe Salem, but also not really. She was corrupted by magic, not spiritual energies.”

Glynda took a deep breath, probably trying to think of something that I would answer without needing to reference my Gacha powers.

“Are you sure about the nature of your transformation now that you’ve taken on her Curse?” Ozpin asked as he stared at me unflinchingly. “That is how you managed to finally kill her, right? So, you have her curse and a state comparable to hers upon transforming.”

“What? Are you worried I’m going to go crazy like her and try to end the world or something?” I sarcastically asked. “I’m still not really all too clear on what her deal was with having a death wish, but I can get rid of her curse whenever I want. Not that I think I would anytime soon, the regeneration aspect of the curse is too useful to just give up.”

Ozpin continued to stare at me until he broke eye contact and placed the Relic of Choice on his head. A moment afterward, he took it off his head and sighed.

“See? I probably don’t go crazy… Right?” I was not too sure about it myself. Gacha had changed me in ways that I was self-aware about and the possibilities of it driving me insane were not zero.

“See for yourself,” Ozpin said as he offered me the Relic.

Wow, just like that?

Yoink.

[Congratulations! For attempting to use a Mythical Grade precognitive artifact, you have earned a Mythical Cursed Gacha Coin!]

Ow! Just putting the damn thing on my head hurt like I was back to being a normal civilian without powers and I’d just smashed my head into a concrete wall.

“YOUR FUTURE IS NOT CALCULABLE,” a voice from the Relic hissed before one of the many jewels on the crown cracked.

A second jewel started to tremble but stopped once I took the Relic of Choice off and handed it back to Ozpin, “Thanks, I didn’t think my day could start off any worse.”

“Unbelievable,” Ozpin took the crown and we continued to head for the elevator. “That is an artifact created by the God of Light and you just casually damaged it with your presence.”

“I wouldn’t say it was casual, with the way it bypassed all of my defenses to give me a headache, but I get your point.”

We continued to talk as we made our way back to the surface. Mostly it was Ozpin and Glynda asking me about the situation they’d left behind while trying to prevent Salem from getting her hands on the Relic.

“So, what are you going to do with us?” Mercury asked as we crossed from the separate dimension of the vault and back into Beacon’s underground area. There had been a solemn silence that followed once Ozpin and Glynda had run out of things to ask.

“I don’t know, probably leave you to stand trial for your crimes if you manage to pass my interrogation. Don’t worry, it probably won’t end poorly for you as long as you don’t harbor any thoughts on getting revenge on me. If you do… Let’s just say the law won’t stop me from making sure you are no longer a threat,” I said.

Now that there wasn’t a powerful backer behind these people, I didn’t have to worry about another attack on the academy to rescue them. But, that didn’t mean I wouldn’t make creating more Truth Serum and other useful potions a priority once I was done with dealing with the mess left on the surface.

Depending on what Mercury and Emerald had done since being rescued and their philosophy on getting revenge, they might get to live long enough to serve a sentencing. Cinder had lost her second chance when she took Amber’s powers and made me give up the L.I.F.E. gadget. She would either die summarily to an execution or… I might just have to get creative to make a non-threat.

Killing her was an option, but I was of the idea that there were worse fates than death; like, living out the overwhelming majority of one’s life in prison. Of course, just putting her in prison wouldn’t end her threat, I wouldn’t want to leave even the slightest chance that she could break out on the table. But, what if I cut off all her limbs before throwing her in prison? What if I concocted a diabolical poison to eat away at her health and Aura for the rest of her life? What if I lobotomized her with a different concoction?

There were a lot of options on the table, most of which seemed a lot worse than just dying. Cinder’s fate along with anyone else who had willfully spiteful ideas of getting revenge on me or anyone involved with what happened today would simply hinge on what was brought up during their trials — and my interrogations.

Simply joining Salem was not enough to earn them the death penalty in my books. But, if I found out they committed other heinous crimes like Tyrian with his serial killing, then depending on the severity of those crimes I’d ramp up my “treatment” of them.

For their sake, they better not have done anything too messed up. Otherwise, they had better start praying for a death sentence immediately.