RWBY Through Worlds

154: Commit The Sins Again

"What's gotten into you?" Jaune asked Winter, once they were all left alone.

Winter did not want to explain herself.

"Before we do this whole thing again," Pyrrha said, "I think we should all just acknowledge that we have the same issues as before and we never do resolve them. I personally have realized that Salem doesn't matter to me that much. I know one thing I never knew before: I don't really need this."

She gestured at the Crown and then took it off. "I don't need any of it. It's not my destiny." With a half smile there, but then she sobered again. "So...here." She held it out.

They stared at her.

Then Theo took it from her, somberly.

Pyrrha nodded.

"Shine and Wally have become my friends, not just my teachers," she added slowly, "and I wouldn't want to see them humiliated or disappointed at the end of all this. Perhaps those personal considerations are not what we base our lives on when it comes to defeating evil overlords, but at the same time, if we don't start with our personal choices, what right do we have to speak for the world? I know at least I won't be going to confront her while I still have things I have not confronted in myself. However, Salem is, at bottom, just a person. A powerful one, but a person. The gods have no more reason to listen to her than anyone else. Less, even. So perhaps the real reason we have not won is because we ourselves cannot meet their impossible standard. I have the answer for that now. I didn't before. But I can't expect you all to accept it the same way as me."

"What do you mean?" Ruby asked. "I think we have, some of us."

"You've...started to," Pyrrha said, "but you...you would have to trust more than that. You'd have to believe in it more than anything else in the whole world, more than what you've seen before, more than what you know to expect yourself. You'd have to have a hope in something so far beyond our capabilities that you know it couldn't come from you--and then, you would know that we can win."

She looked oddly mysterious when she said that and yet still very much her practical self. Pyrrha had always been able to be both those things at the same time. It was why people loved her.

"I also realized something else after seeing this place," Pyrrha went on. "I realized that I do not know you all anymore."

They raised their eyebrows.

"Whatever happened here changed you all one way and me another way," Pyrrha said. "And frankly, I'm not sure my death was the reason for that. I think we're just different. I can't pretend that I fit with all of you anymore. But I knew you, once. And ever since I got back, all I've thought over and over is that you aren't the same. It's like you lost yourselves. I don't think Shine and Wally had anything to do with that. I think they came to stop it. And I see some of you have started to return, but, I was not the only one who died when Beacon fell... Something in you all died also."

They stared at her somberly.

"And until it's back, you can't win," Pyrrha added. "That is all I have to say. Do whatever you feel you should do. I won't stop you."

She walked away slowly.

* * *

The group discussed what to do and got absolutely nowhere. Pyrrha was right: They just ran over the same argument as always--even they were getting sick of it.

But how to get past it?

They couldn't go anywhere without Shine or Wally's help right now. Though they tried to get an airship, but no one wanted to fly to Haven, not after what they'd seen.