Akashic

"So I really wasn't hallucinating…" Arthur muttered, giving a short glance to the tiger, before quickly focusing back on to the centipede, "Why are you helping me kill a grimm?" Arthur asked as he fired a volley of laser stakes at the grimm to hopefully keep it busy.

"I… do not wish… to speak… while fighting… manspawn…" Byakko answered, "But… If you truly wish… to know… then… it is because… these… beasts are a plague… corrupted… forgetting our purpose… that is why…" the ethereal woman's voice answered, derision and disgust evident in her voice.

"Purpose? Grimm have a purpose?" Arthur asked confused.

"Yes… let us talk after… killing this beast" she growled and charged towards the centipede that was flailing, throwing the stakes off of it, sending them into the ground, creating more obstacles around it.

"I'm working with a grimm…" he chuckled, the muzzle of his cannon beginning to glow as the five stakes began to rapidly rotate around the muzzle, the five spikes soon began to close in on the muzzle creating a spinning cone of hardlight energy, the spikes spinning faster and faster until finally a loud explosion resounded from his arm, sending him flying backwards, while a large stake fired from the muzzle, creating an explosion sending leafs from the trees surrounding the field flying.

The air rippling as the stake flew through it, the stake making a beeline for the grimms head, decimating one of its antennae sending the grimm screeching as it began to flail, slamming it's body against the ground and smashing any tree, even causing the steel rails of the train tracks to buckle and even snap.

Byakko soon charged the centipede once it began to calm down from its flailing, jumping into the air at the centipedes reared up body, maw open quickly snapping down on the other antenna of the grimm, Byakko's placing her paws atop it's head which she used to leverage herself to pull the other antenna off.

But the centipede, realizing this quickly raised its head further up before once again slamming itself onto the ground crushing Byakko under it before it began to grind its head into the ground causing Byakko to release her grip on it and leaving her lying on the ground trying to push herself up only to collapse back to the ground, growling as she glared at the centipede which was staring down at her, a viscous, bubbling yellow liquid dripping from the centre of its face and it's two mandibles, the liquid causing the ground wherever it dripped to begin to steam and melt.

"Shit!" Arthur growled as he quickly began to fire another volley of his rail gun stakes, but with less power so as to not send him flying back again, these stakes implanting into various parts of the grimms body, but otherwise leaving it unharmed as it seemed to ignore the pain coursing through its body. Seeing that none of the stakes bothered it, Arthur growled and quickly transformed his arm into its claw form and ran to block the attack he expected to come up next.

And of course, just that attack came as the frothy yellow liquid in its mouth was shot out towards the still in a stupor from being ground into the ground, Byakko's eyes turning sharp when it realized what was about to happen as she began to struggle to move out of the liquids path, her eyes shutting as she turned her head to the side in an attempt to minimalize the damage.

She grit her teeth as she felt an intense pain on the side of her mask, leaving her missing an eye as well as destroying one of her horns. The smell of burning flesh mixed with numerous powerful chemicals filling the air. "Strange… manspawn…" Byakko muttered, turning her half molten head towards Arthur, his arm transformed into a strange coffin shape starting from his forearm which had fused with the black material of his innocence, the shield also having a white cross shaped design on it, it's edges sharp and bladed, five large orange, glowing feathers hanging from the bottom of it, only problem being the steam coming off it along with its currently molten state, also didn't help that suddenly creating a new form for his innocence sent a surge of wooziness through his head.

"The names Arthur" he said through grit teeth and shook his head to get rid of his dizziness, while Byakko began to steady itself on its feet shaking her head and her claws digging into the ground. "Ar…thur? you… manspawn have… such strange traditions…" she growled.

"Oh, I'm sorry, does my name bother you?" Arthur grumbled, Cross α taking place of his just newly formed transformation of Cross γ, his arm showing obvious degradation due to the acid as it continued steaming and melting causing a constant blearing pain to surge throughout his arm, which he forced himself to ignore.

"No… it is just unusual… we grimm… we see no point to such menial things…" Byakko answered taking a step next to Arthur, growling as they both glared at the centipede whose mandibles were chittering in rage but deciding not to make the first move due to its most recent injuries.

"It's a hardy bastard…" Arthur muttered, staring towards the centipede surrounded by dozens upon dozens of the energy stakes that Arthur shot.

"Yes… these ones tend to be…" Byakko answered with a growl, her speech coming out in more flowing lines now.

"You've fought one before?" he asked, holding up his new transformation infront of himself to defend himself from any more acid it may spew.

"No… I watched my mother fight one… it killed her in seconds the same acid… but much stronger… single drop melted half a mountain… and all the grimm that lived on it…" she answered, "This one… is young… too young… it is ambitious… searching for the water that appeared around here…"

'Waters? The black pools that the grimm are born from? And mother? The grimm have parents?' he began to question in his head, but quickly shook his head returning it to the giant centipede, a plan beginning to form in his head as his arm transformed into its α form.

"You think you can distract it?" he asked, his claws flaring outwards as he lowered his obdy to the ground.

"I… can try… I have lost a lot of my… waters… but I should be able to…" Byakko answered as she took a few steps forward, the air around them dropping in temperature as mist began to form around the mouth of Byakko, before condensing into her open mouth as she released a beam of blue light from her mouth which hit the centipedes back portion, its front having quickly swerved to the side to avoid it.

"Go… my frost won't last long…" She said, stumbling slightly but catching herself before she fell, taking deep breaths in the hopes of regaining her strength, "I shall rest for a moment… regain some strength…" she said.

"Here goes nothing!" Arthur shouted as he ran up to the centipede, springing into the air his arm transforming back into its new shield form as a new spray of acid came his way, "Please don't fall off, please don't fall off." Arthur chanted for his arm, returning it to the claws just above the centipede's head which he quickly threw his claws out to, the claws growing as they got closer to the grimms head, eventually latching onto it, his claws digging into the underside of the centipedes mask as he landed on the back of its head, the grimm now thrashing in an attempt to throw him off, "He Arthur hows you're week been?" Arthur began to talk to himself, "Oh fine, I jumped into a fire, got kidnapped by a giant centipede, started working with a grimm to kill said centipede, my arm is melting and now I'm riding a giant centipede like it's a bloody bull!" he sarcastically grumbled to himself, his other hand feebly punching the head of the grimm.

His punches only causing his fist to go numb, "Smart move Arthur, punch the super armoured grimm, really, well done" he grumbled as he came up with a new idea, "If I can't punch you then why not…" he muttered, throwing his hand under the centipedes left eye, his fingers bent in such a way that when he rammed the into the strangely soft tissue of the centipedes eye that it dug deep into it, "I'm going to be picking grimm out of my nail for a week" he g.r.o.a.n.e.d as he tore his hand up bringing a large red eye out.

The centipede let out an even louder ear piercing shriek from the pain of having another of its body parts torn out, "I regret everything…" Arthur muttered, tears forming at the edge of his eyes as the grimm began to flail even harder, causing the ice that froze its back portion to explode causing the ice to disintegrate and the chilliness in the air to disappear.

"Arthur!?" he heard his name called by a familiar voice, the call breaking him from his concentration and causing him to look up to see to figures, one clad in black and red, one in white and one with bright red hair and wearing bronze, yet not having any time to get a conclusive look as he was quickly launched their way by the grimms flailing, his body impacting with a tree causing it to break into dozens of pieces.

"I am so happy my aura can handle this…" he muttered, laying on the ground, his Tome floating above him showing him his aura metre which was now in the red. "Ow…" he muttered as he stood up and took a step out of the debris.

"Why's it always have to be me…" he muttered

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"Ruby! Move!" he screamed as he quickly tackled Ruby to the ground just as a mist of bubbling yellow liquid landed where they were just standing.

"Wha!?" Ruby muttered, staring at the once whole, now melted ground she had been standing on.

"Talk later, giant centipede now" he said rolling to the side, while firing volleys of laser stakes to get the grimms attention.

"Manspawn…"

"Arthur! It's Arthur for god's sake! If I'm going to be melted into sludge I want to at least be called Arthur!" he screeched tired of being called Manspawn.

"Arthur… do you not have a 'semblance'…?" Byakko asked tackling the centipede to the side.

"I've been trying! My semblance doesn't work with my arm for some reason" he shouted back, two new sets of gun shots filling the air as Ruby and Pyrrha began to run around the grimm sending shot after shot of it, both keeping an eye on Byakko but not attacking her as they noticed she seemed to be helping.

Meanwhile, Weiss was making use of her semblance, creating numerous Glyphs around the centipede to act as leverage points for her as she dashed between them using her rapier to stab the grimm, to a degree that left barely nicks on it.

"I hope this doesn't kill me…" Arthur muttered, his Tome floating next to him, a worried Ashe on one of the pages as a bright, deep red crystal began to emerge from the Tome, "Everyone get back, I'm going to try something!" he shouted grabbing the rough fire dust crystal he got when he first arrived in remnant.

The girls along with Byakko began to back away, but still firing shots from their weapons to distract it while Arthur was busy.

Arthur's aura began to circulate, particles of light begaining to float around the dust crystal before merging with it turning the fire dust a pure and bright white, his right arm transforming into a heavily mangled arm cannon, "I hope this works…" he muttered holding the crystal in his left hand like a dagger which he quickly plunged into his arm.

Unluckily for him the moment his aura began to merge with the dust crystal the grimm centipede turned to him, its remaining eye staring at him in caution due to the influx of energy that sent a shiver down its non-existent spine.

"Oh, holy…" Arthur g.r.o.a.n.e.d unable to finish his sentence as he felt his arm beginning to burn even worse than when he had acid sprayed over it, the dust crystal he had impaled his arm still sticking out just under his shoulder sending white, glowing veins pulsing throughout Arthurs arm as well as turning the five energy spikes and the numerous connecting hoses a bright white.

Gritting his teeth Arthur, knelt on the ground, his cannon pointing at the grimm, the five spike closed in around the opening of the barrel, the tips of each releasing small white flames, "Let's see how you like melting!" Arthur screamed, still having enough in him to say something as bright white flames began to spew from his cannon, engulfing the entirety of the grimms body as crashes and screeches resounded from the blazing white light.

The stream of flames lasting all of a minute before dissipating along with the now empty fire dust crystal falling from Arthurs shoulder leaving a large hole in his shoulder where numerous veins and hoses now wrapped around.

Arthur felt dizzy at this point as he quickly pulled out his scroll to check his aura levels, finding he barely even had a sliver left, seconds later he also felt something snap on his arm as his innocence forcefully retracted revealing the red rash like arm had changed into a nearly pitch black, smooth texture with a large diamond shaped marking at the centre of his upper arm, at the centre of the diamond a hollow black circle, the same marking wrapping around the entirety of his shoulder where another black line connected with the top of the outermost diamond and stretched to just before his neck where the line broke into two and wrapped around his front and back creating a circle around his neck, his arm now refusing to even lift and hanging limply by his side, his finger barely moving when he tried to move them.

His eyes never leaving the flailing, burning figure of the centipede grimm which was beginning to disintegrate into the black particles that all grimm faded away into after they passed, these particles creating an unusual effect of the white flames creating black embers.

The centipede feeling its end coming suddenly stopped flailing as it burned the image of Arthur into its mind, a strange sense of clarity to its eyes that you wouldn't expect from something that was currently burning 'alive'.

Just as the final part of the grimm collapsed into particles of flames Arthur saw an ethereal figure standing in the flames, his eyes squinting to see what it was before feeling sweat drip down his cheek when he recognized the almost spiderlike hairdo and white hair, as well as the telltale black and red eyes and black veins that crept on her face.

"Salem…" Arthur muttered holding his arm in fear as Salem, or at least the illusion of Salem smiled at him with strangely warm eyes.

"Hello… Arthur" Arthur grit his teeth as she said his name, "I wish we could speak longer, but I just had to see you the moment I sensed your energy again" she said, her figure beginning to fall into light particles, "If I had come just a bit earlier, I might have just gotten to meet you properly and brought you back with me…" she said sending a shiver down Arthurs spine, the only part of her body still remaining being her eyes, "I, shall, have, you" she announced her eyes curling up as if she was smiling before quickly disappearing into a final puff of black embers, the white flames also disappearing once all the particles disappeared into the wind.

Once everything was gone Arthur began to stagger himself towards a nearby tree, collapsing against it as his right arm lay limply on the ground, the stress of the battle coming all at once as he began to pant and feel his eyes beginning to lose focus, but not fainting. Ruby, Weiss and Pyrrha running up to him, all three of their weapons held up and pointed at Byakko in caution, none of them firing as they were still unsure about the strangely helpful Grimm.

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Salem stood atop the highest balcony of her castle Evernight, one of her hand held up to the sky, a smile on her face as she stared at the bright white flames that encompassed her hand, "Such tenacious flames, unwilling to let go even after destroying an apparition" she said, a dark liquid forming on her hands that engulfed the flames snuffing them out.

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Alternate Chapter names: [Meeting Salem] [The Helpful Grimm] [Hans and his Flammenwerfer]

So yeah, Arthur can't use his semblance ON cross but he can use it along WITH cross, aka he can't Empower his innocence but he can empower dust which his innocence can then use.

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