A tale of two beings meeting through the ages and eons. Of a monster seeking completeness and slowly learning how to love, of a hero banishing evil again and again and its consequences. And how one leads to the other. This is a story of the unlikeliest of bonds, and of why humans are allowed to live in the deathworld that is Remnant.

Enjoy their journey, and their conclusion.

Through the Ages

"Leave us, abomination!" The words were roared, and a savage's hand plunged into her heart, tearing through darkstuff that could withstand the killing heat of a star with the will of one's overpowering spirit. The power of souls flooded her, poison to her tainted existence.

She snarled wordless curses at his resigned, calm face as she was barred from the world for an age. A face that remained at peace even as her Grimm tore his exhausted body apart.

.../

"Begone, Darkbeast." The robed man stated, his words calm and filled with purposeful poise. His soul was burning up, dying by miles. He would not survive the hour, not even a minute.

But then, he needed less than that to banish her.

Her servants thrashed against the barriers enclosing the two, but they could not break them. Many even perished from simple contact. As for her, her shell was pierced through a dozen times over, and locked with chains of stonescript aura.

"HATE! HAAATE!" She howled. She had learned a little of their language, and that one word symbolized exactly what she felt towards this being before her. It was supposed to be a fluke, that she was beaten by that savage from before. It was not supposed to happen again.

"Yes. Of course. Hate me if you will." The man murmured. "It doesn't matter. I repeat. Begone." The world turned white and her screams were washed away by obliteration. Her last sight for that age was a set of tranquil blue eyes.

.../

A sword pierced her chest, though to call that crystal shard a sword was a slur upon all blade-kind. Nonetheless, it did its work. The soul of the wielder filled her body as poison, Aura annihilating her atom by atom.

Yet she had strength left to tear at his helm, and metal buckled, shattered, against her unreal strength.

The second blow might, might have killed him, cut off his technique, but she was too stunned by what she saw.

The face was different, foreign even if his flesh wasn't tatters, but the single working eye was the same as before. "You...again?" She mumbled dully.

He ignored her words.

"I defy thee, black demoness. To the pits with you." He intoned, and she was vanquished, confused to the end.

.../

Another one had pierced through her hordes, had penetrated into her territory and into her sanctum. After the third time, she no longer thought it improbable. Perhaps, it was actually meant to be.

He was different this time, as he always was. There was still armor, of a more advanced make than before, but it covered less. No sword, but a spear. A spear of gold that dripped liquid light. A scarf fluttered from his neck.

"So we meet again." She greeted him. By now, she had learned much about their language. Strange, that it somehow always stayed the same, even throughout the ages.

He paused, perturbed at her words, but then he shrugged and simply lunged.

"No words for me?!" She shouted, and she met his leap with her own charge.

They clashed and fought, and throughout she screamed at the silent warrior. "Who are you?! What are you?! Why, how, do you keep stopping me?!"

But he gave no answer, he simply fought. And as always, he was her better. Even after getting through her servants and to her, he remained her superior. Or at least, was capable, and did beat her.

"Where do you gain this strength?" She asked hoarsely as he pinned her to the walls, as the spear became as water, and spread through her body, a network of platinum thorns that ever so slowly tore her apart.

He tilted his head, and the damage she had caused his flesh and clothes made his scarf fall off. She saw his throat, where a scar severed his voice. With a tired smile, he flicked his fingers in sign. But she could not understand it.

An age later, she would learn he meant "Love."

.../

She did not need to open her eyes, or to listen, or to feel through her servants' sensations to know who he was, where he was, this time. It was an advantage she had never had before, and perhaps she could have drowned him in bodies, stopped him this time.

But she didn't. For all that she was constantly defeated, it felt wrong to do so now, as if to avoid such a meeting was to betray something important.

It was a knight, armored head to toe. He walked with a slow, peculiarly cautious stride, but when he drew near her, his stance became confident, purposeful. His sword gleamed and turned away the shadows. She felt her flesh turn hot just from its radiance, and she realized he would have fought past her Grimm, anyway.

What a surprise, she thought sarcastically.

"Would you answer some of my questions?" She requested. It was a polite query, she had learned.

The knight paused, and tapped his head. "...dear me, did I just hear that?"

"Would you answer some of my questions?" She asked again. Perhaps he was hard of hearing?

"So I did." He sighed. "Go on then, queen of monsters. Though know that there will be a reckoning if you use this as a trick."

She immediately weighed the pros and cons, and decided that her curiosity was more important.

After all, she could try again. She ignored the tiny voice in her head reminding her of how she had yet to win.

"Who are you? What are you? Why, how, do you keep stopping me? Where do you get the strength to stop me?" She asked.

The knight seemed surprised. "...we have never met before, monster. I am but a knight of the Arcs, and I have never met you."

"Lies." She hissed. "I feel your soul. As I have four times before! Always you defeat me, to bar me for an age!"

This seemed to bring confidence back to the knight, and he had the gall to laughat her. She just barely resisted leaping at him then and there.

"Oh joy." He cackled. "So reincarnation is true! And it is simple fact then, that whenever you appear, monster, there shall be a hero to defy you, born again, grown strong, with will and vinegar and heroic strength. That is good to hear. This is not so desperate as I thought, if I am merely the latest in a line. My, what a grand tradition. It is simply meant to be that there is an adversary to oppose you"

And so they fought. And as before, she lost.

Yet, as the blind, one-armed knight sawed off her head and her clawed feet tore out his guts, he murmured, as if to himself, "Strange, why the abomination takes the form of one so pretty and beautiful..."

Pretty. Beautiful. Such positive things as never had been said to her. "Say what?" Were her last words for that age.

.../

The next time, she felt more than where he, her adversary, was. She felt far far more. Even so dull as to be infinitesimal, for a soulless who had never experienced emotions before, it was a maddening thing. One that made her unstable and unhinged.

And confused, oh so confused.

In place of a heart, her body throbbed. What he called love drove her to a confused torpor, what he called hate made her wrathful, and her servants followed her will.

And as always in a bitter world, it was easier to fall in a cycle of hate and violence, and soon enough her hordes erupted in maddened fury, and her adversary and his race fought them in turn.

There were few words spoken when they encountered each other this time, for their minds were both addled, a self-feeding cycle of negativity drowning their thoughts in senseless hate and violence.

And yet...he ranted all the same, of what had driven him so.

"A monster for a soulmate!" He spat at her face as he bled out and she shriveled and died from his ravening soul. "An abomination for a partner! What crime did I commit to deserve this?!"

A soulmate?

.../

Her discovery of what it meant in the later age would disquiet her far more than the increased intimacy of their link. She felt his heartbeat now, even a world away. And the emotions that had turned her mad before were now...manageable.

She stretched out her arm, and studied a limb of pure blackness, of foul essence, so different from the flesh of his race, anathema, even.

And yet...

"Our hearts beat together." She murmured. She touched her palms to her cheeks, and wondered about the sensations on her body that had never existed before, in her initial incarnations.

Love.

Meant to be.

He was the only one that stayed the same. Different body or no, the same soul was there, chasing her through time, dying in tune with her.

Soulmates.

Her body shuddered in ecstasy, a foreign, yet immensely pleasurable sensation.

"Perhaps..."

It was not to be. She was yet too unfamiliar on how to show affection, too monstrous to think on human values. And so they fought in the end.

But it a strange sight. For all that she was losing, it was her adversary that was on the verge of panic, confused and horrified as she professed her love, as she spoke of souls entwined.

"You have no soul!" He screamed at her as he rammed his fatal blade through her, eyes frantic and wild.

In contrast, it was her that was calm as she answered him. "And yet our hearts are in tune. And our touch..." She caressed his cheek, and though his flesh boiled and poison spread through his veins, some measure of horrified pleasure thrummed through the both of them. "Oh, it doesn't matter." She told him as she embraced her soulmate. "We'll only be closer, in the next age. And I will know more. And one day...we'll be together...forever."

He died screaming in her embrace.

.../

It was strange, this time. For her adversary was something she couldn't even bear to touch.

For he was aflame with his spirit, shrouded in soulfire, and slowly, his very flesh was changing into that purest of spiritual essence, growing more powerful by the day.

At his peak, he would fade away and die as pure energy scattered to the four winds, torn apart at his apex.

None of his kin could touch him, either, for his soul's temperament was a vicious thing that harmed all.

Perhaps that was the reason why he was so accepting of her approach, when his kin had abandoned him, even if for good reason.

"We are soulmates." She stated frankly.

"I think you are correct." He had said, for he felt the synced beat of their bodies.

And yet...they could not touch. Her flesh would burn. His essence would wither.

"Do you have a name?" He had asked, and she was stunned, as she found that no, she did not.

"One needs a name." He told her. "For one such as you, it must be one of significant purpose and meaning. Can you think of anything significant about yourself?"

"You." She had said, and he had laughed in mirth.

"Why me?"

"You are important to me." She answered.

"...what do you think will happen, if we were capable of living together, of touching, and being as one?" He asked softly.

This, she thought about for a long while. She searched herself, and as far as she could explain... "I think it would solve something. Or complete something. Bring something to rest."

"Completeness. And peace." The hermit murmured in thought. "...Salem. What do you think of Salem?"

She decided she would be Salem. It felt good.

On the day that he felt he would die, they held each other. Aura and darkness mixed, and they killed each other.

As was right.

As was meant to be.

.../

"I am Salem. And we are soulmates, you and I. Lovers from across time, across eons and ages." The being before him intoned, a woman of corrupted, tainted flesh, of abominable, obscene matter. That her face was so beautiful, that her poise so elegant and hair so fine made it all the worse. "I've been learning, my adversary. We can touch each other now." She crooned, the tip of her black finger brushing against his cheeks with soft, delicate affection.

Her flesh felt like hell. There was no way to describe it, that foulness like filth, like searing heat and frosbite. It should have been poison to him, yet somehow it wasn't. Somehow, her touch was not hurting him. That thought felt wrong.

"And more." She sighed heatedly.

Treacherously, his heart pulsed faster, and his body heated up. Not in fear, but in some monstrous lust, in forced fondness.

It was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. So why did it feel, in some twisted, horrifying way, right?

He turned his head to the side, and he saw Cinder watching.

The killer of the woman he loved looked disturbed. Her pose was on guard, tense and disgusted. She knew, just as much as him, that what was happeningshould not be.

"Look at me." Salem hissed, forcing his head back to her. "Not her. Not anyone else. Me. I love you, not her!" She screamed.

"Th-there's only one woman I love. And she's dead. Killer by your minion." Jaune managed to retort.

To this, Salem merely chuckled. "You've said that before, but it doesn't matter. They all die, except me. You'll forget them, while I'll always be here for you. I'll always love you." She eyed Cinder. "Would it please you if I killed her in return?"

Cinder froze, her face locked in a stunned rictus.

Vindictiveness rose up, and Jaune answered, "Yes."

And so Cinder died.

"Do you love me now?" Salem asked as she returned from the slaughter, all beatific smiles and swaying hips. The blood that had splattered her disappeared. What scant wounds closed up.

No human should feel anything other than abhorrence for her, than loathing and hate and disgust.

Yet for all that Jaune felt such things, he felt their opposites to. Admiration, lust, adoration, love. Forced upon him by a spiritual history that he had never known even existed. Worse, he felt her.

He felt the same from her. It was why she called him Adversary and she called him Soulmate. She hated him as much as she loved him, and the desire to caress him warred with the want to snap his neck, for it was innate to her, her very nature.

Somehow, however, love won. Affection won. Lust won.

She cooed to Jaune as she felt his flesh react treacherously to her. "I can feel it. This will be a wonderful age." She moaned. "We will be together for quite some time, my soulmate, my adversary. And then at the end, we will die together. And we will grow closer, more complete."

Jaune wept bitter tears as she pressed her lips to him, as his hands caressed her flesh in turn. Her malleable flesh was changing, adjusting to him, to preferences. He could feel the suppleness of Pyrrha's now.

He wanted to vomit at the sacrilege.

"One day, " Salem whispered to him, as if imparting a great secret, "We will be truly complete. That day, everything will be right.

As it is meant to be."

And under a broken moon, upon a hellish landscape, an abomination made horrific love to a man.

.../

In the end, a monster is still a monster. Their love is that of humans, not the pure kindness of saints. Theirs is loathing and disgust as much as lust and affection, for such dark thoughts are innate to them, their very nature. Theirs is a sickening love, and yet...it is love all the same, that changes them so much as to almost be unrecognizable in temperament.

After all, it is love for him that allows humanity to survive, to not be drowned under an ocean of monsters. A far cry from her original intentions of complete annihilation. Now, all she cares about is completeness, to make love with him, to be one with him, and die together in each other's arms. Again and again, until the stars burn out.

Isn't love beautiful?