: Prologue: The Hill of Swords

"I wanna become a huntress!"

That was the dream the as-of-today 4-year old Ruby Rose yelled with conviction just before blowing out the candles on her chocolate chip cookie cake.

"Ruby, you're not supposed to yell out your wish; you're supposed to keep it in your head!" a 6-year old Yang Xaiolong teased. "Now your wish won't come true!"

"What!? No, I wanna become huntress!" Ruby cried in horror as her eyes became red and tears started to form.

Yang laughed at the expression on her face. "It was just a joke! You look like you're about to cry!"

Ruby's tears left her eyes as she realized she'd just been duped. Sadness gave in to anger and she charged her sister. "You meanie!" she yelled, the intent to pummel her sister with her pudgy arms conveyed perfectly through her expression.

Unfortunately, Yang was not only taller than her but stronger too. Easily catching her little sister's arms, Yang captured her by coiling her arm around the smaller girl's neck, bringing her closer to her body. Much to Ruby's displeasure, she started giving the poor Rose a noogie, furiously and uncomfortably rubbing her knuckles against her head.

"Hey! Ooow, stop!" Ruby yelled, trying to pry her sister's hands-off.

"Then you shouldn't try to hit your elders!" Yang rebutted, increasing the speed of her noogie.

"Alright, alright. Stop, you two. Yang quit bullying Ruby, and Ruby, don't try to hurt your sister," Summer Rose said in a chastising tone, though a genial smile was on her face.

"But she was being mean!"

"It was just a joke!"

Summer shrugged, her smile not changing. "Well, if you don't promise to stop roughhousing and hitting each other, then I guess me and your father will be eating all the cake."

"We will," Taiyang Xiao Long confirmed, standing near the dinner table with his arms crossed, his visage mimicking his wife's.

"No, no, no! We want cake!" Ruby and Yang shouted in unison.

"Alright, but first, you have to promise me and your dad that you won't try to hit each other," Summer said.

"We promise, we promise!" Ruby affirmed.

"Give us cake!" Yang pleaded.

"Calm down, calm down," their father said walking into the kitchen to get a knife. While he did that, Summer looked back at her youngest child.

Unbeknownst to them, in a corner of the room, a red specter sat on a chair and looked at the scene with a bittersweet smile. 'This is a good dream,' the teenage Ruby Rose thought as she observed her memory dream.

Taiyang came back with a butter knife as both Memory-her and Memory-Yang started to jump and yell for cake, the parents trying to calm them down. The smile started to fade as she looked at her mother's face, bad memories rising to the surface.

A few days after her birthday, Summer had taken a job to exterminate some Grimm and had disappeared. Authorities couldn't find her so they put her down as M.I.A. A month later, they changed it to K.I.A. At her age, she hadn't really understood what it'd meant.

Her family had been struck by guilt and heartbreak, including her. As she'd grown older, she slowly began to forget things about her mother, like the smell of her hair or the taste of the cookies she'd make.

She hated it, she hated the feeling of not being able to remember her mother's face without pictures or descriptions. She hadn't wanted to inconvenience her already mourning family, and thus, she'd kept silent and hid her feelings underneath a happy facade.

Only in her dreams could she truly remember her mother and the memories they'd made. Even as a specter, ghostly tears formed around her eyes, the only time she would show sadness and grief for Summer's death. "I miss you, mom," Ruby's words were silent against the sounds of laughing and cheering as the happy family cut the cake for the youngest daughter's 4th birthday.

The scene disappeared as if someone switched a portrait. First, Ruby was sitting on her chair and reminiscing about her mother when, all too suddenly, she was now sprawled on the dusty ground.

Smoke traveled up her lungs when she tried to breath for air. After a short coughing fit, she held her breath as if she was underwater and began standing on shaky legs. 'Wha-where am I?' Ruby thought. Black smog covered her vision, she couldn't even see a foot in front of her. Frantically waving her arms to push away the smoke, she saw a harrowing sight.

She was standing in a ruined city, fire draping the buildings and house like a burning carpet, the stench of gas and oil filling the air and there was so much smoke, it covered the sky like clouds.

Ruby gasped in shock and horror, unable to keep her breath. She took in the air her body desperately needed, filling it with poisonous gases. Ruby looked at her palms, blackened by soot. For what she initially thought was dust was actually ash. Ruby felt lightheaded, the heat of the fires traveling through the air as they greedily ate everything around her. Then came the screams, bombarding her eardrums. Screams of pain and terror and of people being burned alive.

She heard footsteps from her left, knocking out of her funk. Ruby sprang into a running start to the edge of a large crater as if the fires were so bad it caused the streets to collapse. In the crater were puddles of molten asphalt and metal with the ash covering the ground all over. Flames surround the outside of the crater, almost looking like they were trying to go inside but were unable to.

On the edge of the crater was a small boy with red hair and gold eyes. About 6 or 7 years old, he had a blue and white tracksuit that was badly burned though his white t-shirt and his skin didn't look to be all that better off.

He seemed to be moving inwards, his eyes blank and his body swaying. Much of the boy's energy was probably spent on trying to get out of the fire, now he was a dead man walking if he didn't die because of the flames, asphyxia, and heat would kill him. Ruby couldn't - nay, wouldn't - let that happen!

She dashed into the crater, using her semblance to reach the boy quicker. He didn't seem to react to Ruby at all, still walking forward, taking no action to stop. Just when Ruby was but a few meters away, she heard a voice.

"Don't bother." It was distinctly male and deep, neutral yet contained a venomous bite to it.

Ruby turned whipped around, rose petals floating around her. "Who are you?!" she yelled in a warning tone, only to be rendered speechless.

Her surroundings had changed again, she wasn't standing in the ruins of a flaming city but a rocky desert filled with hills. Clouds blocked out the sun, and what little light came through bathed the world yellow. Giant gears stood off to the side, rusted and sunken deep into the ground. But that wasn't the most mystifying part.

It was swords. Blades scattered the landscape, congregating on the hills as if markers for graves.

They were unlimited.

And at the horizon, where the voice had come from, stood the tallest hill of them all. There, Ruby noticed a man's back, making out a red cloak and silver-white hair.

"He makes it out anyway." Ruby knew it was the man staring into the horizon speaking, even though he so far away. It was as if the very wind carried his voice. "He can't even be considered human."

Before Ruby could ask what he meant by that, she was hit by a piercing headache. Black spots raced around her vision and dizziness soon took hold.

The last thing Ruby saw was the silver-haired man in red standing on that hill of swords.

AN: This is the start of a new a story after this I'll be working on my GOH x BNHA story thank you king carlos and MM995 for beta reading and helping me edit this story! Please favorite, follow and review.