RWBY : So that's how it is

Cinder Fall awakens underwater, surrounded by chunks of ice, following her duel with Raven Branwen. After pulling herself out of what is revealed to be an underground pond beneath Haven Academy's vault, she finds herself struggling to use her Maiden powers. Pounding her fist in frustration, she inadvertently creates a crack in the mountain wall, and she punches her way through using her Grimm arm. Outside, she tries to walk, only to fall from exhaustion. A woman approaches her out of concern, until she sees Cinder's Grimm arm and recoils in horror. Cinder then looks up, and her eye lights up with flames. Some time before going to the Mistral Central Station, Team RWBY, Team JNPR, Qrow Branwen, and Oscar Pine are getting ready for their trip to Atlas. Qrow explains that the plan is to take a train to Argus, where they will find an Atlas Military base that he doubts has been abandoned; they can then convince someone to take them to Atlas. Ozpin explains how the Relic of Knowledge works, saying it can answer three questions every 100 years; he claims that all three questions had already been used before he hid it in Haven's vault. After the train crash, Yang Xiao Long demands that Ozpin tell them why he hid the fact that the Relic draws Grimm. In the ensuing conversation, Ozpin reveals that he does not trust humanity as much as he has led others to believe. When he realizes that he no longer has the Relic at his side and that Ruby Rose has it, he tries to persuade her to return it to him. Oscar fights for control and tells Ruby that Ozpin fears she will use the Relic to find out what he is hiding, then reveals how to activate it. Using this information, Ruby releases Jinn from the Relic. Somewhere in Mistral, Cinder enters a tavern wearing the clothes of the woman she encountered, with bandages wrapped around her Grimm arm; she attempts to keep a low profile since the authorities currently want her. She visits the bar of Lil' Miss Malachite and pays her to find Teams RWBY and JNPR. Lil' Miss tells her to come back in a week, and Cinder leaves; when one of her subordinates questions why they didn't just tell Cinder what she wanted to know, she explains that she wants to wait and see who wants information about Cinder herself, suspecting someone may be looking for her. In Mistral's tundra, Jinn reveals that Ozpin's claim that all three questions had already been used was a lie, as two questions remain. Ruby asks Jinn what Ozpin is hiding from them, prompting Ozpin to scream as he lunges at her in desperation, only for her to be teleported to an empty white space. Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, Yang, and Qrow are also transported to an empty white space, but they are each separated from the others. Cyan smoke transforms the space into a grassy field with a large, ornate castle, as Jinn begins to answer Ruby's question in the form of a fairy tale. Out of the smoke appears a young woman with pale blonde hair and light blue eyes, whom Jinn reveals to be Salem.

In a flashback narrated by Jinn, with apparitions of Team RWBY, Qrow Branwen and Oscar Pine occasionally appearing to react to the events, Salem, completely Human, in an era when magic was available to all Humanity, is kept isolated in a tower by her father, desperate for freedom. Ozma rescues her, and when she asks where they should go now, he responds, "wherever you'd like", as the two fall in love.

Some time later, after Ozma dies of illness, Salem petitions the God of Light to resurrect him, and when he refuses, she goes to the God of Darkness, who agrees. Before she and Ozma can leave, the God of Light arrives and destroys Ozma again, the God of Darkness again resurrects him, and the two fight. Their difference is resolved, however, when the God of Light reveals to the God of Darkness that Salem only came to him upon the God of Light's own refusal to resurrect Ozma.

The God of Darkness then destroys Ozma, and Salem flies into a rage and attacks both gods, only to be teleported to a great height above a pool in the Domain of Light. After nearly drowning, she awakens on the surface, which supports her body like land, and the two gods tell her that she is now immortal and can never be with Ozma until she has learned "the importance of life and death".

After several failed suicide attempts, Salem realizes that she, as a mortal, having lied to the gods and turned them against one another, exposes their fallibility. She goes to the thee monarchs of the world - the Fat King, the Stern Queen and the Zealous King - claiming to have stolen her immortality from the gods, and raises an army, thus learning from her curse that "the hearts of men are easily swayed". The army sends a volley of magic at the God of Darkness, which he easily dismisses, and right after wipes out all of Humanity except for Salem. The gods leave the world, the God of Darkness shattering the moon as he does so.

Salem, now completely alone, still refuses to blame herself for her fate. She returns to the Land of Darkness, and in yet another suicide attempt, leaps into a Grimm pool, which does not kill her, but corrupts her, giving her the chalk-white skin, hair, and red eyes of her modern self, albeit her skin lacking its markings.

"Between realms", the God of Light tells Ozma that his brother has destroyed Humanity, and that while it will one day return, it will return to a world without their presence. Instead, he leaves behind the four Relics, saying that when they are brought together, Humanity will be judged, and either the brothers will return to guide Humanity again, or, if they find them still fighting among themselves, the world will be destroyed. Until this happens, Ozma will reincarnate in a way that ensures he'll never be alone. He refuses at first, saying he would prefer to join Salem in the afterlife, but accepts upon being told she's still alive, despite the God of Light's warning that she is no longer the woman he loved.

Ozma awakens in the head of a Human man during a Grimm attack. Once he gets his bearings, he takes control of his host to save another man's life, who asks his name, which Oscar observes Ozma doesn't know. The world he's now in is different from the one he knew, with Grimm attacks frequent, Humanity lacking innate magic, and the Faunus now living among them, kept in cages. Hearing of a woman called "the witch", Ozma, correctly assumes she is Salem and goes to find her, and upon reuniting with her, asks what they do now, to which she echoes his response from the tower, saying "whatever we like".

Ozma laments the state of the world to Salem, to which she responds that Humanity needs "someone to guide them", as they once had, and that she and Ozma, the only two with magic, should take on that role. As Jinn repeats Salem's past lesson that "the hearts of men are easily swayed", the two of them theatrically destroy a Nevermore attacking a village, leading the villagers to bow down before them. They soon use their influence to found a kingdom, which they rule over as they raise their four daughters.

As Ozma becomes increasingly concerned about the harsh means by which he and Salem have come to enforce their rule, one of their daughters interrupts their discussion to show that she's learned to do magic. Ozma tells Salem the mission given to him by the God of Light, only for Salem to respond that there's no longer any point in redeeming Humanity, and that they should replace them with their own line. This prompts Ozma to attempt to sneak their daughters out of the castle, but Salem stops them.

Salem and Ozma fight, causing significant damage to the castle; the details of their battle are not seen, but Team RWBY looks on in abject horror, and at the end, a burnt doll of one of the daughters is shown. Lamenting that "we finally had freedom", Salem kills Ozma's incarnation.

As Ozma reincarnates again and again, he decides that Humanity cannot be redeemed without destroying Salem. Knowing that this cannot be accomplished by mortal means, he hunts down the Relic of Knowledge and asks the location of the other Relics, their powers, and how to destroy Salem, to the last of which Jinn responds, "you can't". Ozma falls to his knees in despair, becoming a similarly dismayed Oscar kneeling in the snow.

In northern Mistral, Jinn's story about Salem and Ozma ends. Yang Xiao Long is furious at Ozpin for again having kept information from them, Ruby Rose angrily questions whether Ozpin has a plan to defeat his immortal enemy, and Ozpin responds that he doesn’t have one. Qrow Branwen punches Ozpin's host, Oscar Pine, in the face, telling him that he gave his life to Ozpin because he gave him a place in the world to do good, but now considers meeting him the worst luck of his life. Hearing this, Ozpin then retreats into the deepest part of Oscar's mind to the point that he cannot be reached. As Blake Belladonna and Weiss Schnee question what to do, Maria Calavera calls everyone out, saying that negativity will not help as much as leaving to search for shelter. The group decides to leave, with Maria seated on Bumblebee's seat as Yang pushes the motorcycle.

In the Land of Darkness, a Mistral Airship carrying Mercury Black, Emerald Sustrai and Hazel Rainart arrives at Evernight Castle some time after the Battle of Haven. Tyrian Callows receives them, taunting the group for Cinder not returning. Angered, Emerald draws her weapons to threaten Tyrian but eventually backs away.

Once in the meeting room, Salem asks who is responsible for the group's defeat in Haven. Hazel stands up and takes full responsibility, but an enraged Salem flips the table, hitting Tyrian upside the head in doing so, and states that someone else is to blame, and proceeds to summon Grimm arms from the floor, which grab Hazel and drag him to the ground. Emerald then admits it was Cinder's fault. Salem confirms, stating that Emerald must understand the failure, and adds that Cinder "must be left to toil in her isolation until she redeems herself".

While releasing Hazel, Salem tells her subordinates that no matter what drives them, they must not put their desires before her own, as "the path to your desires is only found through me." Salem starts discussing the Relic of Destruction in Vacuo's Shade Academy. Still, Hazel reveals that Qrow's group is taking the Relic of Knowledge to Atlas under Ozpin's orders. Salem orders everyone to leave the room and, in frustration, delivers a powerful scream that shatters all the windows of the meeting room.

Back in Mistral, the snowstorm is getting worse, so once Ruby's group finds the seemingly abandoned Brunswick Farms, they head inside to take shelter.

Narration

Oscar: grabbing the cane "I'm just going to be another one of his lives, aren't I?"

Ruby: puts her hand on his "Of course not. You're your own person."

Qrow: "Don't lie to him, Ruby." drinks from his flask "We're better than that."

Ruby and Oscar look down sadly before walking to join the others.