"So, those are my classmates, huh?"

"The ones able to pass the Genin exam, yes."

Naruto glanced to his left but didn't say anything in reply. Neji was still staring intently at the half-full classroom, but Naruto knew he could see him too. He allowed a small smile to play across his face and turned back to the same view, hoping to catch something of use even without the venerated Byakugan allowing him to peer past the glaring windows.

It had been a rocky reunion. In fact, Naruto still wasn't sure where he stood with the other boy. Social relationships were still confusing for him. So rather than question it too heavily, he just accepted the other boy back into his life and waited to see how things progressed between them.

They could at least agree on certain things, like wanting to know more about their future allies/competition. Neji had always been serious about being a shinobi, but now seemed more amenable to other people's suggestions. He still might not have possessed 'the Will of Fire', but Naruto would be confident to have the boy next to him in battle.

Still, he'd likely give his right arm to have Yang by his side.

"Feeling nostalgic?" Naruto grimaced and shewed the hand away that was ruffling his hair.

"Not in your dreams."

His rebellious smirk was reflected back at him- upside down from the girl who had stuck herself on the bottom of a tree branch. She always got a kick out of teasing him, and he her, even if she didn't know it. Though Ruby had once confided in him that particular private joke was worse than some of Yang's.

Regardless, he accepted it as a part of him like his other verbal tick, and Ruby just had to get used to that difference.

Just as she would have to get used to the fact that they both lived in dangerous worlds where they needed every advantage they could gain. Ruby's trial by fire would come soon enough, but Naruto needed to be aware of the situation day to day. Yamato had shown them the first few pages of his so called "Bingo Book"- enough to scare them into paranoia. Already taking their own training seriously, they redoubled their efforts. And now they were also concerned with their potential allies, making sure they knew who to trust, and who could not be relied upon when it came down to it.

"Did I really look that weak?" Naruto commented, scrunching his nose in general to the crowd indoors. In particular a couple of kunochi who were nothing but twigs.

Not that Ruby wasn't petit, but he doubted those girls were hiding a quarter-ton weapon in their training bras.

"No, you were much more pathetic looking."

Neji delivered the line with such blasé that Naruto hung there in suspended disbelief until the barest of smiles creeped out the corner of his mouth.

"Dick." He shot back, expecting Ruby to remember and reprimand him in her next 'diary entry'.

But Ruby wasn't actually paying attention so much to the near-friendly repartee evolving between the two teammates. Instead, she was focusing on the same gaggle of teens the three were spying on. Her thoughts on the group were not that different from Naruto's, finding their appearance alone to be uninspiring. She also could not help but make an unflattering comparison between herself and a girl with bright pink hair, whom Naruto sneered at.

They knew by now that they shouldn't make generalities, and certainly not judge books by their cover. But it was still hard not to.

Beyond first impressions, there was a nostalgia on her part that she couldn't quite explain. Like she was feeling the emotion vicariously for Naruto, whom she could feel truly did not hold an attachment for his former peers.

Unlike her, he had been lucky and grouped with people only a class ahead of his own. Not shunted with teenagers bordering on adulthood. They were so far removed from her that she often wondered if they were even the same species. Forget Humans and Faunus, she would become the new black sheep all on her own. She felt alien.

She had Velvet, though, and Coco, and Yang, but even they often did things which made little sense to her. Even if it was just a normal part of being a kid-borderline-teen amongst teen-borderline-adults, it did not stop her from feeling out of place and longing for a likeminded companion she didn't have to talk to through correspondence. She found herself wishing she could have grown up side by side with Naruto, rather than on top of him.

"YOSH!"

Both of them were broken from their separate concentrations when a jolly green meteor eclipsed the sun.

"GAAH! LEE! What are you doing here?!"

Tenten had fallen off her perch and Ruby was fairly certain that Naruto's near-heart attack had transferred over to her sleeping body (or however that worked, they hadn't figured out yet). The only one keeping a straight face being the Hyῡga prodigy. But then again, the boy managed to look dignified even with a swollen and bleeding lip (Tenten had snatched a picture of that before dragging her teammate back to the hospital).

"Why, I am here for the same reason you are, my Eternal Rivals!" The spandex-wearing martial artist yelled, oblivious to the fact that the three shinobi had been trying to conceal themselves. "To see the next batch of Youthful graduates to enter the ranks of Konoha's shinobi force, and to wish them luck in their trials ahead!"

"You know they're not suppose to know about the second exam, right?" Naruto said, taking advantage of his vibrating eardrums to remove some of the wax that had been dislodged. "Besides," he grumbled, adjusting himself to a more leisurely position on the tree branch. "I bet you're really just here to challenge me or Neji again, right?"

"What a Youthful suggestion!" Neji, and by now Tenten who had picked herself up off the forest floor, glared at their third member murderously. "But alas, no. Gai-sensei only allowed me until noon to observe my potential fellows, and I fear that any serious spar between us would take far longer than that."

"Yeah… that's a shame" Two audible sighs of relief said otherwise.

"We will just have to settle the score another time! Perhaps I could talk to your instructor and organize another group train-"

"Hey! Yeah! That sounds like a great idea! But I'll tell you what, right now Yamato-sensei's out of town, and we actually have to get going. Neji promised to treat us all to ramen in celebration for our return to active duty!"

Though he looked like he was swallowing a bug, the white-eyed boy made no move to confirm or deny this statement in leu of the alternative.

"Soo…. Yeah, bye!"

With that he grabbed ahold of his teammate's shoulders and the three of them disappeared in a vortex of crimson leaves, leaving a frazzled but awe-inspired Lee who was clutching his fist with a tear in his eye.

"My Eternal Rivals… so cool!"

Dear Ruby,

I can tell the Port guy upset you, but try not to let it bother you too much. Though it is nice that we have someone else to tell us about Summer now, since Taiyang-dad doesn't want to, I am still a little worried about it becoming a distraction.

I know, I know, you don't have to remind me I'm being hypocritical. I also don't have to remind you I miss her too. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but I guess that's my job now. Maybe because that guy Ozpin seems so much like Jiji, don't you think? Anyway, I just want you to have a clear path towards your dream, without anything to spoil it.

We both have a long and hard path ahead of us. I hope you'll still look out for me the same. I promise not to get annoyed, even if you nag. But just remember that it's never just you fighting out there. And it isn't just your dream, it's ours.

Yours Always,

N.

Why did Ruby's life have to be so boring that she always focused on Naruto's day instead of her own? She was sitting in her classroom and was supposed to be reading a lesson on the history of the All-Kingdom Information Neutrality Decree*, but instead she found herself staring fuzzily at the daunting block of text and remembering the look on each of the fresh Genin's faces as they looked to the head of their own classroom like they had the whole world ahead of them.

Had she- and by she, meant Naruto, looked like that? So eager and naïve? It always felt like the two of them had been happy, if only by virtue of having each other to fall back on. But never unaware. Never childish in the sense that those children were.

Except for one. And that was the one she couldn't get out of her head. Unlike them, and unlike the other Genin, this boy was neither childish nor happy. But neither was he content.

He was different, an island of calm in a sea of elation. She had always held hope of finding another one like them. She rejected the conclusion that she and Naruto were unique in the universe. But she quickly dismissed the raven-haired boy as a possibility.

He was too sad. Too full of hate. Not like them at all.

For who could be unhappy when they were never alone? Who could be cynical when one realized that life always brought misery, but also joy?

It was enough to pinch her nerves anyway, and she vowed to mention him in her next letter.

"So what did Portly want the other day?"

Though she didn't bat an eyelash at her sister's obvious yet appropriate nickname for their brief substitute teacher, nonetheless Ruby blinked at the feeling of Déjà vu the topic brought on.

You'd think she'd be used to that feeling by now.

"Not sure exactly." She shrugged, feeling the weight of books shift on her back.

"Oh?" Yang asked, feigning disinterest.

In fact, the blonde was not that interested beyond the fact the man was from Beacon. She was asked to 'interrogate' her sister by her father. That meant she would give a token effort at it to assuage the over-protective man's feelings.

"So he doesn't think that my sister's some kind of super-huntress and wants to whisk you away right now to study at his prestigious school?" She continued with fake indignity, clutching a hand to her heart and pulling her sister closer to her. "*Sigh*, it seems you'll just have to plod along with us 'slow-learners' for a few more years then, huh?"

Ruby grumbled but didn't try to escape the embrace which threw her off-balance. Even though her sister was using a teasing tone with her now, the topic was always a sore spot with the younger girl. She still held a sneaking suspicion that Yang was truly envious of her rapid progress.

But she had not lived as long as Ruby had. She had not gone through the toil and the pain which came with that separate existence. If she had, would she have emerged that same, bubbly and confident woman she was blossoming into? No, Ruby was the only one envious there.

"Meh, Professor Port talked almost as much about himself as he did me."

"Eew, you think he's some kind of perv or something?"

"No, I really don't want to, thanks."

Instead she continued to think about that other boy in Naruto's class. She had dismissed the possibility that he was like her and Naruto, and she still felt that way. But wasn't it possible? Their life thus far had not been easy, she would not deny that. They had come out of it with a greater appreciation for what they had. But would everyone be so optimistic?

Was it not possible that people could experience the same thing and come to different conclusions?

The net of thoughts she was weaving herself came untied when something warm buried itself into her scalp.

"You know how proud of you I am, right?" Yang asked as she nuzzled the top of Ruby's head with her nose, arm wrapping around her tighter and driving the late-Winter chill away.

The two stopped on their walk home, pausing on the path which was freshly covered in a light layer of snow. New flakes still trickled down from the tree tops to cover their footprints behind them. But even if they were to stand there until the snow reached their knees, they would still be able to find their way home in that endless drift.

The honesty in the words, the beautiful truth. If someone didn't have that, would anything seem as real? Would they be able to feel the warmth of the afternoon sun filtering through pine needles, or would they only feel the chill of the snow and ice?

Maybe the difference between optimism and doubt was smaller than she thought, maybe it was but a small act of kindness which set them apart. Flicker of light guiding them in the right direction.

She never thought about it, but Naruto was right. Their goals were the same, to be the guiding light for others to follow.

"Yeah, I know."

Winter would melt away to become spring, spring drying to become summer. Time would pass once again, unstoppable and impossible to quantify for those two intertwined souls.

For everyone else it would be less than half a year. Five months of working towards an arbitrary deadline, the next checkpoint in their lives which they could then look back and take stock of what they had accomplished.

This would appear to be pitifully little in the eyes of our two principle characters. As time for them passed both frustratingly slow and blindingly fast. But this was again because they measured this progress with their own units, unable to compare themselves to other people in their lives as they took the steps two at a time.

They would eventually get lucky and have their chance to measure themselves against a worthy barometer.

If it indeed could be considered luck.

Neither Ruby nor Naruto felt particularly lucky in their respective situations. Although, had she been able to write to him, she might have pointed out that this was exactly the kind of luck the blond should be used to by now. She bemoaned that his fickle fortune was finally bleeding over into her existence as well.

But the two of them had no time to spare to write long missives back and forth. Both were too entrapped in their own crisis to be of much help to the other. And all the times when they should have been resting, they instead spent worrying about their other halves while otherwise helpless to do anything.

For once, they were on their own.

Of course, they were not truly on their own. Naruto had his team to account for him, and Ruby in turn had her fellow students running the gambit alongside. But in the heat of the moment, it was more often that they would have to depend on their own abilities to survive, rather than one of their comrades to come bail them out.

But, perhaps it is better to begin this side-tale before this point of no return.

The start of Naruto's side of the episode could have begun the moment they were handed their second C-Rank mission. Even though there was nothing to tell them that anything was amiss with the task itself, there was a sense of foreboding that none of them could shake. Maybe it could have been because of their first C-Rank had ended on such a bad note, but this was a totally different objective than the first. An escort mission.

The moment after they left the mission office to go meet their client, they passed by another team moving in the opposite direction. And mirrored to Naruto's blond-haired, blue-eyed optimism was that dark-haired, dour young man with eyes black as coal which sparked with a fiery red ember.

He recognized the boy from that day and Ruby's note which singled him out. But whatever higher message he was supposed to get out of their brief trading of stares was lost as the moment passed by in a flash. Naruto's team continued down the hall to round up their patron and hurry him back to his home in Wave.

It was like Ruby's déjà vu, but in reverse. Like he was supposed to see or do something, but felt only emptiness behind him.

The beginning of Ruby's vignette is more difficult to place. She had known about the 'field trip' since the start of the semester and had kept it in the back of her mind until the day itself arrived. So it wasn't anything new. When it arrived, she accepted it casually. Even though it was their first 'official' hunting trip, it would not be the first time she had christened Crescent Rose with the blood of Grimm.

They would gear up with three-day packs full of everything needed to survive in the untamed wilderness outside of Vale. Then they would depart the school in flotilla of small fishing vessels which would take them close to the point where they would begin their excursion. Throughout this long process, nothing seemed amiss. Velvet and Coco had already related their breezy experience the previous year, and her sister seemed openly excited about the prospect of getting to really 'let loose' in an open space instead of the highly monitored school setting.

It was probably that both Naruto and Ruby were excited for one another that they failed to miss the warning signs.

"That puddle probably shouldn't be there, huh?"

Naruto was whispering mainly to himself, or perhaps Ruby, even though she probably spotted it before him. But it was Neji on his right who did anything about it. The very second after he activated his bloodline was when the story began its descent.

It was a brilliant day late in Spring which the two Mist-shinobi decided to ambush them. Naruto was feeling particularly confident, despite the fact that they had torn Yamato-sensei into shreds within seconds. His adrenaline exploded upon seeing the glittering chains snake through the air. His brain latching onto that familiar sight and kickstarting his excitement.

Though they were connected to the enemy's gauntlets, they might as well have been his weapons instead of theirs. He clamped onto them and heaved the two linked strands towards his center with their owners in tow. The Chunin disconnected them before they were sucked into the surprisingly strong whirlpool, but were not prepared for the boy to attack them with their own tools.

He ignored whatever threat they shouted at him, leaving the words for Ruby to decipher. Naruto only had eyes and ears open for combat as he flashed towards one of their attackers. He figured Neji could handle the other easily enough and he saw Tenten had already moved to a defensive position in front of Tazuna.

Neither Naruto nor Ruby was very tall, and this often worked to their advantage when it came to battling elder, more experienced opponents. The blond Genin ducked underneath the massive gauntlet swipe by the cloaked figure and used one of the two chains he had borrowed to hogtie the man's legs. As the he began to topple over from his lunge, Naruto sprung up from his crouch with an uppercut that might have shattered the man's jaw.

But Naruto did not want to leave any question in a matter of life and death. As much as he didn't like to kill, he also didn't want the man to be a further threat to his team. As the shinobi's head jerked back from the blow, exposing the rather long neck, Naruto took the second chain and wrapped it around that fleshy post. Landing behind his enemy, he then jerked the chain down to the ground, dragging the man with it and smashing the soft back of his skull against the hardpacked road.

The battle- more of a skirmish really, was over in little over twice the time it took the two to execute their ambush. Yamato appeared moments after the second shinobi was brutally dealt with by a Gentle-Fist strike to the heart.

The adults had words. Tense words. In the end, the sentence came to them to deliver. Would they continue on with the mission, or would they do the prudent thing and go back home?

Naruto wasn't scared of death. His death. He was afraid of what would happen to the one seeing things through his eyes, though. Was death in a dream the same as real life? Could either of them really exist without the other? That was a thought he didn't want to entertain, but had to on repeated occasions since his line of work mandated it.

He didn't want to needlessly put Ruby's existence in danger and was inclined to pass. But doing so was without a doubt certain death for Tazuna, and the rest of his family if the man wasn't lying about that too. What would she want him to do?

They had never fathomed to put other's lives above their own.

He already knew the answer.

"Boy, those clouds sure rolled in fast."

The sky changed from a bright and sunny day in Fire Country to a gloomy overcast. A Spring storm fast approaching from nowhere like they always did that time of year. Ruby tried not to let Naruto's dilemma occupy her mind, but this was of little use and the weather only served to exacerbate her gloom.

"Meh, cheer up Sis, a little rain never hurt anyone."

It wasn't rain she was worried about, but her sister's words rang true. She couldn't afford to be upset and distracted when Grimm were afoot. Plus, she didn't have an excuse. Seeing as Yang chose to tag along with her rather than her usual friends, she ought to be ecstatic. She was sure it was just because her sister was being overprotective like her father, but she would take the company where she could get it.

They would be 'downriver' from where the Grimm spawned. Like a watershed, there was no single breeding ground, and the soulless beasts simply trickled down into this relative bottleneck in the mountains south of Vale. They would be funneled together in the few passes which afforded travel out of the wilderness, and that would be where the teams would wait.

It was the perfect opportunity to train young huntsmen and huntresses to deal with both the most juvenile creatures, as well as the natural dangers they might face. The weather was typically unpredictable in this high elevation and season. In fact, one was harder pressed not to slip off the mountain rather than be taken down by a pup Beowulf or suckling Boarbatusk.

In other words, it should have been a cakewalk.

But cake was sweet, and implied a warm, comfortable kitchen surrounded by celebration of loved ones. The rain was bitter, and as Ruby cinched up her hood to prevent the pebble-sized droplets from stoning her head, she could hardly see her brilliantly blonde sister in all of this precipitation.

And it was cold.

"Yang! We should probably head back to camp, now!"

There might have been a reply, but the girl couldn't hear it past her chattering teeth and the howling wind. She tried to imagine how Naruto would feel in the same situation. He had a higher than average body heat, and so she pretended that feeling in order to stay warm.

"Yang?!" She called out again, but there was no answer.

"Damn it!"

Though the words were again drowned out by the constant pelting, she could taste their dirtiness on her lips and figured Naruto could too. But he wouldn't be reprimanding her like she would him. He was likely swearing up a storm to rival the one outside anyway.

She began to dart back and forth frantically, not sure if it was better to stay still or continue searching but knew that if she did not move she would likely freeze. She couldn't think, and so tried to imagine herself as the callous shinobi in her head, partially numb to the experience.

It worked slightly. But all of the things she knew she should do in this situation didn't seem to apply. She couldn't tell where she had last seen her sister, and any signs which might have shown her the way were already washed downhill by the streaming rain. Grimm wouldn't be the only thing flowing through the mountains that night, and she would have to add flash floods to her list of hazards to watch out for.

"Yang! Yang! Where are you?!"

Even though she was fairly certain that she could backtrack to the main Signal encampment, she wasn't sure if it was better to go get help in this case. Normally people could survive for several hours at least in this near freezing environment, but they were overdue for dinner and neither of the girls were the most 'famine resistant' among their class anyway. Their in-shape but fat-deficient physique meant that they would suffer from hypothermia quicker than an adult would without calories to burn. Aura was good at blocking out physical trauma, but not very efficient at retaining body heat.

And it was getting dark.

She blocked out the enticing thought of a nice steaming hot bowl of ramen which was not in the cards tonight.

If only she knew some kind of Jutsu which could help her locate someone's Aura. But she knew she had to work with what she had. Which, admittedly, wasn't much at the moment. Hell, Zwei wasn't a bad tracking dog, but even he would have a hard time finding Yang in this downpour.

"Think, Ruby. Think…" And while she thought, she kept moving. Farther and farther away from the plateau where they hoped to ambush Grimm traveling in the valley below. And farther still from the path back to camp where there were sure to be people worried about the two of them.

Mired in her internal crisis, she wasn't paying enough attention to where she was placing her feet and suddenly found herself face-down in the mud.

Her main thought was of her weapon, making sure that none of the dirt was about to clog the system before she focused on herself. Apart from looking more like a poorly-formed mud-clone, she was alright. But it was what had tripped her that got her attention.

An orange scarf.

She pulled the limp cloth from around her ankle, trying to make it out past the monotony of mud caking it and her. There might have been blood on it, the jagged holes might not have been from her stumble. She couldn't tell in this insufferable rain.

But it was Yang's. Of that she was certain.

But from where? She was at the top of an arête where the peak smoothed down into a path. One direction lead up to the cornice and a long succession of trail which hugged the side of a perilous drop, and the other direction went down into a wash which discharged into the Vale sea.

Left or right. Water flowed downhill, but it didn't necessarily follow that her sister was swept away by the deluge.

She stood shakily and was about to head off downhill, when she paused and looked down at her filthy boots to see what had really tripped her up.

"Right." She tied the rag around her leg and turned to her left. "The path less traveled it is."

She headed on up the mountain towards the jagged horn which stood like Sauron's Tower gazing down on her. Never did she turn her head to look back at the massive pawprint whose claws pointed in that same direction.

* AKIND, just a little joke with the depressing news that Net-Neutrality has been shot down. For those of you arguing over politics, this is what you should really be worried about. Control of you internet is a bipartisan issue, and effects everyone with an online connection.

A couple of Geologic terms just now. Arête: in French, a stop, means basically the ridgeline of a mountain, but has more implied than that. Horn: Same thing, just the tippy-top (think Matterhorn). Geology is like learning another language. Helpful for describing scenery, though. Plus, it can be fun to say. Heh, heh… haboob. Cleavage. Thrust-fault.

Anyway….

So yeah… Wave arc. It's unavoidable. As is Sasuke, which is the main reason for these two chapters and the next one. Like I said before, I intend to get through these as quickly as I can, but it still should be fun to play with some of the timing in this while I lead Ruby on her extracurricular adventure. I didn't really intend to do too much AU in this, at least not at first. But seeing as how I wanted to start from when they were born, I obviously have to make up some backstory for Ruby to get her to where she needs to go.

In case you haven't notice so far, she is already on the fast track to Beacon, kind of like how Itachi was in the Academy. So rather than it being a 'complete surprise' when she gets accepted at the tender age of 15, now she is pretty much lined up for it. And of course, this means that Ozpin's plans might be going into fruition sooner than he expected.

Why isn't Naruto on this same meteoric rise (sticklers for words, I know, I am using this wrong, but correctly in is misuse)? Because he was already only a year or so from graduating, and even though he had Ruby for some of that, he was without teachers to physically help him. So now we should see some progress. But alas, not the exponential type he gets with Shadow-clones because he obviously hasn't learned that…yet. (although I'd really hate to speculate what kind of mental trauma that would do to someone ALREADY sharing a mind, so maybe it'll stay this way?)

As always, I quit writing the AN and get back to the important stuff. Thanks y'all for sticking with me thus far.