"Talking in English"

("Talking in Japanese")

"Kurama talking while outside of Naruto's mindscape"

"Kurama talking within Naruto's mindscape"

'Thinking or Naruto talking to Kurama with thoughts'

'Kurama Thinking'

Flashbacks

Jutsus

(On-the-spot translations)


A/N:

Yo! Quick announcement: I added a few paragraphs to the last chapter to hopefully clarify some stuff. I kind of forgot to address the fact that Ruby seemed to be able to put Naruto on the ropes out of nowhere, and I don't want there to be any confusion as to the relative power and skill of the various characters.

If you want a (relatively) quick explanation on the relative strength and skills of the members of the characters, check out the ending Author's Note. If you don't care, that's fine too. Just know that I do have reasons for what I'm doing.

One final thing before I get the chapter going: I want to apologize for the late update. I'm not going to bore you with the details, but just know that real life decided to get in the way the last few weeks, and I wasn't able to upload as promised. I will do my best to remain on schedule for future updates.

Until then, enjoy the next chapter!


Chapter 11: Drawing Blood and Making Amends


Naruto stood in a ready stance, a Chakra-conducting kunai in each hand, as he waited for the professor to start the match.

Pyrrha also stood ready, with Miló in its spear form and her shield, Akoúọ, raised slightly. She knew that this battle would be difficult, and she wasn't sure if she could win. She knew that Naruto wouldn't be able to use his dragon attacks; they simply took too long to perform. However, she also knew that he had many smaller techniques that could just as easily win the match for him.

The professor looked back and forth between the two a few times before calling out "Begin!"

Naruto immediately threw the kunai in his right hand at Pyrrha while charging the one in his left with Lightning Chakra. Pyrrha blocked the kunai with Akoúọ and ran at him. As he pulled out a steel kunai and threw it at her, she dove forward and rolled into a crouch, allowing the kunai to fly above her.

From her crouched position, she threw Miló at Naruto, who was surprised that she would relinquish her weapon so quickly. He sidestepped it and ran at her, only to hear something flying through the air behind him. He put up an Aura shield just in time to block Miló from impaling him. As Miló returned to Pyrrha, the kunai in Naruto's left hand reached maximum Chakra capacity, and he threw it at Pyrrha.

Pyrrha blocked the kunai with Akoúọ and immediately regretted it as she was electrified and knocked backwards by a burst of lightning. She dropped Miló and landed on her back.

Naruto had already drawn Kitsune no Ikari by the time the kunai had reached her shield, and charged forward at his downed opponent. As he swung the sword at her unshielded side, however, he felt a force yank the sword to the side slightly, causing it to become impaled in the ground next to Pyrrha. He jumped back, leaving Kitsune no Ikari behind, when Pyrrha kicked out at his ankles and leaped up to a standing position. He watched with curiosity as she raised her hand and Miló flew back into her grip.

As Pyrrha readied her spear again, Naruto drew two more Chakra kunai and began charging them with Lightning Chakra again as he circled around Pyrrha, who was staying between him and Kitsune no Ikari.

After a few seconds, the kunai were fully charged, and he threw the one in his left hand at her. Having already learned her lesson, Pyrrha jumped out of the way, only to have Naruto throw the other kunai to where she was headed.

Naruto was surprised again when his kunai suddenly jerked in the air, shifting its course so that it would miss Pyrrha by less than an inch. She landed in a crouch, and shifted Miló into its rifle form. Barely a second passed since her landing, and she was firing a barrage of shots at Naruto, who drew two steel kunai and began to deflect all of the bullets that were in danger of hitting him. After a few seconds of this, Pyrrha decided that continuing to fire at him would just waste ammunition, and stopped. She rose to a standing position and shifted Miló into sword form. The two combatants stared each other down, and Naruto began to emit some KI, just to see how Pyrrha would react. To his surprise, she simply twitched in surprise, before returning to her focused state.

Apparently Naruto wasn't the only one capable of producing enough KI to use in battle. Pyrrha had obviously gotten used to at least some level of KI. That, or she just had naturally strong willpower.

Taking a deep breath, Naruto began to slowly circle Pyrrha, who mirrored his movements to stay between him and his weapon. Neither of them wanted to initiate an attack right away, although it was for different reasons. Pyrrha had the advantage in her current position; without his main weapon, Naruto was unlikely to be able to go for a win. Instead, he would have to do whatever he could to retrieve his weapon. Naruto, on the other hand, was trying to figure out exactly how Pyrrha had shifted the course of his kunai and Kitsune no Ikari. He was simply circling to buy himself time to think.

Unable to figure out what she had done with the information he had, Naruto decided to get a bit more. He pushed Chakra down into his legs, and charged at his opponent, drawing FireStorm on the way.

Pyrrha moved forward slightly, and raised her shield to block as Naruto stabbed at her with FireStorm. She blocked two more attacks before making a move. Naruto swung Firestorm downward at Pyrrha, and instead of blocking completely, she let the blade deflect off of her shield. The momentum of the sword put Naruto slightly off balance, and Pyrrha took advantage of that, swinging Miló at Naruto's unguarded side.

Moving as quickly as he could, Naruto took his left hand off of Firestorm's hilt and used his forearm guard to block Miló. It glanced off of the flame-stylized armor plating, missing Naruto by a few inches. Both combatants leapt away from each other and got back into a balanced stance. As soon as she returned to a proper stance, Pyrrha counterattacked. She moved forward and swung Miló at Naruto's left side, only to have it blocked by FireStorm.

Naruto pushed back against Pyrrha, and was about to push Miló out of the way and attack when another sudden force pushed his sword slightly to the side, allowing Pyrrha to get better leverage and break the grapple in her favor.

Pyrrha swung Miló overhead at Naruto, who sidestepped and kicked at Pyrrha. Unable to dodge, Pyrrha used Akoúọ to block Naruto's foot. Naruto smirked as he got another idea, and pushed a very exact amount of Chakra into his feet. Having stuck one foot to the ground, and one to Akoúọ, Naruto proceeded to yank his foot to the side and downward, pulling Akoúọ off of Pyrrha's arm, to her great surprise. He let Akoúọ fly off of his foot just before it returned to the ground, causing it to fly several feet away from the two combatants.

To prevent Pyrrha from getting a chance to retrieve her shield, Naruto went on the offensive again. Pyrrha took Miló in a two-handed grip, and blocked or dodged every one of Naruto's swings. Occasionally, Naruto felt another unexplained force acting on his weapon, preventing him from scoring any hits on his opponent.

After an intense minute of swordplay, Naruto saw an opening in Pyrrha's stance, and exploited it with relish. He took a leaf out of Ruby's book and stabbed FireStorm into the ground, using it as a handhold to swing around and aim a double-footed kick at Pyrrha's back.

Just when he thought he was going to score a direct hit, he saw a flash of bronze out of the corner of his eye, and Akoúọ flew onto Pyrrha's back, shielding it from his kick. Pyrrha then spun around and swung Miló at him, forcing him to pull FireStorm from the ground and block. Suddenly, Naruto realized what was going on. Pyrrha could somehow control things made of metal!

Naruto adjusted his strategy accordingly and leapt backward to give himself some space. He sheathed FireStorm and wove seven seals before crying out "Doton: Moguragakure no Jutsu!" (Art of Hiding Like a Mole) and disappearing into the ground before Pyrrha could even think about stopping him.

Pyrrha tensed up and began to look all around the arena, just in case he tried to emerge behind her. When she heard something pop out of the ground underneath her, she immediately jumped up and stabbed down with her spear. When she pulled it out of the slightly disturbed ground, her eyes widened as she noticed the blood on it.

Before she could become too worried, Naruto emerged from the ground about twenty feet in front of her, examining the quickly healing hole in his left hand. "Well done, Pyrrha. It's quite an accomplishment to be able to avoid the Headhunter Jutsu on your first try, and as far as I know, this is the first time the person using it was struck by any sort of counterattack." He smiled at her and said "It appears I will have to try something new."

'The first thing I need to do is to take her weapon out of the picture. Since I can't really use FireStorm or Kitsune no Ikari against her, I need to level the playing field.'

Pyrrha shifted Miló into rifle form while he said this, and began firing at him as he wove more seals. However, he only needed to weave four, and was able to dodge all of her shots long enough to call out "Doton: Ishihashira no Jutsu!" (Stone Pillars Technique)

Pyrrha raised Akoúọ and prepared to dodge, only to see pillars of stone slowly rise out of the ground all around the arena. She looked around quickly to see that they were apparently randomly distributed throughout the arena. Her gaze went back to Naruto as he pulled several small spheres out of his thigh pouch. He threw them at several of the pillars, which were about the same height and width as he was, and threw one at his feet. When they impacted, they created bursts of smoke that obscured the chosen pillars and Naruto.

As Pyrrha stared at the smokescreen that Naruto was behind, preparing for another attack, she heard a noise behind her, and turned to see a fist headed for her face. She leaned to the side, causing the punch to miss her, but was struck full-on by a second punch to the stomach. She stumbled backwards and swung Miló's sword form, forcing Naruto to back away, giving her a moment to recover.

Naruto smirked at the bewildered look on Pyrrha's face and moved in for a second attack. 'Just as I thought. You can only control metal.' He raised a fist, and Pyrrha noticed that his metal-plated gloves were missing as he ran toward her. 'My armguards are made to ANBU standard, which means that they're porcelain reinforced by strengthening seals. They act like metal, but you can't apply force to them like you would have been able to do with my gloves. It was worth getting wounded to be able to counterattack.' He threw another punch, which Pyrrha blocked with her shield and countered with a jab from Miló. Forming an Aura shield to deflect it, Naruto jumped back and threw out another round of smoke pellets.

Pyrrha readied Akoúọ again as she spun around, ready for Naruto to appear behind her this time. She was once again surprised when she heard a hissing noise off to her right, and was forced to use her Semblance to divert a barrage of shuriken that came from the smokescreen. As the smoke cleared a second time, she narrowed her eyes to see Naruto standing from where the shuriken had come. She shifted Miló to its spear form and threw it at him, using the rifle's recoil to speed it up. He quickly formed a Hitsuji seal as the spear left her hand.

Pyrrha watched first in confusion as Naruto made no attempt to dodge her spear, and then with horror as it impaled him through the stomach. This wasn't supposed to happen! The shielding Glyphs should have stopped her weapon from striking a critical area!

Before either Pyrrha or the professor judging the match could stop the match or call a medic, Naruto was obscured by a puff of smoke that cleared to reveal Miló stuck deep in one of the stone pillars.

With her years of experience in the Mistral Regional Tournament, Pyrrha was able to immediately realize that Naruto had been switching himself with the pillars somehow, and readied herself to defend again. She turned around to see Naruto running at her before he went in for a flying kick. She blocked the kick with Akoúọ and grunted as she was nearly knocked over by the force behind the kick.

Using Pyrrha's shield as a springboard, Naruto leapt backwards, doing a backflip for style on the way, and landed in a crouch. He smirked and formed a cross-shaped seal. "Nikai Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" (Double Shadow Clone Jutsu)

Two patches of air blurred in front of him, and Pyrrha was suddenly facing off against three Narutos. As his two clones charged Pyrrha, Naruto leapt farther back, sat down, and pulled a small scroll, an empty ink bottle, and a brush from his pouch. Drawing a kunai, he stabbed his left hand and allowed the blood to flow into the bottle. When he had enough, he put the kunai away, healed himself with Aura, and unrolled the scroll. Sparing a glance to see his clones fighting Pyrrha, he began creating a seal. 'Without her weapon, it is unlikely that she will be able to dispel either clone. While blades easily pierce their skin and ruin the Chakra construct, blunt forces do almost nothing to them now. I suppose that's the only good thing about having to make them resistant to higher gravity.'

While he was doing that, Pyrrha was playing defense against the two shadow clones. Without Miló, which was stuck too deep in the pillar for her to retrieve with just her Semblance, she didn't have the offensive power needed to try any attacks, so she simply focused on dodging or blocking as many of the punches and kicks as she could, both with Akoúọ and with her free hand. She noticed that the copies' punches and kicks were weaker than the original Naruto's strikes, but she was more focused on defense than puzzling it out.

After about three minutes, the seal was complete, and Naruto cut it off of the rest of the blank scroll, leaving a seal tag about the size of his hand. Holding the seal in his hand ink-side up, he got up and ran toward Pyrrha, who was still fighting his clones. One of the clones purposefully left an opening, which Pyrrha exploited with relish, only to have the clone dispel before her punch could land, leaving her off-balance. Naruto's other clone dispelled as well when Naruto slapped the seal onto Pyrrha's arm.

The effect of the seal was instantaneous. Pyrrha's entire body stiffened up, and she fell over, unable to move. Naruto looked to the professor, who announced "The match is over! Winner: Uzumaki Naruto!"

Naruto noticed a gathering of students cheering and clapping as he removed the seal from Pyrrha. After getting up and stretching, she extended her hand to him and said "Good match."

He smiled and shook her hand. "Good match. Your control over metal is really cool."

She smiled back at him and said "My Semblance is Polarity; I have control over magnetism, not metal. By the way, what was that paper tag you stuck to me?"

Naruto nodded at her explanation and said "It was a paralysis seal. I've studied the art of Fuinjutsu, or seal-making, and can create seals that do a lot of different things, like exploding seals, strengthening seals for weapons, and warding seals."

Pyrrha's eyes widened. "That sounds like a very useful skill. Do all seals have to be made in blood?"

Naruto shook his head. "Inked seals require some blood to work, but it's usually about one part blood to nine parts ink. Also, you can apply more permanent seals to objects through more complicated methods."

Pyrrha nodded at his explanation, and they began to gather up their weapons.

It would have taken Naruto a considerable amount of time to retrieve all of the thrown shuriken and kunai, but Pyrrha decided to lend a helping hand with her Semblance, and his equipment was quickly gathered and stowed away.

Once again, Naruto accompanied team JNPR back to the gathering area, only to find that it was almost completely unoccupied. "Huh, where'd everyone go?" Jaune asked. "You'd think with how long your match lasted, everyone would be done already."

One of the few people in the waiting area heard him and called out "There's a match that got started late due to the state of the arena they were supposed to fight in. I guess the previous match nearly destroyed it. So they had to wait for another match to finish, and fight on that arena instead. I guess a lot of people got bored and went to watch."

"Do you know who it was who was fighting there?" asked Pyrrha.

The other student shrugged. "I think it was that Schnee girl and some other Huntress in red."

Naruto's eyebrows jumped up in surprise, and he channeled some Kitsune Chakra to his ears, taking care to not transform, to increase their sensitivity. He heard the sounds of fighting coming from afar, and began walking in the direction it was coming from. Team JNPR looked at him in confusion for a moment before asking for directions to the arena where Ruby and Weiss were fighting. They were surprised when they found out that Naruto had been going in the right direction, but he was already gone, so they couldn't ask him how he knew where to go.


As Naruto arrived at the arena where the battle was still going on, he noticed that there was a massive increase in the number of visible injuries on everyone in the crowd, and many of them looked like they were exhausted. There were also fewer people in the crowd than Naruto had seen at his fight with Ruby.

It took a moment for Naruto to realize that this was probably because most of the students had long since achieved Aura depletion, so they were less able to shield against attacks, and less able to heal any injuries they acquired. Many of them were probably sent to the infirmary. He hadn't really considered running out of Aura or Chakra to be a factor, but he should have realized that it was unlikely that any other student was as much of a stamina monster as he was. Pyrrha had likewise been unaffected by Aura depletion, but she had a lot of tournament experience, so she had probably conserved her Aura wisely.

Naruto slid through the watching students until he was near enough to the front to get a proper view. It appeared that the two Huntresses were at a standstill for the moment.

Ruby was looking worse for wear and slightly singed. She didn't appear to have any significant injuries, but there were a few scratches on her hands and face, probably from shards of ice or rock flying around. There was a hole in her leggings, showing a small burn on her left calf.

There were scorch marks all over the field, and a few patches of ice spikes provided both cover and obstacles to both combatants.

The Heiress herself didn't have any noticeable injuries, but Naruto could tell that she was tired. He would wager that her Aura was in the low yellow, if not in the red. Her stance was slightly off and the point of her rapier drooped, most likely a product of her exhaustion causing her to become sloppy.

Ruby was currently hiding behind a medium-sized ice spike. It wouldn't provide complete cover from an attack, particularly if Weiss decided to use Fire Dust, but it was enough of an impediment to Weiss's aim that Ruby would be able to dodge easily. Weiss probably didn't have enough Aura to safely use any more than two or three area attacks and continue fighting, so it was doubtful that the heiress would risk a large-scale attack that might not knock Ruby out of the battle.

Naruto had to admit, the situation didn't look good for either of the girls. Then again, that meant that it was also looking good for both of them, seeing as both of them was fighting against an opponent with a handicap of some form or another. He glanced over to the entrance to the spectators' area to see Team JNPR arriving before his attention was recaptured by sudden action in the arena.

Weiss had apparently decided to end the standoff by launching a stream of fire at Ruby to force her to duck behind cover, then following behind the attack to get closer while Ruby was unable to see her. When Ruby peeked her head out around the other side of the ice, she had to jump backward to avoid Weiss's blade.

While most people wouldn't be able to pick it out, Naruto still had Kitsune Chakra flowing in his ears, so he clearly heard the clicking sound followed by a quiet rattling noise that came from the battlefield. He was wondering what was making that noise when Ruby swung Crescent Rose at knee level, forcing Weiss to jump over the blade. She did a backflip in midair, and when she landed, Naruto's eyes were drawn to the spinning cylinder in the cross guard of the rapier Weiss carried.

The slightly luminescent lines of color told Naruto everything he needed to know. Weiss was a Dust user, not surprising given who she was, and she had integrated that miraculous substance directly into her weapon. The rattling noise stopped at the same time that the spinning of the Dust chamber did, and a slight light-blue glow began to emanate from the blade.

Ruby knew that this was bad news, and charged Weiss to prevent her from initiating whatever attack she was planning. Weiss, however, had apparently planned for this. She jumped up and away from Ruby, and a white glyph formed in the air behind her, directly above one of the larger ice formations that littered the field. Just before Ruby reached her, she used the glyph as a springboard to leap up and over Ruby, who couldn't stop immediately. Weiss landed and turned to face Ruby just as the red-cloaked girl managed to reverse her momentum.

Any attack Ruby would have tried had to be halted as a barrage of ten or so blue bolts of energy were launched at her by a swing of the Dust-charged rapier wielded by her opponent. Ruby backpedaled and darted left and right to dodge the energy bolts that were aimed at her, and none of them hit her. In fact, the majority of the energy bolts didn't go anywhere near her. Instead, they all converged on the ice cluster that was right behind Ruby.

Naruto's eyes widened as he realized what Weiss was doing. His stepped forward slightly, and his fists clenched. He had to stop himself from calling out advice to her, since that would technically be cheating. Spectators weren't allowed to alert battling Huntsmen or Huntresses to attacks that they weren't aware of.

Just as Ruby was preparing to go on the offensive again, the bolts of energy that Weiss had shot all impacted the ice cluster simultaneously. The cluster shattered, sending shards of ice in all directions. Ruby was pelted with countless fragments of ice, adding a number of cuts and wounds to her list of injuries. It was a testament to her willpower that she only staggered instead of falling over outright. She began to lean on Crescent Rose for support.

She wasn't the only one who had to deal with the ice spikes. The spectators of the match were forced to dodge or block shards that flew out of the arena. For the second time during the fight, Naruto had to suppress his first reaction, which was to simply lean out of the way of incoming ice. With him impeding the line of sight of anyone behind him, and the other spectators were no Shinobi, such a subtle reaction might endanger anyone he was in front of by denying them enough time to react. Instead, he raised his palm in the direction of the arena, and formed a golden Aura shield in front of him. He made it large enough to shield not only himself, but anyone within five or six feet of him laterally.

The ice bounced off of his shield and clattered to the ground, and he allowed his hand to fall, the shield coming down with it. That action had taken a significant portion of his Aura, much more than he had anticipated, and he felt dizzy for a moment before recovering and turning his attention back to the match.

Ruby's situation was looking worse than it had a few moments earlier. Thankfully, her red cloak had protected most of her from damage, but her arms were not under the protective garment at the time, and there were a few small shards of ice still sticking out of her flesh. Additionally, with the direction of the wind, the cloak had drifted to Ruby's left enough to leave her right leg exposed to Weiss's indirect attack. Naruto counted no less than seven shards of ice sticking out of her leg, and two of them were as large as an inch in diameter.

Weiss, on the other hand, had obviously used up much of her remaining Aura with that attack. She was breathing heavily, and wasn't making any attempts to capitalize on the massive opening she now had. Her stance was even sloppier than it was when Naruto had arrived. Naruto was beginning to wonder why the proctor didn't call the match a draw and stop this painful fight. Between Aura exhaustion and physical injuries, neither combatant was fighting at anything resembling peak condition at this point.

With a grunt of pain, Ruby took her weight off of Crescent Rose and stood up straight. Not daring to take her eyes off of Weiss for long enough to remove the ice from her leg, she quickly got to work pulling the ice fragments out of her arms. She finished within twenty seconds, during which Weiss caught her breath a bit.

The Schnee Heiress quickly analyzed the situation, and decided to avoid fighting any more if possible. She didn't have enough Aura to launch another attack of that caliber, Dust or no, and Ruby's scythe was dangerous enough as a defensive weapon that she would prefer to not have to attack the younger girl to finish the match. So, she decided to attack in a way that she knew she was more experienced at than her opponent: psychologically.

"You should just forfeit," she called out to Ruby.

Ruby tensed up and looked at her opponent in confusion.

Weiss continued before Ruby could say anything. "You're in no condition to be fighting me right now. It's obvious that you're injured, and that's going to affect your ability to use that massive weapon of yours." The icy girl summoned up some strength from somewhere, and her body shifted into a perfect fighting stance. "My victory is a foregone conclusion. Don't make me hurt you any further to achieve it."

Naruto tensed up and clenched his fists as Weiss spoke. This reminded him a little of Neji's mind games in the Chunin exam preliminaries. The biggest difference here, however, was that Weiss was doing it because she wasn't sure she could win the fight, rather than to hurt Ruby. Although, that was still a possible effect.

Ruby, unfortunately, was very inexperienced with subterfuge and deception. She didn't even suspect the reason behind Weiss's actions, and Naruto watched as she gripped Crescent Rose even tighter, making her knuckles go white.

Weiss, having drawn this reaction out of Ruby, decided to go in for the kill. "Face the facts, you're out of your league here. Beacon is a school for adults, and you're just a child. No matter how good you think you are, you're simply not ready for this level of combat yet."

The look in Ruby's eyes made it clear that Weiss's words had really gotten to her, and Naruto accidentally released a quick pulse of KI in anger before he regained control of himself. The people standing around him jumped in fear and looked around in confusion. When he saw the triumphant smirk on Weiss's face, he made up his mind.

It was illegal to warn combatants about attacks, but there was no rule against a good pep talk.

"Oi! Hyōhime!"

Weiss and Ruby both looked over at Naruto in shock, and he continued as soon as he had their attention. "Don't go around automatically deciding things, like you know more than everyone else! If you were such a better Huntress than Ruby, wouldn't that have decided the match early on!? You better believe it would, Dattebayo! So it's apparent that she's your equal at least!"

He turned to look at Ruby, who tried to school her expression to be blank, but let her confusion and surprise show slightly. "Don't give in, Ruby! She's just making those comments in the hope that you'll surrender, and give her the easy victory she desires! You can still beat her if you fight with everything you have without hesitation!"

The proctor spoke up at that point. "Alright, that's enough, kid. Let them get back to the match."

Naruto nodded to the proctor and kept quiet, but flashed a thumbs-up to Ruby. Elsewhere in the crowd, Yang and Blake were looking in his direction, more than a little surprised at his speech. Given the way he had acted toward them recently, they didn't expect him to suddenly turn around and be supportive of Ruby out of nowhere.

Ruby looked back at Weiss, who was now frowning in irritation, and refocused. Under other circumstances, she might have ignored everything Naruto was saying outright, but in this case, she couldn't deny the truth of his words. The fact that he thought she could win was somewhat uplifting to her as well. Despite the current animosity between the two of them at the moment, he was still an accomplished warrior, and his opinion had value to it.

She took a deep breath and decided to try and win the match in one final push of effort. Delaying would only give Weiss more time to recover Aura, and her wounds would only become more debilitating as time went on. Speaking of her wounds, there was no way she could attempt anything major with her right leg in the condition it was in. However, she still didn't think it was a good idea to try and pull the ice out of her wounds by hand and give Weiss an opportunity to attack. So, she gathered up as much Aura as she thought she could spare, and began to go to work on it.

The wounds in her leg and the ice shards still embedded in her flesh began to glow the color of roses, and before everyone's eyes, the ice was pushed out of the wounds, clattering to the ground. The smallest wounds stopped glowing as soon as this happened, but the two large puncture wounds only increased in luminosity. After a quick moment, the glow faded away to show that the wounds had been partially healed. There was still exposed flesh, but the bleeding had stopped, and Ruby redistributed her weight more evenly, preparing to take the fight to Weiss.

Weiss saw that Ruby had geared herself up to finish the fight, and decided to make sure that the confrontation would be on her own terms. Forming a glyph under her feet, she glided forward as fast as she could, Myrtenaster ready to strike.

Ruby took a deep breath for a second time as Weiss approached. Just as the white-haired girl was about to strike, Ruby disappeared in a burst of rose petals, causing Weiss to stumble in confusion. Weiss spun around to look for her opponent, but didn't see her anywhere in the arena.

It was unfortunate for her that she didn't think to look up.

Ruby was twenty feet in the air, directly above her opponent. She seemed to float there for a moment before falling back down to the arena. The only warning Weiss had that an attack was imminent was the loud retort of a sniper rifle firing. Before she could even look toward the sound, she was knocked across the arena in one direction, and her weapon was knocked in another. She bounced and rolled for a few seconds before coming to a stop and getting up shakily to see Ruby standing between her and Myrtenaster, Crescent Rose cradled across her shoulders.

Naruto's eyes were wide at Ruby's most recent maneuver with her Semblance. 'That… that was as fast as Shunshin at the very least! To be able to do that with her Semblance alone… It even produced rose petals as a distracting factor!'

The proctor took one look at Weiss's Aura reading, glanced up at Myrtenaster, which was far out of the Heiress's reach, and called out "I'm calling the match! Weiss Schnee is unfit to continue without a weapon! Ruby Rose is the victor!"

There was a moment of utter silence, and then the gathered crowd began to cheer and clap. Naruto added his own applause with a smile, and he heard Yang from somewhere in the crowd shouting "Hell yeah! Great job, sis!"

Naruto stopped applauding as the crowd began to disperse, and Yang and Blake went over to congratulate Ruby and help her back to the waiting area. He turned around and walked toward where Professor Goodwitch's podium was without a single glance back, his smile still on his face. He knew that his teammates probably still wouldn't want him around, but he had finally decided how he would apologize.

Just like most of the best stuff he did, he would make it up on the spot.


As Naruto left the arena behind, three pairs of eyes moved to settle on his retreating form.

"I didn't expect him to do something like that," Ruby commented. "At least, not with the way he's been acting the last few days."

Blake tilted her head in thought. "Maybe he's decided to stop being a jerk."

"Even if he has, it's a little late now, don't you think?" Yang asked, her hostility toward Naruto showing in her voice. "He can't just start being a decent person again and expect everything to be all better."

"Didn't you say yesterday that you wished things could be like they were before?" Blake asked. "We shouldn't just forget everything that's happened, but if you really want things to go back to the way they were, that will involve forgiving him."

Yang scoffed and said "It's not so easy to earn my forgiveness. It'll take more than a smile and a pep talk."

"At least it's a start," Ruby said. "I… I'd like us to be a real team again. If he's sincere, there's no reason not to forgive him."

Yang didn't comment further. She just held onto her sister and helped support her as they walked back to where this day of fighting had begun. 'She doesn't know how rare it is for people to actually redeem themselves. Actions speak louder than words, and Naruto's actions were speaking pretty loudly these last two days.' She couldn't fault her sister for hoping, though.


Once everyone had reconvened back at the gathering area, Goodwitch began to speak. "Thank you all for participating today. Over the next week, your fights will be reviewed by several professors, and the results will be sent to your Scrolls by next Friday. Before I dismiss you, I have one short announcement to make. On Monday and Tuesday of this upcoming week, there will be several sanctioned excursions into the Emerald forest for interested teams. Teams that choose to join one of these trips into the forest will receive coaching on teamwork tactics and cooperation. It is highly recommended for any teams that were never assembled completely during initiation, although it certainly can't hurt any other teams either. That is all. Class dismissed."

As Goodwitch had been saying this, Blake had been busy attending to Ruby's wounds using supplies from her medical kit. None of the wounds were big enough to require stitches, so Blake had just swabbed them with some disinfectant and wrapped the worst ones in gauze. Ruby's Aura would take care of them soon enough, but until then, Blake didn't want the wounds to get dirty or infected.

By the time Blake had finished, the three of them were some of the last students still in the area. They set off for their dorm room at a slow pace, Ruby having to brush off offers of help along the way.


When Naruto returned to the dorm room, he immediately removed his weapons and pouches and set them next to his desk. After he had done that, he removed his face mask, battle cloak, armguards, and shinguards, setting them on the left side of his desk.

Then, he moved to sit down at Blakes's desk, which was next to the door, and waited for his teammates to come back.


Blake, Yang, and Ruby walked up to the door to their dorm room, and Yang scanned her Scroll to unlock it. She opened the door for Ruby, who walked in and immediately set Crescent Rose down on her desk. Blake and Yang followed closely behind her. Blake shut the door behind her, and was about to remove Gambol Shroud from her back, when…

"We need to talk."

Ruby spun around with an "Ack!" of surprise, Blake jumped away from the source of the words and put her hand on Gambol Shroud's hilt, and Yang snapped Ember Celica into ready position.

Naruto, who had stood up as soon as the door had opened, blinked and stared at the three of them for a moment before saying "Um… I can't say I blame you for wanting to attack me, but could you at least hear me out first?"

It only took a second for his teammates to recover from their initial surprise, and Yang started to glare at him. "Geez, a little warning before you pop out of nowhere would be nice!"

Naruto rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment and looked down at the floor. "Right… I'll keep that in mind."

Blake seemed like she couldn't decide whether to be mad at him or curious as to what he had to say. "So, you wanted to talk. Start talking."

Naruto looked up at his teammates, and was silent for a moment, before putting his palms together in front of him and bowing deeply toward them. "Moushiwake gozaimasen deshita."

All three girls looked confused, which was a bit of a surprise, since Naruto hadn't used any Japanese term that Blake didn't know up until this point. Naruto straightened up from the bow, and said "I... I'm not sure I can properly express what that means, but I'll do my best. Essentially, I want to apologize for my transgressions against you, and beg your forgiveness. My behavior over the last few days has been dishonorable." He bowed his head. "At the very least, I should have told you that I needed some time to myself, and maintained enough communication with you to confirm my wellbeing. I will offer no excuse for ignoring you and treating you so coldly, except to say that I had personal issues that I needed to sort through. It was unfair to make you suffer because of my own uncertainties, and for that, I am sorry."

He looked back up at his three teammates, and made eye contact with each of them. "I promise you, I won't toss you aside like that ever again. If I need solitude, I will tell you, instead of taking off out of nowhere." He paused for a moment, and touched his hitai-ate. "For a while, I had forgotten what being a member of a team involved, but I will put all of that foolishness behind me now."

There was silence for several seconds, and Naruto was about to say something more, when Ruby spoke up. "Do you really mean it?"

Blue eyes met silver, and Naruto held Ruby's gaze for a moment before nodding and saying "Absolutely."

Ruby stared into his eyes for a few more seconds, as if searching for any hint of deceit. If that had been what she was doing, she apparently found none, as she smiled and said "Good. Now we can be a proper team again!"

Yang looked at Ruby incredulously. "You're going to forgive him just like that? With just a 'sorry, it won't happen again?'"

"Well, that's what you do when someone's sorry. You forgive them," Ruby replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Yang opened her mouth, closed it again, then facepalmed and sighed. "Whatever. How about you go get cleaned up? You get dibs on the bathroom."

Ruby was happy to get the first shot at taking a shower, since she was still scraped up and dirty, and quickly disappeared into the bathroom.

This left Naruto, Blake, and Yang staring each other down. "I'm guessing from your reaction that you two aren't going to be as quick to forgive me as Ruby?" Naruto asked.

Yang nodded, fixing him with an angry stare. "You don't get to just decide that you're sorry and expect everything to be alright again. Prove that you mean what you say, and maybe I'll forgive you." She glanced toward the closed bathroom door and then back at Naruto. "I'll tolerate you for Ruby's sake, but if you step out of line again…" She redeployed Ember Celica. "…you'll regret it."

"I can live with that," Naruto said. He turned toward Blake. "What about you?"

Blake took a moment before replying, like she was considering exactly what she wanted to say. "You said a lot of things that seemed heartfelt. It reminded me of some of the things I read in my favorite books. However, those books have little in common with the real world. In the real world, pretty words aren't enough on their own." She walked over to her bookshelf, and picked out a book. Without another word, she walked over to her bed, laid down, and began to read.

'Of course Blake has to be all enigmatic with her response,' Naruto thought.

After Ruby got out of the bathroom, dressed in her pajamas, Naruto was next to shower and get ready for bed. Once he got back into the room, Yang claimed the bathroom, and Naruto sat at his desk and pulled a scroll, a brush, and a jar of ink from one of the drawers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ruby unconscious in her bed, which wasn't surprising, given the day she's had. He opened the jar and dipped the brush into it, before unrolling about two feet of the scroll to reveal a partially completed seal. Naruto began to examine the seal closely, occasionally adding a tiny mark or drawing a kanji.

If he was honest with himself, Naruto would admit that he hadn't really expected just an apology to be enough. Ruby was apparently a really forgiving person, and that made Naruto feel even worse about how he had treated her. He hadn't expected a demand for him to prove that he meant his apology, but he was fine with that as well. Naruto had thought that it would play out like most Shinobi arguments: which involved the injured party "sparring" with the offending party, and kicking the crap out of them. He wouldn't have minded fighting all three of his teammates at once, even without using Chakra if they wanted him to.

'There I go comparing the people here to Shinobi from back home. I've got to readjust my expectations, or I'll keep getting caught off guard.'

Unnoticed by a pondering Naruto, Blake began to glance up at him periodically as she read her book. After a minute or two of this, Blake quietly said "Hey, Naruto…"

Naruto looked up from the seal he was working on, and over at Blake. "Yeah?"

"What exactly did you say to us earlier? I'm not familiar with that particular phrase."

Naruto smiled slightly. "Moushiwake gozaimasen deshita. In literal terms, it comes closest to meaning 'please accept my humblest apologies.' More than that, by saying it, I am acknowledging that I have done harm of some form to the person or people I am apologizing to. Specifically, harm of a level that would usually require reparations to be made in some way." He set his brush down and turned in his chair to face Blake. "It's not a phrase I've ever used until now."

"I see," Blake said. "It's interesting that I've never come across it before. Thanks for the explanation." She went back to reading, and Naruto returned to his seal.

'She's probably never seen it before because of how the language was brought here,' Naruto thought. 'Demons and Hanyou would only apologize to a mortal in very rare circumstances, and never with that level of formality... Although I guess one has now…'

By the time Naruto decided to go to bed, Yang was out of the shower and drying her hair, and Blake had moved into the bathroom to get ready for bed herself.

As he drifted off, he couldn't help but smile. Yang may be demanding proof of his sincerity, and Blake was as mysterious as usual, but if there was one thing Naruto was good at, it was surprising people.

His team would be in for the surprise of their lives… as soon as he figured out exactly what manner of surprise it would be.


A/N:

As always, if you've got a moment, check out Nacrym's work on Deviantart. Link is in my profile.

Well, I promised an explanation on the characters' relative power levels, so here it goes.

Basically, Ruby was able to keep Naruto at a disadvantage the same way Kiba did in the Chunin Exams: constant assault. Kiba, despite ending up losing to Naruto, was able to keep him from initiating any Jutsus or counterattacks by forcing him to dodge and defend. Ruby does a similar thing, only she relies less on raw speed, and more on her extreme skill level with Crescent Rose, even though she does have a lot of speed as well. Essentially, if Ruby and Naruto were to fight weapons-only, she would kick his ass every time. Naruto spent more time on Jutsus and Chakra manipulation than on weapons skills, so when you take those away from him, he will suffer for it.

Also, there are two major differences between the fight from last chapter, and the other fights between Naruto and Ruby. 1: Ruby's pissed at Naruto, and was being far more aggressive. As a result, she was able to control the flow of battle. 2: It's a one-on-one fight. In the two-on-two bouts that Team RUBY did in practice, Ruby had to keep an eye out for Naruto's partner whenever they fought, or risk getting blindsided. Since she could focus completely on Naruto this time around, she could afford to attack him with everything she had.

Furthermore, other characters in Remnant have trained to rely only on their bodies, Aura, and weapons. They don't, and can't, use Aura to increase their strength and speed, with the exception of specific Semblances. A Huntsman fighting Ruby would either rely on speed and skill equal to hers to match her, utilize their own Semblance to gain an advantage, or use knowledge of fighting styles to predict her moves. Naruto isn't as academic as most people in RWBY, so there's not much chance that he would study up on fighting styles to be able to counter them, and he doesn't even know what his Semblance is at this point. Therefore, he is forced to use Chakra to fight Ruby on equal ground, which nullifies much of his offense, whereas a Hunter wouldn't even have the capability to sacrifice their offensive powers to increase defense in most cases.

I have discovered that I seem to have an issue where I make things happen for pretty good reasons, but I forget that my readers don't know the reasons, and I have to at least hint at those reasons if not explain them outright. So, I don't make the reasons available to the reader, which can confuse them or make it seem like I did something stupid. I will try to improve on that.

Moving on, I'm going to try and wrap up the reconciliation of Team RUBY in the next chapter, since this whole thing has gone way further than I had originally planned. Hopefully, that will come out in a more timely manner than this chapter did.


Japanese Terms

Moguragakure no Jutsu - Art of Hiding Like a Mole

Ishihashira no Jutsu - Stone Pillars Jutsu

Nikai Kage Bunshin no Jutsu - Double Shadow Clone Jutsu

Hyohime - Ice princess

Dattebayo - Verbal tic, similar in meaning to "hell yeah" or "ya know"

Moushiwake gozaimasen deshita - "Please accept my humblest apologies." A formal apology.