The training was long and gruelling. They started from the basics of the basics. Jaune first learned how to fall in a way that wouldn't cause himself injury. And as the day went on, he would become more and more glad of that being the first lesson.

Next, because none of team NCTR knew well how to use a weapon with a shield and Pyrrha wasn't volunteering, still just watching in the stands, they instead had Jaune abandon both for the time being. Topaz taught him some very rudimentary hand to hand. Proper stance, posture, positioning, and finally teaching him how to throw a punch that didn't embarrass the both of them.

When the blond finally had his feet under him properly, Naruto stepped in. Brawling. Street fighting. Dirty tactics. How to survive if the blond were fighting for his life while without his weapon. Or with it. Most of the tactics weren't invalidated by having more dangerous implements available.

As that was going on, a clone of Naruto was in the stands one row behind Pyrrha, leaning on the back of the seat next to her. "So. We don't know how to use his weapons. You wanna help?"

The Invincible Girl remained silent, just watching.

"We can help some, but I'm not gonna pretend. You're the one he really needs here."

"I know," she whispered. "I know he needed this. Or something like this. And it's better we show him than a Grimm. But..."

Naruto wasn't inside her head. He didn't know what her worries were. So he gave her time. To collect herself, to find out how she wanted to phrase it, whatever she needed the time for.

In the end though, it wasn't him she confided in, that she trusted in. Instead, she simply rose from her seat and walked down the aisle towards the sparring ground.

The clone popped, the realisation that it wasn't needed, that Naruto wasn't needed, for that situation after all. It was a pleasant feeling when people could solve their own damn problems sometimes.

"Are you ready, Jaune?"

"Pyrrha?"

"Get your gear. Arm yourself."

A disheartened Jaune grabbed his sword and shield and held them in unsteady hands. Immediately she got into his personal space, grabbing his shield arm and raising it in a proper ready position. "Here," she said, "Ready to deflect," tilting the surface of the shield, "or block," flattening it to form a wall in front of him. "And your sword," she said moving around behind him to his other side, "Don't lead with it. If you're using a shield, lead with your shield. Ready your sword behind it for a thrust or a cut, understand?"

"I guess we don't really need to be here anymore?" Russell half said, half asked.

"Not really," Naruto said with a satisfied smile as he waved his team towards the exit.

"I'm gonna stay," Cardin said, planting himself in the front of the stands.

Naruto looked to Russell, then Topaz, then shrugged, creating three clones to sit in the back of the room to make sure Cardin didn't do something stupid. "You could just ask to join them, you know?"

Cardin looked at his team leader like he was an idiot, then just turned back to watch sword and board 101.

Naruto shrugged again and headed for the exit himself. It was still pretty early in the day. Plenty he could still do so he figured he'd try his hand at the other team he was relatively close with.

As he approached the Team RWBY dorm across from the JNPR dorm, right back to where he had started this bizarre day, he knocked and waited patiently. Finally the door opened a crack, a somewhat damp Yang leaning into view. "Hey, Whi–... Naruto. What's up?"

"Hey, Yang. I was looking for Ruby?"

"She's in the machine shop. Working on her significant other," the blonde said with a roll of her eyes.

"Uhh, what?"

"Her weapon. Crescent Rose? You've seen how she is with it," Yang added. "You've got stiff competition there."

At the risk of repeating himself, "Uhh, what?"

She rolled her eyes again. "Figures. You know where the machine shop is?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. Later," she said, closing the door. Naruto turned to make his way to the machine shop before the blonde girl opened the door again, wider this time so he could see her whole face instead of just her eyes and hair. "Hey, Naruto?"

"Yeah?"

"... Sorry about... You know... Calling you that other thing. Blake told me about what those marks were and... I'm really sorry,"

Blake told her. Naruto wasn't surprised. It was clear Yang really was sorry given how she couldn't even look at him while saying it. "That's okay, you didn't know. But I appreciate you sayin' that."

"Cool," Yang said once again, closing the door.

… And opening it again. "Hey, Naruto?"

Naruto, openly laughing at this point turned back around again, "Yeah?"

The laugh choked in his throat. This time she wasn't just leaning around the door. The door was once again open even wider, enough to reveal Yang had apparently just got out of the shower and was only wearing a towel. Naruto struggled to maintain eye contact for fear of what would happen if he didn't.

Yang, apparently satisfied that he managed such a herculean feat, nodded sharply. "You break her heart, I break your legs." And with that, she slammed the door shut.

And Naruto was once again left asking the empty hallway, "Uhh, what?" Receiving no response whatsoever and seeing Yang was definitely done confusing him this time, he finally made his way to the machine shop in the main school building.

As he entered he found himself once again in a wonderland of machinery and mechashift technology. He had used the facilities before as part of his weapon maintenance, Signal having a much smaller scale version for its students. But he was one hundred percent aware he had no idea what most of the machines did or how they functioned.

Seeing an upper year student not doing anything he approached them and asked, "Hey, you seen a girl about yea high, black and red, kind of hyper, has a scythe?"

The student nodded, pointing at a door with a sign that read "testing range". Heading through, the blond was met with the loud, repeated bangs of high-calibre gunfire. Thanking gods above and below for aura and its myriad protective abilities probably saving his very sensitive hearing, Naruto followed the sounds to where he figured he would find Ruby. And sure enough, there she was, aiming down range with her weapon in its... Would that be like a shotgun form? No, it was still a rifle. Compact form? That would do. She was aiming downrange waiting for her target to come back in. "Hey, Ruby!" Naruto called.

Head twisting, the dark haired girl saw her faunus friend, "Naruto! Hi! Just a sec, okay?!" Putting thoughts of him aside, the girl took down her target and saw the shot spacing. "Hmm, not enough."

"What're you working on? Target practice?" Naruto asked.

The girl continued to mumble to herself before realising the boy was talking to her. "Oh, sorry! I'm trying to tighten up the recoil and accuracy for the rifle mode of Crescent Rose! She's not so great in this configuration. The scythe mode can be a bit much sometimes so I need the alternative to be tighter so I can rely on her more." She shook her head to clear the thought away while her friend was here. Friends needed you to pay attention to them! "So what's up?"

"Oh, it's uh..." Naruto hesitated, "I mean it's not a big deal if you're busy, ya know?"

"Come on! You needed something if you chased me all the way in here! I know you aren't comfortable here," she said, putting her hands on her hips and pouting in what Naruto thought was an attempt at looking stern. "Fess up, Mister!"

Naruto put his hands up in surrender at the... intimidating presence. "I was just hoping you might help me improve my weapons? People keep telling me to get a better ranged option and–"

In an eye-blink and a swirl of rose petals the small girl was in his personal space and running her hands over the gauntlet pieces of Kuchigotae. Like she had built them herself, she found the release for the claws and flipped it, flapping his hand to unsheathe them.

Forget her pouty face, Naruto decided, this was intimidating.

Next she examined the gun barrel, then took apart the magazine and crystal housing, all of it while it was still on his arm. "Small calibre dust rounds... Crystal housing for... The claws? That's pretty cool. Kind of wasteful though," she muttered.

"Uh, Ruby?" Naruto asked, standing stock still.

The girl looked up at him, back to the weapon she was halfway to disassembling, and nodded. "Okay! Let's take it to a bench!" she announced, leading him by the arm to a free work table. "Take 'em off!" she demanded.

"Uhh, the boots are kinda my shoes right now–"

"Should'a thought of that before you got here! Take 'em off!"

"Okay, okay!"

Finding himself absolutely flummoxed that this girl most of a foot shorter than him was bossing him around so easily, Naruto stripped off the gauntlets and boots and set them on the table.

Leaning over his boots and accidentally catching a whiff, "Eugh!" Ruby recoiled.

"Sorry," said Naruto, scratching at his flattened ears with his now bare hands. "We were training earlier and I really wasn't expecting to take them–"

"Yeah, yeah," Ruby said, waving his apologies off as she got back to examining the boots. "Pretty basic stuff in these. They don't even have the dust enhancement like the gauntlets. Wanna do anything more with these?"

"Uhh, I don't know?" Naruto hedged. "I mean I don't really know what's possible for 'em, ya know?"

"Well, we could put in kick heels to help with manoeuvrability, a quick retract or release mechanism if they get stuck, even something simple like a heel blade so back kicks are more deadly."

Naruto understood what at least two of those things were. "Maybe put a pin in those? I'm just looking to upgrade my ranged options, ya know?"

"Hmmm..." Ruby hummed, returning to the gauntlets, though flashing occasional, disappointed looks at the boots and their simple design. "Well, I got good news and bad news."

"Bad news," Naruto answered firmly. End on a positive.

"The mechanics of the built in firearm and the dust enhancement are all housed in the same containment for the sake of keeping her compact. We could replace the firearm for something with a higher calibre but it would mean mechashift parts. That means the gun would only be available in one form, the whole unit would be heavier and... We'd probably have to take out the dust enhancement."

"Doesn't Crescent Rose have a gun in both modes?" Naruto asked.

Ruby nodded in a side to side manner as if to say "sort of". "Crescent Rose is a gun in both modes but a scythe in only one. Gotta make sacrifices somewhere. She was built around being a gun first with the scythe being a secondary weapon," she explained, also muttering, "and as a stability aid."

"So what's the good news?"

"Well, the dust enhancement you have now is actually kind of inefficient. Big crystal, not a lot of impact."

"Doesn't sound like good news."

"No, no! I mean you could do more with it!" Ruby explained excitedly. "Or... Maybe you could. Okay, there's two things we could try. We could try to add in a heavy weapon with the dust enhancement without sacrificing the current system. Or..." Ruby grinned in a hopeful way, "We could refit the entire system and do something really fancy!"

Naruto had to admit, Ruby's anticipation was infectious.

He didn't even use the electro-claws anyway. Too scared to use 'em and waste the dust.

… Wait, Wasn't Ozpin still bankrolling him?

Eh, whatever. "Whaddya have in mind?" Naruto asked mirroring her smile.

"What do you know about dust pulse emitters?"

"Absolutely nothing, but I'm willing to learn!"

The squeal Ruby let out could be described as pure joy. "Okay, I'm gonna need to talk to an expert in dust manipulation, maybe get the school to order in some parts for you, research some public domain schematics– Oh, this is gonna be so much fun!" Naruto had never seen anyone so overjoyed at being asked for a favour. Well, he supposed, this was probably one of her main hobbies? Tinkering with weapons, designing things?

It brought him to an unexpected realisation. He didn't really have anything like that, himself. He'd been just surviving for so long, and then when that wasn't the main concern it became training and studying instead. Russell had those journals he was always scribbling in, Cardin had his comic books, Topaz had her charcoal sketching. Maybe he should look for something to do in his downtime?

-(-)-

The field trip to Forever Fall was quite underwhelming, all told. It was just a trip into an admittedly beautiful forest to gather tree sap. It wasn't entirely clear why. Presumably that would be explored in the next few survival classes. There was a minor Grimm scare. A single ursa, nothing an entire class of Beacon students and two professors couldn't handle easily.

Another day, another episode of drudgery in schoolwork and afterschool work and studying and "Auuuuuughghgh!" Naruto moaned, it turning into a gargling sound halfway through.

"Aww, quit whining, you big baby," Topaz chided as she cleared up the study materials from her bed and put them away, Russell doing the same across the room.

"Auuuughghghghgh!" Naruto repeated, clutching his head with both hands.

"Come on, dude it can't be that bad. We've made great progress! Learning two things at once is such a cheat!" Russell consoled.

"Yeah, but when they pop I get memories of six hours straight of studying in about half a second!" Naruto groused. "Not to mention trying to figure out these schematics Ruby gave me to look over!"

The door to the dorm opened, allowing Cardin in. "Hey. Nerd club over?"

"Auuuuuuughghghgh!"

"Look, Naruto, if it sucks so much why not just have your clones raid the library or something?" Topaz suggested in an attempt to be helpful. "That way you can get a bunch of it done all at once!"

Naruto gave her a deadpan stare under his hands. "This is how bad it is with two clones. Six hours. I'm not lookin' forward to finding what ninety hours feels like, ya know?"

"Hey, just do what I do!" Cardin suggested, rolling onto his bed. "Scrape by on Ds for everything! Everybody should ride the D train!"

Topaz rolled her eyes. "Trust me, Cardin. Nobody wants to ride your D train."

"Bitch."

"A lady bear is called a sow, actually!" Topaz faux-haughtily responded. "If you're going to use animal insults, use the right ones. That's what the D train gets you."

"Guyyyyyys!" Naruto whined. "Let's go do something fun, ya know?!"

"Like what?"

"How the hell should I know?! I lived in a hole for four years and then spent the last one living in books and training rooms and fitness centres!" Naruto exclaimed in frustration. "What do for fun?! We do fun! Where fun be had?!"

Russell and Topaz shrugged at each other over their team leader who had somehow been reduced to rolling around on the floor like a child. "I guess we have been hitting it pretty hard lately." Russell admitted.

"Karaoke?" Topaz suggested with hope in her voice.

"No way am I listening to you murder Achieve Men songs for two hours," Cardin denied immediately.

"Hey, I don't–"

"You sing in the shower."

"... Shoot. Curse my endearing devotion to the best boy band in the world," Topaz swooned dramatically back onto her bed.

"You know Big Brown is leaving, right?" Cardin asked tauntingly.

"You take that back!" Topaz snapped at him. "The Achieve Men will be together forever!" she began to sob, not entirely clear if it was fake, "At least, in my heart!"

"Guyyyyyys...! Fuuuuuuun...!" Naruto continued to whine.

"Oh quit it you big baby!" said Russell, prodding his team leader with a foot. Sighing, he suggested, "How about the arcade?"

"Ehhhhh..." Cardin and Topaz said in unison.

Naruto shot to his feet. "That's not a no so it's good enough for me! To the arcade!" he shouted, pointing dramatically in a random direction. "… Wherever that is!"

Rolling her eyes, Topaz led the way out of the dorms. "Come on you big doofus."

-(-)-

The foursome took the first bullhead available to go into Vale. Russell and Topaz were genuine locals so knew their way around the city. Naruto had only lived there for a year and didn't care much to get his bearings and Cardin was a fancy lad living in a fancy house in the rich part of town.

Naruto was a little taken aback by the arcade itself. All flashing lights and cacophonous noise and– "Hey, my coat glows in the dark in here!" he exclaimed, somehow tickled by that.

"Sooo... Dancing games?" the fleet-footed Russell suggested innocently.

Cardin the graceless tree of a human snorted. "Yeah, no."

"Shooting games would suck," Topaz figured. "We're all trained with guns. It'd be a cakewalk."

"Yuhhh-huh," drawled Cardin, who was not actually proficient with firearms. "Fighting games?"

Russell and Topaz looked at each other. "Fighting games."

Naruto, who was still gawking at his luminescent coat, got dragged along to one of the more populated sections of the arcade. A maze of cabinets, about half of which were occupied on an early Saturday afternoon.

And in pride of place in the middle of the section was a single cabinet, surrounded by displays of strobing lights.

"What the hell is this?" Naruto asked as he stared at the game's logo imprinted on an electric sign. "Vytal Victory?"

"Ohhh, I forgot about that part of it!" Russell gasped as he saw the ostentatious display and something clicked in his brain. "Naruto, dude, we need to do well in the tournament!"

"What? Why?" Naruto asked. "Well... I mean besides obvious reasons, why?"

"You really did live under a rock," Cardin smarmed.

"Under a hill," Naruto corrected. "Same question again. What's the new reason we have to do good?"

Topaz rolled her eyes, "Because if we do 'good', we get put in the next edition of this game."

Naruto's head tilted. "Come again?"

"Vytal Victory is the official licensed game of the Vytal Festival Tournament. That means every tournament, they license the image and fighting styles of the trainee huntsmen and huntresses so they can be put in the game."

"We get to be in a video game!" Russell crowed, interrupting the bear faunus.

"Right. It's also a pretty big payday early in your career. The better you do, the bigger the payout and the more prominent role they give you in the game."

"Scrubs who get knocked out in the team rounds get fifty-fifty odds of even being included," Cardin continued, "doubles gets you in the expanded roster, finals in the main roster. And they usually put the top three or four in the next game after that as a hidden character too."

"Okay...?" said Naruto, getting some of what they were saying. "Wait, I thought the tournament was every two years. Wouldn't we be in the next tournament anyway?"

"Pfft, no," Cardin scoffed. "Upper two years are too busy doing actual huntsman crap to be in the tournament."

"We get one shot at this, Naruto!" Russell warned, "We're getting in the next game!"

Naruto nodded agreeably. "Oh yeah, I'm totally on board with kicking ass in the tournament. Just... You know, for non-stupid reasons."

"When do you start paying for your own dust again?" Topaz asked, inspecting her fingernails.

Naruto blinked at the reminder. Expensive dust. Big payday. "Woo. Vytal Victory whatever. Hype. Video games are just the coolest and I totally wanna be in one for–"

"Save it for the PR crew, hype-man," Russell said just as flatly. "Come on, you might as well take a look at what you're getting into."

-(-)-

The arcade ended up being something of a bust. It wasn't so much that it was a bad time. It was fun enough but that was more for the company than for what they were doing. Even Cardin ended up being something closer to personable during the trip. It was just video games apparently weren't Naruto's thing. He suspected that it was because they didn't feel productive. Like what he was doing wasn't worthwhile, at least in his view of what that meant. Russ could have 'em as far as Naruto was concerned, they just weren't for him. After getting an early dinner from a fast food place, they took the bullhead back to Beacon. The rest of Team NCTR headed back to their dorm to... do whatever they would do. But Naruto still felt restless for some reason. Like an itch in his brain that he couldn't figure out. So he tried to work off his nervous energy by jogging around campus.

It didn't help.

As he made one last loop around the main school building, Naruto sighed frustratedly at how dark it was getting, deciding to go back to the dorm finally. He just knew he was going to have trouble sleeping that night.

But as he approached his room, he was blindsided by a swirl of rose petals landing right in front of him, forming into the panicking form of Ruby Rose. "Naruto!"

"Ruby?" Naruto said, surprised. "Are you okay? You look kinda freaked."

"Yeah! So some things happened today when we were in town and Weiss and Blake got into a fight and–" the babbling girl cut herself off. "You know about Blake's 'thing', right? Yang said you might."

"How she likes fish and relaxing in a nice sunbeam?" Naruto asked vaguely for the sake of anyone who might be listening, before tapping his nose. "Yeah, I know."

"Right! So, she and Weiss got into a big argument about... that and the Schnee family and how they relate to... that, and then they got to arguing about... teeth, and–"

Wow she was bad at speaking in code.

"–and then Blake brought you up and Weiss really didn't like that and then Blake got really angry and blurted out... that. And then she ran away."

Naruto slowly nodded his head as he thought through that babble. "So Blake bailed."

"We think she went into Vale," Ruby nodded.

Pulling out his scroll, Naruto checked the time. "Last bullhead was fifteen minutes ago."

Ruby nodded again, clasping her hands together. "Could you, maybe, help us look for her tomorrow?"

"Sure. I'll–" … not get his team because they didn't know. Well maybe Topaz did? Still, maybe best not. "I'll help. Just tell me where to be." Nope. That day's trip into Vale already proved he didn't know where anything was. "Second thought, if we could just meet up at the bullheads that'd be better. I don't know my way around Vale."

"Sure! Okay, that's great! Thank you so much, Naruto!" she said, wrapping him in a hug.

From an often repeated reflex, he wrapped one of his own arms around the smaller girl and patted her head with the other. "Anytime, Ruby."

"Okay," she released him, "I'm gonna go... do I don't know what. Probably not sleep. But I'll let you sleep. Yeah. See you tomorrow?"

Naruto nodded, and the girl, still filled with nervous, worried energy, flowed away in a whirl of rose petals.

-(-)-

"Oh, great. Now he's here too," Weiss sneered as Naruto approached.

"Nice to see you too, Weiss," Naruto answered, sighing.

"Why is he coming with us again? Blake is our problem, not his."

"Blake isn't a 'problem', and I asked him to help because he can turn into a hundred people!" Ruby retorted.

"Hmph! I suppose a criminal would know best how to find another criminal."

Unbidden, a growl rose up in Naruto's throat. For her of all people to try and judge him for that–

Hands placed themselves on his shoulders and suddenly Yang was blocking his view of the Schnee heiress. "Easy there, Growly."

"Weiss, we're not doing this again! Can you please stop picking fights so we can find our teammate?" he heard Ruby say.

"Hmph! Fine."

"We good?" Yang asked him.

"... Yeah," he answered with a stiff nod.

As the four got on the bullhead, the two sisters making sure Weiss and Naruto were on opposite ends, Naruto asked, "So any idea where we should be looking?"

Ruby shook her head. "No idea. She could have gone anywhere. We'll just be asking around for if anyone's seen her."

The ride in the small airship was short, it being a small, safe hop to and from Beacon on the cliffs and the city below. On landing, Naruto made five clones and had them spread out, heading in random directions.

"Why only five?" Yang asked.

"What do ya think would happen if a hundred identical faunus suddenly appeared and started tearing through the city?" Naruto asked flatly, watching the clones disappear into the distance and around corners before making five more.

"Yeah, good point," Yang admitted. "That'd probably cause problems if a human did it too."

"Notice you felt you had to add 'probably' there," Naruto pointed out, sending a third wave of clones.

Yang shrugged awkwardly, conversations like these being fairly new territory for her. She felt like she'd be having more of them now that the truth about Blake was out there.

"Okay. We'll ask around near the bullhead dock for if anyone saw her," Ruby announced as their opening plan.

"Cool. I'll scroll call you if I find her," Naruto promised.

With that agreement, the three quarters of team RWBY started wandering through the city knocking on doors, leaving Naruto alone to finish sending out clones before heading into the city himself.

Funny thing about sending a hundred identical people to search for one. They'll probably see you before you see them. And so Naruto got the memories of a clone that spotted a fleeing Blake and some guy with the absiest abs Naruto had ever seen, and of their general direction. And so did all of his clones. As the closest clone to her tried to cut her off in an alley it said, "Blake, if you pop me you're just–" before she quickly popped it in the face with a punch, destroying it.

"Telling me where you are." finished the next clone entering the alley a few metres further down.

"What do you want, Naruto?" Blake asked harshly.

"Your team's worried about you, Blake," Naruto said soothingly... before thinking better on that sentence. "Most of them, at least. But you probably already knew that part."

"So they told you I was in the White Fang," her tone containing a note of hurt and betrayal as she put a hand on her weapon, Gambol Shroud.

The clone blinked. Then blinked twice more. "Uhh, no? Actually Ruby checked if I knew you were a faunus and said you argued with Weiss about the White Fang. Though that does explain her bitchiness a little." Looking down at the cat faunus' hand on her weapon he reminded, "Also, still a clone. Though if you want the real one..." he trailed off, making a turning gesture with his hand before popping.

"Hey, Blake," spoke the same voice from behind her.

"Dude, your semblance is nuts!" the other blond boy with a monkey's tail exclaimed.

Glancing at the boy with the abs, Naruto raised his eyebrows. "Who's Captain Crunches supposed to be?"

"Hey, man!" the monkey faunus greeted, waving a hand before putting both of them behind his head in a relaxed pose that opened his shirt more to better show off his abs. "Name's Sun! So... Are you guys dating or–?"

"I can't go back yet, Naruto," Blake said firmly.

"Well that's puttin' me in a tough spot, ya know?" shrugged Naruto, "Why not?"

"I can't face them yet. I need to prove Weiss wrong! I need to prove the White Fang aren't doing something so pointless as petty theft!"

"... Why?" Naruto asked, deep confusion plain on his face.

"Because I need to prove they aren't just thugs and terrorists! That they stand for something more than just hatred and violence!"

Confusion made way for sheer disbelief. "Wha– Something more than– Blake, are you talking about the same White Fang that opened up on a crowd of civilians in the middle of a civil rights rally? Because that's the one I know!"

"That's not possible–"

"I was there!" Naruto shouted at her. "Hell, Topaz was too! She dragged me up to speak because she thought I was a huntsman and then some asshole in a tajitu mask showed up and lit up the crowd with a minigun! So, sorry but you're gonna have a hard damn time if you want to convince anyone that the White Fang stand for anything anymore! They shot up an event for their own cause!"

"Then prove it!" she shouted back at him, "We're going to find the White Fang and find out what they're really up to! If they're as bad as you say they are, help us find them!"

Taking a calming breath and wiping a hand across his face, Naruto tried to straighten out her plan. "So you're telling me, you ran away from your team, hung out in Vale overnight and are trying to hunt down murderous terrorists. And your only backup is Vale's national sit-up champion."

"Actually, I'm from Vacuo!" Sun interrupted with a raised hand. "Well, Vacuo by way of Mistral. See, I lived in Vacuo but went to study at Haven–"

"I don't care!"

"Naruto–"

"No, Blake, look, they're your team. They won't just turn their backs on you because you have extra ears," Naruto blinked and smiled. "In fact, I'll prove it!" he exclaimed as he pulled out his scroll.

"Naruto, don't do it," Blake warned, seeing that he was calling the rest of team RWBY.

"I'mma do it!" he said, tongue poking out as he tried to figure out group calls.

Gambol Shroud whipped out and struck the scroll and Naruto's fingers. And then he was smoke.

Another Naruto walked around the corner, scroll in hand. "Yeah, that wasn't the real me either. Hey Ruby! I found Blake! She wants to rumble with some terrorists or something!"

"What?!" came the high-pitched voice of Ruby, even higher from shock. "Where is she?!"

"Oh, yeah, sorry she's right here with me and she's probably gonna run if I tell you where, ya know?" There was a beep from the scroll as Weiss' picture lit up. "Hey, Weiss! Do you hate Blake now?"

"What?! Of course not! Why would you even ask that?" came the voice of the heiress. "I'm mad she ran and I want an explanation of her past affiliations, but I'm not so shallow as to hate her just because of that!"

"Weiss," Blake said surprised at the understanding coming from the girl.

And also deliberately ignoring Naruto's increasingly smug expression.

"Blake!" Weiss exclaimed before instantly turning remonstrative. "Where have you been?! Do you have any idea the trouble you caused running off like that?! Ruby has been worried sick!"

"I'm sorry," Blake said remorsefully, "But some of the things you said, I couldn't just ignore them so I had to prove the White Fang could still be what I remember it as."

"Well, it's fine now. Where are you? Let's all meet up and go back to Beacon."

"I can't do that."

"What? Why not?!" asked Ruby.

"Yeah, so," Naruto began, cutting into the conversation, "Blake really wants to go after these guys? Even recruited some weird guy with abs for some reason–"

"Dude, there's more to me than just the abs."

"Your stupid open shirt begs to differ," Naruto sniffed. "Anyway, she really wants to do this and I don't think you're gonna convince her not to. So... Maybe her team could back her up?"

Weiss audibly scoffed over the call. "That's ridiculous! We can't just involve ourselves in such things–"

"We'll do it." Ruby's voice cut in.

"Ruby, what–?!"

"If that's what it takes for Blake to come home, we'll do it."

Naruto's entire face flexed in satisfaction and he started hip thrusting in celebration, pointing aggressively at his scroll.

"What's going on? I'm hearing some weird sounds!"

"Uh, nothing Ruby! Just some... static or something," Naruto covered.

Blake giggled into her hand. "Okay, you've convinced me."

"Great!" Ruby squealed. "Let's meet up! Where are you guys?"

Blake nodded at Naruto, giving him permission to tell her.

Naruto in turn shot her a look of confusion. "What? I don't know this city. Where the hell are we?"

"But you said–"

"I say a lotta things, ya know?"

-(-)-

A/N: Man. I like Sun. He's a good dude who sticks his neck out for people he barely knows. But sweet googly moogly is he easy to clown on.

Anyway. From the top. Not everybody will need Naruto to prod them for them to solve their own problems. Jaune needed a clue by four. Pyrrha did not. Then we have... Oh,right. Ship teasing going right over Naruto's head and then the beginnings of gear upgrades, or rather modifications. What he got at Signal was a pretty basic bit of kit as far as huntsman armaments go. Now Ruby is helping him tailor it to his needs.

The videogame thing is an idea I had a long while ago. Seemed like a logical thing in the setting. Business, entertainment, propaganda and funding huntsmen all at once? Yeah. Kind of a no-brainer.

And then we have Blake. Blake Blake Blake. She's a difficult character. A person who hasn't quite shaken off the brainwashing is a tough thing to portray so I hope I did okay. And I hope shitting on Sun kept the mood up enough that it didn't get too grim.

If you would like to support me directly, there is now a way you can do so through popular donation platform that I'm not allowed to say the name of on this site. You know the one. Please consider helping out. As long as I'm receiving even a single dollar from someone who thinks my writing is worthwhile, I guarantee at least a chapter of something a week.

Thanks for reading.