Hikari grinned at Kageki as he held his hand out to him.
"So how have you-" he started to say but was cut off as Kageki punched him in the face.
Hikari jumped back, confusion showing on his face. Kageki had stood up and now glared at Hikari.
"What was that for?" Hikari asked.
Kageki didn't answer; instead he started weaving signs quickly. Hikari barely had any time to jump out of the way before Kageki launched a large fireball at him. When Hikari landed Kageki rushed at him, and the two started trading blows.
"What's going on down there?" Blake asked Tenzo. "Why is he attacking his friend?"
Tenzo sighed. "I figured this might happen."
"Are you going to stop them?" Weiss asked.
Tenzo shook his head. "Nah, they used to fight all the time. Just let 'em fight it out. They'll get tired eventually."
Down below the two had broken apart and stood a few meters apart.
"What is wrong with you?" Hikari asked. "You'd think that when your best friend shows up again you'd be a little more happy-"
"Happy?" Kageki interrupted, eyes filled with loathing and anger. "Why the HELL should I be happy?" he shouted. "You left without warning for TWO YEARS."
"But Kageki-" Hikari tried to say, but Kageki interrupted again.
"I don't want to hear your excuse. How dare you show your face to me." Kageki started channeling chakra into his left hand, which sparked into a chidori.
In response, Hikari started to form a rasengan in his right hand. "Kageki I know it wasn't right to just leave without saying anything, but you have to understand I had to leave, it was for a good reason."
Kageki's eyes changed into his sharingan. "Your teammate is murdered, and your other teammate awakens a mangekyou, and you find a better reason to leave? You know what the mangekyou can do to an Uchiha."
Hikari looked away. "You had your family. I knew you wouldn't be the one to revive that old curse."
Up in the airship Glynda looked at Tenzo. "What curse is he talking about?" She asked him.
Tenzo's face appeared grim as he watched his brother on the ground. "Don't worry about it."
Kageki glared at Hikari. "So you just assumed I'd be alright? You assumed my family would keep me all happy like I used to be? Is that what you thought?"
Hikari said nothing.
"You know what I think?" Kageki asked Hikari.
Hikari looked up at Kageki.
"I think you ran away." Kageki said with venom in his voice.
Hikari's eyes widened in surprise, before settling into anger.
"How can you say that?" He asked. "Yozora was my friend too!"
"And yet after her death you didn't even show up at her funeral. You disappeared without a trace. You ran because you couldn't handle it." Kageki said.
Hikari's pupils changed to slits and his irises started to redden in color. "How dare you accuse me-"
"And now you show up out of nowhere pretending like everything's all good and right again." Kageki said. "You're nothing but a coward."
Hikari's rasengan started to change into a mass of red chakra that grew slightly larger. "And what about you?" Hikari spat back. "I heard you refused to use your mangekyou because of Yozora, I heard you shut yourself in all the time, not interacting with anyone other than your siblings."
Kageki said nothing, but added more chakra to his chidori, which now started arcing lighting around him.
Up in the airship Port started to move closer to the hatch. "I believe now is the time to put a stop to this." He said, but was stopped by Tenzo's hand. Port looked at Tenzo.
Tenzo was looking down with his own sharingan active, glaring at Hikari. He turned to look at everyone else in the ship. "Don't try to interfere." He said. "Not like you could anyway." He muttered to himself.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Weiss asked, annoyed.
"At this point there's only one person who could stop Kageki." Tenzo said as he pulled out an old flip-phone.
"Why do you have something so old?" Yang asked.
Tenzo shrugged. "The Uchiha never really needed one of the newer ones. We just need to be able to call or text. Now if you'll excuse me." Tenzo moved and dialed a number on his phone, stood in front of the hatch looking at everyone, preventing any from jumping down yet simultaneously daring any to try.
He put the phone to his ear as someone answered. "Yo, It's Tenzo. Yeah, we're fine. Kageki? Yeah, that's why I called. No, no, he's fine… sort of. Relax, nothing too bad. Look, Hikari showed up out of nowhere… yes, Hikari Uzumaki. No, I don't need to talk to Uncle about this. Dad, the Lord Hokage has better things to… look can you just get-" and Tenzo continued to talk, growing more annoyed and didn't notice that someone had slipped past him and jumped down.
Down below the ground started to shake slightly from the amount of energy being released from Kageki and Hikari.
"And you know the worst part?" Hikari shouted.
Kageki continued to say nothing, but glared at Hikari.
"I know why you shut yourself away. You were ashamed."
Kageki raised an eyebrow. "Ashamed of what? I didn't run away." he said.
"No, but maybe if you tried harder you could have saved her!" Hikari spat back.
Hikari immediately regretted his words.
Kageki's eyes shifted immediately to his mangekyou as hatred spread across his face. "HOW DARE YOU!" he shouted as he charged forward, closing the gap between the two in a blinding speed. Hikari barely had any time to block the chidori with his rasengan, but he managed to do it and the collision of the two jutsu caused a brief flash of light as the energy exploded outward, sending both shinobi backward. As soon as Kageki landed he charged forward again, manifesting a Susano'o arm and tried to crush Hikari with it. Hikari dodged as much as he could, but Kageki manifested a second arm and struck him from the side, sending him sprawling on the ground. In the ship, Tenzo was still on the phone, but his face had gone grim again.
"Dad, how fast can you get here? Hikari said something he shouldn't have, and now it looks like Kageki is going to kill him." Tenzo waited for a response. "Yes, he's using Susano'o. No, it doesn't look like Hikari is putting up much of a fight."
On the ground Kageki walked over to Hikari, who was kneeling down on the ground, gasping for breath. Hikari looked up at Kageki and saw the anger in his eyes, but was surprised to see that there were also tears coming down Kageki's face.
"How dare you." Kageki repeated. "You weren't there, you didn't hold her as she died. You didn't see Uragiru laughing. You think I didn't try to save her? How could I have guessed that Uragiru was a traitor? What about you? Where were you in that battle?"
"I-" Hikari tried to say but was interrupted by a fit of coughing. "When the attack started Sensei told me to hang back, call for reinforcements. I wanted to get both of you out as well, but there was a flash of light, and I couldn't see anyone anymore. I had to…" Hikari trailed off.
Kageki looked down at Hikari. "You ran." he spat.
Hikari looked up at Kageki. "I had to! If I didn't call for help then all of us could have been killed!"
Kageki manifested a Susano'o arm again. "You RAN." he repeated.
Hikari started to panic. "You're not listening, I had to-"
"You RAN AWAY." Kageki shouted. He took a deep breath before dissolving his Susano'o arm. "You are nothing but a coward." Kageki said coldly. "You're a disgrace to shinobi, to the village, and to your clan."
Hikari started to get angry. "Kageki you aren't LISTENING-"
"Save it." Kageki said. "This is over, get out of my sight you pathetic loser."
As Kageki started to walk away Hikari stood up, irises red and his pupils in slits. "Damn it Kageki, I'm the reason we had any reinforcements at all! How was I supposed to know you went all Mangekyou on everyone? You know why I left? I left to train! My grandfather chose me to be the next jinchuriki for the Nine-tails and I had to train so the Nine-tails' chakra wouldn't go out of control."
As Hikari was talking red chakra started bubbling around him. Kageki turned back to look at him.
"And how did that go? You're still as weak as you were." Kageki said.
Hikari clenched his fists as the chakra around him formed a fox-like cloak, with a single tail slowly forming. The whisker marking on his face growing larger and more pronounced.
Hikari, calm down. A voice said in Hikari's mind. If you don't control your anger my chakra will consume you.
Hikari looked down for a moment but looked back at Kageki. I don't care about that right now. he thought back.
Fine. the voice seeming to huff. Your ancestor at least put up more of a struggle for a while.
Hikari seemed to ignore that and let out more of the Nine-tails' chakra. The cloak started to form more tails, up to a fourth tail. Once the fourth tail sprouted Hikari became completely covered in red chakra, his eyes appearing as white circles. His hands became more clawlike, and he appeared to have very large fox-like ears sprouting from his head. A large crater had formed from the release of large amounts of chakra and Hikari crouched in the center of it, glaring at Kageki.
Up in the ship Tenzo immediately stopped talking for a moment. "Dad, get the Hokage and teleport here as soon as you can. Hikari just sprouted four tails and he looks extremely angry." After that Tenzo hung up and turned toward the rest of Team RWBY. "None of you is to go down there unless you want to die." He said looking at each of them in turn before noticing something. "Wait, where's Ruby?"
Everyone looked around but couldn't see her. Tenzo looked down and saw a speck of red moving towards Kageki and Hikari.
"Shit.." Tenzo muttered. "Change of plans, everyone down, NOW." He said louder. Before he could jump out Glynda turned to him.
"Before we move out, how dangerous is your friend down there?" She asked.
Tenzo mulled it over for a second. "Think of the largest army of Grimm you can imagine led by a colossal Grimm."
Glynda and Port tensed. "My word…" Port said.
Tenzo nodded. "Good, now multiply that by about one hundred and then you'll be close to understanding how dangerous Hikari can be. Thankfully, it's only four tails."
Down on the ground Hikari let loose a beastly roar before charging at Kageki. Anger briefly flashed across his face as he re-activated his mangekyou sharingan and manifested his Susano'o in its skeletal entirety. Kageki tried to slam a fist down on Hikari, but he used three of his tails to block the arm and used the last one to slam against the Susano'o's ribcage, shattering it like glass with the shockwave sending Kageki flying backward. When Kageki stood up he experienced a piercing pain in his eyes and was forced to cover them with his hands to lessen it somewhat. When the pain started to fade he dropped his hands and opened his eyes and was surprised to see Ruby standing in front of him, her scythe ready to fight. Kageki blinked for a few moments, not quite understanding.
"Ruby, why are you here?" Kageki asked.
"Duh, I'm here to help!" Ruby said while chambering a round in the sniper mechanism in her scythe.
Kageki gave her a stern look. "No, right now we need to leave. Hikari is too strong in that form for any of us to deal with."
"But he doesn't look any different from a Grimm!" Ruby said annoyed. "We could take him, I know we can!"
Kageki was about to respond but Hikari let out another roar and began charging at them again.
"Ruby, we need to leave NOW." he said as he grabbed her hand and started running away. Ruby switched her scythe back to a compact form and started running alongside Kageki.
"But why can't we just fight him?" She kept asking.
"Because in his four tailed form Hikari can easily kill us. He shattered my Susano'o like it was nothing, and even though it was in it's weakest stage that's no small feat. I can't fight against that right now, and I don't want my friends getting hurt."
Ruby didn't say anything more, but stopped running and took out Crescent Rose once more. Kageki stopped and looked back.
"Ruby I'm serious. He's more dangerous than any Grimm could possible be!" Kageki shouted.
But Ruby charged at Hikari with a determined look in her eyes. She used a combination of her semblance and her scythe's rifle shots to dart around Hikari, who was trying to keep track of her, until she darted toward him and sliced downward with her scythe. Unfortunately Hikari had sprouted a copy of his upper half from his back which grabbed the scythe with one of its claws and tried to slash Ruby, but she fired a round from Crescent Rose to propel her backward. Hikari still held onto the weapon though and he tossed it aside. Ruby stood back up and went for her weapon, expecting Hikari to try and stop her, but Hikari instead sprinted after Kageki again.
Kageki fully manifested his Susano'o's skeletal form again and crossed the arms for extra defense. However, this proved useless as Hikari slammed all four of his tails into the Susano'o and shattered it again. Hikari jumped forward and slashed at Kageki, who made a few quick hand seals and disappeared, nothing but a large boulder in his place. As Hikari looked around for Kageki he was hit in the side by Ruby who had retrieved her weapon and had opened fire on Hikari. By this time, everyone else had joined the fray and tried to stop Hikari. Weiss tried freezing him in large blocks of ice, which melted as soon as it touched him; Blake tried to tangle his tails together, but he broke the bonds with ease. Before anyone else could try something Hikari let out another beastly roar which pushed everyone away. Kageki emerged from behind a large boulder and made the tiger seal before launching several large dragon-shaped fireballs at the sky. Once the fireballs had dispersed more storm clouds began forming.
"Never expected that I'd have to use it twice in a day." Kageki muttered to himself as rain started falling.
Hikari looked up at the clouds for a moment before resuming his attack on Kageki. Hikari fought by slicing with his claws and swinging his tails, but Kageki now expected all of it and with his sharingan Kageki could easily dodge them. Once thunder started booming overhead did Kageki paused for a moment. Unfortunately this moment was enough for Hikari to slam his full body into Kageki and sent him sprawling on the ground. Kageki stood up, but was breathing heavily. The continued strain from his mangekyou had exhausted most of his Aura, and the rest of it was keeping his eyesight safe from the corrosion effect of his mangekyou. Thankfully, Hikari's last attack had separated them quite a bit, so Kageki raised his hand and sparked a chidori. Hikari sensed what Kageki was up to and charged at him again, but suddenly Ruby darted between the two of them, surprising both shinobi momentarily.
"Ruby get out of here!" Kageki shouted.
Ruby ignored him and brandished her weapon, once again intending to fight Hikari, who growled and launched himself at Ruby. Ruby darted around Hikari's attacks and tried slicing with her scythe again, but Hikari's body simply shrugged off the blade, not taking any damage. Kageki rushed in with his chidori and tried to pierce Hikari's body but was blown back by one of Hikari's tails. When he stood up again he watched as Hikari landed a punch on Ruby that sent her flying away. Anger surged through Kageki as he was surrounded by a black aura that quickly turned golden.
"DON'T YOU DARE HURT MY FRIEND!" Kageki yelled as his Susano'o exploded into existence once again, but now started forming muscles and skin, and ethereal feathers started forming along the wings. The head of the Susano'o grew shoulder length hair, with two bangs that framed the face, still having a halo indent right below the hairline. On the Susano'o's left arm a large shield formed and in the right hand a large blade resembling a chokutō. Hikari roared and began forming a small ball of chakra in front of him. Tenzo tensed and panic spread across his face. He brought out his phone again and dialed the same number.
"Dad, Hikari's about to fire a tailed beast ball! What's your ETA?" Tenzo asked franticly. "Dad?" Tenzo looked at his phone and saw that the call had ended.
"What's a tailed beast ball?" Weiss asked, nervous.
As Hikari prepared to fire Tenzo shouted as loud as he could.
"EVERYONE ON THE GROUND NOW!" He yelled as he and everyone else dove onto the ground.
Hikari opened his mouth and swallowed the ball, becoming very bloated for moment, before launching the tailed beast ball at Kageki. Kageki's Susano'o raised it's shield to block, and as the ball made contact there was an explosion of light. When the light faded Kageki's Susano'o was completely unharmed, shield still raised. Tenzo raised his head and stared at the shield in complete amazement.
"That's...the Yata Mirror! How in the hell does Kageki's Susano'o have that?" Tenzo said.
"A very good question Tenzo." Said a voice behind Tenzo.
Tenzo turned around and saw two men standing side-by-side behind him. One had waist length black hair, onyx eyes, and was dressed in a dark gray kimono with the Uchiha crest on the back and matching gray pants. The other had short blonde hair and green eyes, who wore a long white cape with a red flame pattern around the hem and underneath was a black jacket with a blue zipper and orange pants. The blonde man sighed and gave the other a gentle smile.
"Just look at the mess our sons have made. Reminds me of our grandparents, right Matsuta?" The blonde said.
Matsuta chuckled. "All jokes aside Rinji, please control your son before he causes anymore harm to anyone."
Rinji looked over at Hikari, who had begun charging another small tailed beast ball, sighed and disappeared in a puff of smoke. In the next instant he had appeared directly in front of Hikari and placed a small piece of paper on Hikari's forehead. The Nine-tail's chakra immediately began to dissipate and Hikari fell on the ground unconscious. Kageki dissolved his Susano'o and almost fell as well, but he was caught by Matsuta who appeared next to him. Matsuta smiled down at Kageki who began to drift off into unconsciousness as well.
After a few minutes of gathering everyone up and making sure there were no major injuries everyone had boarded the airship and headed back to Beacon. Kageki and Hikari were laying down in the back of the ship while Glynda and Port chatted with Rinji about Konoha and its shinobi training methods. Tenzo and his father were talking to each other about Kageki's Susano'o with Team RWBY listening in.
"So how do you think Kageki got the Yata Mirror? I thought it belonged to Itachi Uchiha's Susano'o." Tenzo asked his father.
Matsuta looked up in thought before speaking. "I believe that since the shield itself is ethereal it may pass on to another Uchiha who is capable of wielding it. Oh, before I forget, has Kageki always been able to achieve the Humanoid form, or did he just advance to it?"
"He just advanced to it a few minutes before you arrived." Tenzo said, then grinned. "I also think I've figured out his catalyst."
"Catalyst?" Blake asked.
"Every Uchiha who awakens Susano'o starts out able to manifest parts of its skeletal structure and with training and experience they can continue to develop it into further forms." Matsuta started to explain. "Through many years of research with the help of Orochimaru, we've found out that some Uchiha are able to speed up the development of their Susano'o via a catalyst. The catalyst differs from Uchiha to Uchiha, but most of the time the catalyst is some kind of feeling. For example, our ancestor Sasuke Uchiha's Susano'o development was marked by the intense feelings of hatred he felt, most of them due to someone insulting his brother's sacrifice for the village, or for having been responsible for Itachi's sacrifice."
"So who else has a catalyst?" Yang asked.
"We think my sister has one," Tenzo replied, "but she won't talk to anyone about her mangekyou, so we don't know. But she breezed through her Susano'o forms way too quickly to not have a catalyst."
"Now, you said you found Kageki's catalyst?" Matsuta asked.
Tenzo grinned. "I'm pretty sure I've narrowed it down. It's one of two things; either it's the anger he feels at seeing his friends hurt, or it's the desire to protect his friends." He turned to the others. "You all heard what he yelled, right?"
"He said not to hurt his friends, right?" Ruby said.
"No, he said 'Don't you dare hurt my friend.' " Tenzo clarified, still grinning like an idiot. "He specifically said FRIEND, not FRIENDS. He meant one friend in particular."
Everyone glanced at Ruby.
"What, me?" Ruby said surprised.
"Well, that incident with the beowolves is the first instance of Kageki willingly using his mangekyou, and that was to protect both you and him. I don't know what happened before that, but you must have done something to make Kageki decide to start using his mangekyou." Tenzo said.
"Well, all I did was tell him he was being stupid for not using his power that he got from Yozora." Ruby said.
Tenzo and Matsuta tensed.
"He told you about what happened?" Matsuta asked.
"Yeah, why? Was he not supposed to?" Ruby asked.
"It's not that, it's just that he's only ever told three people what happened. Myself, Dad, and our sister."
"If he's only told you three, how do other people know about it?" Blake asked.
"Well, the intel team did do a search of his memories right after the incident, but only enough to know the gist of what happened." Tenzo explained. "They didn't care about specifics as much or about Kageki's feelings during it. So while people know the result of what happened, only three, now four, people know what really happened." Tenzo relaxed and grinned again. "You must be really special to get him to tell you what happened."
"So what did happen?" Weiss asked.
Tenzo and Matsuta exchanged glances, then Tenzo shrugged.
"I guess I can tell you if he's told Ruby. You guys need to know anyway, so I'll give you the quick version." Tenzo said. "What happened was that he went on a mission but was ambushed by a few enemy shinobi led by a traitor known as Uragiru. They fought, Uragiru killed Yozora, Kageki awakened his Mangekyou Sharingan, killed everyone else, then passed out."
"That's not what Kageki told me." Ruby said.
"I said I'd give you the quick version." Tenzo said shrugging.
"No, I mean Kageki said that he blacked out after Yozora died." Ruby explained.
Matsuta sighed. "Sometimes when an Uchiha awakens their mangekyou they lose their memories immediately after the awakening if the experience was especially traumatic, to help keep their mind mostly intact. It's probably affected other parts of his memory that he's not aware of, but as Tenzo stated, the Intel division didn't care much for specifics, so they left them repressed."
There was a brief silence in that part of the ship while everyone mulled over the information.
"So what's your sister like?" Ruby asked.
Matsuta suddenly stood up. "Ah, that reminds me. Kagami asked me take bring her here after Rinji and I sorted out the fight." He bowed to the girls and smiled at Tenzo. "I'll meet you at your school later with your mother and sister."
With that Matsuta's eyes changed to a four-point pinwheel which appeared to be split in two vertically. From his eyes space seemed to spiral into them, where Matsuta seemed to be sucked in by until he had vanished.
"What was that?" Weiss asked surprised and creeped out.
"That was Kamui. Didn't I tell you guys about that one already?" Tenzo asked.
"The one that connects to a pocket dimension?" Blake asked.
"Yeah, that one." Tenzo confirmed. "I told you guys it can be used for transportation."
"Your dad seems very nice." Ruby said. "It's not what I was expecting."
"Probably cause you only heard Kageki talk about him." Tenzo said shrugging. "Kageki had a different mom than me and my sister, so it's really awkward between them. I don't think Kageki cares all that much about it, but Dad overthinks it all the time and worries that he's not doing a good enough job so he ends up asking Mom for help, but she's still mad at him about it all so she just leaves him to fend for himself. Dad has made a few mistakes out of good will, and that has made quite a few misunderstanding between Dad and Kageki."
"Why doesn't your dad just explain himself?" Yang suggested.
"We've tried telling him to do that, but he never really gets around to it. He always worries about how Kageki will react, and when Kagami and I try telling him that Kageki probably won't care too much he thinks that Kageki doesn't care about him and he just turns into a mess." Tenzo explained. "Kagami and I have tried explaining things to Kageki for our dad, but it kinda made it worse, so we don't anymore. Eventually they'll sort it out, but really Dad is a great father. He has a Mangekyou Sharingan so he knows how to talk to any young Uchiha who awakens one. Thankfully we've had peaceful times for years so only a small few have awakened one."
"But, doesn't almost everyone in your family have one?" Blake asked.
Tenzo furrowed his brow. "Now that you mention it, it does seem like a lot of bad things have happened recently…" Tenzo thought for a moment. "I hope that it's not signs of change. I like the peace that we've been enjoying."
"Everyone likes peace." Blake said. "But that doesn't mean it will last."
Happy new year everyone. This chapter took longer than I wanted it to take and I actually had to completely rewrite it at one point, but it's finally done! Also, for the part about Hikari sprouting another body, I'm referring to what Naruto did in his fight against Orochimaru if anyone remembers. Kinda hard to describe something like that. Anyway, thanks for sticking around and as always, let me know what you think in the reviews!
If you have questions feel free to pm me and I'll see if I can clarify.