Disclaimer: First Chapter
Story Start!

"Yes, Naruto's home cooking! It's been too long since you've been inside of me!"

Ruby's excited shout was heard all around as she lifted her fork and knife up high into the air. Everyone was actually sitting at the table together, unlike how they would usually go into the living room and watch TV while they ate. They had been eating instant meals for so long now, and both trying and failing to replicate their brother's cooking. All Ruby and Yang knew was how to make pumpkin pie, it was the only thing that Naruto ever bothered to let them help him with.

People could not survive off of pumpkin pie.

'He really does so much for us, and we've all become dependant on him...' Yang thought as she looked down at the amazing spread before them.

Since Blake was a faunus, Naruto had decided to make the more traditional meals from Menagerie in order to try and appeal to Blake. Each of them had a small bowl of rice in front of them, the rice was flavored with a garlic sauce that gave the top of it a slightly yellow color, tipping the small white mountains. He had neatly cut and sliced fish, with the fish being cooked via the grilling method instead of how they usually ate fried fish. Each of them had a salad that smelled sweet, and visibly had sweet fruits in the middle of the vegetables. Not to mention the coconut shavings, and how each of them had coconut milk as their drinks.

"I haven't had Menagerie cooking since I was on a mission to clear out a small grimm herd there. Let me tell you, you faunus have some really good cooks. Faunus were always able to make the most out of their situation." Qrow spoke to Blake, who was sitting at the edge of the table, seeing as she was the guest of "honor" she was placed in the spot where everyone would be able to see her.

Blake was unsure of that statement was something she should be offended by, since he said "you faunus" but followed it up with some compliments to the species.

"None of you had to go this far, I'm just happy to be invited." Blake was a little embarrased that they went to so much trouble to make her feel at home.

Taiyang waved at her to get her attention.

"The Xiao Long family-"

"Rose." Naruto and Ruby commented, since they didn't take the Xiao Long name, so the statement didn't apply to them so much.

"Branwen." Qrow added his own last name into the correction, since he was in no way a Xiao Long, not even by blood.

"... I'm happy to have your last name dad." Yang tried to comfort her dad when he slumped forward in depression. She pat him on the shoulder as he stopped talking, and simply ate the rice with a spoon, he had no skills with chopsticks. He grumbled and mumbled away as he ate, before he perked up. "Better?" Yang asked, since he seemed to have his mood improve by eating the actually good food.

"Better... Anyway, we here like making people feel at home. This is really good Naruto, where did you learn Menagerie cooking? Blake, does this taste anything like what they make where you come from?" Taiyang asked as he used his fork to eat at some of the grilled fish. He covered his mouth with his hand so that he could talk and eat without being too rude.

Blake tried a bite of fish.

"Mmmmmm..." Blake slumped backwards, her back resting against the chair as she let her tastebuds explore the food. She slowly chewed and savored each chew, and allowed each spice that had been mixed together to form a rainbow of flavors explode in her mouth. She had not had a home cooked meal in so long now that she had forgotten how much of a difference there was. "... Where did you learn Menagerie cooking? This is better than anything I've ever tasted on Menagerie." Blake looked down at the dish, and she actually used chopsticks to take a bite of the rice.

She closed her eyes and just allowed the garlic rice to coat each part of her tongue with flavor, before she swallowed.

So good.

"I just used a cook book... I didn't have everything though, so I ended up switching out some ingredients with something similar." Naruto blushed at the compliment. He really didn't do anything too special, he just followed the recipie, and where he wasn't able to follow the recipie he allowed himself to be a little creative to try and make up for his lack of certain ingredients.

He was happy everyone was enjoying it though.

"So Blake, what brings you to Vale?" Ruby asked, since from what they gathered it was pretty obvious that she was a long way from home.

She wanted to try and make friends with the faunus at the table, since before now the only faunus that she could call her friend was her brother. She didn't really know a lot about faunus, but she was open to learning about the opposite species.

"I'm going to take the test to get into Beacon on my next birthday." Blake mentioned rather passively.

She wanted to be a huntress.

"Oh cool, I am too." Yang commented in response. She didn't have much to say to that, it made sense for Blake to be in Vale if she was trying to get into Beacon. You kind of needed to be in Vale to at least take the test, and not everyone could afford to take a bullhead to Beacon just for one day, and then go back home.

"Cool-!?"

Naruto stuck a piece of fruit in Ruby's mouth to calm her down before she created a scene. He stopped her from going into a lecture about how cool huntresses were, and how cool Blake was for trying to become one.

"Your parents must be really proud of you." Taiyang pointed out.

Qrow snorted.

'Yeah, I bet... bet she hasn't talked to them in years. This girl was one of the highest members of Vale's White Fang branch, right next to Adam Tauros.' Qrow thought as he glanced at Blake with an eye of very mild suspicion. Of course, if she did anything that even slightly painted herself in a bad light in front of him, he wouldn't hesitate to take her to jail for all of her past crimes. It was his word against hers, and he would bet his ass that the council would be happy to put away an ex-White Fang member.

Why was he letting this girl near his family?

Simple, it was the best way to keep a watchful eye on her, and she didn't seem to be causing any trouble helped in that. She had nothing to gain by attacking the Rose/Xiao Long family, so there was little need for suspicion in her actions.

He decided to keep his snark to himself though.

"I haven't really talked to them lately." Blake's tone was unsure of if she even wanted to talk about this.

Thankfully, Taiyang picked up on that and didn't comment further. He could see it was a sore subject for her. If her parents were alive, or if they had some kind of argument, he couldn't be sure. He wasn't going to ask her though.

"Hey Naruto, your bird is back again." Ruby pointed out when she finished her meal, she was a quick eater just like everything in her life.

She had to live fast.

"A raven?" Blake questioned when she saw a raven sitting on the edge of the window. She could tell the difference between a raven and a crow, even though they looked extremely similar. They were apart of the same family of birds, and both were large and black in appearance, but there were differences between them.

Qrow glanced at the smug looking Raven just sitting there looking at him, taunting him to try and shoo her away.

"She's just here to get a little food, no big deal." Naruto picked up a small bit of fish from his own plate and went over to the window. He opened it and offered it to Raven, who took it in her beak and hopped onto his hand. She looked up at him for a moment, analyzing his face for a few moments.

'Really smart raven...' Yang thought for a moment, before she blinked.

Wait... Branwens could turn into birds, and her mother's name was Raven Branwen... and her uncle was Qrow Branwen.

"Careful around birds, they carry diseases." Taiyang stated warningly.

'Screw off Dad/Fuck you Tai.' Yang and Qrow thought, both of them having the ability to turn into birds, though Yang only recently. Yang glanced over at Qrow, who looked at her and nodded his head when he saw her questioning gaze at the raven.

His nod answered her question.

Yes, that was her mother.

"It's not a big deal, she comes by all the time. I don't know how long ravens live, but she has been getting on in age... it's been about... 9 years? You're a very pretty birdy, now off you go." Naruto jerked his hand up and Raven took that as her cue to begin flying away. Now that she had checked up on Naruto, and he seemed to be doing better, she would go back to her tribe and get ready for the next raid.

Naruto closed the window again, before he returned to the table.

"You like birds?" Blake asked Naruto, who nodded.

"Doesn't everyone?" Naruto asked her with a tilted head. He thought a like of birds was normal, he didn't assume that him liking birds was weird or anything.

Blake's cat ears twitched.

...

"She likes them on a dinner plate." Yang joked about Blake, who turned her head towards Yang with a raised eyebrow. "... My brother is a faunus, and I am not a racist... just going to point that out now." Yang pointed at Naruto with a dead serious face. She had blood relations to her beloved brother, and was not a racist because of her jokes.

She made jokes about everything.

Sometimes that got her in trouble at school.

"I wasn't going to call you racist... I was going to call you insensative." Blake mentioned, since she wasn't dumb enough to call somebody who clearly loved a faunus a racist.

"Yeah, that fits her." Taiyang commented with his face neutral.

"Totally Yang, no tact." Ruby agreed with her father in Blake's assessment of Yang.

"Hit the nail on the head." Qrow added his two cents in, since even he would admit that Yang had little ability to be sensative towards others sometimes. She was good at comforting people, but she could be a little insensative with her jokes.

"No truer words have ever been spoken about her." Naruto sided with everyone.

Yang's jaw just dropped.

"Anyway Naruto, I want to talk with you privately for a little bit since you seem to be doing better." Qrow spoke up as he stood up. He liked the food and all, but he did have something important that he wanted to talk with Naruto about that just couldn't wait. Naruto raised an eyebrow, but nodded his head and got up to follow Qrow.

"Is something wrong?" Taiyang asked suspiciously, ad Qrow smiled disalarmingly.

"Nothing's wrong. Naruto and I have never really spent much time together, so I wanted to see if he wanted to take a little trip with me for a few days." Qrow deflected the question, while also answering it a little.

Naruto was interested in where this was going.

So when he followed Qrow into the back yard, Qrow kept going until they were far enough away to keep anyone from listening in on the conversation.

Qrow wasn't usually like this, so to say the least Naruto was suspicious.

"... So, you've been watching me and Ruby train in secret, and training to use a scythe by yourself huh? Not to mention you've been studying new ways to use Dust?" Qrow brought up as he turned and leaned his back against a tree. He had a clear frown on his face as he looked down at Naruto, who closed his eyes.

He wondered how Qrow knew, but that wasn't his biggest concern.

Naruto looked at Qrow carefully.

"... Yeah, I have... since none of you will teach me anything, I've been teaching myself." Naruto admitted what he had been doing in secret.

Qrow sighed.

"... You're as stubborn as Summer was, to be sure. I guess she was right, there is nothing stopping you. I want to see how good you are, and in a few days there will be a tournament in Mistral for young fighters to compete." Qrow explained where the trip they might be taking would be, but Naruto didn't get it at first.

He shot Qrow the same suspicious look.

"... Your point?" Naruto couldn't stop the look he sent Qrow.

"You attract trouble like a magnet... I thought I was protecting you by not training you. It seems that huntsman, civilian, you attract trouble. You have become the target for multiple huntsmen academies, the Schnee are interested in you, and you are becoming a target for some... unsavory people." Qrow stated as he frowned in thought of Raven, and people like Neopolitan who were going to cause future trouble for him.

Winter had made a report of Naruto that explained his extraordinary talent with Dust, and his extremely fast learning curve. That alone had made him a target for the Huntsmen academies to offer scholarships to him, or even a teaching position so that he could teach others how to use Dust in unique ways. Then there was the Schnee family, who of course had seen the way that people had reacted to the art of him. He had little doubt that they would want to use him as a spokesman for their company to show how well they treat faunus.

Then there was Raven.

"Okay, but why this trip?" Naruto asked, and Qrow pursued his lips.

The unpleasant part for him.

"I can't fight you to see how strong you are... you look and act too much like Summer for me to do that. I would hold back against you, and that wouldn't be fair to you. I want to enter you in the Mistral Tournament and see how well you do, see what you need to improve on... You need to get stronger." Qrow spoke with regret already in his voice. Like he didn't want to do this, he really didn't, but he was being left with no other choice but to train Naruto.

Naruto was shocked.

He was finally going to be recieving training like his siblings?

"... I'll do it." Naruto stated, and Qrow smiled a little at the lack of thinking that Naruto had to put into this.

"Good... we are keeping this a secret from the others, by the way. If you do good, it wouldn't be good for your real name to be known... so we need to make a fake name, and get you a disguise." Qrow muttered to himself at the end.

It wouldn't do for Taiyang to learn what they were doing and put a stop to it.

"I already have a name and disguise... though you aren't going to like it." Naruto slowly admit to having already gotten both of what he needed.

Qrow raised an eyebrow.

Why wouldn't he like it?

Chapter End!
Please Leave Me Lots Of Nice Long Reviews, But No Flames Please!

The next arc is going to be called... the Summer Branwen arc.