Disclaimer: first chapter

Chapter 32: Roar Into the Heavens Thy Despair

Four pairs of eyes watched the red moon from their location. Such a sight struck fear into them; however, they pulled through. Their minds thought alike. And what they thought of was that of gold. Not gold as an expensive mineral aside from rare Dust ores, but rather the color, and what it represented to them. To the four, they thought of someone, whose smile was worth as much, if not more than gold. They didn't know who they thought of. They never felt this before. They wondered who this person was, and feared for him or her.

Because not only did they feel relief at the thought of him or her, but also they feared what may have happened to this person.

"Milady." A young man lowered himself to one knee out of respect for the one he addressed. "Are you alright?"

"Yes." Said a young woman with blank, lilac -almost white- eyes. Though in reality she wasn't. She knew something wasn't right. Her very soul quivered. Yet she shook those feelings aside to converse properly. "Though you know you don't have to be so formal. You are my cousin after all."

"Nonsense!" Told the young man. "The daughter of a Councilman must be treated with the utmost respect!"

"…You never change." She sighed. "But I guess it's a charm of yours." She turned around. "Come. I'm sure you checked up on me because of dinner, yes?" The young man nodded. "Any idea on what they're serving?"

Another young woman snapped her head towards the main entrance. A man entered the building, and dropped a bag of ores on her desk. "Big haul eh? You got that just from one dig?"

"Who the hell do you think I am?" The man asked rhetorically. The phrase earned a smile from the young woman. "Hopefully that's good enough to last you a week of forging. Though with how wasteful you can be sometimes because of your ambitious weapon projects, I don't know." Said the man. The young woman inspected the rather large bag. Ore after ore was subject to an in-depth identification test as well as a purity test. As she did so, the man asked, "…When I came in here, I caught you off-guard. Rare sight, in my opinion. Anything going on?"

She looked at him for a few seconds. "No…" She said as she fiddled with the buns of her hair. "No. Nothing's wrong, Master Simon." She shuffled out of her seat, and grabbed the ores. "Well…I guess I should sort these out for tomorrow's projects. Gotta make it easier on myself to make those next batch of weapons. Good night."

"…Night, Tenshi."

"Miss Nurse?" A child asked a young woman in a nurse's outfit. "Did you remember something?"

The woman's jade green eyes looked at the child. She brushed off a stray bang off to the side, and said, "Yes. I…I remembered that I have something important to do later."

"What is it?"

She patted the child's head. "Nothing you should worry about. Now rest, okay? You'll need it if you want to get out of the hospital." The child accepted the request, and said goodnight to the nurse.

"Ino!" The young woman in question blinked as Shikamaru shook her back into reality. "Ino! Did you hear that?!" She shook her head. "Something crash landed. Something powerful. Can you use your Semblance to find out what it is? It's by the main courtyard."

Still shook up by the feeling in her soul, she weakly said, "Sure. I'll try." She closed her eyes, and sent her mind towards the direction of the disturbance. Her consciousness snapped towards a living being there, and rushed at it.

The moment her consciousness connected with whatever it was, she screamed her head off before she fainted.

The main courtyard exploded. Dust and debris covered the impact zone. However, even in the cover of dense particles, the one that caused the explosion wasn't hidden by any means. Its blinding glow seeped through. When the dust and rubble settled, its form was clearly visible. Its body was engulfed in billowing flames. Those very flames were morphed to form the silhouette of a fox with limbs like that of a humanoid being. Down to the snout and tail, one can easily say it was made in the form of a ravenous beast.

It slammed its head into the ground repeatedly as it tried its best to drown out the roars, the screams, and the memories that ambushed its mind. Mindlessly, it thrashed left and right to rid itself of the pain, yet nothing was remotely effective in quelling it. It seethed at the crackle of lightning. It snarled at the memory of being impaled. It punched a small crevice at the ground as it remembered those eyes. Then it roared thunderously at the memory of a woman in white. Its fury was revitalized. The ground it stood on was pulverized to dust; clawed into deeply; and terraformed to have small hills of brick and soil.

A loud crash rang from behind. It snapped its head toward the sound. Nothing out of the ordinary. Slowly, it strafed around the statue that decorated the main courtyard. Like a predator that stalked its prey, it was as silent as possible. It snarled the moment it saw something different; an open locker. It cautiously inspected the locker. From top to bottom, nothing was there.

Its ears picked up a sound directly behind the locker, but that wasn't immediately acted upon because of another noise. A blast of air boomed above it. Quickly, it stepped back, and allowed the attacker to fall into his or her locker. The beast slammed the door shut on the locker so hard it dislodged itself from the ground. It grabbed the block of metal, and hammered it into the ground repeatedly to the point its three-dimensional shape came ever closer to a two-dimensional one. Satisfied, it chucked the locker eastward towards the third year building.

Weiss and Neptune were startled by the sound of an explosion. Instincts as warriors overrode whatever they thought of just before. Though Weiss was disappointed that something had to interrupt her time with Neptune. Still, there was pressing matters to attend to. Both of them called their lockers. The didn't have their equipment on them since there wasn't really a need to hold onto them on a peaceful campus. Plus, they were extra weight (no matter how trivial or compact they are) to carry. Once equipped, the two searched for what may have caused the ruckus. They didn't need to look far when a metal block flew past them.

Neptune stood in front of Weiss to act as her shield due to that sudden intrusion.

"What was that?!" She shouted in surprise.

Neptune had a confused look on his face. "…I think that was a locker. A beaten down one." As soon as Neptune said that, a locker landed beside them. The two were in for a shock, and walked away for several steps. Neptune voiced out his surprise. "The heck?! Who would-" He looked at the one who opened the locker, "Jaune?"

"Jaune? What are you doing here?" Weiss asked from behind Neptune.

Jaune looked at the two of them with a blank expression on his face. Soon it was replaced with an expression of seriousness. "I was in the middle of a nightly stroll when I heard that explosion. Turns out there's something more to it if we just saw our Academy's locker get thrown away like a rock." He pulled out his sword and shield before he closed the locker.

Weiss noticed something wrong with Jaune. He wasn't the type to be gung-ho (if you could call it that) about a threat. She saw it in his face that there wasn't a hint of fear in his voice. Or rather…he focused on this single event as if to block anything else out. Even stranger, he forgot to take his armor to put it on. She addressed this problem to him.

"I think I can handle a few hits." He told her. "Besides, we can always work together to cover our weaknesses, alright?" He gave the two a smile. A fake one; Weiss knew it was fake despite how professionally executed it was. The moment Jaune took off towards the beaten locker, Weiss saw a fresh white tulip on the ground.

She stood there paralyzed. Jaune looked for her to try to ask her to the dance after his botched up attempt earlier when she and her team got back. Weiss continued to look at that flower, and understood. For the first time, she understood why he was so persistent. His feelings for her were as pure as the white tulip he planned on giving to her.

She knew the moment she saw Jaune, that he was more of a farm boy than anything. While it doesn't mean much other than the fact he lacked the skill to fight properly, it also meant there was a little bit of knowledge that he had to have picked up on flowers. It was why she asked him to give ideas on what flora to use for the dance coming up on the weekend. And like she hypothesized, he knew enough to surprise her. Even taught her something.

He taught her that aside from the simplicity a white tulip had, it also meant purity, newness, and heaven. He also taught her that sometimes white and cream colored tulips have shades in between the two. To which, he revealed out of relevance that she shouldn't ever pick a cream color because it meant that the giver loved the receiver 'forever'.

Weiss felt a hand tug at her own left hand. "Weiss? Come on, we gotta go inspect that locker, and what struck it." Weiss nodded wordlessly, and the two ran after Jaune, who was already at the beaten locker.

Jaune wedged the locker door with the tip of his sword. Then with a bit of force, broke it open. He was surprised to see someone was inside. Even more surprising, "Eh? The leader of the Atlesian team that attacked Naruto? What are you doing in there?" Weiss and Neptune arrived in time to hear his next question. "What's attacking the campus?"

The Atlesian fighter managed to sit up. "B-Behind you!" He shouted.

Jaune wasted no time questioning the warning. He turned to his left, and swung his arm. His shield met something; however, he couldn't tell what it was. He proceeded to turn, and let the attacker's momentum shoot him or her away from him and the rest of the group. When it landed, he was surprised to see it wasn't a Grimm nor a humanoid being. It was something else.

He shook his head. 'No… Not 'something'. Someone!' He thought. He recognized the attacker immediately. It was stupid of him if he didn't. He knew that particular shade of fire. Even if one could argue that the hue was like any other, Jaune knew very well how that flame felt against his body. "…Naruto."

"What?!" Weiss shouted. "You've got to be joking, Jaune. How is that thing Naruto?"

"Wait. Naruto… Is that the guy Sun talked about? The Janitor?"

Jaune ignored Neptune's question. "…Look at the elbows." He said to everyone.

The group did as told. They watched it punch the ground, but not before it fired off a pillar of flame out of its elbows to fire the fist into the earth. It was proof enough to Jaune and Weiss as well as the weakened Atlesian leader, Alabaster, of the attacker's identity.

Question was: What made Naruto become a mindless beast that ran rampant with his Aura taking the form of a fox?

A blue streak of light flew past Weiss's left ear. But it wasn't the only one. Several more flew past her as they headed for the beast she now knew was Naruto in the flesh. She watched Naruto leaped to great heights. He landed on the rooftop of the building behind him, and roared as loudly as possible. The sound of engines made Weiss look behind her.

"Lavendel!" Alabaster, the Atleasian, shouted at his teammate through the use of his Scroll. "Watch your fire and take caution! We don't know if he can still fly!"

"He?"

Weiss took the Scroll. "That's the Faunus you shot at during the Paladin incident!" She shouted at the flyer.

"Eh?"

The beast roared. Its mouth was as wide as possible to the point it almost resembled a snake with its jaw unhinged. Its fury increased tenfold as it laid its eyes upon the sight of that purple clad flyer. It knew nothing of what was true or not; its vision was corrupted. It either took the form of someone in purple armor or an aura crafted into the form of a person in armor with wings longer than its arms. It was only reminded of those damnable eyes. It roared louder. And this time it was aimed at the pest in the sky.

It leaped towards the Atlesian with surprising speed. However, it missed. Its prey knew this too. Though it knew she forgot something quite trivial, yet important all the same. A tail caught the purple pest by the waist. The sudden grab surprised its prey into a stunned panic. Sure there was resistance as she attempted to fly away from its grasp; however, it was all for naught because it spun in the air repeatedly into its descent just before it chucked her down to the ground. There was no time for its prey to recover. It descended upon the annoyance with a hammering fist that cratered the earth beneath the two. A second chance was open after that, though that thought was squashed by a hammer of a fist to the chest. She tried once more, but it simply repeated its actions to its prey. When the dust cleared, it was shot at by another annoyance with blue hair. Its new target was acquired.

It dashed towards its new target haphazardly. But before it gained any progress, a pillar of water pinned it with its weight. Soon, that water turned to ice, and it failed to budge when trapped in the icy prison. Despite its immobile state, it heard the one that made this cold shackle.

"Target secure! Lady Schnee, I'd appreciate assistance." Said the second member of team ARBL, River. She stood atop her pillar of ice created by her weapon of choice: a surfboard. She looked down at the young woman in white, "Please. From what I've seen, it'll be a matter of time before it breaks out of the Freeze Dust. A Glyph will go a long way!"

Weiss looked at the Atlesian that asked for her help. She knew what the Atlesian said was truth. The beast that was Naruto had too much brute strength; an ice prison made of Dust can't last. Not for long. Weiss stared at Naruto's frozen form, and felt conflicted. Those beastly eyes radiated fury of which she'd never experienced firsthand. It was a raw emotion that overwhelmed Weiss. She took a step forward. Naruto's eyes locked onto her. A paralyzing chill ran along her spine. That raw emotion she felt converged on her. Naruto's fury was aimed at her, and for a reason she didn't know.

What she did know was that Naruto needed to be at peace. She needed to give him tranquility. Steel resolve allowed her to pull Myrtenaster from her side. She flared her Aura and the flame bestowed upon her on her blade. Her sword's blade glowed blue like water's surface. 'Return to your normal self, Naruto!' She pleaded internally with her firm grip on her weapon slowly increasing in constriction in her left hand. She held her blade in a reverse grip before she stabbed it into the ground.

A giant glyph emerged underneath the pillar of ice. The sudden inclusion of a glyph prompted River to leap off of her creation to not be in the crossfire. Nine fiery rings of water, each slightly larger in circumference with the glyph being the larges one in size, wrapped around the ice. The rings expanded in size in waves that pulsated much like a heartbeat. Soon the flames Weiss created engulfed the ice. With a twist of her blade, Weiss froze her flames.

Behind her, she overheard the final member of the Atlesian team worry over her leader. A small exchange on the topic of the leader's status was quickly dismissed in favor of the threat Weiss immobilized.

Neptune was quite surprised by the display. "Y-You did it!" He exclaimed.

Jaune stood by Weiss's side. "You okay? Looked like a lot of effort."

Weiss stood up with that usual trained poise. "I'm fine, Jaune. Though I fear my efforts are wasted." The fury that was aimed towards her grew tenfold. It was immobilizing and fearsome; however, Weiss still didn't understand why was such hate aimed at her. The two of them sorted out their issues, so why did Naruto have this feral rage? What caused this transformation?

The ice that bounded Naruto into place cracked. Her fears were rightfully placed.

The moment the beast laid its eyes on that woman in white with the red moon behind her, its blood boiled. That damnable woman was the cause! Its friends were gone all because of her! Every muscle in its body roared to move. Its power seeped through its fingers. Its hands glowed with an awesome, yet fearsome power. Its burning grip melted the ice. Fists clenched, two pairs of jetted flame tore through the ice. Propelled by its flames, the beast charged at that woman despite its hindered state. Clad in ice, it hoped to barrel through its obstacles by brute force.

However, that fool that tried to surprise it came forward with cocked fist in tow. The two made contact with a mighty impact. Yet much to its surprise, both of them refused to move; the pest stopped its advance. And he did so by embedding his feet into the ground through a super concentrated blast of air to anchor him. That alone confused the beast from further moving with its propulsion through flame. Given the chance because of its confusion, the pest gave a left hook that shoved the beast away along with a chunk of the ice. When it stopped sliding away, it realized it could move somewhat.

It tore through the ice, and let it's right hand claw the ground. The searing heat of its skin, finally exposed from the ice, steamed in the crisp night air. A stray name was tied to that woman. 'Ka...uy...' It mentally muttered. The utter of the name raised its fury. It pushed its left hand through the ice. Then the rest of its body broke through. Upon release, it roared to the heavens; its despair, rage, and hate clearly expressed for all to hear. The air around it burned. Stray embers floated around it while a tiny blaze scorched the grass. Its rage swelled to new levels. It lashed out even more like a feral beast because it hated what was reminded. Its emotions were erratic because of the memories forced upon without consent.

The area around it suffered its wrath much like the land did during the battle that replayed in its head. And proportional to the amount of rage it released, eight more tails emerged to give total of nine. It presented its new additions much like a peacock, and it stared at their dumbfounded expressions before it roared at them. "KAAAAAHGGGRRRHHHAAAAA-#^$%^&*(:}{=-[],/.{P!"

What sounded like gibberish to most was three incoherent syllables to Jaune. And it was obvious enough to him that Naruto's eyes were targeted at Weiss. Jaune wanted to know why out of all the people Naruto lashed out at, Weiss was the one that got the worst reaction. 'Who did Naruto hate with such a passion that he'd mistake Weiss for whoever?' He asked himself. Naruto charged, which broke Jaune out of his thoughts. The Arc knew he wasn't quick, but he was the closest to Weiss. 'I'm the only one that can't get hurt by stopping him either...' Jaune bolted in front of Weiss, who was shocked by his action.

"What are you doing?!" Weiss shouted.

"Stay behind me!" Jaune ordered.

"You'll-"

"Trust me!" Jaune shouted as he raised his shield, and pushed forward to make contact with Naruto's fist.

Weiss expected Jaune to fly away. Despite progress, Jaune didn't have the strength to counter Naruto's brutish blows. It'd take a miracle for him to just remain standing after one attack. So when she heard the loudest explosion yet, she readily expected Jaune to be by the main courtyard or at least far behind her. What she got instead was a visible shockwave of flames and power. And at its epicenter, Jaune stood valiantly with his mighty shield.

Jaune used his Semblance. Though instead of pushing Naruto away, Jaune made the energy fly outwards from the point of impact. It resulted in a trench just in front of Jaune's feet along with a depression on the third year building's walls. Though he cared little for that. He cared that Naruto was open! Jaune firmly gripped his sword, and slashed at Naruto the moment he moved his shield to the left. The sword failed to cut through the Aura of flames. Though he didn't falter. He gave a flurry of slashes with a speed he never knew he had. The blade dug as deep as it could go against the protective force. But he knew his offensive presence wasn't going to last. He brought his shield up to the fox head like an uppercut. "Any takers?!" He asked.

"Watch your head!" Neptune warned. Jaune ducked and moved out of the way. The blue-haired Haven student swung his Guandao at Naruto's chest. He kept the momentum of the swing alive by spinning it around his neck to keep up his combo of horizontal swings. When he stopped, he spun in place while he twirled his polearm once before he swung it down on Naruto's head like an axe. The impact of head to ground was enough to make Naruto bounce off of it. It gave Neptune a chance to change his weapon into gun form to unload a full clip of Shock Dust. He whistled someone over as a signal that he's done with his attack.

"Coming through!" Said the Atlesian surfer, who rode on her hovering surfboard with blades attached to the sides. Her back foot repositioned so that her toes and heel were perpendicular to the sides of the board, and made the board spin clockwise rapidly. It was intentional on her part, and allowed her multiple hits as if she was a human saw blade. She spun faster and faster, and managed to stay on her board only because her shoes were magnetized to it. Her front foot pressed down, and released water from the Dust fitted underneath the board. Not a moment too soon, she twisted her foot to make it parallel to her back foot; the result lead to a spiral dome of ice. She pushed off of the ice, and took the board off of her feet. Her hand met a panel on at the middle of her board, and compacted it to something else entirely. She showed her weapon's other form, a trident. She looked at Neptune. "Blue dude! Tag team!" She landed next to him, and watched as his Guandao split into a trident. She whistled. "Never mind. I'm calling you, Trident buddy. Let's do this!" The pair of trident users repeatedly stabbed through the ice, and chiseled away at what they hoped was Naruto's Aura.

"River, swap out!" Alabaster ordered. The trident users stepped aside the moment they heard a blast behind them. Alabaster cocked a fist, and punched Naruto's fox face to the ground. The impact bounced the beast-like Naruto off of the ground. Alabaster threw a flurry of what normal people considered devastating blows. His punches were cannons. Every hit displaced the air. His pilebunkers, attached to his forearms were the cause of such displacement. Compressed air ejected out of the back like cannons. The nail propelled by such a force quadrupled the Atlesian's striking power. Each blow pushed his opponent away. So in order to stop that, he stepped on one of Naruto's feet. "Braende! Double time!"

The final member of the team went behind Naruto, and added to the pummeling. Her palms, coated by Burn Dust, struck joints, spine, shoulder blades, and nape in rapid and consecutive successions. In conjunction with Alabaster's crippling strikes, Braende's strategic placement could render movement useless normally. This wasn't one of those circumstances, and both knew the situation was such. Every blow was calculated to aim for potential weaknesses that never appeared. The best either hoped for was any of their attacks to visibly affect Naruto's ominous cloak of Aura. "Al, permission to use?" She shouted as she continued her assault.

"Are you positive?"

"Yes!"

Alabaster gave a deafening left uppercut to Naruto's stomach. "Use it!" He shouted before he jumped out of the way.

Braende placed her elbows just to her sides. Her elbows locked together with a canister full of Burn Dust. She instantly made use of the Dust, and made her hands glow with an awesome power. The glow was blinding; it was white hot. Braende shot her hands up into the sky, and released those flames from her grasp. The white hot intensity was lost immediately; however, the chaotic storm of lightning-like flame coupled with a somewhat distinct shape (a blade) made up for the lack of shine. Heat was another characteristic of the attack. The grass around her burned; the soil dried as if it was in a drought; and stray arcs of flame danced along the length of the construct. The redhead pyro winced as her burning grip blazed her palms. "OUT OF THE BLAST ZONE!" She ordered to Jaune, Weiss, and Neptune. The people she addressed eagerly moved out of the way to give her room. She looked upon the beast that was Naruto. She watched him recover, and faced her, the immediate threat. She stepped forward and roared as she swung down the blade of her own brand of calamity.

The beast clapped its hands together. In between its palms was the pillar of flame that the new pest tried to attack it with. The heat wasn't anything to worry about. Rather than worry, it absorbed the flames! In its hands was a singularity of an inferno the grew in size with each moment. The foolish pest attempted to burn it, and it'd gladly take her effort to use as its own power. The singularity became something else: a miniature sun in its hands. In one more surge of absorption, the attack was no more except fuel for its own new one. Like a mimc, it mirrored the red pest's attack form. It gleefully swung down the miniature sun on the fool.

However, just before its line of sight was obscured, it saw something rushed in front of the pest. Something white.

Jaune threw away logic. All he knew was that he needed to stop Naruto's attack. He ran in front of the girl that attempted a large attack to block the incoming one. All he thought of during that time was to keep any threat away. Not a second later, a mighty explosion happened away from his shield. Jaune knew to go in for the attack at that moment. He compressed his shield, sheathed his sword inside the scabbard/shield, and flared his aura into his weapon. The entirety of the scabbard was engulfed in light that was larger and wider than it. He set the blade to his right. Jaune idly thought how stupid this was as Naruto rolled once before inevitably recovering. Two hands on the handle, Jaune ran and dragged the tip of the blade on the ground. He ducked under a swipe then retaliated in response. The blade arced upwards, dug as deep as it could go into the Aura of flames, and slammed up Naruto's chin. Jaune was quite surprised he staggered him so. He turned his back on Naruto for a second. Then, he jumped backwards while he twisted his body. He made sure to swing with all of his strength in order to hammer it into Naruto's skull to wake up. Blade on his left shoulder, he swung down on Naruto's fox head with Semblance activated.

Naruto fell face first in a large, yet shallow flat pit.

Jaune was at the edge of that pit. He watched Naruto remained unresponsive for a few seconds. Jaune didn't expect Naruto to just rocket towards him with ball of destruction ready to fire out of his fox mouth. He kept his sword in front of him to defend. And when Naruto got closer to him, he was mildly surprised when Naruto was muzzled by one of Weiss's glyphs. He wasn't surprised when Naruto was restrained from head to tails with glyphs.

Naruto flopped on the ground like a fish out of water. Thought that image got destroyed immediately when he broke through Weiss's glyphs effortlessly. He turned to her for being the major annoyance. And it was there that Naruto made a mistake.

The beast's view of that damnable woman was obscured by a white shield that smacked its face. Immediately, it knew it was airborne. And before it could fly to recover, it was grounded. It tore up the ground like a meteorite did on an angular impact. It bounced repeatedly before it rolled into a large tree, and toppled it down with its body. It quickly got up to find its surroundings drastically changed from something unfamiliar into one that it felt at home in. Nature was all around it; nothing was disturbed.

A forest to it was home. It didn't know why, but it just felt right. Its erratic movement slowed to a crawl. Its growls were turned into rhythmic breathing. The tails that lashed out at anything were relaxed. Its eyes caught something that floated down. A leaf. Yes. It remembered. A "Leaf" was its home. Quickly, it dragged a finger into the ground, and drew a diagonal line that spiraled inwards with a small triangle directly opposite of the starting diagonal line. It drew "Leaf". It drew home. The beast mellowed out, and sat there blissfully. It was home.

No.

He was home.

Jaune and Weiss ran towards Emerald Forest. They agreed to leave Neptune behind to persuade them to not pursue. It wasn't hard in their eyes. A threat this large wasn't about to be ignored by far more experienced teachers and administrators. Neptune himself agreed that he'd stay to help the Atlesians -especially the one slammed literally six feet into the ground with a couple of punches. The two in pursuit also told Neptune that he direct the rest of teams RWBY and JNPR to Emerald forest if they ever came to look for either Weiss or Jaune.

The pair reached the edge of Beacon campus, where the cliff defined campus versus Emerald Forest. It was also where both Jaune and Weiss took their initiation test to properly become a student of Beacon Academy. Jaune gulped at the thought of using the launch pads again. Weiss herself was more uneasy about Naruto's hate for her.

Though, there were more important things to think about. She turned to Jaune. "How did you make Naruto go all the way to the forest with a shield bash?"

"...Semblance." Jaune replied hesitantly. Hesitantly because he took after Pyrrha's lesson of 'Using a Semblance as a trump card for emergencies'.

Weiss was quite surprised to hear that. "Reflection upon contact?" She guessed. Jaune tilted his head side to side in a 'so-so' manner. Weiss crossed her arms, and nodded. "I'm impressed. Oddly suits you I suppose." She half-heartedly complimented.

Jaune started the back of his head. "...Um. Shouldn't we be heading off to find Naruto?"

Weiss called her locker. "Not without getting ourselves fully equipped first." She told him. "We're lucky we got backup. Now that it's the two of us, we can't afford to be unprepared. Understand?"

"Gotcha." Jaune called his locker to do the same thing Weiss did.

Their lockers landed in front of them, and they proceeded to take what they needed. Weiss took more Dust. Jaune took his armor. The one thing they also took out were their battle attire. They noticed the other reached out for their particular attire, and blanched at the idea. Weiss was quick to erect a wall of ice in between the two of them with her remaining Freeze Dust in Myrtenaster.

"Don't you dare take a peek!" She shouted at Jaune from behind her wall of ice.

Jaune looked at how big the wall of ice was. If he wanted to take a peek, then he'd need to make the effort to do it. Plus he was pretty sure that Weiss kept an eye on the edge of the wall, where, if he was a perky idiot, would walk through to die for his desire to peek at Weiss. He instead took the safe route. "Might as well gear up properly..." He muttered as he took off his uniform blazer.

"I'm going." Glynda declared.

"No one is stopping you, Glynda." Ozpin told her as he stood up from his chair. "Though I must say to take care of yourself. I've heard that your son is friends with Miss Schnee and Mister Arc." He motioned to the holoscreens. "As you've seen, he wasn't hesitant in attempting to destroy the both of them. In fact, he showed far more disdain for Miss Schnee compared to what his previous altercation with her was like." He cleared his throat. "How he reacts to you...I have no clue. So please...take great caution in your approach." He pleaded with the woman. "I'm sure Minato would say the same to you."

Glynda stared at Ozpin with surprise clearly on her face. "...Thank you for your concern. I'll be sure to keep your words in mind, Ozpin." She slowly stepped backwards, and exited Ozpin's office.

Ozpin waited for Glynda to leave, then called Ironwood. "James... Whatever you do. Do not attack. It's been ten minutes, and there's no disturbances. Let my students and staff handle it. From what I've seen, they've done that quite effectively, and quelled the threat this long." He waited for a response. "...James?"

"Very well. I'll trust you. But...if there's any sign of combat between your students and this threat...without any hope of stopping it anytime soon..."

Ozpin nodded. "I'm fully aware of what you're capable of, James. Even worse, I know what your army is capable of. It's what I'm afraid of, actually." He admitted to his ally. "Just please...no rash actions." He requested from the military leader.

"Understood."

Yang, Blake, and Ruby ran to the site of where there was the most amount of combat. The three were stunned by the indiscriminate destruction of the area. None of them knew who or what did this. Instinct told them Grimm, but this was something beyond that. With how much fire there was, Grimm wasn't the cause of the destruction. They looked over the partially inactive Atlesian team; their aviator was down and out while the other, their red-themed teammate was more than winded -even threatened to pass out while she rested beside her unconscious teammate.

Yang noticed another person, or rather a pair. "Neptune! Sun!" She shouted. The people in question ran to them. "What happened?" She asked them when the pair were in front of Yang. "Who or What did this?!" Ruby and Blake paralleled her worries by asking similar questions or expanded further from Yang's own.

"It was Naruto." Neptune told the three. "At least that's what Jaune told us before Weiss confirmed it was him." His response was met with silence. Suddenly, he was grabbed by the collar of his jacket. "Woah! Yang! Wha-?"

"What do you MEAN Naruto did THIS?!" She shouted at Neptune while she stared him down with her furious red eyes. "He'd never do this!" She denied Neptune's claim. "Not him! You've got this all wrong!"

"Yang!" Blake shouted at her partner. "YANG!"

"Hey! Hands off, Goldie!" Sun shouted as well as he tried to make Yang release his partner.

"What do you want me to tell you?!" Neptune asked rhetorically. "That Jaune lied? That Weiss lied? That Naruto didn't beat someone into unconsciousness, and made someone else exhaust another to a similar state?!"

"I want to hear the TRUTH!" Yang told him.

"I did! You just can't handle it!"

"Bullshit!"

"Yang!" Ruby tugged one of Yang's arms away from Neptune. She kept that other arm away to give Neptune some needed breathing room while Blake did the same to the other arm. "Stop this! Neptune isn't who you're supposed to be mad at! What if he's right? What if something happened to Naruto? What if something made him go berserk like last time?"

"Something did make him go berserk." Someone said. Yang, Ruby, and Blake looked at the person who said it: Pyrrha, accompanied by Glynda Goodwitch and the rest of team JNPR. "I should know. I was there when he lost his sanity, and...did this." She herself was uncomfortable at the thought of Naruto doing so much destruction with the lack of his sanity. "I myself don't understand why he went crazy, but I think looking at the lunar eclipse did it."

Yang's arms were released. When she heard Pyrrha's words, she wanted answers. "So what? Naruto's a were-something now?" She asked Pyrrha in a demanding tone.

"From what I've seen, he's become enveloped in his Aura, that took the form of a nine-tailed fox." Glynda said to enter into the conversation.

Ruby tilted her head in confusion. "Like the legend of the Nine Grimm?"

"...Yes. Just like the Ninth of that tale." Glynda answered uneasily. "He took the...form of the Ninth Grimm that fought the Hero..." She trailed off, and snapped her head towards the red moon.

Blake replayed the instructor's words repeatedly. She read her fair share of legends. She also read her fair share about the "Hero". "The Hero...and the Nine legendary Grimm." She muttered. She walked back and forth, and caused the others to look at her strangely. She recited in her head what she remembered from that tale she read long ago.

Once upon a time, the world knew fire, and the Hero and the Nine Great Beasts were the only ones that saw and lived through it. The world died, and was remade anew. New plants grew over the once barren soil, and animals roamed the world like before the calamity. Soon, humans came as well. The Hero remembered his duty to protect Humanity and a newer race, the Faunus, from extinction. He helped them build their society, and left them to live on their own. And for centuries, this lasted. But that changed when the moon shattered, and bled red.

The blackest ooze rained down on the world, but strangely enough, nothing was tainted. The trees and grasslands didn't wilt. The animals weren't plagued with a new disease or dissolved into bones. Humans and Faunus themselves weren't affected. The world was fine. The Hero knew the world was fine; however, his friends were not. The Great Beasts he befriended in a time long before the calamity were corrupted by the ooze the fell from the broken red moon. Their skin turned black like the ooze that rained. Their minds were degraded into something less than sentient. They were mindless beasts of destruction.

For nine days, the Hero fought one beast a day. Each attempt to purify failed. Each attempt led to more violent bouts. Each attempt led to heartache. On the final day and on the final beast, the Hero used his powers bestowed since birth to take the form of his oldest friend. He took the form of the Nine-tailed Fox.

Blake looked to the others. "Does anyone know the name of the Hero?!" She blurted out.

Ruby asked. "What does that have to do with the problem right now?"

Blake looked at everyone in front of her. "The Hero fought the Great Beasts that became what other text regard as the Legendary Grimm corrupted by a red moon that shattered. On the ninth and final day of battle against the corrupted beasts, the Hero took the form of his oldest friend, the ninth beast, the Nine-Tailed Fox and fought!" She let that information sink in. "Look at this setting! Lunar eclipse! Golden orange Nine-Tailed Fox!"

Neptune barged into the conversation. "Wait! Are you saying-"

"-What is the Hero's name?!" Blake asked everyone.

"...Naruto." Surprisingly it was Ren, Nora, and Sun who replied. In sync too.

Everyone's eyes were on the trio. Blake, Glynda, and Pyrrha were the least surprised. But to the rest, their expressions told it all: How do you know that?

Ren answered the unuttered question. "Vacuo loves its legends -especially if it's about the Hero. There, the Hero is regarded as a god of this world; however, there is yet to be a religion surrounding the Hero."

Nora spoke next. "What matters is that people of Vacuo know that Naruto is the name of the Hero, and he's the one that helped people along long before Dust was a thing!"

"While I see where you're going with this, Blake. Naruto is a relatively common name in regards to people named after heroes." Sun explained. "In Vacuo, that is a common themed name. And what works is that the Hero was always depicted wearing the color orange -so in a sense, naming a kid Naruto was equal to naming him or her orange."

"Look, Sun! This isn't just some coincidence." Blake told him. "These are connections!"

"To what? You believe in reincarnation?" Sun asked. "You believe the Hero made shells to place souls collected by the God of Death, and let souls of old take possession of said shells?" Sun walked towards Blake. "Vacuo may love its legends, but even they aren't so faithful to that idea you're implying! They don't believe that the world is filled with people long since dead from...from a bygone era! The best result you'll get out of anyone from the Kingdom of Vacuo is that some poor old dude who knew how to tell a story made one best-seller about a Hero that remade the world after it was once destroyed."

Ren nodded in agreement. "Reincarnation is a steep claim to have, Blake."

The Cat Faunus bristled at the dismissal of her idea. She wanted to say something.

"SHHHHUUUUUUUUT UUUUUUUPPP!" Ruby shouted at the top of her lungs. "Naruto's in trouble, and you're all taking about anything not related on how to get him back to normal!" She turned around, and headed for the Emerald forest. "I'm going to help him. If you want to talk about some stories, do that in some book club or a campfire! Don't do it in a battlefield!" She ran to the forest without ever looking back. Yang, Pyrrha, and Glynda were the next ones to follow. The remaining few were left alone; the pace of the conversation derailed by a simple voice of reason.

"Ruby's right!" Nora agreed to what the reaper said. "We can talk about this later! What's important is that we help Naruru out now!" She bolted for the forest as well. Ren chased after her.

"...You should go." Sun told Blake. "Your team will need you."

"We're staying here." Neptune said. "We're sure you'll be able to handle it."

Not a second later, a titanic pillar of flame emerged from the heart of the Emerald forest.

And done! How's this chapter? Sorry it took a while. Still getting oriented with workload for my new classes. Still I hope this is a sufficient chapter? Was it enjoyable? Frustrating? Lemme know. If you still don't understand why Naruto's like this...think of the lunar eclipse as the trigger to his 'PTSD'.

So review, follow, favorite, I don't care.

This is Azure signing off.