Sorry for the wait guys. Classes got in the way and I'm also starting to look into jobs yet again, albeit reluctantly. Kind of worried over the impact working a part time job could have on my classes and the assignments for them and all that jazz. Hopefully, if I do get a part time job, I'll be able to balance things out…

Well, as is my usual lately, not that much for me to really say other than the latest in my life. That and as always thank you for your continued favorites and follows of not just this fic, but some of my other fics as well. Seriously, you guys freakin' rock.

But with my usual silly nonsense out of the way… onto something much, much more serious.

Monty Oum has passed away.

God damn it all. I've read up on the guy when I first got into RWBY and I couldn't help but immediately come to admire and respect him greatly. Dude dropped out of high school. Can you believe that? He went on to do so well in life and with such dedication and such an immense work ethic that I could only watch RWBY in awe as I kept those facts in mind. And now… he's gone. Well, he definitely won't be forgotten; his close friends at Rooster Teeth said that the best way any of his fans could hope to honor him would be by going out and doing something creative. So now I have one more reason to continue writing my fics and getting my personal story published; not just because I simply enjoy writing and having you guys enjoy it too, but also for Monty as well.

So with that said, please enjoy this chapter after a few moments of silence for Monty Oum. He will be dearly missed by all of his fans.

Chapter 13

Naruto wasn't in the best of moods today. Usually, this could easily be chalked up to one of the many rumors that had come to circle around him, thereby tarnishing or in some cases elevating his reputation and in either case it was never a good thing.

But his somewhat sour mood wasn't the result of yet another rumor floating about, but rather born of something much more serious.

It's been just a few days since Miki and team RWBY had returned from their mission. And once they had arrived back at the academy and were debriefed, Naruto, Hanako, Ryuichi, Mari, Ozpin, and Glynda had all been very shocked to hear from the five women just what had occurred at the village. More specifically, Miki spoke to them all of the mysterious beast that had tried to ambush her.

And it was that particular fact that had him so worked up in a sense; his wife had just been attacked a few days ago. While Miki was more than capable of taking care of herself, she was still his wife, his loved one. So naturally, to hear that some… some beast had tried to kill her didn't sit very well with him at all. It had taken an effort on his part to keep from unleashing all of his mana in a rage when he had first heard of this. But so far he was able to stay relatively calm.

But what really had him feeling irked was the possibility that this beast may possibly have something to do with these Holy Knights. After all, there was no way some strange creature could just suddenly show up and go after Miki specifically. If it had been the work of another magus, one who was unaware of the going-ons of the world right now, then such a beast would've probably gone for anyone else that it could've spotted. That it went directly for Miki from the get-go was quite telling and it wasn't just Naruto that felt this way; just about everyone else felt the same.

"Calm down please…" Miki gently said to him as she sat across from him at a table in the cafeteria.

"I'm trying to," Naruto replied, rubbing his forehead to try and soothe his growing headache brought on by his anger. "But honestly, these Holy Knights are beginning to piss me off." He removed his hand from his forehead and proceeded to slowly look the entire cafeteria over.

He hadn't simply plopped down here by random chance; he had come here during lunch just now in the hopes that the lively chatter of the students all around him would distract him from his current thoughts, but to no real avail. That said, Miki's presence right now actually helped put him at ease. He certainly felt thankful that his wife had decided to take a day off from work today to just hang around him while dressed in her usual dress. Even if the very admiring stares she was garnering from the students as they looked her over in her dress were beginning to annoy him. He supposed he couldn't blame them though because his wife certainly was beautiful.

Miki just smiled softly. "We're not even 100% if that beast is under their control," she pointed out.

"At this point, I don't think we need much evidence to confirm that anyway…" Naruto muttered back, getting his wife's smile to become a bit sheepish. "Well, at least Masami is on the trail…"

Miki could only nod in agreement.

Not too long after team RWBY and Miki had been debriefed, said magus had made calls to the other ancient magi and informed them of what had occurred. Needless to say, they had been just as surprised as Naruto and the others had been. But once the shock quickly wore off, Masami had surprisingly offered to take some time off work to try and track this mysterious beast's trail. After all, with Skinfaxi, she is able to ascertain the locations of magi and in general locate other mana signatures. Over the centuries, the almost ethereally beautiful magus had managed to increase her skill with Skinfaxi to a point where she could follow a trail left behind by a magus or anything else with a mana signature not unlike how tracker shinobi from the shinobi era could track a target with the smallest of clues to guide them.

She had left to go and find the village to begin her search not long after Miki had first called her. And so far, they've yet to hear anything from the woman. Both Naruto and Miki hoped that Masami was fine.

"All we can do now is just hope she can find out where that thing went," Miki spoke up.

"And then…" Naruto began, cracking his knuckles slightly. "If we're lucky, she'll end up tracking it back to wherever the Holy Knights are holed up. Maybe then we could end this before they make another move."

His wife could only nod in agreement, hoping to end this entire situation before it could potentially spiral out of hand and hurt innocent people. "Masami, I hope you can work a miracle…" she thought.

Elsewhere, in a dense forest leading up to a mountain, Masami sneezed lightly. "My, my, it seems like I may have just been mentioned…" she commented with a bit of a smile as she adjusted her evening gloves, which happened to be her magical weapon: Stringload.

Slowly yet surely, she's been spending these past few days tracking Surma's trail, not that she knew the sentient Relic's name. It had been a tad bit difficult for her to do so, even with Skinfaxi due to the strange nature of Surma. While the signature she had been following was certainly one of mana, it had an artificial feel to it, thereby establishing to the woman that the beast truly was under the control of the Holy Knights. She felt that perhaps it wouldn't be too out of line to admire them momentarily for however they went about creating such a beast: because it was an artificial being born from equally artificial mana, her Skinfaxi wasn't as effective as it'd normally be, making it hard to truly track its exact path.

Still, she's had centuries to hone her own tracking skills separate from that of her magical weapon and it was serving her well right now as she made her way through the forestry, taking note of the smallest of things; a broken twig here, some disturbed dirt there… it would seem to her that it was at around this point that the creature began to slow as its physical trail became increasingly obvious.

"It must've been slowing down for a reason," Masami silently pondered. A smirk appeared on her face. Taking into account how much mana this creature must've had, it definitely didn't slow down because it was feeling tired. And she could detect any other signatures or signs of life in the area. "Which can only means I'm approaching their base, perhaps?" she thought with a hint of excitement.

While she couldn't sense anything else, it was the only thing that made sense to her. This forest was completely devoid of wild life and Surma's tracks were the only ones she could spot going anywhere. And she doubted that the Holy Knights would simply have it slow down for no real reason, assuming they commanded it to slow down at all.

"In which… just where would they be hiding?" Masami pondered this aloud as she kept on walking straight towards the mountain. And it was as it came closer into view that her eyes widened. "But of course… it has to be hidden there somehow."

Readying Stringload, she swiped her red strings at the mountainside. She was immediately rewarded with a deep gouge in the mountain. But what had really gotten her attention was one particular spot that had sounded like scratching metal when she had sliced into it.

"Aha…" Masami allowed herself a triumphant smirk as she walked towards the source of the noise, looking as part of the 'mountainside' was cut away to reveal what looked like a large metal door. "How clever of them. Now, let's see what lies inside…"

With another quick swipe of Stringload, Masami reduced the uncovered door to thousands of pieces before entering. She couldn't wait to see just what she'd find here at the end of her search.

Elsewhere, the Holy Knights were still in the process of fully setting up their equipment and other items at Cinder's current base, which is where a number of the White Fang and Roman happened to be at right now.

Said members of the White Fang couldn't help but stop what they were doing as they saw Heracles along with Lugh and Morgan walk alongside one another, deep in discussion over something while the first seat carried some unknown object in his large hands. Further off to the side, they could see Indra quietly escorting Kalma to her new room, with Surma, having caught up to them not too long after running away from the village, following behind her not unlike how a guard dog would follow its charge.

Even Roman, usually a talkative man, could only watch the Holy Knights move about in complete silence, quietly taking a puff of a cigar as he then shifted his gaze to the two people who seemed content enough to simply remain in one place talking things out.

Cinder and this so called captain of the Holy Knights.

Roman wasn't sure what to make of the latter of the two. Standing at roughly the same height as Roman himself, this captain of the Holy Knights appeared dressed in the same sort of military styled uniform the Holy Knights wore, said clothing being just snug enough to see that the man kept himself in top physical shape. But that was really all Roman could make of the captain, for he wore some kind of strange mask over his face, obscuring even most of his hair too.

"Well, how about I find out more personally?" the criminal thought as he then decided to approach the two speakers. "So you're Cindy's little friend, eh? Mind if I ask why you're suddenly moving in with us?" he asked the captain.

For the briefest of seconds, Cinder directed a fierce glare at Roman, one so fiery that if looks could kill, the criminal mastermind would be little more than atomic ash right now. But she stopped her glaring when the captain of the Holy Knights subtly motioned with his hand for her to calm down.

"You're the one called Torchwick, I see… Amaterasu here – ah, Cinder, that is – has told a far bit about you," the captain replied cordially, nodding to Roman in greeting. He didn't seem even remotely fazed by the somewhat antagonistic gaze that Roman was giving him. "If it wasn't for you, I'd never have so much Dust at hand for my experiments. You have my thanks." He bowed lightly to the criminal, taking the man just a bit by surprise.

"Yeah, yeah…" Roman quickly regained his composure and pointed Melodic Cudgel at the captain. "How about as thanks, you answer my question?"

"I suppose you could say some complications arose," answered the captain. The man shrugged. "Nothing really serious, but nonetheless I felt it best to relocate to be on the safe side. I'm sure that's something you can understand."

At that, Roman let out a growl of growing frustration. "I'll give that you much; I can agree with that. But it sure would be nice if maybe I knew just a bit more about what it is you and your underlings are really up to." Roman took just a bit of joy at the brief flash of annoyance on Cinder's face as he said the word 'underling.' "How does that feel, you bitch?" he thought in triumph.

"Roman, Roman…" Cinder now spoke with a predatory smile. "Just what have I told you about this, hmm? Plausible deniability. Can't have you knowing too much if you ever get caught."

At those words, the captain of the Holy Knights nodded. "She raises a valid point, boy. I can hardly just tell you what our goals and exact plans are. Especially since our enemies are… well, let's just say they're far from easy to deal with. Which is partially why I'm so hard at work on my experiments still."

Roman stared at the captain, his gaze unflinching and inquisitive. The captain didn't so much as flinch, let alone react at all at the smoldering gaze. "So." Roman's voice now had a much harsher vibe to it. Clearly, the man was tired of all this secrecy. Considering the sort of risks he's had to take thus far and most likely will have to take again in the future, he felt had a right to know at least partially what these Holy Knights had planned. But so far, it seemed like they didn't quite have the same train of thought he just did.

"So then just why do you need all of that damn Dust?" Roman asked. "Planning to start your own little Dust selling operation or something? Because you sure have enough for that now, don't ya?"

For the first time in a long while, the captain actually chuckled a little. "Hardly. Already, my storage of Dust is beginning to rapidly deflate. My experiments require a fair amount each time, you see… that said, I'm coming quite close to achieving what it is I want to achieve, so you can rest easy; we no longer have any need of more Dust. Unless, of course, you wish to start your own Dust selling operation," the captain said in good humor. "I'm sure that are many small time crooks who could use some Dust to be better at committing crimes."

"You little fucker…" Roman now growled. First, this captain keeps him out of the loop. Second, he called him 'boy,' as if he's some sort of newbie. And third, here he was taking a jab at him.

He clenched Melodic Cudgel tightly, preparing to take a swing at the captain. But he stayed his hand quickly enough as he felt something press against his throat. Something sharp.

Slowly looking down, Roman saw a large and ornate looking great-sword pressing itself tightly against his throat, enough to draw just a tad bit of blood. Slowly yet again, Roman directed his gaze upwards, looking to its wielder.

Grasping the hilt of the ornate looking sword, Cinder had a cold smirk on her face and an almost literal fire of anger in her eyes as she glared at the criminal. "Roman…" she began in an almost sickeningly sweet voice as she further pressed her great-sword, called the Kusanagi no Tsurugi, up against his throat. The blade now began to ever so lightly slide its way up towards his chin. "You fancy yourself a pretty big man… but you're not. If you want to keep on breathing, how about you show my master some more respect?"

The woman, who was the fourth seat of the Holy Knights, codenamed Amaterasu, waited a moment longer, taking in the look of genuine fear in Roman's eyes while also taking note of the worried gazes the White Fang members had on their faces. Then with a deliberate, almost sadistic, slowness, Cinder lowered the Kusanagi no Tsurugi, letting Roman breath normally again as the blade had been almost ready to cut open his adam's apple.

"No need to be so violent, my student…" the captain began. "It's only natural that he'd be so curious about what we're doing. But that being said, Roman, we really can't tell you just yet. The complications I mentioned before could possibly get worse. And while I'm certain about my ability to avoid danger along with that of the Holy Knights… well, your ability to fend off our enemies is considerably more… questionable."

"Tch…" Roman rubbed his throat softly, feeling the blood flowing out of the small wound. "Then if you're so worried about me getting caught and blabbing away, how about you give me some extra firepower or something? I'd rather not go down without a fight…"

Roman's words gave the captain some pause. "That… sounds like quite an idea," he eventually said.

This got both Roman and Cinder to look at him in surprise, though for different reasons. "Master?" the latter spoke up. "What do you…?"

"If Roman truly does wish to see this through to the end, then I suppose helping him obtain some more power isn't a bad thing. In fact, it could be beneficial in the long run; strength in numbers." The captain paused for a moment, rubbing his chin in spite of his mask. "Is everything already set up?" he asked his student/apprentice.

"…Yes. I believe Morgan finished setting up the last of the new pieces of equipment just an hour ago," Cinder answered. "The old equipment was left behind at your old base… will that be fine? If anyone were to stumble across it-."

The captain held up a hand, silencing Cinder immediately. "I've already made it a point to disable it. You have nothing to worry about; you and the rest of the Holy Knights will be the only ones running around with a magus-like body and Relics." Then he motioned to Roman. "If you really do want to stick around with us… then by all means, tell me right now. If you say yes… then I'll give the power you need to hold your own against the sort of people we plan to go up against."

He held out a hand for Roman to shake.

It was a hand that Roman eyed very warily. He never had expected this man to take his remark so seriously. But now that it was clear the captain of the Holy Knights wasn't screwing around, Roman had to ask himself this: did he really want to stick around with these Holy Knights? As it is, he's done plenty for them thus far, gathering all of that Dust and throwing off the police. He could hardly think of anything that would be truly beneficial to him if he did stick around.

But.

On the other hand… he was finding himself far too curious about these Holy Knights and what they have planned to simply walk away without a care. Having seen from afar the short battle between Heracles and Ryuichi, he could only inwardly marvel at the sort of power the two of them had briefly demonstrated. If he had that sort of power on his side, the potential for crime was seemingly limitless. Furthermore, Roman could readily admit he could easily hold a grudge… and he didn't quite like how Ryuichi had damn near thrown his Dust operation at the port out the window. If it hadn't been for Heracles, then he very well would've been captured and most likely after Ryuichi thoroughly trounced him and his White Fang goons at that time.

"Not if I can help it, though…" Roman thought as he closed his eyes for a moment.

What felt like hours later, the criminal mastermind finally came to a decision. And so opening his eyes and looking at the captain, he slowly reached out and took the man's hand into his own.

"You've got yourself a deal. Now show me what you've got, old man."

Back at Beacon Academy, several hours have passed since Naruto met with Miki for lunch in the cafeteria – which, much to his increasing bemusement/frustration, sparked yet another rumor about him – and now both teams RWBY and JNPR found themselves standing in the faculty lounge.

"Just why were we called here again?" Ren spoke up quietly.

In response to his question, Ruby shrugged helplessly. "That really pretty lady from the meeting-."

"Masami," Weiss flatly provided.

Ruby nodded her head and continued without missing a beat. "Masami called us up to meet her here. She was coming back from somewhere."

"But why call us?" Jaune now asked, scratching his face as he thought. "I mean, why didn't she just call up professor Namikaze? Or one of his friends or the headmaster?"

"Apparently, professor Namikaze's scroll wasn't working," Blake replied. "And everyone else had other things to attend to as of a little while earlier, so none of them were answering."

"Oh…" Jaune seemed satisfied with the answer.

"So what are we gonna do?" Nora then asked, looking excited. "You think maybe she's bringing something back with her for us to beat up?"

Everyone there gave the girl a slow and evaluating glance over.

"I… highly doubt that, Nora," her longtime friend said.

"Oh my, I hope I haven't kept you all waiting too long."

The suddenly new voice nearly made them all jump and in one perfect moment of synchronization, both teams whirled towards the door in time to see Masami walking in.

"Oh man, you sure gave us-," Yang began, only to suddenly stop as she and the others noticed Masami casually drag into the faculty lounge some large thing. "-a good jump… Just what is that?"

Yang pointed to the thing she had dragged in and everyone else could only agree with the blonde's blunt question.

The thing Masami dragged in appeared to be some form of machinery, though it was unlike anything they've ever seen before. Words simply failed to come to their mind when they tried to describe it to themselves. But what they could agree on was that this strange, perhaps even alien, contraption was quite large, being just big enough to barely squeeze into the room. And whatever sort of purpose it was meant to serve, it must have required some sort of code to be manually inputted if the computer keyboard that seemed to be a part of it was anything to go by.

"This…" Masami began as she silently dismissed Stringload, having used said magical weapon to subtly hoist the machinery off the ground to keep it from scrapping against it. "is something I found in the now empty base of the Holy Knights."

At that statement, everyone's eyes went almost comically wide. "You… managed to find their base?!" Pyrrha asked, the red Amazonian warrior looking downright shocked and even impressed.

"Former base," Masami repeated, a slight smile on her face. "It was quite well hidden within a mountain of all things… but once I found it and entered, it became clear to me that it's been abandoned for a few days now…"

"Few days… so then, they would have left to somewhere else around the same time we returned to Beacon," Weiss then muttered. The heiress clicked her tongue. To think that these Holy Knights managed to get away at around the same time she and her friends/teammates returned in order to brief everyone on the village incident… she had to admit, these Holy Knights appeared to know what they were doing. That being said, she couldn't help but feel angry over this. For their mysterious enemies to just narrowly escape possible capture… it was infuriating.

"It would seem so. But it must have been a close call for them; there was a bit of a mess at the empty base, so clearly they must have left in a hurry," Masami explained as she gently pushed the strange machine towards the center of the faculty lounge.

Teams RWBY and JNPR could only give the machine another look over, both teams glad that they were the only ones here; they could only imagine how any other member of the faculty would react if they were to see this thing.

"And this thing was one of the many objects left behind?" Blake asked.

Masami nodded. "The only one intact anyway and possibly the most important. Admittedly, I'm not an expert in machinery, but from what I was able to gather from looking everything over, this is the main component of whatever they had set up. Everything else was merely support, so to speak." She clapped her hands together. "Now then, as to the reason why I asked you all to meet me here… given that we would much prefer to keep this entire Holy Knight situation under wraps from the student/faculty body and the rest of the public, I need you here to keep a brief eye on this thing for me. Since Naruto-kun was out of contact along with everyone else, I'm going to have to check and see if he's in his room first. And doing that while dragging around this machinery would certainly be eye-fetching."

"I think anyone who sees you will be more entranced by your looks than this thing…" most of the students there thought quietly to themselves.

"So in other words," Yang then spoke. "You want us as lookouts for this?" She gave the machine a light tap with her index finger.

"Why though? It's not as if students or a professor are going to be coming here this late," Jaune spoke up right afterwards.

"In all likelihood, you would be correct," Masami said as she looked to Jaune. She smiled beautifully at him, making his heart skip a few beats while his face took on a reddish hue. This smile also had the effect of making Pyrrha give her the stink eye, though the redhead didn't know she was doing such a thing. "Still, in this situation, it's always best to be safe than sorry, yes?"

She then looked to everyone else and waited patiently for any kind of reply. When all of them reluctantly ended up nodding their heads, Masami chuckled lightly. "Good. Now would any of you know just where exactly Naruto-kun's room would be? It had slipped my mind to ask him last time."

"Uh, since he's a professor, his room is probably in the professor dorms…" Jaune began.

"And would you happen to know the way there?" Masami asked, looking to him again.

"Ah yeah…" Jaune smiled sheepishly. "One day I got lost and kind of wandered over there by accident…"

His words prompted a good nature snort from Weiss, who lightly whispered 'dork' under her breath while Ruby giggled and his teammates smiled just a bit as they recalled when Jaune had returned to their dorm, looking embarrassed.

But they all ceased their good natured snickering when Masami spoke again. "That's good. Then you can escort me there," she said with a dazzling smile as she suddenly went up to Jaune and linked her right arm with his left arm.

"H-H-Huh?!" Jaune stuttered out, his mind blanking as he felt his arm get squished into the side of her right breast.

"Come now, good sir," Masami said with a little laugh. "Please show me the way."

And before anyone, as stupefied as they were, could say or do anything, Masami walked out of the faculty lounge, all but dragging Jaune along with her.

Silence reigned supreme in the room for a good minute or two before it was finally broken. "…So." Yang, unsurprisingly, was the first one to speak up. "That sure was unexpected. Guess the ladykiller might have some moves on him after all…" She started to laugh awkwardly.

"I… I think it was more of the other way around right now…" Blake replied to her partner's words.

"And another note," Ren chipped in, slowly approaching the blond and black haired huntress duo. "Perhaps you could avoid saying things like that around Pyrrha…" he whispered quietly as he motioned to the redhead in question.

Whether it was a conscious or unconscious action on her part, Pyrrha's fists were tightly clenched, her mouth morphed into a partial grimace and partial frown while she glared white hot death at the now closed faculty lounge door. Her gaze was so intense that Ruby, who happened to be near her, could only cower away like an adorable and easily scared puppy.

"Err, right," Yang agreed. The last thing they all needed was for the redhead to start throwing around her weapons in the faculty lounge. That certainly would be hard to explain to anyone not in the know of magi and the Holy Knights.

"That aside," Weiss spoke up, getting everyone's attention. "Just what could this piece of junk really be?" In a methodical fashion, she slowly paced around the machine in the middle of the room, her ice blue eyes carefully looking it over.

"Dunno. Maybe some crazy experiment thing?" Ruby asked as she also began to circle the machine, albeit at a faster pace than Weiss. The wonders of having a speed semblance.

"Oh, oh! Like a mad scientist sort of thing, maybe?!" Nora nearly exclaimed, sounding excited. She was all but leaping in interest. "Just like something out of a book!"

"I… doubt that, Nora," Pyrrha replied, finally regaining her composure. Having seen Masami suddenly latch onto Jaune like that had really taken her by surprise and definitely didn't leave her feeling in that great a mood. The fact that Jaune had been blushing like an adolescent boy meeting his precocious crush hadn't helped her mood at all.

"Well, we won't know until we find out, right?" Nora said with a gleam in her eyes as she walked up to the machine.

The look in her eyes immediately put everyone on edge. "Nora." Ren, the one to always keep her under control, now sounded quite stern. "What do you think you're doing?"

"Just wanna see what'll happen if I press one of the buttons…" Nora said with a child-like smile as she approached the keyboard.

Immediately, Ren and Pyrrha rushed forward and grabbed her, trying to pull her back as she reached out to press a button. "That's not a good idea, Nora!" Pyrrha exclaimed. While this piece of machinery was all on its lonesome, she'd rather not risk having Nora break it, which would probably be likely given her usual disposition.

"Aw, just one button!" Nora pleaded as she tried to break free of her friends' grasp, but to no avail. Still, the girl had enough strength about her to make pulling her back a rather hard task for the two more level headed members of team JNPR.

"Girls, some help… please…" Ren said to team RWBY.

"Eh, what's the harm?" Yang, who was almost as lively as Nora usually is, spoke up. She had a playful grin on her face as she suddenly walked up to the keyboard. "Not like it'll explode right? It's already disconnected!"

"Wait, Yang, don-!" Blake began as she began to hurry forward to grab her partner.

Only to stop as Yang suddenly pressed one of the buttons.

Everyone there, even Nora, froze for one brief second, anticipating something to happen. But nothing did.

"Awww… I guess it really is busted." Nora's enthusiasm from moments ago vanished instantly as nothing happened. Meanwhile, behind her, her two teammates looked relieved.

As for team RWBY, both Weiss and Blake all but glared at Yang, the blond now having the decency to look embarrassed. "Do you want us all to possibly get hurt?" the Schnee heiress began, placing her hands on her hips.

"Ehe, well we didn't, right?" Yang replied as she lightly reared back her fist and gave the keyboard a little 'bop.' "It's still in one pie-."

Then the machine exploded, unleashing a flash of a strange and blinding light, engulfing teams RWBY and JNPR.

All of them could only scream out in shock as it happened.

Meanwhile, just a few minutes before this happened, with Jaune and Masami, the two had been slowly making their way towards where they hoped to find Naruto or anyone else really. Jaune, despite liking to give off an air of a confident and smoother talker, was finding himself growing flustered with every passing minute that he spent in Masami's presence.

"Uhmmm…." He began.

"Yes?" Masami politely replied, her eyes all but lighting up as the younger of the two spoke.

"Err…" Jaune tried not to focus on the sensation his arm was experiencing, said limb still be held firmly intertwined with Masami's own, smashing against her breast ever so slightly. "Just why are you holding onto my arm?"

Masami could only laugh. "Well, isn't it the proper knightly response to escort a lady by the arm?"

"A-Ah, I guess so, it's just…" Jaune trailed off. He was now suddenly getting the feeling that telling her what was bothering would only get her to tease him in some other way. So with that in mind, he opted to just fall silent.

However, it seemed he wasn't going to be spared from any further teasing.

"Ah, could it be your arm being up against my breast is flustering you?" Masami asked with a knowing smile.

"H-H-Huh?!" Jaune all but leapt out of his own shoes at her words.

But before he could continue, Masami just chuckled a little. "If so, then please don't think this bothers me. After all, I've tried doing this to Naruto-kun himself on more than one occasion. It's always so fun to see how he reacts."

"Then why do this to me…?" Jaune asked. Not that he was really complaining or anything, but to suddenly have a very buxom and beautiful woman like Masami teasing him like this when beforehand no girl would give him the time of day was very unnerving for him in a sense.

"Why, how could I not?" Masami replied as she finally let go of his arm, getting an inward sigh of relief out of the blond teen. "After all you and Naruto-kun a-."

That was when they heard the explosion.

The two of them froze in their tracks. But as far as reactions went, that was where the similarities ended. Whereas Jaune spent half a second trying to figure out where the sound came from, Masami was already on the move, rushing back towards the faculty lounge with an unnatural grace. Noticing her running off, Jaune tried to follow as fast as he could, but ended up trailing behind quite a bit even with Masami not going full speed.

Slowing down as to allow Jaune to catch up, Masami and the blond teen quickly made it back to the faculty lounge in time to see the door to it literally fall right off its hinges to reveal some sort of glowing light that was now rapidly fading.

"Guys!" Jaune called out in shock and fear as he rushed into the room, seeing his teammates and the members of team RWBY all sprawled out on the floor. Although it was far too faint for him and Masami to see, their bodies glowed a very faint silvery-white.

"J…Jaune?" Pyrrha was the first to speak, slowly sitting up. She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the strange sensation she was feeling even as Jaune quickly helped her up.

"Are you alright?" Jaune asked as he all but placed his face inches away from her own.

Pyrrha stumbled back a bit, partly due to having Jaune's face so close to her own and partly because her legs felt a little wobbly. With a red face, she replied to him though. "I… I'm fine. Is everyone else okay?"

"Owie…." Ruby muttered as she slowly stood up too.

Jaune, Pyrrha, and Masami could only watch as everyone came to a minute later, slowly standing to their feet in an uneasy fashion.

"May I ask what happened?" Masami asked as she looked to the machine. Which now had a huge hole in it, having burst from within by the looks of it.

"I… may have kinda given it a little tap and then…" Yang trailed off, sounding apologetic. She then made a little 'ka-boom' sound.

"This is why you shouldn't touch things at random!" Weiss exclaimed at the blond brawler.

"But are you all okay?" Jaune asked in concern.

"We're… fine," Ren now answered, rubbing his head a bit more. "Some strange kind of energy seemed to come out of the machine… but we're fine."

That caught Masami's interest. "Strange energy?"

Ren nodded. "Yes. It felt very faint, but I felt something off about that light before it, well, knocked us onto our backs."

Masami rubbed her chin as she looked over the truly busted machine once more. "Hmm, I see. A shame it's now truly destroyed… but it can't be helped now…"

She stopped talking as she now heard approaching voices. Looks like more people than she expected heard the explosion. And looking to teams RWBY and JNPR, it looked as if they were now realizing that fact too.

"I'll try and take care of this," Masami began. "For now, it'd be best to sneak out of here and go to the infirmary as soon as possible, just to be safe."

"R-Right," Yang muttered as Weiss was still giving her the stink eye. Blake was also looking at her, very annoyed. "Let's do that."

"Then go." With those final two words, Masami hurried both teams out of the faculty lounge before heading off to go keep anyone else from trying to get too close to the faculty lounge. The last thing she and her fellow magi needed were more people snooping around.

Meanwhile, with Naruto, the blond magus had been resting peacefully in his room, having turned in early for the night. But alas, he and Miki had both been rudely awoken from their peaceful sleep by the sound of the explosion, which had even reached their sharp ears despite the distance.

Both of them had to hold back the sigh. Looks like they were in for yet another troublesome mess.

And that's that.

Once again, this chapter is in memory of Mounty Oum, whose talent, work ethic, and general attitude garnered him well-earned/deserved admiration and respect. May he rest in peace and may his family and friends be well in health.