New Moon

Chapter 4: My Name Is

Disclaimer: I do not own anything except myself and my own ideas.

Being sealed wasn't really that bad honestly. He was starting to think Kurama was just a big whiny baby. It's not like he even knew whether or not any time had passed. Most of the time, he just slept. At least until a little silver eyed girl picked him up. Now he just pitied Remnant. It wasn't ready for his particular brand of chaos.

Please enjoy the story and review. Your reviews encourage me to write faster and better.

Note: Re-uoloaded this chapter because something went wrong with ff dot net, and the new chapter wouldn't show up for me, even after restarting and clearing caches.

****NM***

"HOM-Wait what!?"

Yang spun around to stare at the blond version of her baby sister, but the cheeky little shit just winked at her, before slumping over again. She could actually see the long vibrant yellow hair sinking back into Ruby's skull until it reached her customary neck length cut before it turned back its usual reddish black.

It was actually rather disturbing.

And when Ruby's eyes opened again, they were back to their usual dark silver.

The two of them stared at each other for a moment before she suddenly winced and grabbed her head, "Owowowmyhead."

"Ruby?" Yang hurried to her sister's side, "What happened?"

Ruby grimaced painfully, "Sensei… sensei didn't realize I would get hit with the feedback coming from his clones as well."

"Feedback? Clones?" the bewildered blond wasn't happy, she hated seeing her baby sis in pain, "Are you sure this is really alright?"

Ruby trembled a bit before nodding slowly as the pain slowly went away, "Sensei says that I'm just not used to it. After a couple more times, it shouldn't affect me at all."

"Screw what your ring says!" Yang yelled in frustration, her eyes watering a little, "Ever since you started using that ring, you've been getting hurt nonstop!"

Ruby hugged her big sister, "I'm okay, Yang. Really. It hurts, but I can deal with it. Eventually it'll stop hurting."

The two sisters stayed like that for a while before Yang eventually relented and her tense shoulders finally relaxed, "I'm holding you to that."

Yang slumped into the chair next to her, "So? What was that your ring was saying about my arm?"

Ruby's dark silver eyes gleamed, pain all but forgotten, "Sensei can heal your arm."

"Heal my arm?" Yang chuckled wearily, "It gone, Ruby. Unless he can make me an entirely new arm or something, I don't think a bit of healing is gonna cut it."

"That's exactly what he's going to do." Ruby chirped, "Brand new arm? No biggie. His exact words."

Yang's eyes went wide for a moment, "Seriously?"

Ruby nodded violently, her eyes still gleaming, "And that's not all. His clones, the ones he made in front of you. After they ended, I saw EVERYTHING they were doing!" The short girl bounced around violently, "Normally when he takes over, I only see what's happening or what's he doing, but with the clones, I can even understand what he's thinking at those times!" Ruby squealed happily, "It was amazing! I saw one of them speak to Professor Ozpin and I saw another saving Emerald and Cinder, omigoshomigosh IT WAS SO AWESOME!" Ruby yelled at the top of her voice.

"And he's going to teach you how to do that?" Yang replied skeptically.

Ruby immediately zipped to her sister and shook her happily, "That's the best part. I already know how to do it because I got those memories."

In the ring, the blond man was suddenly filled with dread as he heard what Ruby was saying. He had an awfully shrewd idea about what that idiot girl was about to do.

'Ruby,' Her mentor's voice suddenly echoed in her mind, 'Just because you know how to do them doesn't mean you have the control to make them work properly. Don't do this.'

'I'm just going to try one. Pleaseeee?'

'No Ruby. Bad Ruby! STOP!'

'Yes Ruby!' His newfound apprentice cackled with glee.

The blond stuck in the ring just facepalmed.

Ruby slowly and clumsily made a few hand signs before touching the Bullhead's wall next to Yang.

"Magen: Kokoni Arazu no Jutsu!"

'Demonic Illusion: False Surroundings Technique'

Yang squawked with surprise as the wall she had been leaning on suddenly turned transparent.

Invisible.

Completely, fucking, see through.

The blond girl with lilac-colored eyes watched for a moment, wary of any possible decompression considering how high in the skies they were at the moment. When nothing seemed to happen, she slowly moved her hand forward until she touched something cold and solid.

The wall was still there, but it was invisible, "UNCLE QROW, YOU BETTER COME SEE THIS!"

Their uncle stumbled out of the cockpit after he had hurriedly put it on auto pilot at his niece's shouts when he caught sight of the huge hole in his Bullhead.

He immediately looked at his wiser niece, "Are we going to die?"

Yang rapped her knuckle on the invisible wall and Qrow heard the metallic thud of flesh on steel, "It's there, but we can't see it. Apparently, her ring taught her how to do it."

"Alright, that's a neat trick and all, but she can fix that right? Cos that's going to look tacky as hell."

Both of them looked at the youngest member of their family who was currently bouncing around the Bullhead like a squirrel on a sugar high, "THIS. IS. AWESOME!"

"I'm gonna try and do the clone thing!" She crossed her index and middle fingers on both hands together in a "+" shape. She screwed up her face in concentration before announcing triumphantly:

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

'Shadow Clone Technique'

There was a quiet poof of smoke…. And nothing else.

Then Ruby promptly fainted with a quiet, "Guh."

The blond man in the ring performed a double facepalm.

Qrow and Yang shared a look before Yang calmly rolled Ruby's unconscious body under the seats.

Qrow took another look at the new hole in his ship before he went back to the cockpit. He resolved to get blind sodding drunk the moment they landed.

****NM****

Taiyang Xiao Long was a simple man.

Formerly a member of Team STRQ, he currently worked as a teacher at the nearby Signal Academy. Some probably looked down on him for not living up to his 'potential', as they called it, but he had bigger priorities in life. First and foremost being his two beautiful daughters.

One of which was currently being lugged on the other's good shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

He had heard about Yang's arm naturally, and he was glad to see that she wasn't as depressed as he had thought she would be, but what was up with Ruby? Didn't Qrow tell him that she was going to be released from the hospital today?

Actually, why were they even here in the first place?

So, he asked his brother-in-law, "Uh, Qrow? What's going on? Why are you guys here? Shouldn't Ruby and Yang still be in school?"

"Long story. Very long story. Drinks first." His ex-wife's brother mumbled, his face grey and exhausted, and walked right past him. The sound of tinkling bottles told Tai that his brother-in-law had done a swan dive into the stash of alcohol that he kept specifically for Qrow because he himself didn't actually drink all that often outside of social occasions.

Yang just dropped her sister onto the ground with a thud before falling into Tai's embrace face first, "Hey, Dad. It's been a while."

He looked at the crown of yellow hair nuzzling his chest, "Oh, Yang. I'm so sorry about your arm…"

"S'okay. Ruby's gonna do something bout it."

That brought Tai up short.

Ruby?

Do something about a missing arm?

What was he missing here?

"Ow…."

"Ruby?"

Said girl looked around in confusion as she got up from the ground and dusted her clothes off, "Huh. We're here already? That was fast."

Yang may or may not have snarled something rather impolite.

Luckily it was muffled.

"Let's go back inside and rest a bit first." Tai concluded wisely.

In their home, Qrow casually walked out of the kitchen hugging an entire armload of bottles.

After everyone had gathered at the family table and Tai had made everyone a warm cup of milk to sip, minus Qrow who was already guzzling his second bottle of whiskey down, Tai looked around the table and sighed, "So… Where do we begin?"

"Ruby."

"Ruby."

"Hey!"

Tai quirked one brow at his youngest daughter, "What are they talking about, Ruby?"

"Uh…" Ruby fidgeted in her seat and played with her mug, "How much do you know about the Attack on Beacon, Dad?"

"Only what I've seen on the scrolls and what Qrow's told me. And yes, that includes you dying your hair and looking like a mini Yang. And doing some very dangerous looking things." Tai frowned, "Your uncle Qrow said it had something to do with you finding a really strong teacher."

Ruby immediately perked up, "Do you wanna meet him? I can do that!"

Tai blinked, "Meet him? How? Like by scroll call?"

Ruby laughed brightly, "Nope! Like this!"

She promptly grabbed her ring and slumped over in her chair, much to Tai's shock.

His shock only increased when Ruby's hair literally began growing and turning a vibrant sunshine yellow right in front of his very eyes. Suddenly the transformation stopped and Ruby's hair began sinking back into her skull.

Dark silver eyes snapped open again and Ruby jerked back up in her seat with a disbelieving expression, "He kicked me out. That great big jerk kicked me back out! I didn't even know he could do that!"

Yang and Qrow could only chuckle at that.

Apparently even ring spirits could get annoyed when Ruby dumped all her work on them.

"Ruby…." Tai said slowly, "What was that?"

"Okay…." Ruby pouted as she began, "So… I found this ring at Mom's grave when I was four. I thought it was hers so I just kept it. I remember we had just lost mom around that time, I didn't really understand anything, and you were…. Busy."

For a moment, Ruby looked a little lost and Taiyang couldn't bring himself to chide her for it.

He at least had the decency to look ashamed.

He had not taken it well when Raven had left him, to the point Summer had had to take care of Yang. And when Summer had… passed away, it had hit him even harder than it had when Raven left. Yang had been the one to take care of Ruby at that time, even though she had only been six, and had done so until he had resurfaced from his depression. It was one of the reasons why the two sisters were so close to each other.

"Anyway, until I was five, I thought it was just a normal ring, a memento from Mom. Then one day when I was visiting mom's grave alone again, I was attacked by a Beowolf." Ruby scuffed her feet on the kitchen floor, "I remember screaming a lot and everything going black. When I woke up again, it was a few months later. That's when I met Sensei. He was in the ring and he had been the one to save me."

"So, he's been around since you were five." Taiyang said slowly, it sounded completely and utterly insane but he was withholding judgement for now.

"Yeah." Ruby confirmed, "Most of the time he was asleep. The times he was awake, he usually wouldn't bother commenting on anything unless I asked him, and it's not like he had a lot of answers anyway. In fact, I think I taught him more than he taught me. I even had to explain what Auras and Semblances were to him." The slip of a girl shrugged, "Other than that, I only learnt how to go into the ring when I was 10 and we didn't start sparring with each other until I was in my first year at Signal. I've seen him do a lot of freaky stuff by then, so I knew he was pretty strong."

Ruby paused to take a sip of milk to whet her throat, "Then when Beacon was attacked and I saw that Dragon, I just knew that we were all screwed. We could have brought the entire Atlesian army here and it still wouldn't even have tickled that thing. So… I went into the ring and asked Sensei for help. He said okay, came out of the ring, saw what was happening and then he kicked all their asses." Ruby finished proudly.

Tai pinched the bridge of his nose, "And we can't see this Sensei of yours? At all?"

"Nope." Ruby blinked and tilted her head before squawking loudly, "What the hell do you mean, 'yes, they can'!?"

"Ruby? I didn't say anythi-" Tai started before Yang just waved at him, "Don't bother. It's that Sensei guy. She gets like this whenever she's talking to him."

The three of them watched as Ruby stood up and paced around the kitchen table with a wrinkled nose. It looked like she was arguing with someone before she eventually and grudgingly took off the ring around her neck.

She placed the ring in the middle of the table where it just sat there innocently, until it actually began to glow.

One heartbeat later, the ring disappeared with a flash, and there was now five people in the kitchen.

The stranger was a tall man, slightly taller than Qrow, with longish spiky blond hair, dressed in a simple white shirt, a black vest over the shirt and a pair of dark brown slacks. His crystal blue eyes shone with mirth and he had three scars on each cheek, resembling a set of whiskers.

"Mr. Xiao Long." The man bowed politely, ignoring all the open-mouthed stares he was getting, "It's good to finally meet you, although I wish I had been able to do it sooner considering I've been in your daughter's care for the past ten years."

Taiyang verrrry calmly walked over to Qrow and picked up one of the bottles lying in front of him and proceeded to chug its contents down in one go.

Then he put the empty bottle down and turned around to firmly shake the other man's hand, "It's good to meet you too, son. You got a name?"

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto." The tall man replied politely.

"…"

"…"

"…"

The silence stretched.

"You can actually come out of the ring?!" That was Qrow.

"You had a NAME!?" That was Ruby.

"You were a hot GUY!? And that was Yang.

The unruffled blond smiled thinly, "In order, I can come out only under very specific circumstances. Yes, I have a name. You never asked. And finally, what made you think I wasn't male? I believe Ruby has mentioned my gender more than once to you before."

"What? I thought you just identified as a guy or something. Like seriously, Dad, you should've seen him when he's possessing Ruby. He was even more feminine than her!"

"OI!"

Taiyang's eyebrow rose in question, "Possession?"

Naruto just nodded, "I've been in the ring long enough for me to tinker with the restrictions a little, so, I know several ways for me to escape the ring, at least temporarily. The easiest involves taking over the ring holder's body. If done properly, I can lend my strength to the person I'm possessing without undue harm to said person."

The blond paused before grimacing, "I won't lie to you. I can take that method to its logical extreme and completely take over the ring's holder. That in effect, lets me escape the ring until the body I'm using either dies or breaks down completely."

Naruto did not shy away from the horrified looks he was getting, "It's not something I will ever do willingly. But I just want you to know that I won't hide anything from you. Ruby is already aware of this, and I have promised her that I will never ever do something like that to her no matter what the situation is like."

He received some more grudging looks, although Ruby just looked proud, before he continued, "The method I'm currently using, allows me to come out independently, but only for a short period of time. Not only that, this form also heavily limits my abilities and takes a lot of my energy, so I don't like doing it."

"Hold, hold, hold!" Qrow loudly interjected, "If you can do that, why didn't you just do this earlier?"

"Last time, I didn't get the chance to say or even recommend anything before Ruby pushed me out." The blond noted dryly, "This time, I was ready for it."

Everyone looked at Ruby, and the girl promptly blushed a bright red.

Taiyang just frowned, "You mentioned restrictions, son; who did this to you?"

"That's a rather complicated question." The blond man admitted. He rubbed his chin for a moment before smiling in a distinctly predatory manner, "They were relatives of mine, in a manner of speaking. They were getting a little uppity and entitled, so I decided to spank them around a bit. I ended up scaring them so badly, they sacrificed themselves to lock me away."

"They sacrificed themselves to lock you away?" Qrow murmured aghast.

"The restrictions wouldn't have held otherwise." The blond shrugged carelessly, "I was too strong for them to contain with halfhearted measures. Besides, they were going to kill themselves off for me and save me the trouble of doing it myself, so, I figured I'd just sit back and treat it like a nice long vacation."

Qrow shivered, just what in Oum's saggy tits had his family bumbled into?

It was sounding more and more like they had stumbled onto something that was even worse than Salem.

Naruto saw the look on his face and shook his head as he sat down next to Ruby, "Don't worry, I don't mean any of you harm. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just here to help the kid." He finished by fondly tousling Ruby's hair.

Ruby promptly knocked his hand away and kicked his ankle with a pout.

Taiyang's brows scrunched a little at that little interaction.

The two of them were acting really close to each other.

"You never even told me you had a name." Ruby grumbled under her breath.

Naruto just grinned widely; he had been waiting to pull a Kurama on Ruby for ages, "Like I said, you never asked."

Ruby pouted even harder.

Taiyang nodded slowly, "And now you plan to keep Ruby safe by taking her around Remnant and training her?"

Naruto met his gaze and nodded faintly, "That's about it. Do not worry, I'll ensure that she maintains contact with you on a regular basis. I can't guarantee that she'll be absolutely safe, but I have no intention of putting her in danger. We invited Yang to come with us as well and Yang has agreed."

Taiyang gave his eldest daughter a sidelong glance and when she just shrugged, he sighed in resignation.

"I guess I can accept that." Taiyang reluctantly nodded after a brief period of silence.

After gaining the man's reluctant acceptance, he figured it was about time that he brought out a gift as a token of his good will, so Naruto looked at Ruby's elder sister, "Before we continue, Yang, will you please come here?"

The girl looked up with a startled expression, she had been so overwhelmed by everything so far that she had completely forgotten about what the man had said when he had boarded the Bullhead.

Warily, she approached the other blond.

Naruto just gave her an amused look before closing his eyes to focus. It was tiny bit more difficult than normal in this form, but still far from impossible. All at once, everyone in the room felt it as a pressure crushed down on them. Qrow and Yang's eyes widened as they recognized the familiar feeling, but it wasn't as dangerous or as threatening as it had been in Beacon, and they could still move.

Even Taiyang was now standing there wide-eyed in wonder.

Nine small black and oddly shaped beads and three larger black orbs slowly materialized around the whiskered blond man before he pushed out with one hand, sending the nine oddly shaped ones scattering away for some reason while the 3 larger ones hung behind him. Then he reached out and grasped the stump of Yang's right arm.

Qrow and Taiyang watched in shock and a bit of fear for her when Yang gasped and stiffened.

Sweat began beading her forehead and pain lanced through her entire body, but she held strong because she had felt something. The nerve endings on her stump were flaring to life, and that was before a glowing limb started growing from said stump.

She powered through the pain and watched in complete and utter fascination as her arm was reconstructed somehow, from pure light.

All at once, the pressure lifted again and the blond man slumped into his chair.

He barely had enough energy to give them a wan smile and a wave before his body wavered like a reflection in water and disappeared, leaving behind a ring on the chair and a room full of stunned people.

Yang shook her new arm and clenched her new fingers.

She poked her new limb tentatively.

It felt like an arm.

She had an arm again.

She had both arms again.

She spun on her father and her uncle, "Alright, we're keeping him. I don't care what you two say and that's final."

****NM****

That night, as Ruby laid in her childhood bed again, she touched the ring hanging around her neck once more, 'Sensei~ sensei~'

'Hmm?'

'Nothing~'

She smiled as she could practically feel her teacher quirking one eyebrow at her.

'Sensei….'

'Yeah?'

'Can you get out of ring permanently?'

'Why?'

'What do you mean, why? Isn't it a bit sad to just stay inside there forever?'

'Not really.' Her teacher was silent for a moment before he continued, 'Honestly, I don't even know how long I've been in here before I met you. Could've been months. Could've been years. Could've been decades. Could've been centuries. I don't even know if my family is alive. And even if they were, I don't know where they are. I only know they are not on Remnant.'

'Couldn't you go find them if you got out?'

Her teacher was silent again. She got the impression he was looking at the shattered moon above them just like she was, 'Unlikely. Dimensional travel isn't something I can do easily and without much preparation. Even then, without access to certain items, I have no idea where I will end up. Any gain I obtained would be outweighed by the effort I had to put in to get there in the first place.'

Ruby smiled, 'So you're here to stay.'

'Possibly. What's on your mind, kid?'

'I'll be your family. Yang too.'

The ring twitched, '…. I'm not training you just because I'm a nice guy you know. There's a reason I helped you obtain chakra and plan to teach you, my techniques. No matter what I said, a lock is a lock. Even if I have the key with me, there's only so much I can do to it from the inside. I need someone to unlock it from the outside. And to do that, you need to have, at the very least, a certain level of skill with chakra.'

Ruby smirked, 'You said so much, but it just sounds like you're being shy.'

'Go to sleep, Ruby.'

'Do you think Miss Glynda is pretty? I think she's pretty. And single. Very single.'

Back in Vale, a certain blond teacher suddenly felt the urge to find a certain wayward student and assign them extra 'training'.

'Ruby….'

'What? Just trying to motivate you.'

Naruto triple facepalmed.

****NM****

As the next morning dawned bright and clear, Ruby was woken up when Yang crashed into her room and leapt into her bed, "Wake up, sleepyhead!"

"Bwuh?" The sleepy silver eyed girl grunted intelligibly and tried to kick her older sister back out of her bed.

"Look, do you want to see something good or not?" Yang said after a quick wrestle, poking her sister here and there between the gaps of her blankets.

"Whuh?"

Yang thrust her scroll into Ruby's face, "Read it."

Ruby sleepily squinted at the screen, "Uh…. Schnee Dust Company, holding concert…. Charity ball to celebrate the upgrading of Atlas' Security software after tragic incident in Vale." Ruby shot up, now completely awake, "Heiress of Schnee Dust Company, Weiss Schnee, slated to perform!"

She squinted at the date stated in the article, "Its due 2 weeks from now."

"Yep. How bout it? Feel like crashing a concert?"

Ruby sniggered, "Deal."

"C;mon, lets go plan on how to get there."

As the two of them ran down the stairs happily, they came up short as they saw their uncle already packed and dressed. His eyes were still a little bloodshot from all the drinking he had been doing yesterday and he swayed on his feet a little bit, but that was basically normal for the man.

"Huh? Where are you going, Uncle Qrow?"

"Sorry, pipsqueak. Ozpin called me back for a mission."

"Oh… you're not joining us?"

"Fraid not. I'm the only he's got that can do this mission right now. I'll try to catch up with you guys afterwards though."

"Stay safe, uncle Qrow!" The two girls chorused as Qrow left with a quick wave.

The two of them then hurried to the Tai Yang's room where there was a huge world map hanging on one of the walls. Ruby placed one finger on the small island west of Vale before moving it north east, "We'll need to move past Vale, then catch a boat to Vytal before we take another one to Atlas, on the south end of Solitas. Doesn't look that far at least."

"Huh? Why not just take a ship there directly?"

"It's a training trip remember?" Ruby murmured, "I think Sensei wants us to walk most of the way. He was saying something about endurance training."

Yang blanched, "Uh… can I reconsider this whole trip thing?"

"Nope!"

Ruby looked back at the map, "We've found Weiss, now all we need to do is pick her up and find Blake."

Yang patted her back and the two of them prepared to go and pack up.

****NM****

End of the First Arc – Assault on Beacon