New Moon

by Sable Knight

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. No slash/Future pairing.

6. Messing up

New Moon

Chapter 6: Messing up

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: I'll let you guys in on a secret. Anytime you guys see me update something, there's a pretty good chance I'm currently running away from reality (work) to daydream and accidentally thought up a new chapter in the process.

****NM****

Song list

Error – Lily (Tokoyami Towa cover)

****NM****

[[Play Error – Lily (Tokoyami Towa cover)]]

Her life had taken a rather strange turn lately.

Emerald idly scuffed her feet on the floor as she placidly peeled some apples for a silently glowering Cinder.

It wasn't a bad turn. If anything, it was pretty good.

On one hand, she didn't need to do icky stuff like crawl through sewers, kill random people for bounties or even hunt someone down. There was plenty of free food, she had a comfy bed. No one had tried to take her head ever since that monster of a little blond girl had put a metaphorical dog collar around her neck, and by Oum, hadn't that been a surprise. She didn't know what kind of Semblance could do something like that, but she wasn't going to ask questions.

Besides, thanks to the dog collar, the big guy on campus, Ozpin, was now pretty much her own personal bodyguard given how much time he spent hovering around Cinder, and therefore, around her.

Her communications and Scroll usage were naturally monitored, but Ozpin had made no secret about that. He had even let her join the occasional class and help out the teachers in combat practice.

She even had an allowance!

Yes, allowance!

She never had one of those before, being an orphan and all.

It felt pretty good.

On the better days, she was allowed to go out to town with a minder, usually it was the stiff blond woman, Miss Goodwitch, and shop for stuff: sweets, snacks, clothes, underwear, stuff like that. They didn't even stop her when she bought bullets and maintenance equipment for her weapons like she had expected.

Ozpin said it was her salary for taking care of Cinder, but that really wasn't necessary. She would've done it anyway, even if she had to sew their own clothes and help Cinder bath or go to the toilet and help her wipe herself. It was a nice gesture though, and she appreciated it. That said, Ozpin hadn't made it a secret that he was doing this because the little blond monster seemed to think she was worth it, even if she had tried to shank the girl from behind once.

Which really just made it all the stranger that the girl would suddenly take an interest in her just because of that.

On the not so pleasant side of things….

To say that the current Fall Maiden was being punished would be an understatement considering her ego and pride. To wit, it hadn't even been a week since she got her dog collar before Cinder had tried to commit suicide by biting off her tongue.

She still remembered it like it had been yesterday. She had been trying to get Cinder to eat at the time, but Cinder had been peculiarly stubborn about opening her mouth. It had taken some effort before she managed to pry open the woman's lips when what felt like an entire jug's worth of blood had come pouring out of Cinder's mouth. She had been utterly horrified, but thanks to her life so far, she had not frozen and had alerted Ozpin immediately. It was only thanks to Ozpin's quick interference and emergency first aid skills that had saved Cinder's life and her tongue.

The result? Cinder was now on suicide watch and there was always at least one person watching her at all times, not counting herself, and she was pretty sure Cinder absolutely loathed her now.

She lowered her head and stifled the stab of guilt in her heart. It felt wrong; to feel some sort of enjoyment and freedom while Cinder suffered like this… She shouldn't be the only one enjoying life right now, nor should Cinder be the only one punished here. She should be just as guilty, if not more so, for being the one to actually carry out much of Cinder's plans, even if she hadn't known the details beforehand.

But at the same time, she couldn't stop herself.

It was… nice.

To be worthy of compassion.

To be considered a normal person worth caring for, that had value for just existing, rather than another rat on the street that needed to fight, scrape and kill just to survive, even if she didn't even know exactly how that had come about, because no one had ever bothered before little miss I-Can-Curb-Stomp-Dragons came along.

That brought her line of thought to Mercury.

Dumb idiot.

She hadn't found out until later, but the day before she had been given her dog collar, when Beacon had suffered a second attack with Tyrian at the lead, the little blond monster of a girl apparently hadn't considered it necessary to guard Mercury like she had with Cinder and her. And so, Mercury had been "rescued" by someone else. Granted, he probably didn't have a choice in the matter, but considering what she now knew and what she had experienced of Cinder's activities and other colleagues so far, she felt that if Mercury had felt even the tiniest smidgen of loyalty to Cinder, he should have at least tried to fight back.

Either way, she didn't know who had been the one doing the "rescuing" and had said as much when Ozpin had asked, though Cinder seemed like she knew, even if she wasn't going to say anything.

She didn't know what to think of that.

What made her so different from Mercury?

From Cinder?

It was… confusing.

****NM****

Cinder hated her new life.

She loathed it.

Despised it.

Hated it with a fervor she had never known she possessed.

If it had been at all possible, she would have chosen to detonate her Maiden powers and take the entire building out with her.

Oh, she had tried.

More than once in fact.

Her powers were still intact, but they refused to respond to her, and she did not know why. The last bit of her analytical mind said that this shouldn't be possible. At least not if what Salem had taught her was true. But it was happening either way. The chains were entirely mundane, and so was the bed, nor had she been cuffed with some sort of Semblance blocking cuffs, so she had no idea why she couldn't use her powers. At any rate, even committing suicide was preferable… compared to this.

Not that had been any use.

Not with that stupid Emerald bitch hovering around her all the time, always forcing her to eat and cleaning up after her like she was some goddamned cripple.

What was the point of all her efforts, all her actions up till now, if she was once again stuck being useless?

Everything she had done, had led her right back to where she had been as a child.

Where everyone hated her even though all she wanted was to be loved.

Where she was weak and helpless even though all she wanted was to be cared for.

No, it was even worse now than when she had been a child.

At least back then, she still had some hope.

She could still fight back; she had fought back.

Even when Rhodes had tried to kill her.

Now she didn't even have her limbs.

She couldn't even bite someone.

The only bit of rebellion she had left was to be as petty as humanly possible.

Of course, that didn't stop the nightmares.

Every night, the same thoughts would rage through her head.

Sometimes, she would be back in the orphanage.

In those, she just remembered starving, the uncaring matrons and the occasional bullying.

That wasn't so bad, she knew how to deal with that.

Those were the better nights.

The other times, she would be back in Atlas, in that despicable place.

She would be scrubbing floors again.

Her beloved adoptive family would make a re-appearance.

Even Rhodes showed up again.

And those nights were the worst.

She would wake up crying and sobbing as silently as she could.

Because if she didn't, Emerald would hear, and the stupid bitch would hug her and stroke her back until she fell back into a dreamless sleep.

Please. Stop.

Please. Just let me die.

I don't want to feel like this ever again.

Why? Why are you doing this to me?

Why is this my destiny?

What did I do to deserve this?

****NM****

Life for Yang had taken a pretty interesting turn recently.

She sunk into the hot water until only her chin was dipping into the water and let out a long and satisfied groan.

She ordinarily wasn't someone who bothered with being super clean and what not, but after two weeks in the wild and only being able to clean themselves up with some hot water and towel, even she had noticed herself smelling more and more ripe than usual.

And if she had noticed, that was really saying something.

It's not like she liked being dirty or anything, it just wasn't too high up on her list of priorities.

In comparison, this hot water bath was basically heaven.

Next to her, all four of the female members of Team CFVY and JNPR, plus Ruby let out similar groans of relief and satisfaction as they relaxed into the communal bath.

The guys would have to wait their turn, or just wipe themselves down.

Though she doubted the ring spirit would bother.

She had noticed that he always looked immaculate and clean no matter what he had been doing.

Did he like reset himself by going back in and then coming back out of the ring again or something?

Cos not even Weiss was that good at staying clean, and the Ice-cream princess had been a neat freak of the highest order. She almost missed Weiss' nagging, though she figured she'd start regretting after hearing it again the day after tomorrow when they finally hit Atlas.

Idly, she wondered how the hell the ring spirit was even washing their clothes.

It hadn't occurred to her until now that they always had a supply of clean clothes despite only packing a few sets when they left.

Didn't that mean the ring spirit had been washing her… underwear?

But did she really want to bring this up?

Cos she wasn't all that interested in doing the washing herself either, and she seriously doubted that he was lugging around a washing machine or something in that ring of his.

"Hey, Yang, Ruby, your hair colors are coming back!" Someone yelled out from the mist, she reckoned it was Nora.

"Yeah, Sensei just threw some herbs together. It wasn't meant to be permanent." Ruby chirped as she floated around the room sized bath tub lazily.

"You should've shampooed before getting in." Velvet of all people quietly muttered as if she had been insulted, though not so quiet that they couldn't hear it.

The bunny girl promptly blushed when everyone looked at her, "I-It's etiquette in Mantle. E-everyone does it to save w-water." She defended herself with a tiny voice.

Coco snickered evilly and enveloped the shyly blushing rabbit Faunus in a hug and flashed her a lewd smile, "Just think of it as us saving water now, Vel."

"You could probably even bottle the water up and sell it. Lots of people would buy this. Essence of six pretty ladies." Nora joked light heartedly before Pyrrha promptly slapped her up the head, "Hey!" the lightning user protested.

Pyrrha just rolled her eyes and went back to soaking in the water quietly, absentmindedly listening to the other girls' nonstop chatter.

She let her eyes slide back to the Yang and stared blankly as the blond girl waved her hands around, gesticulating wildly about everything they had been doing the past two weeks.

That was a really well-made prosthetic.

Everyone here knew about it of course, that was why none of them had brought it up. That sort of thing was a bit too awkward to talk about in public and none of them wanted to make Yang sad by bringing it up or risk implying that it would affect her career as a Huntress, especially since the rambunctious blond girl seemed like she was dead set on giving it a go even with a prosthetic.

Seriously though, she wondered what it was made of. If it had been made out of a metal of some sort; she would have felt it with her Semblance right off the bat, especially since she had made it a point to notice that kind of thing after she had gotten tricked by the grey-haired boy with Cinder and his prosthetic legs.

However, right now she couldn't feel it at all. Granted, her Semblance wasn't even active right now. It was just passively revolving around her, so its not like she had bothered looking too closely at it.

And that fake skin looked so real.

Even her fingers were wiggling about with surprising dexterity.

She knew a lot of people who would die for a prosthetic like that.

It was almost like she hadn't lost her arm at all.

On a random impulse, she activated her Semblance, just to see if it was possible to affect it that way without actually doing it, the same way she usually used her Semblance during a fight.

Her Semblance buzzed through her head and Pyrrha frowned as she tried to make sense of what she was feeling.

Then her emerald green eyes went wide and she slowly did a double take, careful not to let the other girls realize she was staring.

Unless the entire arm was made out of plastic or some sort of non-magnetic alloy, that wasn't a prosthetic.

She squinted even harder through the haze and mist of the hot water; there were no scars or lines to indicate that the arm had been a replacement limb grafted on. In fact, if she didn't know any better, she'd say that it looked like Yang hadn't lost an arm at all.

She wasn't a medical professional, but some quick mental math told her that unless Atlas had made some sort of miracle discovery in the past two weeks that let her either regrow an entire arm or get an entirely new one grafted on and then get used to a new limb within such a short period of time, then something, or someone, had happened, and she had a fairly shrewd guess about who was involved.

She wasn't sure about Team CFVY, but Team JNPR probably already had a pretty good idea that Yang and Ruby's alleged uncle wasn't their actual uncle. They had already been informed by Ozpin about Yang and Ruby leaving Beacon with her ring spirit to go on a trip due the closeness of their two Teams. She couldn't speak for the rest of her team, but from there, it hadn't been particularly difficult to connect the dots when Yang and Ruby suddenly showed up out of nowhere with an extremely skilled but unknown man in tow.

She looked around at the other girls as they slowly began to drift out of the bathroom.

It didn't seem like they had noticed anything off about Yang's "prosthetic".

Then again, they didn't have her Semblance.

Pyrrha sighed as she got out of the bathtub as well and joined the rest of the girls in the changing room and sluggishly began to towel herself off.

Did she even need to say something about it?

Was there even a reason to bring it up with them?

If Yang herself hadn't said anything about it, then wasn't that evidence enough that she didn't want to talk about it?

Well… that guy probably wouldn't care.

If the way they had talked in the library was any indication, he was probably the type that would answer anything you asked, or tell you straight to your face that he couldn't give you an answer.

And then what?

Demand that they shared how they managed to regrow an entire arm with everyone else?

That kind of breach in etiquette felt like it was right up there along with, 'Hey, can you tell me how your Semblance works so that I know how to beat you next time?'

Hunters weren't quite so secretive about it she had noticed, probably because their main opponents were Grimm who couldn't care less about whether they kept it a secret or not, but as a former Tournament fighter, even just thinking about doing something like that made her grimace.

"Whatchu making that face for?" A finger poked her cheek and startled her out of her reverie. She found herself looking straight into her team mate Nora's jade green eyes.

"Oh, Nora," Pyrrha replied with some relief in her voice, for a moment she had thought that Yang had been the one to poke her, "Just thinking about something."

She cleared her throat awkwardly, "Did you need something?"

Nora who had been the first one to get out of the bath, promptly clapped her hands with a look of excitement, "Put some clothes on, quick, Yang and Ruby's uncle made us dinner, and its amazing!"

Out of curiosity, Pyrrha quickly threw on a simple shirt and a sweater before pulling on some pajama pants before she followed Nora back into the main hall where a veritable buffet sat waiting for them. The guys were already at the table with Ruby and Yang, already dressed in comfy looking pajamas on the other side of the table and drooling at everything.

Nora squealed happily and threw herself at what looked like an entire roast boar even before the other girls followed her cue and took seats next to the boys of their teams which ended up with Coco and Pyrrha being on opposite ends of the table.

The moment the orange haired girl took her first bite of a meatball, she began swooning exaggeratedly, "Ohmigosh, thisissogood!" The brash girl mumbled in between chomps of food as she began to demolish her plate.

Seeing the lightning user already eating, everyone else hurried to start eating as well.

"This is better than anything I can do." Lie Ren admitted from next to her after he had taken a bite out of the freshly steamed fish. He looked at the only adult in the room who was sitting next to Ruby, "You sure you're not a chef or something?"

"I've had plenty of time to practice." The blond man replied blandly, "Eat all you like. There's plenty to go around."

Next to Team JNPR, Team CFVY was already pigging out on the food, "You hunted these yourself?" Coco murmured with some wonder as she delicately tasted the cream soup, "When did you even have time to do that and cook all these? We weren't even bathing that long. An hour at most."

Yasuhashi Daichi nodded as she took a bite of the boar, "I've had boar before, but it's never this soft and they often have a bad smell. This doesn't taste gamey at all."

"I didn't hunt everything. I had some stock put away." The blond explained before patting Ruby's head fondly, "Despite how these two girls look, they can put away a ton of food. I've gotten into the habit of always carrying extra, and you tend to find a lot of interesting herbs and spices when you wander through a forest."

Yang squinted at her so-called uncle, "You calling me fat?"

"You burn everything you eat anyway with the amount of work you put in." The blond replied diplomatically with a barely hidden smirk.

Yang harrumphed at him playfully, "Nice dodge."

"Seriously. If you two have this kind of food all the time, I think I might join you on that trip." Coco joked, though the looks he seemed to be getting from the guys indicated that they didn't think that was a bad idea at all.

Pyrrha glanced at the older man who was only watching them eat with an amused look, "Aren't you going to eat?"

"I've already had some while I was cooking." The blond man deflected politely, "You guys enjoy. I'm gonna go and get a head start in the bath."

Coco watched the older man go before nudging Yang with an elbow, "So."

Yang responded with a quirked eyebrow, "What?"

"Your uncle can cook like a goddamn pro. He can kick ass. And if his abs are any indication, he's probably got buns of steel to go with them too," Coco wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

On the other side of Yang, Coco's team mates promptly began comically coughing as their food went down the wrong hole as their team leader showed everyone her famed ability to put her foot in her mouth no matter the situation.

Coco continued without bothering with them, "You can't tell me that a guy like that is still single. So, spill."

"Whether he's single or not is his problem." Yang replied with another roll of the eyes.

She figured she might as well go with the flow if Naruto was going to pretend to be their uncle. At least he had the right hair color, though that wasn't really saying anything.

Ruby put up her hand, "I'm open to suggestions."

Coco's hand shot up, "Team CFVY volunteers!"

Next to her, Velvet blushed a bright ruby red and practically fainted. Yatsuhashi and Fox groaned and buried their faces in the palms of their hands.

"Denied." Yang immediately shot her down with a roll of her lilac eyes, "Anyone but you. You just want a harem."

To her credit, Coco didn't even bother to blush or deny it, "I'd make him happy though."

"Get lost."

"Uhh…" Jaune slowly put up his hand with a pained expression, "Can we not discuss harems during dinner? Or ever? Preferably ever."

Lie Ren just nodded solemnly, "Seconded."

Nora just looked like she was in a happy food coma.

Coco pouted, "You guys suck. Seriously, how can you guys see abs like those and not drool? Fuhehehe..."

Yang snorted at the fashion-conscious girl disdainfully as her eyes glazed over and she began to giggle to herself creepily, clearly lost in her fantasies.

Fuck. Even if the ring spirit wasn't her actual uncle, he didn't deserve whatever Coco was clearly planning to do to him, "Jaune's motion is accepted, everyone focus on your dinner." She ordered authoritatively.

She picked up her plate and moved to the kitchen to wash it off. Once she had done so, she surreptitiously looked around before heading out of the kitchen door. Like she had noted earlier, she had never seen the blond man bath or eat, so she didn't think he was really all that interested in a hot bath tub soak.

In fact, she rather suspected that the blond already had his own bath in the ring.

As expected, she found her teacher sitting outside under a shaded tree. It was already well into the night, so there was barely any light at all save for a small flickering campfire burning merrily in a small hole with rocks piled up around the mouth of the hole to prevent its light from being too noticeable.

The blonde seemed to be staring into the fire with a strangely intense expression as a bird of some sort called out into the night, probably a raven judging by the croak.

"You alright?" She asked bluntly, "You were acting weird."

Naruto jerked back, looking genuinely surprised that he hadn't noticed her, "I'm fine. Sort off..." The blond replied seriously, "I seem to have discovered that I may have a serious problem. Nothing I can't handle, but its quite annoying."

Yang stared at him strangely, "You… discovered you have a problem? How does that even work?"

The blond nodded with a serious mien, "All the previous times, ever since Ruby had picked up my ring, I've not spoken to more than five people at any point in time, and the one I did so, I was hiding behind in the ring anyway. But now that I've had the chance to just sit there surrounded by people, it struck me that perhaps…. Perhaps I've gotten a bit too used to the silence of my ring and the comfort of my own company. Therein lies my problem." The other blond announced with all the seriousness of a man realizing that the apocalypse was arriving, "I've turned into an introvert."

"… Why did I even bother?"

"I'm being serious." The blond replied with a completely straight face, "Next thing you'll know, I'll start moping and brooding in a corner. Even worse, I might start dying my hair black and wearing red contact lenses.

Yang stared at the other blond.

He had one hell of a poker face, that much she could tell. Everything else was pretty much up for debate. She had no idea if her teacher was being serious or just yanking on her chain. She didn't even know if being an introvert was a legitimate disease or mental problem for her teacher and his kind, considering he wasn't really human, the same way Faunuses had diseases that non-Faunuses couldn't get.

"If you ever see me doing that, I want you to promise me something, Yang." The blond continued earnestly, heedless of Yang's confusion.

"What is it?" She asked cautiously.

The blond suddenly cracked a humorous grin, "Please slap me."

I'll slap you right now." Yang yowled and moved to grab his left wrist with her right hand.

The grinning blond let her grab his wrist before he twisted it clockwise, reversing the grip so that he was the one holding on to her arm now. Rather than pulling back or punching with her other hand, the angry girl suddenly pushed and shifted her center so that she could grab his arm, locking their arms together before she suddenly leapt over him.

Naruto watched as if in slow motion as the blond girl gracefully soared over him before landing behind him, pulling him back until he was practically parallel to the ground from the knees up, before she tried to sweep his legs out from under him.

He was genuinely impressed.

He had long since noted that the fighters of Remnant had an odd acrobatic grace when they fought that involved a lot of flips, somersaults and a very flexible, variable fighting style.

It certainly looked very nice.

Very flashy and impressive.

Not even shinobi did that kind of somersault quite so casually.

Mostly because jumping around like that when your opponent was even remotely competent was no different from taking off your pants and then politely asking your opponent to rip you a new asshole.

On the other hand, he hadn't really seen that many people fighting in Remnant other than the Hunters and Huntresses that had been in Beacon, so he couldn't really say it applied to everyone on Remnant. At the very least, the few adults he had seen fighting so far, Glynda, Qrow and Ironwood, were more down-to-earth and combined their solid and practical moves with their graceful movements, flexibility and variable fighting styles into a more effective whole, minus one or two bad habits he had noticed.

Maybe it was a teenager thing?

Naruto responded by leaping lightly and spinning in midair until they were now face to face again and moved to knee her in the gut. Yang immediately did the same thing and their knees bashed against each other ineffectively and pushed the two of them apart again.

The two of them shifted rapidly, their free hands coming up to push, block and parry fluidly, their interlocking arms not letting go, limiting their movement to just shuffling around in circles around each other in between kicks and jabs with their feet.

One eyebrow rose as he fended her next grab off by twisting his wrist in a clockwise manner, grabbing her wrist instead. Instead of pulling back and punching like she normally would, Yang suddenly pushed and clamped down on his arm before pulling. Her feet moved to block his and make him stumble, but the other blond pivoted so that rather than face her, he was now on her right.

His free hand clamped down on her right shoulder and pushed her down, his knees locking down her own. Yang struggled to get free for a moment before relaxing with a grunt.

"Not bad," He complimented her honestly, "I was wondering how long that was going to take you."

"Still needs some work." Yang observed somewhat wryly.

"Naturally." Naruto ruffled her hair fondly, ignoring the angry growl, before he helped her stand back up, "No matter how talented someone is, you don't go from just learning stances to putting them into action in one week. And believe me, you are far more talented than I was when I was your age. Back then, my idea of a good fighting style was to throw as many haymakers as I could get in." The blond commented with a self-depreciating half grin, "You on the other hand, already grasped the basic concept of what I was trying to teach you. All you need now is to get your footwork down."

Yang just sighed, but she couldn't hide her slightly happy smile.

The moves that Sensei had been making her do, that slow-slow-fast thing, was less of a style and more of a concept that focused a lot on rotation and spinning, to grapple, defuse and isolate her opponent. She got the impression that it had been derived from something a lot more rigid despite its gentleness, but the other blond seemed to think that she didn't need the whole style itself and just wanted her to combine the concept of slowness itself into her own combat style.

How she was going to do that, only Oum knew, but she was kinda looking forward to it.

Naruto smiled at her badly hidden impatience and ruffled her hair, "Go and sleep, Yang. We've got an early day tomorrow."

Yang slapped his hand away with an impotent growl before flouncing away. She hated it when people touched her hair. She knew her mentor was perfectly aware of this, which was exactly why he made it a point to do it to her as frequently as he could.

He even encouraged her to try and stop him.

She had yet to succeed.

****NM****

When morning dawned, Ruby and Yang woke almost automatically in the room they had been using. After two weeks, they had already adjusted to waking at the very ass crack of dawn thanks to their very own personal ring spirit torturer.

The two of them zombie shuffled into the toilet and did their morning ablutions. Once they were done and feeling marginally more alive, they quickly threw on some clothes before heading down the stairs.

As they had expected, breakfast had already been laid out for them by their mentor, even the cups, plates and utensils were already laid out for ten people. He was strangely fussy about things like that. Everything had to be prepared and in place before they were ever even needed and both of them just learned to deal with it.

The blond himself was nowhere to be seen, however that didn't stop them from attacking the food on the table. They were barely half way through their food when both of them heard the sound of bare footsteps clapping on the wooden floor behind them. Both of them glanced behind them and send a blearily blinking Pyrrha, who was still in a set of fluffy pink pajamas, a morning wave as a greeting.

Clearly, she had been woken up by the sound of them moving and bustling around earlier.

There was more than enough food for the three of them, plus Yang suspected that there was more in the kitchen for the others who were still asleep if the plates and utensils were any indication, so she just silently motioned to Pyrrha to sit down, not even bothering to stop chewing.

Pyrrha smiled faintly and politely sat down and filled her own bowl with some scrambled eggs, vegetables and a muffin before filling a cup with some hot milk.

After she had had a few bites and a sip, she cleared her throat, "Would the two of you mind if I came with you to Silmeria?"

Ruby blinked "Wha 'or?" She asked with a mouth full of bacon.

"As a temporary escort." Pyrrha replied earnestly, "I don't think Coco and her team know yet, but my team and I are pretty sure Mr. Uzumaki isn't actually your uncle." She explained with a pointed look at the ring hanging on Ruby's neck, "We're a bit worried about the two of you going off alone with just him, but we can't leave our assignments, so they agreed to have one of us go with you first. Jaune can't leave because he's the leader while Lie Ren and Nora are basically inseparable and find it difficult to focus without the other, so I volunteered."

"And then? You gonna run all the way back here by yourself?" Yang asked skeptically.

Pyrrha just smiled faintly, "Don't worry about me. I'll hop onto a Bullhead once we're there and head back to Vale by myself before I get a ride back here. Shouldn't take me more than a day."

Ruby and Yang shared a glance before Ruby shrugged, "Sure. One more won't really matter, I guess. Sensei probably wont care either way."

Then the two sisters grinned wickedly at her, "Try and keep up yeah?"

Pyrrha gave them a puzzled look, "Keep… up?"

Before the two of them could explain, or tease Pyrrha even more, the Uzumaki finally walked in carrying two bowls and a stink of ammonia and rotten eggs wafted through the room.

All three girls immediately began retching at the smell, "Oh Oum! What is that?!" Pyrrha choked out in between retches.

Naruto just gave Pyrrha an apologetic look before nodding at Yang and Ruby, "Good. The two of you are up. I have your hair dye here as well. We just need to throw some of this on before we can go."

Yang groaned nasally, carefully making sure to keep her nose pinched together, "No. no. no. No way in hell. We can wear hoods. PLEASE let us wear hoods. I don't care if we look suspicious, I'm not putting that stuff on my hair again no matter what you say!"

Ruby agreed with her sister. Violently.

"I did offer to make you two something a little less pungent." The blond man pointed out mildly, "You two disagreed because that one is slightly tougher to wash out."

Yang bopped her sister and pointed at Naruto authoritatively.

Ruby rolled her eyes and hopped over as close to Naruto as she could manage without falling over from the stink, "Sensei… please?"

She pouted as cutely as she could with watering eyes and a wrinkly nose, thanks to the stinky mixture.

Naruto eyed her critically, "People saw you two arrive last night. In a battle with Grimm no less. There were idiots recording the whole thing, so if the two of you leave like this today, they'll notice, and it won't be difficult to guess where we're heading from there."

Ruby pouted even harder, "Do you even know if anyone is following us?"

"I don't." The blond admitted plainly. Without enough chakra, he didn't have access to any of his sensing arsenal.

"And I didn't feel anything either." Ruby argued, "I know when people are watching me."

"Which isn't really saying anything much considering they don't need to track you in person with the internet."

Ruby used her ultimate technique.

Her one trick that had not failed her ever since she had been five.

She turned her pout up to eleven and breathed out as cutely as she could, "Sensei, please….?"

At that point, the shinobi already knew he wasn't going to win this fight, but he still tried one last time, "I can go and make the less smelly one."

Ruby just shook her head emphatically, her dark bang flipping across her face.

Naruto just sighed in resignation before he set his shoulders with a stern expression, "Are you ready to accept the consequences of your decision?"

Ruby beamed at him and nodded.

The blond simply shook his head while Ruby cheered and turned around to go out and dispose of the dye mixture.

"Amazing." Pyrrha commented nasally as she watched the blond man leave, "The two of them really do act like family. He might as well be Ruby's real uncle."

Yang just shrugged, "He's like that with her all the time. Even I don't get that kind of privilege."

Pyrrha glanced at her friend weirdly. She wasn't sure, but for a moment it sounded like her former classmate had been a little jealous, "You don't like it?"

The blond girl just made a disgusted face, "He tries to include me in everything and keep it fair between us two, that's good enough. Ruby's the squishy, fluffy one here. I don't do that nonsense." She set her utensils down and got up with a mutter, "I'm gonna go pack."

Pyrrha just hummed neutrally. If she remembered last night correctly, and she was pretty sure she did considering the girls had spent an inordinate number of hours gossiping last night before they went to sleep, she was pretty sure Yang didn't have anything to pack outside of her pajamas because the ring spirit was the one carrying all their stuff anyway, but Pyrrha wisely kept her comments to herself. It sounded like something Yang needed to learn for herself and she didn't want to butt in.

It didn't take long before all three girls were ready to depart. Even Pyrrha had only elected to bring two sets of clothes with her, leaving the rest with her team until she returned, before she had poked Jaune awake to inform him that Ruby and Yang were already leaving. Her boyfriend had been somewhat disgruntled to learn that he wouldn't be able to sneak in some cuddle time and had tried to pull her into his bed for a quick hug.

Pyrrha had let him simply because she hadn't felt like arguing, although she wouldn't deny it had felt very nice to cuddle for a bit in that warm bed considering how rare it was for the awkward but gentle boy to display his affection in public. Or at least as public as it got in a room with three other sleeping guys.

Her heart had been filled with affection for him as she allowed herself to be enveloped in his arms and his scent until she had had reluctantly give him a quick kiss on the cheek before she got out to don her gear and grab her equipment.

Once she had got down however, there had been a slight hiccup when Naruto had noticed her presence. Then again, he hadn't said anything about it and had simply shrugged, so she had taken that as a green light. It was only when the two other girls were stretching with badly hidden and strangely anticipatory glances at her that a problem finally cropped up.

"Aren't you going to give Pyrrha one of those seals?" Yang had asked as casually as she could manage.

Pyrrha had been somewhat baffled for a moment.

Seals? What seals?

Were they supposed to be carrying animals for some reason?

The blond man had simply given Yang a dry look.

Apparently, he had figured out what was going on already just from that one sentence because he just turned to her with a resigned sigh, "I have certain abilities that let me increase the weight and resistance one feels while moving. Those two over there," He gestured at an openly grinning Ruby and a smiling Yang, "Already have some on them."

He paused before continuing with a slightly mischievous smile, "The first night I put the seals on them to activate this ability, neither of them managed to walk any longer than three hours."

"OI!" Yang shouted indignantly, while Ruby pouted sadly, "Why do you have to spoil our fun like that, Sensei?"

"Because if she faints part way through, who do you think is going be carrying her?" the blond man deadpanned, "It sure as hell isn't going to be you two is it?"

Both of them promptly looked away with innocent whistles.

Pyrrha gave the three of them a skeptical look as her pride and competitiveness ignited, "Three hours? Really? And I have to be carried after that? It can't be that bad right?"

All three of them suddenly looked at her with a very similar, shark like grins before Naruto came over to her and bit his finger.

Yang smiled even wider as Pyrrha watched the blond paint some sort of squiggly shape on her armor with a mildly disgusted expression.

She outright burst into laughter when Pyrrha suddenly went from standing, to face planting on the ground.

The red head grunted as her Aura flared and she slowly pushed herself off the ground and steadied herself with a dumbfounded expression, "That was... interesting."

"Alright, lets go!" Ruby cheered as she promptly shot off in a burst of petals while Yang and Naruto followed behind with a slightly more sedate jog.

Pyrrha set her shoulders seeing Yang's parting grin.

How hard could it be if Ruby was that cheerful?

Five hours later, Pyrrha decided she was going to give Ruby a good kick up the butt when she caught up with the dark-haired girl.

They had been jogging north though the plains non-stop the entire time, be it ditch, pit or hill, none of the three in front of her seemed affected in the slightest, while her own pace kept flagging more and more. She glanced at the skies, thanks to the distinct lack of shade and trees, the sun had been shining straight down on them and she had been carefully drinking from her canteen until nothing had been left, and it wasn't even noon yet.

At best, it was barely ten o'clock, but her thighs and calves were already burning with lactic acid, and her Aura was down to the barest of trickles, but the red headed girl continued to persevere stubbornly for an additional thirty minutes, pushing through even when the last of her Aura burnt out with a flicker.

Then she bore the weight and pushed for another 30 minutes through sheer willpower alone.

She had just crested the last hill when her legs finally gave up on her and Pyrrha collapsed with a short yelp, prompting the blond man to look back.

"Guys, Miss Nikos is down. 30-minute break."

The two girls who were quite a bit further ahead looked back before they started jogging back to Pyrrha where she sat, massaging her legs with an embarrassed expression despite gasping for breath. Surprisingly, neither girl looked amused or pitying.

In fact, Ruby looked downright guilty whereas Yang was pointedly refusing to look at her.

The blond man with the whiskers just rolled his eyes at the two girls before he knelt down next to her and began to massage her legs to relieve some of the pain and ache in her limbs. The relief was almost instant and Pyrrha practically had to fight not to moan.

"You two got something to say right?" The blond man massaging her feet suddenly said.

Pyrrha blinked dazedly in between her gasps, "Me?"

"Not you. Those two." He jerked one finger back at Ruby and Yang.

Ruby pouted sadly before she sat down next to Pyrrha and hugged her despite all the sweat, "Sorry, Pyrrha. We didn't think you were going to push that hard. We just wanted to play a prank on you, but you were trying so hard that we feel bad for making fun of you."

She had to give it to Ruby, the girl was nothing if not honest.

Pyrrha cleared her throat and nodded, accepting the apology, the hug was just adding to the heat but she was too polite to say anything.

Luckily, Ruby let go and offered her own canteen to the red head with some advice, "Don't drink too much. Take small sips first until you feel better."

Seeing that, Yang sighed gustily and squatted down on the ground, "Yeah, sorry about that. When we first started doing this, Sensei told us not to wear armor and some other stuff, but we didn't tell you." '

Oh. So that's why her armor felt so disgusting.

She could feel sweat dripping from her circlet, and bunching along the delicate chains attached to her earrings before they dripped down her neck.

Honestly, she hadn't felt so tired, or so fulfilled, ever since she had left Mistral.

Training in Beacon just wasn't as challenging as she had expected.

"You did really, really well though." The more talkative sister added on with gleaming eyes, "There's a trick to this. You have to make sure you don't use your Aura to remove all the weight, just enough to keep moving at a steady pace. It took us four days to learn that, and Sensei definitely didn't tell us about that. You didn't know either, but you still managed to go on for at least four hours! And we were just walking on that first day, but you were keeping up with us the whole time!"

Pyrrha looked at the two other girls uncertainly, "You mean you two just jog the whole time? Until lunch?"

"Nope. Till the sun goes down. Then we usually spar and train after dinner until we sleep." Ruby chirped earnestly.

Pyrrha blanched at that admission and looked at Yang, "Seriously? You do this the whole day? Just jog non-stop?"

The blond girl just smiled faintly and nodded with a somewhat proud expression.

Pyrrha just chuckled softly, "Alright. You guys win. Even if its just jogging, that's some serious stamina."

Yang exhaled again and Pyrrha knew everything was right again between them, before the blond girl shrugged, "So what did you really want anyway?"

"What did I want?" Pyrrha asked uncertainly.

"Yeah, you wanted to ask us something right?" Yang elaborated bluntly, "No point coming all this way with us otherwise. We would have been fine with Sensei, escort or no escort, and you guys already know that after Beacon. The biggest Grimm alive could've found us and he'd just slap it straight back to hell."

"Wow, I feel appreciated. Such warmth. Much love."

Yang ignored Naruto.

Pyrrha blushed again and slowly pointed at Yang's right arm.

Yang just nodded, "Figured you'd realize. It was either you or Nora, none of the others had the Semblance or skill to detect it."

"Told you, you should've turned Ember Celica into a full gauntlet." Ruby interjected with a sing song voice.

"It's not like we had time to make adjustments before we left." Yang replied with a roll of the eyes.

"Oooh!" Ruby perked up excitedly, "We can do that in Silmeria! They've got some great shops since its near Atlas!"

Yang relented with a sigh, "Fair enough. I wanted to make some other additions anyway."

"Rocket fist?!"

"Hell no."

Pyrrha snorted and giggled, "Very lame." She agreed with Yang merrily.

Ruby pouted, "You guys suck. Being an adult sucks."

Yang shrugged, "Anyway, if you want to know about my arm, then you should be asking him." She pointed at Naruto, "He fixed it. Don't ask me how anyone can make a new arm out of pure light, but he can do it. You might as well ask him how he disintegrated that Wyvern while you're at it though. Its more or less the same thing. He'll just give you a whole dog and pony story and you won't understand a thing anyway because that's what he did to us."

"Yeah, I'm totally feeling the appreciation here." Naruto muttered.

"You know I love you, Sensei," Yang began sweetly before she turned deadpan, "But let's face it. You creating new arms out of thin air and destroying monster Grimms in one go are on the same level of logic as you living in a janky piece of metal. You can tell us the bare honest truth, but none of us will so much as understand a single fleck of it unless you can transfer memories too or something. So, you deal with this."

Naruto made a face at her while Ruby giggled and patted his fluffy, spiky yellow hair.

Pyrrha couldn't help it, she could only smile at their interactions.

They were so adorable and playful with each other.

"30 minutes breaks over." Yang suddenly announced, "Sensei can carry you while you two talk."

"And now I get to carry you. Whee." Naruto muttered under his breath.

The red head blushed and waved her hands frantically, "No, no. it's okay. I can still walk. I can go back to the farm like this."

"What happened to wanting answers?"

That left Pyrrha stumped, "Uh… I can walk?"

The blond man looked her straight in the eye, "Either you get on my back, or I tie you up and carry you on my shoulders. Take your pick."

Pyrrha wisely kept her mouth shut and tentatively grabbed the blond's shoulder.

The red head coughed quietly and tried to make it as comfortable as she could for the blond as he carried her, piggyback style.

"Are you comfortable, Miss Nikos?"

"Pyrrha, please." The red head pleaded.

"Fair enough. Are you comfortable, Pyrrha?"

She noticed that he pronounced her name as 'Pira', but it was rather cute so she let it go, "Yeah."

She silently let the blond jog for a bit until she was sure she wasn't too much of a bother for the blond man before she started, "So…."

Even she winced at that.

It felt so awkward.

One slitted blue eye glanced back at her before turning back, "Inquisitive one, aren't you?"

"A bit." Pyrrha confessed with some embarrassment.

The blond just shrugged, "I'm not from this world."

Pyrrha blinked, "Really?"

"Don't think so at least." The blond replied with a vague shake of the head, "Different energy systems, different technology, different world map, different countries, different cultures. Hell, I didn't even speak your language until I spent some time with Ruby's alphabet books. I'm just not 100% certain because Ruby, and therefore myself, have never left Vale until Beacon was hit. Who knows, I might be your ancestor or something." The blond joked.

"You didn't want to go and take a look for your home?"

Naruto shrugged again, "I wasn't really too bothered about it if I'm being honest. I was happy relaxing."

He shook his head wearily before smiling fondly although Pyrrha couldn't see it, "Besides, If I ever found my home again, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get chewed out by my friends for randomly going off on a wild trip just became some random old bitch fell out of the sky and said something ominous while I was spanking her. Assuming they're still alive."

"Oh." Pyrrha wasn't sure what she could say to something like that.

Did he like to spank old women?

She wasn't going to judge, but old women?

Old women that fell out of the sky?

Was this another one of those Naruto-Uzumaki-level-of-logic things?

Why was she getting even more confused?

He continued and reflected to himself, "I was too tired of fighting, I think. I had been fighting non-stop ever since I was born. I had to fight to be recognized. Then I had to fight to survive. Then I had to fight to keep everything I had already fought for in one piece. I fought for love too, but that didn't go anywhere. When I was done, I realized I had been fighting for more than two entire decades. Figured it was time for a break. Just didn't realize how long that break ended up being."

"That sounds… horrible." She finally understood what Yang meant about not understanding anything despite the fact that the blond man with the whiskers was obviously not lying. He sounded so weary and tired just talking about his past she couldn't imagine how he must have felt while it had all been happening.

it tugged at her heartstrings.

"Meh. Wasn't too bad. I fulfilled my dream along the way. Just to find out it involved a lot of fussy and annoying stuff." The blond man snorted with some amusement, "Every moment I spent doing what I had dreamed to do since I was a kid, I could feel myself getting weaker and blunter. I mean, I got stronger than I already was, but I just wasn't improving as fast as I felt I could have. I couldn't let that continue, so I left. Plus, a lot of the time, I felt like if I stayed, I would have gone mad with the sheer idiocy and red tape and I would've ended up slapping a lot of people to death."

"So you were in the government?"

"Yep."

Naruto and Pyrrha both chuckled at that before he continued, "Anyway, I don't have Aura or Semblance. What I have is something else entirely. It doesn't protect me like Aura, or do whatever a Semblance is supposed to do, but its more flexible." He summed it up, before he launched into a more detailed description and comparison that he had already shared with Ruby and Yang before.

****NM****

Naruto squinted at the darkening sky.

He also noted the small black speck high above them.

That raven was there again.

It had been tailing them pretty much every single day and he had originally thought it was someone's Semblance or a trained scout. It wasn't until he had realized that the bird was appearing out of thin air every morning that he realized who that probably was, but he wasn't saying anything.

If that was really her, then let the Tsundere come down and open her own damned beak if she was so concerned.

Yang deserved that much at least.

"Guys, bout time to stop!" He called out to Ruby and he helped Pyrrha stiffly sit down on a rock.

Even if she had been carried the whole way here, it still made her whole body feel sore.

All of a sudden, four more identical blond men appeared and they helped Ruby and Yang lie down before all three of them began massaging the girls. It was one of those athletic, sweaty massages, so there was nothing sexy about it.

All three of them could only groan in pain and sweet relief. The third clone started setting up a tent while the fourth began boiling some water he drew straight out of the air.

Pyrrha could only watch everything speechlessly.

She was out here on the plains, but everything these three were doing felt so magical and amazing.

"The two of you don't cook?" Pyrrha queried the girl next to her innocently.

"More like, Sensei doesn't let us cook." Ruby grumbled.

"I did. Once." Naruto cut in dryly, "After that, whenever I see the two of you with knives in your hand, my heart starts pounding and throbbing." The blond man deadpanned, "and then I realize I have never been more scared in my life."

Ruby promptly shot up from massage and hurled herself at him fist first, "Shut up PUNCHHH!"

Naruto calmly blocked her punch before folding her onto his lap like she was an angry kitten and combing his fingers through her dark red hair, "This one can't even boil water without breaking the pot in half."

A pouting Ruby somehow growled and purred at the same time.

"You should count yourself lucky Weiss isn't here then. She can't even win a fight with a pan in a one-on-one duel." Yang cracked a joke as she enjoyed her own massage.

"Not like you have any right to say that. I distinctly remember you serving us rainbow colored charcoal for dinner." Ruby pointed out, "In fact, the only person on our team that can cook anything that's even remotely edible is Blake."

Pyrrha smiled gently, "No one on my team can cook outside of Ren either." She admitted, "Nora can eat anything short of rocks when she's hungry and Jaune still thinks punching bread with his gauntlets on is a suitable replacement for sandwiches."

"Doesn't he punch Grimm with those?"

"So he makes Grimm flavored sandwiches?"

The sisters cackled like hyenas.

Once dinner had been served, simple and plain looking roasted chicken and boiled smash potatoes with some herbs, Pyrrha was yet again amazed to find that she was once more bursting with Aura after she had finished her dinner. She looked around the clearing, the two girls with her were just basking under a tree while their teacher was nowhere to be seen. Presumably he had left to wash the dishes.

So she subtly scooted over next to Ruby who was just sitting there day dreaming.

"Hey, Ruby?"

The girl with dark red hair jerked a bit and looked at her with some surprise, "Mmm?"

"What did your teacher do with the food?"

"Eh?" The dark-haired girl stared at her blankly.

Pyrrha fought the urge to roll her eyes, "Don't you feel like you're full of energy again? Even after jogging the whole day with those seals on? He cooked for us yesterday, right? But it didn't do anything like this."

"Oh that." Ruby just shrugged, "You know, he didn't cook for us until we got that Aura thing down and could at least walk a whole day without fainting, so I never really thought about it. I just filed that under Sensei logic. I mean, he'd probably tell us if we asked, but we won't understand a damn thing anyway."

Pyrrha wanted to scream in frustration.

What the hell was wrong with these two girls?

Didn't they realize just how…. Odd everything their teacher was doing?

And none of them were even bothering to try and understand it?

Didn't they realize just how special and amazing this kind of knowledge would be?

Just how the food alone would revolutionize training?

And then… and then what?

She'd ask the blond man to share that knowledge with everyone?

When he'd already flat out said he wasn't from this world and didn't owe anyone anything?

That he was simply training Ruby and Yang for his own reasons?

Why did this argument sound so familiar?

Pyrrha deflated before she drew in a deeeeeep calming breath and tried another tack.

"Is he really training you with his… chakra?"

Ruby's eyes gleamed, "So he really told you? I thought he was going to be all secretive or something. He didn't tell dad, Uncle Qrow or Professor Ozpin."

She looked around and winked playfully before she clapped her hands together softly and slowly opened them again.

Above her palms, an opaque flower floated in midair right in front of Pyrrha's disbelieving eyes.

Absently, she noted that the flower was a budding rose.

The flower then transformed into a tiny little lion that breathed fire.

The lion then molded itself into a floating, revolving snow flake before it turned into a small black kitten that meowed cutely and burst into a small shower of red sparkles.

"I can't do fancy stuff the way he does without hand signs, but I can do this much." Ruby confided proudly and jabbered on, "Sensei can do stuff like make things go invisible or make you hallucinate without even touching you. He says I need a lot more training before I get to that point, and it's not like I don't get where he's coming from, but seriously, all he lets me do is practice the same four illusions over and over again."

It was almost adorable how the girl flipped back and forth between being proud of Naruto and disgruntled that he wouldn't teach her more.

If only she wasn't quite so dense as well.

"You've only been training less than two weeks. Even four sounds like too many until you can use them like he can." Pyrrha replied neutrally.

Ruby shrugged, "That's what he says."

Pyrrha wanted to give up.

She looked at Yang.

Yang just grinned at them, obviously she had been listening, "Don't look at me like that. I don't know either."

"Sensei already said he'd be perfectly happy to help you get chakra and then teach you how to use it, you're the one being all conflicted and strange about it for no reason." Ruby reminded her blond sister impertinently.

Yang just grunted with a rebellious pout, "Let's just wait till we get Princess alright? I'd feel more comfortable if I had someone else to do it with."

"What am I? Chopped liver!?"

"More like guinea pig."

"Screw you."

"Love you too."

Ruby rolled her eyes and leaned back on her tree, "I can't wait until we get Weiss. Then it'll just be Blake left to find."

The blond snickered, "Yeah, Kitty cat's going to be pissed off she missed so much."

Pyrrha… gave up.

"You know what? Fuck it." She muttered and leaned back on another tree to enjoy her after dinner break as well.

"Y'know, if you asked, I'm pretty sure Sensei wouldn't mind teaching you either." Yang commented idly after a while, "He thinks you're a good person."

Pyrrha looked at Yang with some surprise, "He'd teach me? Everything he does? Just because he thinks I'm a good person?"

"It's probably a bit more complicated than that. I never asked for specifics. He just implied that as long as Ruby and I agreed, he doesn't care." Yang confessed with a slightly pink face, "And I dunno bout everything. He just teaches me how to fight, but even I can tell that that's going to take a loooong time. Throw in his elemental skills, his illusions, his symbols and I don't even wanna know how long it would take to learn everything. Even he doesn't think it's feasible, which is why he's only teaching us specific things to complement what we already know and what we can already do rather than start from the basics and learn everything equally like he supposedly did."

"Doesn't his skills have some sort of pre-requisite or something?" Pyrrha queried hesitantly, it sounded way too good to be true.

"Some of them yeah," Yang admitted, "Stuff like his ability to sense what's happening far away and stuff, but he's already told us flat out those can't be taught. He just lucked into the right set of skills in the right of circumstances, and he has a real issue with depending on luck. He outright hates that kind of thing. Which is kinda hypocritical when you think about it, because the only reason we even met him was because of luck. The general stuff is fine though. Other than melee fighting, the rest just need chakra, and he's already found a way to help us get that anyway."

"Wow." Pyrrha said softly as she leaned back onto her own tree.

The clearing was silent for a moment.

"Sounds too good to be true." The red head finally admitted, "What's stopping me from running off and telling everyone about everything I've learnt?"

"I know right?" Yang replied with a smirk in her voice Pyrrha could actually hear, "Now you know how I feel about it too. He can do so many amazing things I don't think anyone else can do, and he's just flat out going to teach it to me for nothing? Just because Ruby's my sister? Its…. I dunno how to describe it, but I just feel so awkward saying yes."

Ruby on the other hand, just rolled her eyes, "I'll never understand why you two are complicating things so much. Sensei's just being nice."

"Must be nice to be an idiot." Yang muttered ruefully, while Pyrrha laughed.

Suddenly the blond man walked back into the clearing.

"For the record," He started blandly, "I don't mind teaching you guys anything. What you guys do with that knowledge is up to you, but if you happen to teach someone else, and something goes wrong, like someone using my skills to try and conquer the world or something equally stupid, I fully expect you guys to clean up your own mess. And I expect it to be done properly."

Naruto gave them a pointed look, "No flowery, fluffy shit like you could bear to do it because you still trusted them or you still loved them or some such nonsense. Nope. Been there, done that. Didn't like it. So, if you do something like that, I'll decide that I need to take care of it myself. And if I have to do that, I'll be irritated, and therefore, not very gentle. And that will be before I come looking for whoever messed up in the first place for a good spanking."

The blond paused, his eyes glinted with amusement, "Not to mention that without me, it's not like you can give chakra to anyone else anyway, so that really just leaves my knowledge on herbs, poisons, which is limited to the herbs and stuff I can find near Vale by the way, at least until we travel further, and fighting styles. Most of which you're not going to get the full benefit of without chakra anyway."

Yang and Ruby just laughed, while Pyrrha looked absolutely startled at being called out, the two sisters already knew that her teacher was perfectly capable of hearing things from inhuman distances, so Pyrrha's little attempt at being subtle had been nothing short of amusing.

"Nope. Won't happen~ because I'll stay with you forever~ you'll have to take care of me until I'm old and white haired~" Ruby sing songed.

I fully expect you to be the first one to mess up." The blond man gave her a disdainful look, "You could be married with grandchildren and trundling around in a wheelchair and still mess up."

"Shut up PUNCHHH!" Ruby hurled herself at the blond man again and they promptly began tussling playfully. Ruby was trying to punch every bit of the blond while the blond taunted her with every hit, saying that she punched like a kitten, and tickling her as much as possible.

Yang just sighed at her sister and teacher and got up, "Time for training I suppose."

She promptly jumped into the pile of flesh and teamed up with her sister to wail on their teacher.

"So what do you wanna do? Train?"

Pyrrha jumped and looked at the man beside her. A man who she could have sworn hadn't been there until just now.

"You! Huh? Wha?"

The whiskered blond man identical to the one currently fending off Ruby and Yang just waved one hand airily, "I'm just a clone. The boss is dealing with those two. But we can't just let you sit there and watch. That'd be rude. Gotta at least show you what we do here right?"

Pyrrha considered the offer, she had been carried for most of the day, so her muscles felt fine and her Aura was full thanks to dinner, so she saw no reason to decline, "How bout a spar?" She asked tentatively.

"Sure." The clone nodded, "Bare handed or with weapons?"

Pyrrha's eyes gleamed, "Weapons."

"Alright." The clone agreed and waited for Pyrrha to retrieve Miló and Akoúo̱.

When she was ready, she expected the blond to get his own weapons, but the clone simply bowed politely and held out one hand patiently.

Silence hung between the two of them.

The clone cocked one eyebrow even as he continued to just stand there patiently because it was patently obvious the girl had no intention of attacking.

"….."

"Why aren't you moving?" The clone finally asked.

"Why aren't you using a weapon?" Pyrrha countered.

The clone sweat dropped, "Don't really need one."

"It's not fair."

The clone just sighed, "You and I have very definitions of the word 'fair'." The clone noted dryly, "Or more accurately, we have different concepts and information that we have used to arrive at our respective conclusions."

The blond reached behind him and made a fist, "Your first lesson. Never let yourself assume that what you know is the same as what your opponent's know."

"Myriad Sword."

She watched with wide eyed shock as the blond slowly pulled a Sword right out of a hole in the air with a loud rasping sound.

Naruto swung it around and let the blade crash down on to the ground hard enough for it to crack the earth around him.

Calling it a sword was a disservice to actual swords.

That thing was a meat cleaver.

It was just one thick, flat piece of metal, at least 1 and a half meters long, sharpened on one end and attached to a long, wrapped hilt, measuring about two meters in total, taller than an adult man, with an odd half sphere shape cut into one the sharp end near the hilt where a chain connected the sword to the blond's wrist, and another full hole cut into the metal on the other end near the upward hooked tip.

All along the sword were seven of the blond man's blood symbols.

One in particular, the one in the middle glowed briefly, before they all faded away.

It looked simple, but that just made it look all the more brutal and efficient because of that.

Like it had only one function, and that was to smash.

For a while, the clearing was silent and there was a loud and piercing squeal.

Ruby appeared out of thin air, having abandoned her tussle with the original and began to bounce excitedly, "You can use weapons?" She squealed loudly.

"I don't believe I've ever said anything about not being able to use weapons." The clone replied mildly.

"But you've never used them with us!" Ruby protested.

"Neither of you can even touch me while I'm using my bare hands." Yang and the blond man himself arrived and pointed out dryly as the clone disappeared with a poof of smoke, "So how far do you two think you're going to get when I am using a weapon?"

"I still wanna see it! I wanna touch it!"

"It's just a sword." Naruto observed wryly, "It can't even do that, what do you call it? Roboshift?"

"Mechashift." Ruby promptly corrected him.

"Yes. That."

"There's nothing wrong with the classics!"

The blond just sighed and waved at the cleaver planted in the ground.

"Woooo!" Ruby shot at the meat cleaver excitedly so that she could molest it.

Naruto reckoned If the cleaver could talk, it would have called the police.

He let the girl fuss around for a bit before he shooed her off, "Alright, alright. You two are bothering Pyrrha. I'll let you play with it later, go sit down for a bit and watch for now."

Ruby obediently went to the side of the clearing with Yang and sat down attentively, her eyes shining.

"Sorry about that." He apologized to an amused Pyrrha.

"It's fine." The red headed girl replied before she suddenly charged, shield first.

Using his own body like a fulcrum, the blond flicked the handle of his cleaver and it immediately swung upwards.

Pyrrha suddenly stopped on a dime, appearing as if she had frozen in midair, allowing the cleaver to sail past her shield harmlessly. The blond man was left with his back wide open mid swing, so she shot forwards again without even touching the ground.

Naruto was once again, fairly impressed.

That one move alone told him that Pyrrha was on a whole other level compared to Ruby and Yang. She had at least started branching out from just practicing her own moves, and started understanding how to control the tempo of a fight.

"Raitō."

The cleaver blurred briefly, before it suddenly turned into a pair of twin swords with two wicked looking spikes along their lengths. One blade blocked her charge, while the other swiped against her legs.

There was another loud and piercing squeal, but both of them ignored Ruby.

Pyrrha paused and lifted one knee to block the swipe with her knee guard and preserve her own tempo and advantage. The hit turned her leg numb and she stumbled all of a sudden for no obvious reason.

Gritting her teeth, she forced her advantage, she flipped her sword around, transformed it into rifle mode and fired a sniper shot backwards to counteract her stumble, sending her flying forwards with Akoúo̱ spinning back in sword mode. All in one smooth move.

The blond bent over forwards, dodging the stab and spun around, bringing both swords around like a spinning slash.

Once more, Miló came up to block when the blond said something again.

"Dontō."

Pyrrha's ears pricked and her whole body lurched backwards on instinct when a hammer and axe combo sailed past her shield with a loud whoosh before she immediately shot forwards again, this time she retaliated with high speed, multiple stabs with Akoúo̱.

She moved so fast that it looked like Akoúo̱ was blurring into a storm of needles.

"Chōtō."

The sword blurred again and turned into a long needle like shape. It weaved and slipped through the storm of swords like an illusory needle before stabbing her twice on both shoulders.

Pyrrha didn't feel any pain thanks to her Aura, but still winced when she felt her Aura drop by a huge chunk from just those two simple pokes and fell back before she charged forwards again, and put all her Semblance into one strike. Sharper, faster, like a bullet launched from a rail gun. intent on preventing him from weaving through like he had just done.

The blond swung his needle sword upwards.

"Dantō."

The needle transformed into the cleaver again and swung down.

For a moment, she had the image of a mountain collapsing down on her.

The cleaver didn't even hit her blade, but that simple overhead swing came with so much force it immediately crushed her momentum into pieces despite her speed and sent her skidding all the way out of the clearing from wind pressure alone.

It wasn't hard to imagine what would have happened if the blond had actually taken her hit head on.

Akoúo̱ would have snapped.

"You understand?"

Pyrrha swallowed and nodded with some frustration as she slowly stood up again, her limbs suddenly feeling like lead.

"Alright."

The blond man watched her for a moment before sighing, "You did well. You've improved a lot from when you fought Cinder. You're using your Semblance more proactively than you used to."

Pyrrha just nodded again before she croaked, "I still lost."

Suddenly Ruby was there next to her in a burst of petals. Her eyes gleamed as she squealed and embraced Pyrrha, "What're you even talking about? The two of you were moving so fast I could barely keep up with everything. How did you even stop in midair like that?! And your stabs, it was soooo fast!"

"I used my Semblance." Pyrrha explained with a gentle smile.

The innocent girl blinked, "Huh? Wasn't your Semblance electromagnetic control or something?"

"It is. Polarity." The red-haired girl shrugged weakly, "I was controlling my armor and equipment. I can't actually move or stab that fast with just my muscles alone, but I can because I was using my Semblance. I normally don't do it to that extent but I've been training since…" The words stuck in her throat for a second, "since Beacon."

Ruby just nodded understandingly and hugged Pyrrha gently.

"I didn't even know Polarity could do something like that though. I thought it let you throw metal stuff or something, like back in Beacon." Yang just murmured off at the side.

Pyrrha shook her head, "Polarity isn't actually the name of my Semblance. More accurately, it's the name of the category used to describe all Semblances that are related to Electromagnetism. Some users can only do certain things, like generate electricity, and others can do other things like listen and decipher radio waves so they may have more specific names for their Semblances. Mine is just a bit more comprehensive than most, so I called it that."

"Really?" Yang mumbled, "Wow. Didn't know that. Do they do research on Semblances or something over in Mistral?"

Pyrrha looked at her friend strangely, "Some, but not its very effective. Basically, while the end effect may be similar, the way they achieve the end effect may be entirely different and unrelated. Then you compound it with the fact that Semblances sometimes change for so no obvious reason and you simply have too many variations for any research to be effective because everyone is different."

She was actually pretty sure there was research being done on it in Vale as well, because, y'know, it was one of the few ways they had of getting stronger and defeating Grimm short of carrying cannons and guns everywhere?

Just because it wasn't always effective didn't mean it wasn't done at all.

That said, they tended to be a bit overshadowed because Atlas was simply that much better with Semblance research than any other country. Then again, the same applied in almost every other category, so… eh.

Pyrrha paused.

She was feeling dejavu for some reason.

It felt like she had been here, in this exact scenario, before.

Explaining Semblance to someone.

It was an odd sensation.

Pyrrha shook her head to clear her muddled head and continued, "Your Semblance would fall under Kinesis incidentally, and Ruby's might be Super Speed, though hers is different compared to any I've heard about. Most super speed related Semblances are done by increasing body strength for explosive speed, or generating wind tunnels. There are other ways of course, for example, I know there's at least one person whose Super Speed comes from supercharging their nervous system with electricity, which also lets them generate even more electricity from the friction but I've not heard of any that involved bursting into Petals until I met Ruby, or know how that would lead to Super Speed."

Yang sweat dropped, "How have I never heard of this?"

Naruto looked askance at the two sisters, "Seriously guys. You two actually live on this planet. Can you two not be so lost? Why are the two of you even lost? At least I have an excuse."

"Shut up PUNCHHH!" Ruby whooped, yanked Crescent Rose open and charged.

"That's not a punch." Pyrrha commented.

One swing of the cleaver later, Ruby slid back until she hit a tree with a quiet, "Oof."

And promptly fell on her butt weakly as the sudden and abrupt drain on her Aura hit her, leaving her dizzy. She suddenly understood why he never bothered to use his weapon.

Even at bare minimum, a simple tap from that thing might have knocked them straight out. And that was before they considered the many, many variations Sensei was throwing out like a non-stop avalanche.

A downward slice could turn into a stab, a single sword could turn into two. A hook could suddenly hammer blow. And if she knew her teacher at all, she was 100% certain that the sword could do a lot more than just transform.

She wouldn't even be surprised if the swords could all talk or something.

"Alright, Yang! Your turn."

Yang just stared at him, "Do I look as stupid as Ruby or something?"

Ruby blinked, then protested indignantly, "Hey!"

While Ruby and Naruto bickered with each other, Pyrrha gingerly sat down next to Yang.

The blond was scratching her chin thoughtfully, "You reckon those research centers might know how to evolve Semblances?"

"I'm not sure." Pyrrha confessed, "I've heard about a few successes, but like I said. Semblances differ from person to person even within the same category, so it's very difficult to replicate successes. Even on the off chance that two people had the exact same Semblance that worked the exact same way, I've heard their past experiences would still affect the final result."

The blond girl sighed again, "Figured it wouldn't be easy."

Pyrrha only patted Yang's shoulder and then continued watching Ruby and Naruto inattentively.

Once they had finally gone to bed that night, Pyrrha still could not find sleep.

She just lay in her bedroll silently, thinking to herself.

Deep down, she knew very well what the blond man had been talking about earlier.

The blond had given her three lessons from that one exchange.

Four if you included his first lesson.

Don't get so confident that you know everything your opponent can do. They might just catch you by surprise, Cinder style.

The second had been his two hooked swords. For a brief instant, he had actually broken through her electromagnetic Semblance somehow. Whatever the method, his clue had been obvious. Control over electromagnetism was a finicky thing, and could be affected to by another Polarity user all too easily. Just because she was using her Semblance more actively now, didn't mean she should stop focusing on her own body entirely.

The third had been when he had transformed his sword into that needle shaped one. He had intentionally done so to show her that she was being too scared. Her stabs had been layered in two waves, the first was the actual attack, and the second had been done to defend herself. Unfortunately, that had weakened the overall move, and it had been easy to find gaps in the first wave. And once that had been achieved, piercing the second veil of swords had been even easier.

The fourth had been when she had put everything into her final stab. Even then, she knew a part of her was holding back, wary of another incoming trick, so she had been getting ready to dodge. His final slash had been there to tell her that with her focus divided like that, he didn't even need to hit her to break her move.

Pyrrha sighed.

There was so much to learn.

So many new things that no other Academy could offer.

That would let her become an even more effective Huntress.

Suddenly the prospect of going back to Beacon didn't seem all that appealing to her.

Maybe she could persuade Team JNPR to come join Team RWBY?

****NM****

The next morning dawned bright and cold when Pyrrha woke up shivering.

Outside, she could hear the scraping metallic sound of a pan being moved around on wood.

Eventually, the sound of sizzling arrived at her ears, and with it came the smell of bacon being fried.

Pyrrha groaned, she wasn't ready to get up yet because it was so cold.

She snuggled deep into her warm bedrolls and stayed there like a curled-up snail for a while.

They were already pretty close to Silmeria, and this far north, it was only natural that the weather was turning colder. After that, it was just a hop and a skip away from Mantle.

And she had forgotten to bring a jacket.

At least she had her Aura, but why waste it just because she was feeling cold?

By her estimation on yesterday's pace, they wouldn't even need an hour's jog before they hit Silmeria's farmlands, and from there, it would be another thirty minutes before they arrived.

At least it wasn't snowing.

Eventually the smell of bacon became a bit too overpowering for her growling tummy and so Pyrrha was forced to crawl out of her tent. Yang and Ruby shared the other one, but there was none for the Uzumaki. She assumed he just slept in the ring. If he slept at all.

It hadn't escaped her notice that he never got dirty, changed clothes or needed to eat.

As expected, the blond man was already sitting on a log as he calmly cooked a mound of bacon. One look at her shivering body though, the man couldn't help but smile in amusement before he pulled out of fluffy looking jacket from somewhere and handed it to her.

She accepted it gratefully and immediately swathed herself in the comfy, fluffy warmness. Feeling slightly better in her fluffy cocoon, Pyrrha went off to wash her face in some icy water and brushed her teeth when Ruby and Yang joined her, both of them were clad in similar looking jackets. In fact, they looked identical to the one she was wearing, except in a different color.

How many jackets did he even have?

Then again, Pyrrha reckoned that it didn't matter to him since he wasn't carrying them anyway. He probably kept them in the same place where he kept his sword.

Either way, it was equally obvious none of them felt like wiping down before they changed into a fresh set of clothes because of the cold.

Once the three girls were done, they arrived back in the clearing to see that food was already ready and served. The blond man was already packing up their tents and belongings. Ruby and Yang immediately happily started eating without even waiting for their teacher, so Pyrrha was left standing there for a moment awkwardly, wondering if it would be rude to just started eating like the two other girls even if the blond man didn't need to eat.

"Don't mind him." Yang seeing her hesitation spoke up, "He's not gonna eat. Just come sit down."

Relieved of her conflict, the just politely thanked the blond man before she joined Ruby and Yang. The three of them ate their fill and washed it all down with a good cup of warm milk, when they finally felt a bit more alive.

At least enough for them to start stretching and working the kinks out of their muscles in order to get ready for the day.

Once they got on their way, Pyrrha keeping up with them easily this time, it didn't take long for them to reach Silmeria's farmlands as she had expected. In the distance, Silmeria's high walls appeared, measuring nearly as high as Vale's own walls. Turrets and cannons lined the top of the walls, spaced out regularly.

Soon farmlands gave way to a bunch of tents and wooden shacks that looked incredibly flimsy and temporary under the shadow of Silmeria's walls. There was no solid border separating the campsite from the farmlands and mines, but the boundary was obvious all the same. This was where the farmers and laborers lived, Pyrrha presumed.

There weren't a lot of people out this early, the sun hadn't even fully broken the cloud cover above them, so there was no one out and about yet, so there was no one to stop them from walking right up to Silmeria's wide main gates. Wide enough to contain at least three tanks side by side, and made out of pure steel at least two inches thick. One half of the door was still closed, leaving other half open for people to go through after they had registered at the immigration booth.

Once there, the three girls somewhat tiredly queued up in front of the office and provided their identification as requested. Naruto had gone back into the ring temporarily, because he didn't have any.

The sleepy looking guard in the blue and white uniform just glanced at their scrolls and the identification data displayed, "Students from Beacon eh?" The guard muttered, "Don't get a lot of those here. You guys here for some sort of assignment?"

"Uh. Something like that." Yang nodded awkwardly.

The guard simply cocked one eyebrow at them, clearly not believing them, but apparently didn't find it worth his time or energy to question them further because he simply waved them through.

All three of them let out a quiet breath of relief once they gone past the gate and inhaled the fresh cold air, sharp with a salty tang.

The three of them slowly walked down the main road that cut through the middle of Silmeria.

Silmeria was a coastal town set on the north eastern tip of Sanus, right under Vytal, so they could clearly see an entire forest of masts sticking up over the roofs in the distance. It was practically on the level of a city and served as one of Sanus' main transit hubs for trade between Solitas, Sanus and Anima considering it was practically right in the center of all 3 continents, not counting Menagerie.

Vytal was a bit more centrally located, but thanks to its history as the place where the Vytal Peace Accord had been signed, people probably didn't feel like it was right to use it as a trading port. So ultimately, it was where neutral scholars and historians congregated. It was said that as long as you wanted to know something, Vytal was the first place you should go.

"So? What are you guys going to do now?" Pyrrha asked.

"Dunno. We got here early." Yang mumbled as she counted the days on her fingers, "Uh, four at first. Then seven. We met you guys on the seventh night. Then we spent another night before we got here. So we got two days before the concert."

She paused, "Man, I hope we can relax a bit more without rushing once we grab Weiss and get out of Atlas. Anyway, I suppose we need to find a plane to get us across, I guess? What bout you?"

"The same I suppose." Pyrrha laughed gently, "There should be some cargo going back to Vale. If they can't stop on the way there, I'll just take a bus or bike back to the farms."

"You have a license for bikes, right? Hold on." Yang rummaged around in her pocket, before she passed a set of keys over to Pyrrha, "Here. The keys to Bumblebee. Take care of her for me will ya? I left her in the parking lot."

Pyrrha stared at her friend dumbly while Ruby quirked one brow at her sister, "Your bike? Really? You won't even let me touch Bumblebee."

Yang just shrugged, "We left too fast for me to pick her up. Plus, I was kinda missing an arm at the time. Can't exactly ride a bike with just one arm. Besides, it doesn't look like I'm going to be needing her wherever I'm going, so I might as well let Pyrrha use her for now, right? At least I know she'll take care of Bumblebee. You on the other hand…." Yang hmphed disdainfully at the shorter girl.

Ruby harrumphed and turned her back on her sister when she noticed something.

"Hey, isn't that Atlas' flag?"

Yang glanced over to the building set right at the very end of the main road. It was a bit far away still, but it was big, and more importantly, it looked rather important and official and the signboard on the door said "City Hall", which made it all the weirder that it was flying Atlas' official white and blue flag, "Huh. You're right. Might be an embassy or something you reckon?"

Pyrrha resisted the urge to facepalm.

This… felt strangely familiar.

Y'know, being the one that had to explain simple and basic concepts to someone?

"Uh… guys?"

"Hmmm?"

"You do know that Silmeria isn't actually part of Vale, right?"

Ruby spun around to stare at her, "What? Really?"

Yang just shrugged, "Never seemed relevant in Patch."

"…. You at least know that Vale has been on the verge of war with Atlas for a while now, right? Although technically all the countries have been fighting with each other for years. It's just that tensions have never been so high." Pyrrha said slowly, "That was why General Ironwood showing up with an army at the Vytal Festival was such a big issue. Lots of people thought that Atlas was invading on the spot."

Yang and Ruby shared a confused look before they turned back to her, "But it's on Sanus!"

"At least you were awake for that part of the class." Pyrrha muttered under her breath, "Vale and Atlas have been fighting over this place for ages. Atlas has issues getting enough food and other stuff because of their environment, so Silmeria is one of their most important trading points. Material and people from as far as Mistral have to make a stop here and refuel before they go on to Atlas. I know because I had to stop here on my way to Vale too. They can't go the other way around even though its shorter because that part of the sea is infested with pirates from Vacuo." Pyrrha explained with a lecturing tone, "There's also a lot of farms around Silmeria because Solitas tends to be too cold for normal farms, so a good chunk of their labor force is actually located here instead of in Mantle. The ones that are there tend to be mainly miners for the mines located on Solitas."

"Why does Vale even want this place for then? They've practically got coastal towns all over the place. There's Alteria on the South and Wysteria on the West."

Pyrrha just shrugged, "That I don't know. I don't think I've ever heard a decent reason for it. Sometimes, its Vale protesting that Atlas are being too rough on their labor force, sometimes it's because Atlas went back on some treaty or another. I just know they fight over it constantly."

"It's hard to believe that General Ironwood and Professor Ozpin would be fighting with each other. They seemed pretty friendly, didn't they?" Ruby muttered.

"The headmasters and the leader of the Armies usually have a seat on the Council, but they're not the whole thing." Pyrrha replied with another shrug, "So I'm sure they have plenty of influence, they just can't decide everything."

She hesitated, "You… do know what the Council is right?"

"Of course." Ruby piped up with a pouted, "I'm not that dumb."

Pyrrha laughed and was about to apologize when she felt someone bumped into her from behind.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Pyrrha could only turn her apology to the person she had bumped into instead, a small girl with pure white hair that was partially covered by a hood.

While the three of them had been talking, they hadn't realized the street had been filling up with people and blocking the road. It had been a minor miracle that someone hadn't bumped into them in the middle until now.

The little girl just gave her a terrified look, before she scurried off, leaving the three girls to share a confused look until Ruby suddenly froze and her eyes glazed over.

The other two girls recognized the look, so when Ruby refocused again, she found Yang and Pyrrha waiting for her patiently, "Well? What'd he say?"

"That girl stole Pyrrha's purse!" Ruby exclaimed before turning around and dashing down the road back where she remembered seeing the small girl go.

Pyrrha felt around in her pocket and paled before she quickly followed Ruby with Yang coming along behind them.

All three of them burst out of an alley, onto another street, only to find that the hooded girl had run straight into three men, their blue and white uniforms indicated that they were most likely officers or government workers in Silmeria. All three of them were currently yelling and cursing at the small girl that had fallen on to her side and her hood had fallen off to reveal to small cat ears.

One man, the one in the middle suddenly lifted his leg, looking like he wanted to stomp on the girl.

Ruby wasn't about to let someone stomp on a tiny child, Faunus or not.

She disappeared from her spot in a flurry of petals.

Behind her, Yang and Pyrrha rolled their eyes and they both accelerated.

Just as the foot descended, the man suddenly became intensely aware of a very cold and sharp and long curved blade at his neck while a girl was perched on his shoulder.

At the same time, an armored hand clamped down on his foot and in front of him, a girl in bronze armor had appeared and was holding up a shield, the small girl tucked away behind her securely.

He looked to his sides desperately, hoping his friends would intervene, but both of them were just standing there awkwardly as a dark shadow slithered up to their necks, their limbs frozen mid swing.

"Raiton: Kagemane no Jutsu."

"Lightning Release: Shadow Possession Technique."

His two friends shook wildly before their eyes rolled up into their eyes and their bodies began to steam and smoke.

Then a fist collided with his head and everything went black.

As the four of them gathered over the unconscious bodies of the three men, Pyrrha keeping one hand on the shivering little girl who was staring at them fearfully, they suddenly heard a siren.

Above them, they saw a whole bunch of drones coming straight at them.

"…."

"…."

"…."

"…."

"See." The blond man deadpanned dryly, "I told you, you'd be the first one to mess up, Ruby."

Ruby squinted at him dubiously.

"You and Yang were right there next to me. Even Pyrrha was there."

Pyrrha blushed and Yang chuckled.

Naruto just grinned and ruffled her hair.

****NM****

Fun fact: One of RWBY's episodes in Vol 3 actually did talk about high tensions and being on the brink of war. We just don't see anything come out of it and everyone is buddy buddy anyway.