The Grimm Change
Disclaimer : I do not own Naruto or RWBY
Quick to ask for directions towards the marketplace, Naruto arrived in front of a small stand. The salty smell of various meats wafted through the air, the scent of freshly prepared vegetables being served in large bowls of deliciously thick broth. There was no other possibility, Naruto realized, with tears welling within his eyes. He had been able to successfully find a ramen shop in this new world. He had actually been afraid he might never taste his favorite food again, as while the blond was adept at preparing Instant Ramen, that practically only required him to add boiling water into a cup of the good stuff. He was by no means capable of cooking himself ramen, and he had many a nightmares where he found himself stranded upon an island, forced to live without the irresistible treat.
He pushed aside the curtains as he walked in, reading the sign at the top of the small building, 'A Simple Wok'.
The young ninja looked around, and the row of barstools, the cheap posters, heck, even the counter reminded him of a certain ramen bar back in his world. He was pulled out of his nostalgic memories by an old and friendly voice, one that he couldn't help but recognize as being similar to Old Man Teuchi.
Naruto looked at the wiry old man that stood behind the counter, his eyes squinting as he smiled softly at the blonde, wearing a large white apron that hid his other garments. There were wisps of silver hair upon his scalp, his slightly tanned skin having wrinkles all over it.
"Well hello there young man. What would you like to have?"
Naruto composed himself before sitting down on a barstool. He glanced towards the menu on the counter before quickly speaking up, excitement oozing from his voice.
"I'll have your pork ramen mega bowl, old man."
The shopkeeper only smiled at the boy, before going back to the kitchen to prepare his meal.
Naruto was at the edge of his seat, and when the man brought out the huge bowl, the influx of aroma nearly caused Naruto to drool.
"Thanks a bunch Old Man!" And with that Naruto picked up the chopsticks and begins to slurp up the long noodles, occasionally picking up the bowl and drinking the broth straight from the bowl. The balding man could only watch in awe as the ramen disappeared quicker than a pizza in a dorm room. It was like watching a train crash, it might be bloody and gory, but you are unable to pull your eyes away.
At last, the young blond set down the bowl, leaned back and patted his bloated stomach with a satisfied belch.
"That hit the spot! It's just as good as Old Man Teuchi's."
The shopkeep snapped out of his stupor and turned towards Naruto. "That'll be 25 lien, young man."
Naruto froze as he realized that in his hurry to get some ramen into his stomach, he had all but forgotten about not having cash. Sure he had all his saved up money from ninja missions in his jumpsuit pockets, as while he might lose it during a mission, it had better chances than if he left it in village where he was hated and his address was public knowledge. Especially since more than a few ninja, including ANBU's, held a grudge against him, be it because of the Kyuubi or because of his notorious pranking sprees.
Plus he had more than a few trinkets that he would call priceless. These included the Shodaime's necklace, the smaller version of the toad contract that he got from Jiraiya after summoning Gamabunta, which for some reason had jewels embedded on its cover, and the one Hiraishin kunai he got from the Sandaime after he graduated from the Academy. He was almost sure that these would be priceless, the first two were literally precious stones, whereas the latter was made of a rare metal that had only ever been found in minute amounts. But these were extremely important to him, and he'd never trade them away, as they might be his last connections to his world.
By now the man figured out what was going on, and in a slightly demanding tone he said,
"Well, what're ya waitin' for, pay up."
Naruto hastily pulled out his small toad wallet and presented the small wad of notes to the shopkeep, who seemed to be further aggravated by the act.
"Who're ya tryin' ta fool. That ain't lien and you know it."
The blond did what he could and turned the pouch upside down. While he could just make a dash and be gone, he wasn't sure where the next civilisation was. And the old timer seemed like a hardworking, honest man, and Naruto couldn't help but feel guilty if he didn't pay.
Out of the pouch came a small heap of coins, some ration bars and his apartment key. But the coins caught the man's attention. With eyes as wide as they could naturally be and then some, he picked up one of the smaller coins and spoke.
"Why did you say you couldn't pay if you had all this gold and silver in your pockets. With this one coin you could buy my whole stock of ramen and seafood."
Naruto was extremely surprised by that statement. Back in Konoha, one silver coin couldn't get you a single piece of bubblegum.
"Brat, there are bound to be some differences between your old world and this one, gold and silver are probably much more scarce here, hence they are worth much more."
The blond was satisfied by his tenant's explanation, and he looked up at the man, while holding up the smallest silver coin he had.
"Well Old Man, would this be enough to cover the bill?"
"That would be more than sufficient, but tell me this, where did a kid like you get all of this?"
Naruto gulped, before quickly coming up with a half truth.
"Well you see, I used to travel around a whole lot, as most of my family died during my childhood. My grandfather was a great warrior, and he trained me to become stronger, so I was capable of defending myself. I once came upon a small village where the leader asked me to help them defeat a group of bandits that had been harassing them for a few weeks. Well, after I defeated the bandits, the villagers wouldn't let me say no to some form of payment, so they gave me these. Though I doubt they knew how valuable these coins really were."
The man aimed a calculative gaze at the ninja for a few moments before speaking up.
"So you say you're a warrior, eh? Well what about a little spar, between two warriors, man to man?"
Naruto perked up at this, never one to back down from a challenge.
"What?! You mean there are real fighters in this village?"
The man smirked at Naruto before doing a pose that was eerily similar to a certain Toad Sage's.
"Hmph, your looking at him! I'm the one and only, Wokian Kenshi, retired Huntsman Supreme. I singlehandedly defeated more criminals and Grimm than most teams did combined."
By now Naruto was looking on in awe, as while the pose reminded him of his previous sensei, he was finding it hard to believe that he was in the presence of whom seemed to be a living legend, yet again, but this time in a different world. Although his mind registered the words 'Huntsman' and 'Grimm', never having heard of either before. He decided to voice his confusion in a rather rash manner.
"But what are these Huntsman and Grimm things? I've never heard of them."
The man was more than a little shocked at the blond's statement, but decided that it was probable that he had never encountered Grimm or Huntsman, as Grimm usually only lived close to large cities or other places of the sort, due to the rather large amount of negative emotions, like anger, jealousy, fear, and sorrow. This lead to Huntsman also mostly staying near these areas, only going away on rare missons when there was a sighting of Grimm activity outside of the premises of the large cities and their borders.
"Well, Grimm are large creatures of darkness that feed on the darker emotions of humans. They look like mutated animals with raven black fur and red eyes, most of the time. Huntsman are people who are specially trained to combat not only the Grimm, but also other outlaws, like rogue Huntsman, criminals and the lot. Huntsman usually have to graduate from one of the many institutes throughout the continents. Our very own Sanus has two of the most prestigious ones, Shade in Vacuo and Beacon in Vale. I actually graduated from Beacon, top of my year."
Wokian's words caused Naruto to think back to a certain ninja he had fought not too long ago. The ninja that had changed his outlook on life.
"But why did you want to become a Huntsman?"
Wokian visibly stiffened at the boy's words, but before Naruto could apologize, he spoke up in a voice hard voice.
"At first, I had been nothing but a naive idiot. I had wanted to become famous for being the man who killed all the Grimm. I had never fit in a team, as I saw the others as a threat to my goal. So I pushed everyone away, even my friends and family, to focus on my goal. But then, a few weeks before graduation, I got assigned on a high level mission with another team."
Wokian seemed to stop here, but within a moment he had collected himself and begun again.
"When we had defeated the horde of Grimm we had been informed of, we were ready to go back to Beacon, tired and out of ammo. But we were attacked by a large King Taijitu. We were gaining no ground against it when a Boarbatusk rushed out from nearby foliage and rammed towards me at full speed. I knew that if those horns skewered me, I'd be dead before I hit the ground. But I couldn't move, and just stood there. But before it could hit me, one of the other Academy students pushed me out of the way, and took most of the hit for me."
The old shopkeep took off his apron and rolled up the sleeve of his green button up. On his forearm was a nasty scar, that ran along the entire length and was nearly two inches wide. It was only slightly discoloured, defining it as a rather old wound.
"And as he died beside me, he said that even though he was dying, he was happy, because he had helped humanity with his sacrifice. After that day, I decided that a Huntsman is not a person who fights for himself, but a person who puts his life on the line for the safety of the rest of humanity. And after that day, I changed into the man I am now."
Naruto was more than a little shocked at how this story sounded shockingly similar to his, Sasuke having jumped in front of a hail of senbon to save him.
Naruto smiled at the man, and leaned forwards, a grin on his face.
"Well Old Man Wokian, I, Naruto Uzumaki accept your challenge!"
A little while later, Naruto finds himself in a large park. There weren't many people present, and the park was empty, except for the large fountain in the middle and the groups of trees that surrounded them.
The ninja stood on one side of the field, with a kunai in hand. He was in a simple stance, his knees bent with the right leg two paces in front of the left. His hands were raised in front of him, the kunai in the right hand with his left hand full of a bunch of shuriken.
His adversary was in a relatively lazy stance, standing straight with one arm behind his back and his right arm holding a metal ladle in front of him. The stance would seem cocky and arrogant to anyone else, but Naruto could tell it was much more than your street brawler's stance.
The blond was never a patient one, so he fastened his grip and rushed at his opponent as fast as he could. He raised his kunai and brought it down upon the man, but just before it struck, Wokian brought his ladle in front of himself, as if to fend off the blow. Naruto was greatly surpised when the ladle expanded into a six foot tall staff, with a sharp blade forming at the tip.
Wokian easily deflected the small knife, before spinning on the balls of his feet, causing Naruto's momentum to act against him. The blond fell forward and lost his balance, but before the retired Huntsman could take advantage of this development, Naruto pushed off of the ground and spun around, aiming a roundhouse kick at the old man's head.
The aforementioned man ducked beneath it and grabbed the ninja's other leg, before swinging him around and tossing him to the other side of the park.
"Well well, who knew this bag of bones actually packed a punch. Seems like you can let loose, although that isn't much without your chakra. We really need to work on that."
Naruto rose up and wiped some blood of his chin, the fluid flowing from his busted lip. Wokian once again stood in his stiff stance, with not so much as a single scratch upon him.
This time the young boy ran towards a tree before jumping onto a low branch, hopping from branch to branch until he stood on top of the tree. He jumped off it, pushing himself and threw his shuriken at the staff wielder. The shopkeep only spun his weapon in front of himself, deflecting most of the projectiles, except for a precious few that managed to penetrate his defense and caused small tears to form in his apron. One single shuriken grazed his cheek, causing a thin cut to form, from which dripped a drop of blood down his cheek.
Naruto hit the ground rolling, and had to quickly throw himself to the side when Wokian advanced and attempted to impale him with his staff's tip. The blond quickly picked himself up and took out another handful of shuriken and threw them at Wokian. They were this time evaded by the man jumping up out of the way of the sharp stars.
"Aren't you stubborn. Your shuriken did just as well as they did last time."
Wokian spoke in a deep, stern tone, one very different from the soft one he used in the ramen bar. But Naruto only smirked in response.
"Never think I'm done till I'm done, ya hear?!"
With this declaration, the blond pulled back his arms suddenly, and the shopkeep's eyes focused onto the thin metal threads attached to the boy's fingers before widening.
Wokian attempted to jump up to dodge the clever stunt, but his legs were caught by the wires as the shuriken encircled his body before embedding themselves into the ground, successfully tying him up and pinning him down.
"Well seems like that's that, eh?"
Naruto's voice had a distinct smug quality to it, before he noticed the smirk on his fallen foe's face.
The blond then watched in horror as a strange energy flowed out of Wokian's fingers, moving towards the staff near him. As soon as it made contact, the staff seemed to warp into a metal snake, and it slithered up to the bound man before cutting off the binds.
Wokian rose, and channeled some energy from his fingers into the ninja wire. It in turn seemed to suddenly fly towards Naruto.
"Brat, he's using spiritual energy. Quick, get out of the way!"
But to no effect, as by the time Naruto broke out of his stupor, he was tied up, just as Wokian had been mere moments ago.
"Well, that was quite impressive for a child of your age. The world always needs skills like yours. Tell me, Naruto Uzumaki, would you like to be a Huntsman?"
Author's Note :
Hello guys and gals! I'm here with another chapter, aren't you lucky I got it out quicker than last time. Well, this chapter was wuite challenging, especially the fight scene as I have never ever written something of the sort. But man was it exciting! I hope I didn't disappoint anyone with this chapter. I really wish that all of you enjoy this.
And the thing I did with Wokian and his past, I realize some off you might be pissed that it's a total ripoff from the Wave mission, but seriously that seemed to fit for Wokian's story. I did it because I doubt anyone has tried this before, and it seemed really fun. I can already hear all the flames and complaints about 'A Simple Wok' being the shop in Vale, but read on, I have that figured out.
Well I guess that's a wrap, so see you guys soon with the next chapter. Leave a review or shoot me a PM regarding any concerns or stuff like that.
Peace out
Kofukuna Shi no Kami