Chapter 15: End of the Day
Naruto and Jaune walked back to their dorms together in companionable silence. Jaune walked with a skip in his step, and Naruto was contemplating pulling an all-nighter in the library.
When they arrived at their dorms, Jaune paused outside his door. "Hey, Naruto?"
"Yeah?"
"Would you like both our teams to go pick up our scrolls together?" he asked, a happy undertone to his voice. Naruto shrugged.
"Sure. I need to get my scroll anyways to go into the library." he accepted, opening the door and sticking his head in.
"Hey guys!" he said, seeing Ruby pouting in the corner with Blake and Ren sitting quietly on their beds, Blake reading and Ren napping. "We can pick up our scrolls from Professor Goodwitch in the staffroom. You coming?" Ruby leapt to her feet, a crazed look on her face.
"Naruto! Thank god! Pleaaaaaaaase never put Ren in charge again!" she moaned, latching onto his arm like a mollusk. Naruto frowned at Ren, curious.
"Why? What'd he do?"
Ruby moaned, hiding herself behind Naruto as Ren stretched and got up. "He said it was…" her voice dipped into a snarl, "quiet time! He made me sit still and be quiet!"
Naruto cocked an eyebrow at Ren. "Really? You got Ruby to be quiet?" he said, amused. Ren nodded, and Ruby growled at Naruto.
"You put him in charge! Never do that-" she threw a pillow at him, "AGAIN!"
Naruto laughed at her. "Don't worry, Ruby. You can be in charge next time. You guys ready to go get our scrolls?"
Ren nodded and rose to his feet, and Blake glanced up from her book. "Could you guys go get it for me?" she said more than asked.
Ruby shook her head. "Nuh uh, we're gonna go there as a-"
"Sure you can stay here." Naruto cut her off. "See ya." he turned and walked out the door, Ruby trailing behind him, casting forlorn glances back at Blake as Ren closed the door behind them.
After collecting their scrolls it was late afternoon. Ruby kept fidgeting, and glancing at Naruto, and eventually Ren took pity on her.
"Do you want to do something Ruby?" he asked, amused. Ruby nodded quickly.
"Yeah! Do you guys wanna go get a training room where we could spar with each other?" she asked, glancing at Naruto. "It could be our first team bonding moment!" she suggested.
Naruto frowned. "Well, I wanted to go to the library, but I guess I have time." he said. 'After all, Ozpin should be getting stuff ready for me to research. He said he'd help me get home.'
"Yeah, and he wasn't lying about that." Kurama rumbled from his mindscape. A clamour of voices rose up with his.
"Are you sure, Kurama? He seemed pretty suspicious to me." Gyuki spoke up, concerned. Kurama scoffed.
"Don't forget I can sense negative emotions, Eight Tails." he snarled, feeling vindicated. Chomei attempted to placate Kurama quietly.
"Kurama, no one has forgotten your gift from Father. But just because you can tell he doesn't have any hatred for Naruto doesn't mean that he plans on helping us! We should just have faith in Naruto's Sensei Kakashi to bring us home." Chomei reasoned, with the majority of the Tailed Beasts agreeing with him.
'Guys, I get it. Ozpin's kinda like the Hokage of Beacon. He might have an ulterior motive in this whole thing. But that motive might be him just wanting to get rid of me since I'm an unknown entity, and since he doesn't have lots of negative emotions directed at me, he can't possibly be planning on trying to kill me. Even if he could.'
Ruby interrupted his thought process. "Great! Lead on, Noble Leader!" she cried, pointing into the distance. Naruto shook the cobwebs from his head.
"Alright… let's go then. I guess I haven't really seen what you can do, eh Ren?" he directed at Ren, who nodded solemnly.
"Indeed. And I have yet to see any finesse to your technique." he said stoically. Naruto groaned and looked at him in exasperation.
"W-what are you talking about?!" he cried out, stunned. Ruby quickly sent Ren a grateful nod, which Naruto failed to catch. "I'm super finesse! I was trained by the toads to be really badass!" he whined. It had been some time since he'd been regarded as a Genin level Shinobi (even though they had no idea what a Genin was), and it was a mite grating.
"Oh, it is ON!" Naruto yelled, pointing at Ren. "I'm gonna have you laid out on your BACK!"
Ruby merely cocked his head to the side, his outer calm belying his inner happiness. 'Looks like we finally got him to open up a bit…'
Naruto started dragging them to the training rooms. "I'm gonna kick BOTH your asses, and don't think that just cause you've seen a few of my tricks you can escape this, Ruby!"
Ren sized up his opponent with an eerie calm. From what he'd seen so far, Naruto was an adaptable fighter capable of dodging with ease, and extraordinarily quick. He'd virtually flown across the battlefield, before intercepting the Deathstalker that was their namesake. This meant he had great strength as well, and-
And he was flying right at him.
Ren's eyes widened as Naruto landed before him in a crouch, eyes glinting black as night as his fist sailed towards Ren's handsome waiting face.
'Oh shi-' his reflexive thought was interrupted by Crescent Rose landing with a crash between the approaching fist and his face. He heard a hissing noise, and a slapping sound, and before he could gather himself he found his head meeting the wall behind him. Fortunately for him, he still had Aura. Unfortunately, the buzzer sounded, with an automated voice calling out.
"Lie Ren: Defeat by Ring-Out." the monotone voice droned, and Ren groggily rose to his feet, and looked into the deep purple cloud. He sighed.
'I guess I need to work on my perception then…' he thought to himself, walking up to the stands to watch the rest of the fight. However, before he reached the stairs he heard the buzzer again. When he spun around, he couldn't see anything save the cloud.
"Ruby Rose: Defeat by Ring-Out." the automated voice called out, and Ren's eyes roamed the rim of the ring, searching for Ruby. After he'd circumnavigated the ring with his eyes, he saw some dust falling in the center of the ring. As his eyes slowly rose to the ceiling, he saw Ruby stuck to the roof with small knives stabbed through her cloak and skirt, pinning her to the ceiling as she groaned.
'What…' he thought to himself as he glanced down to the cloud, which Naruto emerged from with a steady gait.
Smirking, Naruto looked up at Ren. "Well, who's got finesse now, huh?!" he called out, crossing his arms over his chest.
Ren chuckled. While the taunt had been intended to draw Naruto out and interact with them, he was pleased to see that he was deserving the title of leader. "Ah, you are a strong fighter. I am glad." he said, unsure of how to respond.
Evidently, his efforts bore fruit, because Naruto grinned up at him, eyes closing as his hands found their way behind his head.
Naruto giggled a bit, and Ren was required to point out the obvious. "How is Ruby going to descend?" he asked, eyes lingering on Ruby, who was struggling. Naruto cocked an eyebrow and looked up.
"She has enough Aura to survive the fall." he pointed out, watching a kunai slip from the wall.
"You are sure?" Ren asked, concern absent from his voice.
"Pfffff, she'll be fine!" Naruto blew him off, watching a few more kunai fall to the floor with a tinkle.
"Aaaand she's falling." Ren observed, his eyes tracing Ruby's path to the floor where she landed with a crash. Naruto walked down to her, and helped her to her feet.
"See Ruby, that's why you don't use smoke bombs on me! I'm better equipped than you to deal with it." he said genially, patting some scuff from her cloak.
"Yeah yeah, I get it Naruto." she pouted, making him laugh. He turned and looked at Ren quizzically.
"You'll need to work on your speed, Ren. You're a bit slow to keep up with Ruby and I right now." he observed. Ren nodded in agreement.
"Indeed. I shall train accordingly." he promised, "It would not do for me to be the slowest member of Team Deathstalker."
Ruby nodded happily. "Now we only need to find Blake and see how fast she is!"
Ren hummed in agreement, walking with them towards the door. Naruto sighed, his happy smile turning a little sad.
"Well, how about you check out how she does, Ruby. I'll be in the library for the rest of the evening." at Ruby's pout, he hurried to explain. "I'll be back before night, I just have some research to do. Leader stuff." he lied. Ren nodded, taking his explanation at face value.
"Do you have any tasks for us in the meantime?" he asked calmly, while Ruby's eyes narrowed at Naruto.
"How about you guys get Blake and evaluate her. Ruby, rate her speed on a scale of ten, and Ren, you can… do whatever you like. Eh, just take the evening off if you want. We have a big day tomorrow." he waved them off, his mind wandering to discovering a way home.
Ruby nodded, unsure. "If you say so, Boss." Naruto flinched, and nodded quickly.
"I do. Go do whatever you want." he rushed, darting away towards the library.
Ren gazed after him, bemused. "Hmmm." he enunciated. Ruby hung her head in dejection next to him.
"I thought he'd come with us…" she whispered. Ren looked at her brazenly.
"Well, he has a Team Leader thing to do. He is being a good leader by doing it now so he can devote all his time to the team later." Ren reasoned. Ruby looked a bit more upbeat at that.
"You're right, Ren. I mean, it looked like he was hiding something, but that might just be the stress of Beacon!" she gave a high pitched laugh, "I'm certainly feeling it!"
Ren cracked a rare smile. "Do you wish to find Blake? I can tell her Naruto left me in charge and we can go get some food."
Ruby nodded happily. "You know what, you're not so bad Ren! I think we're gonna be good friends."
Ren nodded. "I'm sure we will be." he said noncommittally.
AN:
I know that this chapter is short, but there's a good reason. That's the same reason why the last chapter exists.
Apparently you guys didn't like it; I can only tell you that EVERY chapter has a very important reason for existing. But since I can totally get that you don't want to read a 5k word chapter for a small detail like what I need to include, I'm going to write really short chapters for the next few instead of big ones. Basically, I need to write something that most of you (fortunately) haven't seen, or haven't said you've seen.
That either means I'm doing great at hiding it, or I'm doing so poorly you all don't feel like pointing it out. But this is the first fiction I've ever written, so gimme a break if you DO see it.
Anyways, the point of this chapter was to say that the next couple (maybe 6 or so) will be less than 3k words. They'll only have one purpose, but it's one that is VERY MUCH required by my plan, so you'll just need to endure it, unfortunately.
If anyone is a beta who doesn't mind spoilers, I kinda want to bounce my idea off of them before fully committing to it. If they don't think it's a good idea, I'll talk with them about why, and hopefully improve my story. :)
Finally, about Ozpin talking like Naruto's going to be part of the Vytal Festival. I don't know, that was sort of the unspoken price of Ozpin's help. Win the tournament, we'll help you get home. And Ozpin doesn't know Naruto's collaborating with Kakashi; he doesn't even know he exists.
Finally, the whole "Ozpin would want the help of the Shinobi and try to get to the Elemental Nations!"
…
…
…
I mean, if you didn't get the reference then you're screwed. This is what I get for being subtle. But it has to do with the previous people who fell into Remnant from other worlds. After a specific one of them came through, I'm sure the cultured people here will know why Ozzie doesn't want Naruto to stay. And this ISN'T and insult to the people who don't know, just a word of warning that you shouldn't complain that you don't understand what's happening because of ignorance. I get that probably over 80% of the people on the planet won't understand WHY Ozpin is leery (ask Everpeach, they get it) but suffice to say I'm not insulting anyone (or trying to) but this is a relevant plot point I did NOT think I'd need to explain. Accept it if you won't research why it is, but don't tell me nothing makes sense when you don't have the grace to literally do ONE Google search. Codeword here since I've gotten 9 PMs about how much I suck and am uncultured, "Annatar".
Finally, the Pyrrha thing. I get it, people didn't like it, but Pyrrha doesn't want to be elevated more than she already is. I understand if you didn't like it, but Ozpin's method of naming leaders leaves much to be desired.
Namely, he uses the person whose name best makes a colour. :)
Thank you for telling me what you really think, I can only hope you realize I in fact DO have an idea. Of what I'm doing, no, but of what I want this to be, yes. Besides, telling me that a chapter was pointless doesn't really help me figure out what would make it better. If it's an Essential Plot Point (or EPP) that annoys you, then I'm sorry, but I can't change it.
Have a nice day, don't choke on an Arti.
-Pad
