Disclaimer: I own nothing.
A/N
This story is entirely fan-made and fictional. Any acts that you might find offensive, disguising, inhuman, wrong or just don't like, we are not liable for. You are reading this story of your own free will and not being forced, if you don't like something we are not forcing you to stay and read it. Please leave the page and re-frame from reading the chapter and or story. All Copyrighted Characters belong to their respect owners. We don't claim anything that is not our own creation and are merely using them for fan made material.
We accept constructive criticize and help but being rude and disrespectful will not be tolerated. This is done for the fun of writing not to make every little person happy, while making people happy with are stories is great we are not here for Money, Fame or Fortune this is done for the simply joy of writing.
Chapter 15
Jasper awoke with a start as the cold nipped at his noise. He jerked upright and looked around while rubbing his arms for warmth. Emert and Persia were sound asleep, but both shivered under their blankets. Checking on Sasuke, he found the former Uchiha sleeping peacefully and unaffected by the coldness of the room. Thinking nothing of it, he turned to the thermostat and cranked up the heat a little. He coughed and saw his breathe. For a moment he was puzzled by it before he turned back to Sasuke and then to the thermostat.
It read that the temperature of the room was in the low thirties.
There is no way Sasuke's immune to that.
Jasper climbed in to bed and hugged the blankets closer to his form for warmth. He could contend with this tomorrow.
(-)
"Do you have anything in your life you regret?"
"Sure. I have a lot of things I regret. Why do you ask?"
"Just curious, that's all."
Naruto tilted his head to the side and tried to appear smart. It wasn't really his thing… Being smart was for Sasuke. Naruto was just a fighter. That was why he couldn't really figure out what Blake was getting at. She was always talking to him sideways in their conversations. More than once she had caught him off guard by a question that made him think more on his own past actions and past mistakes. His nights with her were always a curious thing. She spoke little about her life and asked more about his. Their talks always carried a weight of philosophical meaning.
This talk was more on the finer points of life and mistakes made by a previous version of your existence.
Naruto hadn't taken the time to notice when it started or how it truly started. She started spending time with him having these talks shortly after Naruto and Sasuke had their fight. While her team might not be aware of it, Naruto knew that Sasuke and Coco were aware of it. Nothing slipped past them and Naruto didn't much care if it did or didn't at start. Talking to her made him feel stupid when he looked back at his previous self and he was sure that his way of thinking had become skewered as a result.
Still, her question gave him enough pause to think further on the subject and reflect to Sasuke's words about love.
"What do you know about love?"
Blake faltered in her swing, giving Naruto enough time to get at her side with his blade near her throat. That was another thing they did. Naruto didn't know how to use a sword and Sasuke could only teach him so much. He grasped that concept the very moment they started training. Blake caught on that he had gotten the weapon to spite Sasuke. She agreed to teach him what he knew in return for a favor that she wouldn't divulge any information on. She swore it wouldn't be anything bad and Naruto had agreed.
Naruto stopped the sword from tasting flesh and grabbed her before she could fall. She stumbled back to her feet and looked at him funny. "You don't…" She let it hang there.
Naruto shook his head and turned his back on her. "Sasuke made me start to think on someone that I had loved and made me realize that I don't have an understanding of it." He sat down and grabbed a water bottle. Blake thought of Adam for a moment before grabbing her water bottle and sitting down opposite of him. "There was a girl on our team I cared for. Her name was Sakura Haruno. I loved her… but… when I look back at it I don't know why I did."
"You must have seen something in her."
"She was pretty. I loved her for that. She was smart. But when I look back at it those are things to describe something about someone and not what you could use to describe them better. You're pretty and smart. But that's not what makes you who you are. What makes you who you are, are you actions and personality. You're very shy, wise, like to read, and you like to eat fish." Blake idly wondered if that was how the world saw her as well. "But I didn't remember anything like that about Sakura and the more I think on it, the more confused I get."
It struck her hard then. Naruto was at a loss for someone he cared for because they were either not here or his eyes had been opened to a truth he had been blind to.
Blake ran a thumb over the clear plastic of her water bottle as she said, "Love is a terrible, violent, and beautiful thing. It can make people do terrible and destructive things or it can make them better people. Some people in this world will use love as a means of getting what they want. Others will use it to seek companionship and even a family. There are those out there that do it only for the pleasure it brings them and there are those that only do it to fulfill some twisted form of pleasure that they use to get off on. I've only ever been in love once, but it was a mistake in the end. I'm not looking back on it because it's what I'm running from… I guess."
Naruto put his head against the tree and looked at the stars. "Well she beat me up. I asked her out on so many dates and she turned me down until I had to go chase after Sasuke. We had our first and last date that night. She ran off to find him in the end. She cried for me to bring him back. I think that's what has me confused right now? He left her high and dry. She cried her eyes out for him. Said she wanted to be with him. She always wanted to be with him. But I wanted to be with her. She beat me up and mocked me almost every day… and I still went back to her."
"That just means you were dense."
Naruto glared at her and huffed in annoyance. He wasn't like their talks tonight. "I'm still dense." Blake rolled her eyes and smile playfully. "Sasuke said I should find someone here to fall for. Might make things better for me."
"Don't you think you're a little young for that kind of stuff?"
"No." Blake waited for him to continue with a valid point. Naruto remained quiet for a while before she gestured for him to explain. Rolling his eyes, Naruto got up and looked at the twinkling stars. "Where I grew up, there were people younger than I am that would lead people as old as Oobleck into battle and they would have no other option than to listen to that person that was leading them because they outranked them. Where I'm from; as soon as you get this headband," he tapped his with his thumb, "you're considered an adult. That means I can buy alcohol, get married, smoke, and have kids. That's how it works for us."
"That's… really messed up."
"That's life."
"Life?" she asked between minor snorts. "That's not life. Life is something else altogether. It's about enjoying what you do. You're a child and you should do things normal children do."
"Well consider it robbed from me." Naruto turned his gaze on and then glanced through her. "Then I suppose I just live in a separate world from everyone else." Blake didn't catch the double meaning. Naruto unsheathed his sword and took his stance. Blake did as well. "How late do you wanna go tonight?"
"When you hit me without using your enhanced speed, we'll call it a night." Naruto groaned and started fighting her.
(-)
When the alarm sounded, Ruby jerked awake and fell out of bed, nearly landing on top of Weiss in the commotion of being spooked by the random blaring of an alarm clock. Only the small rustle of the sheets and the small yelp of surprise had saved Weiss from a potential head injury. Ruby, on the other hand, fell head first to the floor and whined as a result of her less than stellar wake up landing. Blake and Yang jumped awake at the sound of Ruby's startled cry and glanced down at their fearless leader as she nursed a bruise that was forming on the crown of her head.
"And this is why I say these bunk beds were a bad idea," Weiss commented as she finished pulling her socks up and making sure her skirt was low enough that no boy would get any perverse ideas. Combat skirts were one thing. This, however, was another altogether. Atlas Uniforms would have been a welcome over Beacon's uniforms with how short the skirts tended to be at times. "Never mind the fact that your bed is tied to the ceiling by some method you have not divulged to me." How did that thing stay up there? Yang and Blake's beds were more secure than theirs.
"It still is a good idea!" Ruby snapped back as she continued to rub her bruise. A few more minutes and it'd be taken care of thanks in part to aura. She glanced at the clock and then outside. The sun was just starting to rise in the horizon like a beacon of hope or dread for those that weren't morning people. "Did you all already take showers?" Yang yawned and grabbed her toiletries. Ruby deflated. She should have just grabbed her stuff beforehand and bolted to it rather than ask. Still, it did give Ruby a chance to ask a question or two to Blake. "How has your research nights been, Blake? Learning anything new?"
Blake sat up straight on her bed, her eyes narrowing at the question. Her training Naruto was sort of a secret. She wouldn't put it past Weiss or maybe Yang to know she was training him, but Weiss wouldn't care. Yang and Ruby were a different story. They'd see it as one of two ways: Either her showing affection for the mismatching eye colored youth or as her doing her part to better the skills of someone else. Her research was also a truth that they all knew about. With her previous ties to the White Fang, Blake was the only one to that could look for hidden messages to find out where their next meeting was and when it was going down. So far she narrowed down a few possible matches, but they weren't going to happen until later in the week.
Blake crossed her legs and tucked a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. "The White Fang will be having several meetings this week, but only a few can be located right now. The only one that fits in our time schedule is this Friday. That's their earliest I can go to find more information on what their next move is."
"How do you know it's not a false one?" Weiss asked. She was honestly curious. Gathering information from nowhere wasn't her thing.
"They have a few hard to miss messages that can be found in papers and other media outlets, but the better ones are usually hidden in the papers through crossword puzzles and special sites that lose the messages every few hours to make sure that no one pinpoints them since they're hacking in." Blake rubbed her neck. Naruto got her pretty good last night when their training ended. It only took him twenty minutes to hit her, and even then, he didn't really hit her at all. He simply used the butt of his sword and hit her in the back of the neck. It still hurt. "I used to be one of the couriers for these messages in the paper. There was a man he used to work in the group that made crossword puzzles for the paper. If you know what you're looking for, you can find it."
"I don't suppose you'd be willing to share that information?"
"As of right now? No." Blake wanted to keep that information to herself. The old man was still alive, but stopped working for them a long time ago. They stilled used his methods today only because he trained them how to do it. That was the only thing that spared his life. Plus if things got bad she could use it as barter for a quick taste of freedom. "What about you? Were you able to secure rights to the documents from the Schnee Company?"
Weiss deflated almost instantly. Her hacking abilities were none existent so she had to resort to making calls. She had a few friends that worked various days that she could contact, but sadly, none of them were currently working. She was able to get the schedule for them altered so she did have a means of contacting them now. "This Friday there are two employ's that handle record keeping for the Schnee Company that I can speak to that might be able to give me the information if I word it correctly. They still report to my dad. So if they're not giving a good reason for doing it…" Weiss let it hang there.
Ruby glanced between them and then to the door. "Well sis said she knows someone that could give us some more information on Torchwick. But since he's somewhere on the far side of town, she wants to wait until the weekend to go pay him a visit." She thought about who it would be but came up empty. Yang had a lot of friends out there. Some of them were people she had only gotten to hear of and not see. "So as it stands right now we have three places to dig up more information on what's going on."
"It's not much," Blake confessed tiredly, "but it's better than nothing." The bathroom door opened and Yang walked out covering herself with a towel. Ruby bolted in before Blake could even stand up. She scowled and rubbed her neck some more. Curse Ruby and her super speed.
(-)
Jaune rolled to the side to avoid the roundhouse kick from Emert and swung with his sword as he sprang up. His sword came close to tasting flesh but like all other times he fought someone that could fight without a weapon, his sword came up short and he paid for it. With a quick one two combo Jaune felt his entire body get racked with pain and darkness creep in around his field of vision. Emert followed through with a third punch that lifted the blond off his feet and presented Emert with a fourth blow via a high kick to the chin that snapped his jaw shut and propelled him backwards a few feet.
Jaune hit hard, but his aura still showed him in the green. He was fine and could take a few more hits. Didn't mean he wasn't feeling these hits though. His chin hurt something fierce.
Emert charged him and got in really close to him, throwing quick blows that forced him back. Jaune was forced back until a darting blur flew over Emert and morphed into the form of Blake as she swung her weapon for his neck. Jaune's shield sprang up and deflected the blow and forced Blake off balance as her foot slipped on a small patch of ice that appeared beneath her feet. Before she could fully gain her footing a shard of ice struck her from the side and forced her back. Jaune fall back from the close call of the ice shard.
Weiss ran after Blake and Emert. Emert blocked her thrust with his metal arm and reached out to grab her wrist before she could follow up with another thrust.
Up in the stands Sasuke watched with a sharp eye on the fight. The idea behind this challenge was to put two random members together to fight another random pair. Jaune and Weiss were fighting against Blake and Emert. The idea was that you would have to learn to work with people you have never worked with before in preparations for later jobs in life.
Sasuke glanced down at where Naruto was and thought back to his former training in the Academy during his childhood. Sasuke had his doubts that this was something Glynda came up with on her own. Naruto might have given her the idea for it. He wouldn't put it past him. They're lifestyle was different. Aside for their culture, their world was a militaristic one that wanted its warriors to fight together to achieve victory. Naruto and Sasuke had teamed up a few times in the past when he was different. They lost those matches or events.
Pyrrha leaned forward, following Sasuke's gaze towards his friend. Naruto was watching the fight with a very critical eye. "You think he can fight one of us?" Pyrrha asked. Sasuke gave her an odd glance before looking back to the fight. "How powerful is he?"
Sasuke tore his gaze away from the fight and looked at her again with a calculating gaze before he looked back to the fight. "Naruto is stronger than I am." He paused and watched as Jaune got a lucky blow on Emert's side with his shield thanks to a brief distraction from Weiss. Emert had clearly seen the blow coming but had decided to not avoid it. "You think you can win against him? I'm telling you right now that you can't win in a fight against him. Not because you're not strong enough. But because you have different morals than he does."
"What do you mean by that?"
The lights came on and the match ended. Pyrrha shielded her eyes from the lights as her eyes quickly adjusted to the brightness. Sasuke had stood up and was clapping in honor of Jaune and Weiss's victory over Blake and Emert. "We were raised differently, Pyrrha. We were taught to fight with the intention to kill or maim. That's something you don't have. As someone who's trying to become a Huntress, I think you should learn to fight like that. It'll save your life one day."
Pyrrha's eyes narrowed on the former Uchiha as he walked towards the leader of RWBY. Ruby was cheering for both sides, regardless of the obvious victory in favor of Weiss and loss for Blake. Yang just smiled, nodding approvingly as Weiss and Blake disappeared into the locker room to shower after their match.
Glynda stepped forward and began tapping on her Scroll. "Do we have any volunteers for the last match of the day?"
Pyrrha looked back at Sasuke for a moment and then to Naruto. The blond was looking at the students with a bored expression. "I'll fight," Pyrrha confessed. A few eyes landed on her. "But if I may, can I fight Naruto?"
Glynda paused in her typing to regard the request with an analytical eye. A few other people eyed her as well. Naruto was a teachers' assistance, not a student. So he wasn't bound by the restrictions of such a request. He could, if Glynda let him, fight anyone that requested to challenge him. That wasn't to say that Glynda liked the idea of it. When Ozpin had told her of his role after becoming a teachers' assistant, she had been less than pleased by such a thing.
"You do realize that Naruto is not an active student here at Beacon and is also not under the full medical benefit of the school, yes?" Glynda confessed. That was the ultimate catch to Naruto's employment. He wasn't someone that they could fully ensure for medical costs because he wasn't a student. The offer they gave him when he had come had been that he would get those benefits if he joined. He did not. Sasuke proclaimed that Naruto's advanced healing was more than enough to get him by. All he needed was clothing, shelter and food. These were things that Ozpin could provide with the job Naruto had. Anything else he wanted or required would require him to go out and do odd jobs.
"So you don't approve of my request?"
Glynda let her eyes fall on the blond. He seemed rather lost on the conversation at hand.
"The whole object of this was to teach you how to work with people you wouldn't normally work with." Glynda looked to the roster of students, flipping through them until she came across a few that hadn't fought as of yet and could fit some portion of the requirements while also taking skill into account. With Naruto's near inhuman abilities it would make fighting him a hard thing to do. There was also the small problem of his fighting style. He would fight to maim. That was not something that Glynda was teaching here.
"I'll fight alongside Pyrrha." Glynda paused and glanced up. Jasper stood to his full height, looking pleased at the thought of fighting Sasuke's former teammate. "But he'd need a teammate, correct?" Glynda furrowed her brow together and nodded mutely. She pursed her lips together tightly as she thought of someone that hadn't fought that could fight alongside Naruto. It was going to be hard to hide his lack of aura from them. She already knew enough about him to know he was the type to take a hit rather than dodge it if it allowed him to land a bigger blow in the process. "Sasuke," Jasper turned to his leader, "wanna side with your friend?"
Sasuke sat down and kicked his feet up on the edge of the arena. "Naruto can take you both on without assistance from anyone. It'd be pointless to pair him up with someone. I'm sure of it."
"I'll team up with him!" Yang exclaimed. Naruto looked back to Glynda. The teacher sighed and gave the authorization for the match. Yang jumped over the protective wall and walked up to her teammate for the match. Pyrrha and Jasper got down as well and took their stances. Naruto still looked somewhat confused to the whole thing but had enough sense to walk out to the arena floor and wait for the match to begin. "You think you can take on Jasper?"
Naruto crossed his arm, already in the process of molding chakra. "I can take care of him before you even land a blow of Pyrrha. Don't turn on me when I beat him without hitting him, please."
"Why would I turn on you?" Naruto gave her a sideways look and then glanced back at Jasper. The man had draped his weapon around his neck as he waited patiently for the match to begin. "You gonna use your sword?"
"Don't need it." Naruto cracked his neck and took his fighting stance. Pyrrha and Jasper stood side by side in their own fighting stances.
The match started. In the blink of an eye Naruto was on top of Jasper with a loud crack of his foot making contact with his face. Jasper went flying backwards and was knocked out instantly as the powerhouse that was Naruto delivered a fatal kick that would have crippled or killed a normal man. Pyrrha hardly had time to turn and focus on the blond before Yang was on top of her as well. Pyrrha was in control of her wits and was able to push Yang back with moderate ease. Yang was not so easily detoured and put up a good fight.
Naruto turned his attention back to Jasper. The man was already back on his feet. He massaged his jaw with an almost playful smile. Grabbing his weapon off the ground, he toyed with it for a moment before whipping it out in a wide arc. Naruto stepped back. A tether of energy shot out from the end of the weapon and zipped past the male blond towards the female brawler in the back. Naruto turned just in time to see Yang get shoved in front of it by Pyrrha. The tether wrapped around Yang's ankle and before she could figure out what was happening she was yanked to the floor and away from the redhead. Naruto jumped over Yang as she was dragged right to Jasper's feet. Before Naruto's foot touched the ground Pyrrha was on him. With one violent thrust of her shield she sent the blond sprawling.
Naruto recovered quickly in the air and flipped away. Yang broke free of the tether, sideswiped Jasper off his feet, got up, and ran to Naruto. The two blonds looked back at their competition for a moment before Naruto looked up to where Sasuke was. The former Uchiha's eye was twitching in irritation. Naruto glanced back at the two fighters as they stood at the ready. They were prepared for anything.
Naruto brought his hands together and in a puff of smoke that obscured both himself and Yang, there was a small scuffle happened inside the cloud of smoke. Ruby became worried as her sister's horrified cries fell silent. The smoke passed and Sasuke groaned loudly. A group of ten naked girls, Yang included, appeared out of the smoke, all of them in provocative possess. Though the smoke covered their naughty parts well, it didn't leave anything to the imagination.
The effect was near instant. Pyrrha was stunned into being frozen by the provocative ability while Jasper looked torn between beating up Yang for going along with the idea or beating up Naruto for coming up with such a vulgar ability. The crowd remained fazed until it was broken by a wolf whistle from a hysterical Nora. Then the shouting happened and Naruto returned to normal. The clones disappeared and Yang suddenly had her clothes back on.
"Are you an idiot?" Jasper asked plainly.
Naruto shrugged as Glynda walked out onto the floor, the lights turning on, and storming up to them. "This match is over! Uzumaki! A word, please." The blond shinobi shrugged as he followed the teacher into the hallway. "What is the matter with you? That move is very inappropriate!"
"It's a distraction ability. I could have done worse." Glynda wouldn't put it past him to do worse. "You said I could fight them. I fought them." Naruto rubbed his arm. Some part of him hurt from his training with Blake still. Stupid fox was doing a stellar job at healing him. Perhaps it was a sign of Kyuubi's defiance for losing his paw to Sasuke. "Sorry about that. I won't take part in any of the matches if they request me to do so." Naruto walked off before Glynda could amend her statement towards.
(-)
"I heard you had a fun time with your fight."
Naruto sighed as he continued to swing his sword against a tree.
Despite everything wrong in his life, this was something he was happy to have. Back home he had people that cared about him, but here there was an complete difference to it. Blake actually worried for him because he was so out of place and so young in her eyes. His childhood was something she took great interest in. Why she did, he didn't know. He didn't care either.
"Do you wanna keep training today?"
"Yeah," Naruto seemed to snap from his funk and face her with his usual goofy smile. "Let's see if I can hit you twice today without using my speed or strength."
"Actually, I wanted to see if you wanted to talk today and try and find your aura and semblance tonight." Naruto deflated. Blake read him like a book. "You don't like trying to find it? Don't you want to know what it is? It can make you stronger."
It wasn't a hard thing for Blake to figure out. Naruto didn't know what his semblance was or how to activate his aura. She had come across it almost immediately after Sasuke and Naruto had fought. His wounds recovered quickly enough, but he didn't show the glow of aura usage when it happened. His body seemed to heat up when he was healing himself. More than once she's cut him up during their training and seen his wounds release a steady stream of steam as if his insides were catching fire. But there was still a few questions she had for him though. If he didn't know what his semblance was and couldn't activate his aura to shield himself, how did he heal himself so fast?
"I'd rather not." Naruto brandished his reverse blade and took his fighting stance. "So let's get on with the training."
Blake put a hand on her hip and gave him a coy smile. "If I manage to hit you before you hit me, we're going to start training you to find your semblance and master your aura. Got it."
"Then you won't hit me."
"We'll see about that." She disappeared before his very eyes. Naruto groaned. It was going to be a long and boring night.
(-)
Jasper awoke shivering and huffed in annoyance. He rolled out of bed and blinked. Sasuke's single eye bleed scarlet but it didn't freeze. A fine sheen of frost covered the windows and their sheets. There others were curled up and hugging their blankets for warmth. Sasuke was perfectly fine once more.
You can't control your semblance. Jasper reached out to shack Sasuke but paused when he saw the corners of Sasuke's lip twitch.
"Itachi…" Tears slid down his face this time. Sasuke's visible armed crackled like broken ice as a small sheet of it formed over him. It broke apart instantly as he rolled over. His dream was a nightmare.
Jasper went back to bed. They were going to face the music now. Sasuke had an Ice Semblance and had no control over it.
A/N
Sorry for the long delay on this chapter and all my other stories. I've been busy with work and a trip to see family so I've had my hands full for a while. So this was something I always wanted to do as soon as I started thinking up this story. We're reaching the middle part of Volume 2, so things should be picking up in terms of fights but this was something I wanted to do for Naruto to show that he is still a loveable idiot and is still sort of the odd man out when compared to Sasuke. Naruto still thinks like his ninja self and will fight dirty, thus why he did what he did in the match.
Sasuke has an Ice semblance. No! This is not some stupid reason to just say, "Hey, you're the Ice Queen, I'm the Ice King, let's get together." The semblance people manifest is supposed to be a representation of their body and minds if I was reading it right. So Sasuke was naturally a very cold person in the series and his mindset was always focused on one thing. So when he got his aura awoken, it was set during the time in which his life was beginning to change, but because it hadn't fully taken, he gained this kind of power.