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A/N
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Chapter 24
Sasuke stared out over the horizon as he waited for Weiss and Pyrrha, his Sharingan eye spinning, looking for some sign of Naruto out beyond his range of his vision. Every detail, every small movement was known to him. Nothing could escape his sight that did not live. Even with his power, he wondered, if only for a moment, if this was the truth of power his brother had sought out all those years ago. Was there something more to his eye beyond killing a friend? He hoped not. This power, even if it was the truest way to attain it, was wrong.
"How many fingers am I holding behind my back?"
Sasuke smiled and rose to his feet, his single eye closed. "None," he answered, turning to face his two mentors. Weiss narrowed her eye on him while Pyrrha merely smiled at that little tidbit of information. His eye might be a mystery to some, but that was for another time to them to figure out. "Are we ready to start again…?" He stopped when he caught sight of Jaune walking up behind them, his gaze stuck on the retreating for of Nora and Ren. "You helping out as well?"
Scratching the back of his head, the blond-haired teen stammered out a quick, "No," as he took a seat in the shade of a tree. "I'm just here to watch you in action."
"You're supposed to be meditating," Pyrrha reminded, her smile never leaving her face. Weiss ignored Jaune's quick reply of, "Yes ma'am," as she eyed up Sasuke. "Are you ready to start again?"
"Of course." His red eye returned to its normal onyx color while he took a calming breath. Before he could release it the two girls were on him, weapons at the ready. His Sharingan sprang to life and his hands began to crackle with ice forming over his fingers and clawing its way up his forearms. "Are you sure you want to fight me this close to the edge of the cliff?"
"You'd survive the fall," Weiss informed him, sounding very certain of her belief in his skill. He survived the jump into Emerald Forest. He'd survive a three-hundred-foot fall.
(-)
Winter blinked her eyes as she watched Syxx sharpen his sword with a wet stone. While their pilot worked on keeping them under the radar to their intended location, she was left with the briefing before they got to their mission location. She hoped he was as good as she was lead to believe by James, otherwise she might just have words with him. This was a dangerous operation and she was sticking him with a quiet person that seemed to be only capable of speaking in grunts and nods.
Still, she wanted to make sure he was listening to her.
"Once we land, we'll have new clothes and gear to wear," she lied effortlessly. Naruto stopped long enough to turn his red eye upon her and blink once, and silently ask if she was joking. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "Nice to see you are listening. Repeat the operation back to me, please."
"No." Naruto put away the wet stone. Rising to his feet, he glanced out the side of the bulkhead and over a large forest.
Sighing, Winter regarded Syxx with a withering glare. How was she supposed to work with him if he acted like this? What made him special? She didn't see anything about him that was special. His attitude certainly wasn't.
"The operation is all about intelligence gathering in a base that went dark a few weeks ago after the incident involving your robot that went on a rampage through the city of Vale," Naruto finally recited, his eyes closing. Winter licked her lips. "This base was where a large shipment of weapons was also to have been reported missing and is on the edge of Vale's controlled territory for shelter from the Grimm. Having it go dark is one thing, but a large cache of weapons and stolen tech is warrant for more than a simple drop of the radar." He turned slowly, his blue eye reflecting something akin to sadness as he asked, "Did I miss anything," with only a minor trace of warmth in his voice.
"…No…" Her words were soft.
Syxx almost looked startled by her sudden change in demeanor. Instead he sheathed sword and returned to looking out the opening of the bulkhead.
Winter took a deep breath as she remembered her parting words with Ironwood. Syxx wasn't his real name and while she was no stranger to codenames, it left her wondering why he had the name he had. Was it merely a name chosen for fun because it was misspelled, or was it something else? She didn't know. She knew why she had the codename Hawk.
Syxx adjusted his mask that he kept just over his mouth and nose when he wrinkled his nose or opened his mouth to wide while talking. He'd have to go get something better than what he currently had for this operation. Secrecy of identity and facial recognition was needed. He might not have understood why any of it would matter on him, but James told him that it was needed and while he didn't want to wear one like this, it was better than nothing.
The rest of the trip was done in silence with the occasional question about weapons and tactics being brought up. Winter was very adamant about remaining under the radar and not killing anyone if they could avoid it. Syxx didn't seem to see the problem in killing the threats, as according to James they were nothing more than terrorists that needed to be put down. Winter would have agreed with him whole heartedly if this mission was a search and destroy type. Sadly, it was not. So, she could only placate his desire for destruction by saying that it would only be done if no other option was available.
"We're approaching the LZ." Syxx and Winter both did one final check of their gear as the pilot began to slow the bullhead down and lower the altitude further for an easy jump out. "Seventeen seconds out. Radio me when you're done and I'll come by for pickup. If I haven't heard back from you in three hours…"
"Copy that, Four-Seven-Niner," replied Winter, cutting him off before he go further with his statement.
The bulkhead came to a near sudden stop as its' nose jerked upwards and then spun its body around near a small clearing of rocks and trees. In one fluid motion, they jumped and the bulkhead continued its spinning motion to take off for the safety of Beacon.
Winter watched the craft go with a small tinge of concern. Three hours wasn't a lot of time, but it was less than what she had figured they'd give them.
(-)
"I really want to know how you do all of that." Jaune might have been asking more for the sake of his own disbelief to all the crazy things Sasuke could do, along with that of Weiss and Pyrrha. At this point one would have thought that nothing short of insane, god-level, earth rending power should surprise him, but no, the simplest of things still amazed him.
"It's not that hard to do," Sasuke confessed, sounding sure of himself then he did any other time he was asked the same question by his team. He gave his left hand a long glance as ice began to envelope it and slowly form claws and a gauntlet over his flesh. It wasn't cold. Not to him. But to those that touched it, it was the worst thing they'd ever touched and that surprised him given how cold Weiss claimed it to be when she touched a thermometer it. "You two okay?"
Pyrrha offered a short wave as she remained doubled over to catch her breath, either planned or not, directly in front of Jaune, giving him a nice long look at her backside, which he remained partially unaware of. Weiss on the other hand had the decency to remain upright, her weapon stabbed into the soft soil as she leaned against it and attempted to show no weakness in front of the former Uchiha.
"I'm never letting you hit me with that," she declared, her voice rasped by the need to fill her lungs with precious air again. A few blows were all it took for her to feel useless and be rendered as such from his strength and the cold touch of his Semblance. Aura could negate only so much and even coming from an icy location such as Atlas could do very little when faced with a Semblance that, to her testing, had no real base temperature recorded just yet. Fighting him in the Tournament would be problematic if they were forced to fight his team, let alone him.
The raven-haired teen chuckled at the proclamation. If she were a bit faster or could think a bit further with traps and her usually set of skills, he wouldn't doubt that. She was already getting more than few blows in during their matches, but Pyrrha had the skills and the combat experience to back up such a claim.
"I'll hold you to that." She snorted at him. He released his grip on the ice and enjoyed the sensation of the ice thawing over his skin. It reminded him of drying off in the sun after going for a swim when he was a kid. Back when things were simpler. When he was home with his parents. When his brother hadn't… He shook his head to rid himself of those thoughts. He couldn't fall back to that dark path. Not again. Not now. Not ever. "How's your training coming along, Jaune? Feel like you've improved any?"
"Is that a trick question or a loaded question?" Sasuke shrugged. The blond rubbed the bridge of his noise as he did his best to avoid looking in the Heiress's direction while answering as honestly as he could. "I feel like I have improved. Not enough to challenge you or anyone else to right now…"
Sasuke closed the distance between them faster than Jaune could follow and tapped him on the forehead with two fingers. This single motion with little force was enough to cause Jaune to stumble back, albeit more out of shock, and nearly fall on his backside while rubbing the spot.
"That's not the way to think about this." The former Uchiha slid his hands into his pockets. He rubbed his index and thumb together as if he were trying to clean them inside his pocket. "The best swordsman doesn't fear the second-best. He fears the worst. Because he can't predict what the idiot will do." To Arc's relief, Weiss seemed lost to that line of thinking while Pyrrha seemed rather amused at the meaning behind it. "You want to know the funniest thing that separates Naruto and me? It's more than the training, the skills we use, our fighting styles, and our abilities. It's our line of thinking. Naruto isn't the best fighter. He's not even the second-best. He's the idiot. And you know why he remains unbeatable in all my stories? It's because he knows that he's the idiot and he uses it to his advantage. That's what you are, Jaune. No offense."
"Some taken… I think…?"
Running a hand through his hair, Sasuke sighed. Pep talks weren't his thing. That was Naruto while he finishing or continued beating the ever-loving stuffing out of you. "All I'm saying is that sometimes aiming to be the best isn't the best way to go about something. Don't imitate. Innovate. Naruto won fights against me because he makes up stuff on the go. If he had a plan, it'd be shot to hell instantly and he'd have to wing it from there. Stop trying to be what you're not."
"That's sounds easy to say, but not so easy to do."
"That might be the dumbest thing I've ever heard," Weiss chimed in.
"No. It's true." Pyrrha looked bashful when the three turned her way. "I learned how to fight by many instructors. I wanted to be the best. I tried to be like them. It didn't work out too well. I learned my style of fighting by constantly picking myself and learning what works for me. In truth, Jaune, a fight is all about being unpredictable. As soon as you are predictable, you lose."
"So, I need to not be predictable? How do I do that with what I have?"
The raven-haired teen took out his sword, turned it sideways, and gave Jaune a good smack to his knee. Jaune yelped like a kicked puppy, and rightly so as he was both not expecting such a sudden attack and the forced used was enough to leave a stinging sensation.
"Why'd you do that?" Jaune yelled out as he rubbed his leg.
"It's a sword. I smacked you with it."
"Yeah. And? So, what?" And like a light was turned on, he got it. "Oh… But it's a sword. Why not stab and slash with it?"
"Just because it's a sword with a sharp side and a pointy end, doesn't mean he has to use it like that?" Pyrrha confessed as she pointed out Sasuke's weapon. "Remember, Naruto ne wielded a Reverse-Blade sword until it was broken. A sword that can only kill if the blade is flipped and unsheathing it to do so in combat would require a great amount of skill. Skill that I'm sure he didn't and still doesn't have." Sasuke nodded to this. "But he could use it for a blunt style of fighting and in doing so, not kill his opponent. It's one way to use a sword outside of how Sasuke just used his. Did you expect him to stab or slash you with it?"
"I guess…"
"Then you learned something. A shield can be a weapon of great power just as a sword can. If you use them in unpredictable ways, I'm sure you can come out on top against someone."
"…Easy for you to say," Jaune repeated, sounding a little more unsure than normal now.
(-)
"White Fang own this place now. General Ironwood was right." Hawk lowered her binoculars and handed them off to Naruto. The blond grumbled as he took them and looked out over the large structure. "A battle occurred recently. The walls are damaged." She informed him.
Naruto could see that. It looked like a small scuffle with weather and time being the real culprits. Did this place recently get taken by the White Fang or was it something that had been taken some time ago and just never noticed until now? The idea of that wasn't that off putting to Naruto given the few history lessons Iruka he had paid attention to, though unwillingly mind you.
The walls were three stories tall with a tower at each of the four corners of the wall with a turret and three stationed guards. They didn't openly wear their masks, but the fact that they were all Faunus was most likely the reasoning to believe they were White Fang. Naruto had his doubts for sure, but he was going to go along with this since this was a scouting operation and information recovery type. It was probably best to assume the worst.
"We can use the train tracks to get in," she told him. She gestured towards the south end of the base. Peering back through the binoculars in the general direction, Naruto was able to see the tracks she spoke of. He lowered them and tossed the object back to her. "If we're lucky, they'll have most of their forces guarding the walls. We can sneak in undetected with fewer people."
"Why not just walk through the front door?" Hawk's head turned slow enough that Naruto might have thought time had frozen with how slowly did just the simplest of motions. Even blinking seemed to slow down for her. "What?"
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard… Ever."
Rolling his eyes, Naruto stood to his full height, brought his hands together and exploded into a small puff of smoke. When the smoke was gone, what stood where he had been, was a male Faunus with cat ears, a grey jean coat with matching jeans, and a simple white shirt. His hair was black and reaching down to the center of his back while piercing blue eyes blinked in her presence.
"…Interesting Semblance…"
He shrugged and touched her shoulder to change her as well. Hawk backed up just as he finished channeling his Chakra to force a transformation over her body. It wouldn't last long if she got away from him, but this was better than nothing.
The smoke cleared and the woman Hawk was no longer the same woman. Her hair was now a deep red and ending at her neck with one part in a braid on the left side of her head. Her skin was still pale as snow but now sported black markings along her bare arms and bare left leg. She wore torn up black jeans with the left side being removed just a few inches shy of her hips, along with a sleeveless blue jean jacket and black sleeveless shirt. Aside from the markings on her form, the only other way to tell she was now a disguised Faunus were the claws she sported instead of regular nails.
"Don't touch me with that!" she hissed out.
"It's done already. Let's go."
"Let's go? You didn't even do anything!"
"Yes, I did. You can't see it on you because I don't have a mirror with me to show you. Besides, I can't hold this for long on two people." Correction: I don't want to hold this for too long on two people. Naruto looked out over the open terrain as Hawk started checking herself out as best she could without said object available. "We need to move. I don't feel like recasting that on you. It was hard enough as it was and doing it again on you might not work out too well."
Hawk continued to pat her own chest, something that was now rather lacking in appearance, yet she could swear she felt her original size instead of the chest of her little sister… which was the equivalent of being flat chested. Cruel to think of her sister like that it may be, but an apt assessment of her current size in comparison. "There is no way this is going to work. My plan sounds better." Naruto motioned down to the sandy region below and towards a group of traveling Faunus. "…Not a single word, got it?"
He shrugged and jumped down, sliding along the incline and reaching the bottom without a sound. Hawk landed a moment later, her hand instinctively reaching for her now hidden weapon as she approached the traveling group from behind. They trailed behind a pair of bear Faunus that were chatting about their kids and didn't really listen until they got to the front entrance.
Hawk remained beside him, her eyes twitching from being out in the open like this. It wasn't like her to out in the open, let alone the public eye back home. Military training made the normal routines such as having her blinds open a none existent thing anymore.
"…Cargo is in the back. Warehouse thirty-two B. You know where that's at, right?"
Naruto and Hawk glanced at the speaker, a large cat-like Faunus that was giving orders to another person. "Of course, sir. We'll get what we need and then be on our way."
The guard nodded and opened the main gate, allowing them entrance. As soon as they were inside the base, Hawk noticed that their fears were realized as the base was overtaken by the White Fang. What the walls showed was one thing with Faunus guards and not much else, but behind the walls were fully dressed White Fang members, eagerly moving supplies around. They were organized too. Too organized with a terrorist group. This was more militarized and the people in charge were giving out orders that made sense.
She gestured to Naruto that they needed to move away from the group to begin their investigation on where the missions supplies had gone to. Naruto gave a nodded and followed her through the base as they melded with shadows and ran from the light. Finally, after a rough thirty minutes she spotted their destination and moved him to a small closet fair distance away from the room they needed.
Cracking the door, she peered through and eyed two guards in front of the door. "We need to take the two guards out," she told him as the transformation was finally, and regrettably, canceled for her. Naruto bit his lower lip under his mask in thought. "If we could lure them both over here, we can take them out and get inside."
Naruto motioned for her to back up. "I got an idea. I'll grab both of them and knock them out. We can't let them get off a single sound." Her look was that of an angry child again as she watched him summon four copies of himself. Blinking, she reached out and touched two of them that were in arm's length. When her arm didn't pass through them, she took a step back, sized him up again, and just nodded, accepting that he had more than one Semblance. She could ask later on that.
Taking a deep breathe, he nodded and two of his clones flickered as if hit by something unseen before one of the guards was replaced with one of the guards and thoroughly knocked out before he could utter a single word. The other one didn't get moved and wasn't even aware of his partner being taken, or that he had been replaced by a blond. The clone jumped on him and hauled him back to the closet where they detained him and made sure he was knocked out.
He kept two clones to guard them and put the other two in front of the door. Naruto took a deep breath once more and looked to Hawk as returned to his previous transformed state. "We need to get in there, but I have no idea on what's on the other side of that door or what we could be walking in to." These two didn't have the garb of the White Fang. They looked like regular citizens. He touched Hawk and got a near match to her previous state as well. "This won't last long," he reminded.
"It only needs to last a few minutes," she told him quickly as she moved out of their hiding spot and marched towards the room in question. The two clones let them in and they were quick to spot a few Faunus working at the terminals. The Faunus paid them no mind and they quickly moved to the closest of the terminals. Naruto hovered over her and watched her work as she placed her scroll on the access port.
Her fingers drummed along the keyboard, making it sound like machinegun fire was happening in the room with her speed. She brought up file after file as she searched for what she needed as her scroll downloaded anything and everything it could. A limitation on hardware was the thing slowing this whole process down for her. Their computers weren't up to date and probably for a good reason.
"What's that?" Naruto said, pointing to a small video window. She paused in what she was doing to enlarge it. A man with a familiar mop of red hair was speaking to a human. A very familiar human as well. "Adam and Roman are here?" he whispered. He glanced over his shoulder to the other Faunus that were laughing about something. "Where are they?"
"That's not our problem," she told him. They could deal with them at a later date. This was information retrieval. Not an assassination job. If it was, they'd march down there right now, kill the two of them, and then fight a literal army just to escape. She checked the time and bit down on her lower lip. Time was starting to wind down for them. "We don't have time."
Naruto gripped the back of her chair and growled. He could kill Adam here and Blake wouldn't know. Everything would be fine. She'd never know and he could get away with it. That man wasn't even a Faunus. He was a monster with the horror stories he read about him on the media. Fighting for equality didn't have to mean bloodshed, but damn if he wasn't taking things beyond it.
Her scroll beeped and she tore it out. "We need to go," she told him in a whisper. Naruto released the chair and moved for the door. The Faunus in the room never noticed them enter of leave. "What about the two guards? They'll know something was up."
He made two clones and replicated them instantly. He stopped and looked at his own scroll for time. They had one hour to get back to their LZ and await pickup. "Head to the forest. Dispel there. And we're taking the two guards." Hawk looked uneasy about take the two. Naruto removed a scroll from his pouch and sealed the two Faunus inside it. "I'd put you in here, but I have no idea on whether or not I put them in their right to begin with. I'd rather not seal a person I'm working with." He marched out the door with her on his heels.
(-)
"That stuff you said about Naruto being the worst," Weiss spoke up, stopping the former Uchiha in his tracks. It was just the two of them. Jaune had left with Pyrrha to continue weapon training and going for a run. "Do you really think he's the worst fighter if he's beaten you as many times as you claim?"
The former Uchiha looked to something in the distance that she couldn't see. His single eye slowly dimmed and he saw their last fight play out. The real one where their lives and choices had been on the line. The fight that brought them here. It was a hard-fought battle. Sasuke had thought so highly of himself, even with all the improvements Naruto had gotten along their time as members of Team Seven. Though in the end he was the one standing, Sasuke had never felt like he won that fight. Naruto had beaten him. Maybe not outright in combat, but he won in the end. He beat him both physically and mentally.
Nodding slowly, his eye returned to normal and he said, "Yes," with a tinge of pride in his voice. "Naruto isn't the worst fighter in terms of combat ability. I meant it in a different way. It's his style of fighting. When he swings at you, he's not aiming to cripple or kill. He's just aiming for anything solid that he can hit. And that's not a real style. I'm precise, like you. We aim for weak points, areas that we know will inflict great damage, but where mine are meant to cripple, your style is meant to inflict damage over a shorter period of time in greater results with pinpoint accuracy. You aim to weaken them and tire them out with your style of hit and run by way of your small size and speed."
Arching a thin brow, she wondered if that was a compliment or an observation of their similar styles.
"But Naruto isn't just aiming to hit you with something that'll hurt, even if it gets him hurt in the process. He's a bulldozer that never gives up and can take more punishment than anyone I know, but when he hits you, you will feel it. So in terms of combat style, he's not the best and I'd dare say not the worst. What makes him the worst is what makes him the best. He's not going to be predictable at all. He never uses the same attack twice the same way. And when he fights, he's learning unconsciously how to beat you. He's got a knack for making anything impossible possible and blowing all expectations out of the water."
"I still fail to see how this makes him better than you?"
"I never said he was better than me. I simply said he's normally beaten me in combat. The reason is because in my younger years I was arrogant and thought I was the best and he was the worst. But that line of thinking became very poor for me in the end. He used his abilities in ways I never could have imaged. His clones, their corporal, meaning their solid, and while one hit will get rid of them, it's how he uses them while they're alive that make him hard to kill. At one point in a fight we had, he used them to hoist himself, and me, into the air, spin us around, and throw the two of us into a cliff. He did that while a single clone spun the two of us and fifty others clones all linked together just to get a surprise hit on me. It worked. I never saw it coming and I knew how many he could make and I knew how strong he was."
"He got the jump on you once. Big deal. I hardly see how that makes him as great as you claim."
Sasuke ran a hand through his hair. It was hard to imagine that the idiot was stronger and far more cleaver than he was. Sasuke was breed for fighting. His family, while they were alive, helped him hone his skills, along with his brother. He was an Uchiha and had the best grades, never lost a single fight in the academy days, and was considered a prodigy. He would have been the greatest ninja Konoha would have produced if he hadn't been so stuck on gaining power and murdering his brother. And what really kicked him hard in the gut in the end was the deadlast of their school, the idiot, the one no one could see becoming the Hokage of their village, the strongest ninja in existence, or someone with a nine-tailed fox in his gut that gave him unlimited power.
Yeah, he was riding that low for a while when he lost to him and put him in the hospital, then had to fight him again when he woke up because the Kyuubi was possessing him to gain freedom, then dealt with him as an angry and pouty younger brother, fought him again because words were meaningless and Naruto couldn't convey them without punching him, before he was finally sent on a mission that nearly killed him and was now back out in the field where he was getting into some ungodly trouble because that constantly followed him around.
And thinking like this was only going to make things worse for him.
"Look," he finally started, unsure of how much he could explain from this one-time Naruto proved he had a brain and the skill to back it up from time to time, "Naruto is smarter than I will ever give him credit for. He has a brain that rears its ugly head from time to time. But only in combat or when someone is suffering just as he had in the past. There was a fight in the past where my original team was working with our master against another master that was trying to kill someone we were protecting. He trapped our master and left the three of us to fight him. Naruto summoned his clones and dogpiled him. But the man had greater strength than all of us combined and simply shoved Naruto away like he was nothing."
Sasuke shut his eye and smiled at the memory as it played out in his head. He chuckled and then continued.
"Realizing that he couldn't out muscle him he tried a different tactic. Using a combination of his transformation abilities, my general weapons, and his clones, he threw me my Windmill Shuriken," he told her while gesturing to the device on his forearm. "It took me a few seconds to realize what his plan was before I put it in motion. He turned himself into the weapon and had a clone throw it to me because he knew I'd have better accuracy then him. I tossed two of them. One real one. And the fake that was him in the shadow of the first. Naturally, the enemy caught the first one and was so surprised by the second one that he had was forced to evade, less he broke his concentration on the water prison he had created around our master. That was when Naruto returned to normal and tossed a single kunai at the man at his back. He evaded the attack because he had no other choice and released his hold on the water prison, freeing our master."
"That sound so…" Weiss stopped. Could RWBY do that? Could they work so well together that without vocalization they'd know what to do together? A team of children managed to best, if the story was accurate and true, a master Huntsman that had gone dark. It was beyond ingenious. It was beautifully tactical. Was it planned? There had to be details he was leaving out, but this sounded like a plan that would have stories about it. "How did he know it would work?"
"He didn't… Or I think he didn't. The man had claimed we were children and not strong enough to stop him. Naruto, ever so eager to prove someone wrong, rose to the challenge. We saw each other at that time as rivals and burdens to bear. I saw him and Sakura like that, and he saw me as a challenge to overcome. He didn't want to rely on me because he thought that'd make him weak. I didn't want to use him because I thought he was deadweight. Our enemy was too stubborn and believed that we couldn't beat him. He was right; we couldn't. But we were strong enough, smart enough, and Naruto was cleaver enough to come up with a plan right on the spot that saved our butts and freed our master in the end." He smiled and looked at his left hand before tightening it into a fist. "Don't count Naruto out. And don't count Jaune out just because he doesn't have good grades or a good fighting style. I did that before and I lost big time. Jaune might not be as confidant as Naruto, but damn if I don't see his stubbornness in him."
Weiss huffed and walked away, unhappy with the explanation. Maybe Naruto was strong, but a single act of brilliance didn't change her opinion of him.
(-)
"We have a little over thirty minutes before our ride shows up," Winter told Syxx. Syxx nodded as he continued staring out over the facility. The white-haired woman moved to his side and gazed over the facility with him. "They weren't our objective. Even if they had, it would have been suicidal to fight there in the base. They had too many people and too many guns pointed at us. We wouldn't have escaped it."
"The mission is all that matters," he retorted with a growl.
An exasperated sigh left Winter and she regarded him with a scowl. "That's not all that's important at all times. The survival of your team should be higher on the list of priorities."
"Not everyone gets off scot free." As soon as the words left his lips, he turned away, his eyes cold and somewhat distant. A memory could be seen in his eyes. Winter didn't know what he saw, but whatever it was had triggered something terrible in him. She felt his grief wash over her and for a single moment she had a vision of Weiss. "I could go back. Summon my clones, raid the place, and kill Adam… Blake would never know…"
Winter slowly reached for him but pulled back with fingers webbed in doubt.
Slowly, almost regrettably, he removed the scroll and summoned back the two captured men. A few slaps and they woke up. They tried to get up but two clones kept them in place as the masked agent moved in front of them with a knife in hand.
"Okay asshole. Tell me where Adam is going." With their mouths gagged they weren't going to be talking right now, but Syxx either didn't care or was going for an intimidation factor. Winter just wanted to see how this would play out. "They teach you how to keep quiet in this group? You know what they teach me? It's how to extract information. From people like you."
The two captured Faunus looked to one another before their eyes landed on the Schnee behind him. One of them started laughing and Syxx removed the gag. "Tell you what, kid, let us go and hand over the Schnee. We'll forget this ever happened. How about that?"
Syxx's eyes dimmed and he lowered his head, releasing a sigh of annoyance before he stabbed the speaker under the jaw and into his brain. He died only a few seconds after the blade skewered him. With a simple twist, he carved a hole in the flesh and ripped the blade out. The clone broke his neck and dragged him off to start clawing him up with its blades before dumping the body somewhere so that it looked like a Grimm attack.
"Yeah… I guess they never taught me all that well." He started cleaning the blade on his pants leg. "I liked your friend though. Seemed like a funny guy," Syxx told him as casually one could do while torturing and killing another person in front of his second victim. "I need a location of bases. Oh, I'm sorry." He removed the gag. "Tell me the location of your bases."
Huffing, the captured Faunus hissed out, "Bloodgulch Outpost number one," before Syxx covered his mouth with his hand and stabbed him in the thigh, muffling his pained scream.
"Coordinates and real names of the places…"
(-)
Four-Seven-Niner brought the bullhead around when catching sight of the two agents. Lowering the craft low enough for them to get on before blasting off, she was surprised when Hawk walked into the cabin and sat leaned over her shoulder. "How quickly can you get us back to Beacon?"
"Pretty fast, ma'am. Why? How date?"
"Funny."
Hawk left the cabin and returned to Naruto as he sat in one of the chairs, his head resting against the metal plating of the wall behind him. She could see it in his eyes: The conflict, the torturing of oneself, and the terror of realizing what he was. How old was he? This wasn't normal behavior for any agent James molded. This was… something else entirely. A child soldier perhaps? A radical with an axe to grind?
He shut his eyes and for a moment, Hawk wondered just exactly what he was when saw tiny wisps of some dark power leak out over him before being smothered into nothingness. He was an enigma.
"Why do you want to target Adam?" Naruto slowly opened his eyes and stared at the female agent. Hawk put her hands on her hips and continued. "You wanted to kill him. Why? Did he wrong you?"
Closing his eyes again, Naruto inhaled deeply and shook his head. "No… But he's not a good person. As a weapon, I need to deal with him. It's the only thing I know how to do. I have to kill my enemies before they become a threat to the world."
"Is that what they teach you? To kill and simply move on to the next job?" He nodded slowly, almost as if he were unsure if that was the truth he was telling himself or what the Academy had taught him all those years ago. It was slowly getting harder to tell the difference between the lies and the truths and the lessons that were simply interpreted wrong by him and those around him. "There is more to life than simply the mission."
"Well if you have all the answers; why don't you set me straight." She shut her mouth and clamped up. "That's what I thought."
Hawk watched the terrain go by as she moved to the window. Her fingers traced the glass and for a moment she thought back on her own life and the choices that had led up to this point. "It's Winter." Naruto turned his head and made a hummed as though he hadn't caught her name. "My name is Winter Schnee. I'm Weiss's older sister. Since you were at Beacon, I'm assuming you've run in to her a few times."
Nodding, he put his head back on the wall. "Yeah… She doesn't like me."
"I can see why."
Sitting up straight, Naruto growled at her. "Why do you care? The job is done. We survived and didn't have a single fight as a result. You got your information and I got mine."
"So, what? You just going to go after Adam now? He's a powerful Faunus with more and more people following him every day. Even if you are powerful, what can you possibly do against an army of Faunus with Atlas-Grade weaponry at their disposal? They'd gun you down before you even got to their bases. You'd die quicker than anyone else ever could imagine and it'd be for nothing."
"That's my choice in the end."
"Be that as it may, if you go down this path, you won't like it."
"You don't even know me."
"True, but I can see a lot of me in you." Naruto huffed and turned away. He opened his communication scroll and started typing in the locations for their bases to see where they were at. One was close to Vale. Mount Glenn. He could get there and take that base out and maybe find Adam. It'd be easy. Winter tore the object away from him. "You think you're so great that all you have to do is go there and everything will work out, don't you?"
"I'll wing it. It's always worked in the past for me."
"That doesn't always work." She ran a hand through her hair and took a calming breath. "Running off to die is a pointless endeavor. Think of all the people that'd miss you in the end." Stealing the item back from her, Naruto pocketed it and regarded her with a frosty glare. "I can see what you are. Even if you don't see it. I know why you're doing this. You're doing this to prove you can be powerful and not need others. I made those same mistakes and now I'm paying for it."
"I'm not you. I'm not making your mistakes. I don't even know you. And you don't know me. So, lay off!"
"How many people have you pushed away because you want to prove something?" Naruto blinked and looked her up and down as if trying to figure her out. "A lot, I assume. I pushed away my family. When I'm around my sister, I feel alienated because of how we were raised. I left her. I abandoned my two siblings and mother. I left them to the forceful hands of our father. I can see that in you. You want to push someone away, prove that they're methods are wrong or something like that. I can see that in your actions now. It's all towards one goal. Just like how I was."
"I'm not pushing people away. They made me this way. I'm a weapon. A tool. Once I'm dull, I'm to be thrown away. That's the life of a ninja." Naruto hissed something she didn't catch as he turned and walked away from her. He took a deep breath and heard his parents trying to reason with him. Damn them. Damn his father for not being able to stop the masked man from releasing the Kyuubi. Damn that man for ruining his life. His knuckles turned white as he slowly put his fist to the hull of the craft. "I never asked for this… I never asked for this life. I didn't want to be a weapon. Not like this."
He put his head against the hull and shut his eyes. Minato said something to him, but he ignored it. The words, the choices, the ideals of being a shinobi; they meant nothing here. He was a weapon for Ozpin and James to throw at their enemies. He knew they were using him, but they were sending him home. This was his payment. He solved their problems and they'd solve his. It was fair.
"I'm sorry for what I did to you, son. But I had no choice."
"Yes, you did. You could have let me go. I wouldn't have destroyed Konoha after I was freed from that mans' control."
Naruto screamed mentally and willed them to be quiet. He looked up and saw his reflection in the window. Though easily transparent, he saw his form. The red eyes, the enlarged whisker marks, the fangs, and the blazing aura. He was a demon. A monster. A real and true devil. He wasn't even human anymore.
He put his head back against the hull of the craft and shut his eyes. "I never knew why people hated me. I just never knew why. But when I found out why I was hated, I just accepted it. I thought that if I let it go, then things would change. People would like me. But knowing the truth hurt more than not knowing. And I strove to prove them wrong. But when I learned who made me what I am, I hated him. I hate my father for making me what I am. He used me. Put a power inside me that just simply hates because that's what it is. My mother didn't want this for me, but she had no choice." He turned slowly to face Winter. "I'm a weapon because my father sacrificed my humanity to make a demon. He had a choice, and he decided that the balance of power between the small villages needed to be upheld. So, he made me a monster because it needed to be done. He said he had no choice, but he had a choice. He chose poorly."
Yes… I know that feeling. Winter shut her eyes and remembered the yelling, the screaming between herself and her father. She ran off, joined the military, left Weiss to deal with her father. She wanted to fly on her own and she accomplished it by doing so many terrible things. She abandoned them. Left her mother and siblings to their fathers' twisted goals of maintaining a company that had more bad reputations than any military campaign in history. She regretted leaving Weiss the most. And now it made her wish she was a better person towards her. That she didn't abandon her to be used by that man. Maybe there was some reason behind it all.
At the very core of that man there was something fatherly about him. He never abandoned them. He wanted them to live happy lives, but it was for his purposes only. Maybe in his happiness, he was teaching them to be strong and make choices based on his reasoning because he saw the world in a way they couldn't. How could they? They were children when these paths were made for them. They deviated from a path he wanted them to follow and maybe that was why he saw no value in them? He held Weiss on a leash by his money alone. He tried with her and that backfired. But with Weiss it hadn't. Not yet.
Perhaps, in some twisted way, he loved them. Not a conventional normal way that most people associated with love. But a fatherly love that went beyond the here and now and moved to a future where their lives would be their own. Was that love? He cared for them by giving them what they wanted as long as it was something he desired as well. He gave Weiss he lessons in music because in the end, it made him happy. Her songs, no matter how painful sad they were, were always a reflection of her own soul and the inner turmoil she endured through him. But he approved of her songs, no matter how revealing or sad they were. Did he simply take joy in her suffering, or was he hoping that somewhere along the line she'd see the beauty in his actions and change them?
"How do you do it?" Naruto's words pulled Winter from her thinking about her father. "I don't know how to move forward anymore. The truth hurts so much that at times, I don't know what to do. I have the power to do so much, but if I do nothing, then nothing changes. But I don't know what to do." He looked to his hand and saw the blood that had previously coated it from those two Faunus he captured and tortured for information. "I never wanted this life. I wanted to be strong to prove I wasn't weak. I wanted to get smarter to prove I wasn't stupid. But no matter what I do, I feel like it was all for someone else's goal in the end."
"That's life. Everyone has goals with other people. Do you think people that say they want nothing in return truly want that? Every action is based on a choice and a path we want to follow. Even if we deviate from that path, we still find a way to get what we want, even if we endure many hardships along the way."
"But isn't it possible I would find what I most desired along a path I didn't choose or that was laid out for me by someone else?"
"If you start thinking like that, you'll run out of time. A path not chosen is the same as a path that never existed." Her face twisted into a look of hatred. "If only I'd done this. If only I'd done that." Her eyes darkened and she shook her head. "No matter how much we look back at the past. We can never go back. We can't change what has already happened. We are each of us constantly moving into an unknown and unseen future."
Lowered his hand, Naruto looked to Winter and touched his stomach where the seal was. The Kyuubi was laughing, his mother was crying for him, his father was silent. "Is there no hope for someone like me then? Am I to be a weapon because I was forged to be one?"
He saw it then. A ray of hope in the form of the woman before him. She smiled, a gesture almost foreign to him for how genuine it was and rare he saw pointed in his direction. It was usually a smirk or a challenging smile that he remembered seeing. Iruka might have flashed him one from time to time, but it was almost as though it was an uneasy smile, like he was wrestling with something from within to do just that.
"What is hope?" she asked him carefully. "That all of your wishes and all of your dreams come true? To have your prayers answered? To turn back time because things weren't supposed to happen like that? Could you say with absolute certainty that you wouldn't make the same mistakes again? Who decided all this? And what's been decided?" She moved to the chair and sat down. "Hope is something that makes people strong. Just because you were forged to be a weapon doesn't mean you have to be. I'm sure that no matter what, it pained your father to do that to you. I don't know where he is, but with how you speak of him, he's dead. I'm sure that in his final moments he was thinking of you. Maybe you're just looking at what he did the wrong way. Perhaps he did because he sought a way to protect you."
"Naruto, you should change." His father's voice echoed through his mind, breaking his silence. "I couldn't save you. I couldn't solve our worlds' problems because I didn't know what to do with the hate that our world suffered and still suffers from. I know we're still mending our relationship but believe me when I say that I didn't see another way out of the problem created by the masked man. Naruto, I couldn't change anything in our world or myself. So you'll have to do it for me."
Winter saw his change in stature happen. He looked happier suddenly, as if he were listening to a voice only he could hear that gave him hope or a change in purpose. He smiled and nodded. "Alright," he said quietly. "I'll change…" His mismatching eyes seen to shimmer red for a moment before returning back to their mismatched colors. "Naruto Uzumaki… That's my name, Winter."
"We're coming up on Beacon, you two." Four-Seven-Niner told them, shouting back at them.
"Gotcha," Winter replied, a small grin on her face. "Take care, Uzumaki. It was nice working with you. And… don't go off alone. If you intend to target that base, let me know… I'll help you out. But don't do it. It's stupid to die a pointless death."
He nodded and extended his hand. Winter looked down at his hand and then to him. "I want do anything stupid like that. I promise. Shake on it?" She chuckled and shook his hand. "Maybe we'll meet up again in the future. Maybe you can meet my friend and brotherly figure. He's friends with Weiss. Sasuke?"
Winter nodded as she let go of his hand. "I've heard stories about him my dear sister. Next time you see her, tell her that I'd like to meet him, along with her leader. They seem nice." He hopped off the bullhead to the ground below as the craft reached the landing pad.
"I'll do that!" he called back before bolting towards the school. Winter could see some of the students rushing to their respective classes and caught a glimpse of someone with raven colored hair greeting Naruto as the bullhead took off to return her to her ship.
(-)
"Winter is going over the information now," Naruto reported to Ozpin and James. Sasuke wasn't present for this. Naruto put his scroll on the table and Ozpin took over as a list of names and locations sprang up. "I managed to interrogate a few people that we had to capture to get through the base. They said the closes base is in Mountain Glenn. I didn't get a detail on their numbers, but I have other targets if you want me to pursue them."
"I think that's enough information for me to start sending in ground team to scout out the area," James offered. He looked over the Jinchuuriki and smiled. "If you were one of my men, I'd give you a medal and promotion for pulling this off."
"But I'm not one of yours." Naruto looked at Ozpin and then turned to the door. He stopped short of leaving and then faced Ozpin again. "I'd like some time off if that's possible."
Arching a brow, Ozpin laced his fingers together and leaned forward, a sly grin forming beneath his shadowed lips. "And what has brought about this change, I wonder?"
"I want to find myself." Naruto looked at his hand. "Ever since I got here and woke up, I've been haunted by the words of my father and the Kyuubi. I had it placed in me because I had to save the village, but more so to keep the balance of power between the Bijuu and the villages. For the past few months I've worked for you believing I was only a weapon. I want to see if I can change that. My father promised to help me, along with my mother. But I can't do that while I'm working. I'd like some time off to find myself. I just need time."
"Then take all the time you need. I won't send you out on any mission unless you feel up to the task. But should the Grimm attack…"
"I'll be there. I promise you that. I just need to find something I lost."
Ozpin nodded and Naruto left the room. As soon as the doors shut, James turned to Ozpin, a look of disappointment evident on his face. "Why would you allow that?"
"Naruto has been struggling to find his place in this world. He's coming to terms now with things that have been festering inside him. Though he's made great strides in changing, he needs to find himself again. The Naruto that Sasuke spoke of never showed weakness like how he does. He was emotional and carrying. This Naruto is not that. He saw himself as a weapon and wants to get back to who he was. I noticed the change begin when he awoke after his fight against the White Fang at the rally. Now he's trying to complete that change."
"I don't like the idea of this, Oz. He's already in the right mindset. What if he gets sloppy because he goes back to who he was? What do you think Sasuke would do if he learned you sent him out with him not in the right mindset?"
"We've already done that once. He wouldn't have killed the people at the rally. And he wouldn't have come back so broken. The internal struggle inside him has festered to the point in which it needed to be solved. We couldn't help him. And I doubt Sasuke could help him either. Only he has the power to change himself, just like all of us do." He picked up his cane and walked to the window. "He's stronger as his original self, as I'm told."
"I still don't like it."
Ozpin smiled. No. I guess you don't.