And I am back with another update for this story!
... I had something to say a few days ago that I wanted to put in this AN, but for the life of me, I can't remember what it is now, so... Fuck it?
Anyway, thanks to everyone who posted positive reviews(And for those who didn't, why in the hell are you posting reviews to a story you either hated or didn't want to read?), I appreciate the support, and its why I even write this shit in the first place.
Some of you seem to have been confused in the first chapter as well, and Naruto, as of chapter one, has yet to introduce himself to anyone, and only refers to himself as Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze-Arc(Because, you know, it is his literal full name.), but as for everyone else, they will know and refer to him as either Naruto Uzumaki, or Naruto Arc(Seriously, though, that name sounds so wrong to say.).
As for the stories name... I don't know, I had nothing better to use, thought it fully explained what this story entails, so I used it. If I come up with a better one in the future, I'll use it, but for now it is what it is.
I also know I'll be getting questions about his sisters, and some of them WILL be making an appearance next chapter, so don't you worry about them, let me worry about blank- wait, shit, I fucked that up!
In addition to all those things, I am looking to get a proper profile picture(Because, while I love Meowstic and find happy Espurr absolutely adorable, he/she/it(I don't judge.) is not going to draw viewers in... Or maybe he/she/it will, I don't know.) or even story cover art if you will allow it, so if you know someone or ARE someone who can make artwork, hit me up, ya?
Side note: The words in bold and with parenthesis are Kurama talking, and yes, I made him, and, to an extent, Naruto, aware and able to break the fourth wall. Big whoop, wanna fight about it? Anyway, read, eat, or otherwise sexualize this chapter and LOVE YOUR SENPAI!
About five minutes after making a fool of himself, our favorite Shinobi hero was now standing at the edge of a cliff with the rest of the prospective students hoping to attend this academy, standing on what naruto presumed was a spring loaded mechanism that was going to launch them into the forest below(That seemed rather dangerous, but considering he has battled the dead, fought an ancient beast that was the embodiment of hate, and sealed away a veritable goddess, what did he know? (Nothing, obviously, if you have to ask yourself that.) SHUT IT, KURAMA!).
Why would the staff do that to the unsuspecting students?
Hell if he knew. He was just starting to think these people were sadists that got their jollies off fucking with the student body at large.
Opting to ignore(He was doing that a lot here, wasn't he?) whatever spewed forth from the mouth of the man Naruto was now sure was the next coming of Danzo, he closed his eyes and concentrated on the nature around them, taking in everything he could.
He wasn't all that worried about the Grimm or whatever else he might encounter in this test, because if was rabid wild animals, Naruto was almost always one with nature nowadays, and animals loved that shit, and if it were actual Huntsmen and Huntresses, well- he would hand them their asses on a platter(Pun totally intended.). The Grimm were never an issue to begin with when he entered the land, either, so if that's what awaited them, he wasn't gonna sweat it(Turned out the bastards just didn't seem to notice him on their radar and it was like he was invisible to them… Might have to do with him conquering his dark side all that time ago, and purifying the Chakra of the most malevolent being in what was likely the entire planet for his own use, but until he could test those theories, they were just that.), so all he really needed to do was find out how to finish this test and… Finish the test.
Man, even his thoughts sounded lame to him at this point.
"Now are their any questions?" Oh Kami-Sama, he was staring straight at him. "No? Good." And with that, the students got into their 'Landing strategy' poses(Why the hell did that ginger kid look like he was about to wrestle a fucking bear(AN: Seriously. I went back for reference. He looks like he is about to either take a shit, or wrestle a large, hairy oiled up man. No joke, look it up. RWBY. Volume 1. Episode 4. 6:55. Can't miss it. Hilarious as shit.)?), he suppose they were called, and waited for the launch pads to fling them into the air. Looking to the left a bit, he saw Ruby looking nervous as all get out, so when she glanced over to her right, Naruto made sure to give her a confident grin and a thumbs.
It seemed to work at least somewhat, as she returned it with a shaky smile of her own and a thumbs up as well before she was launched with the rest of them.
After that, it was just himself and the two teachers, which he quickly realized and cursed his own stupidity for getting lax enough to allow such an event to occur. "So, this is the long lost son of the Arc's." While Ozpin was content to drink from his mug, Naruto was a lot less so, and, utilizing Jiton, manually activated his launch pad himself and sent him flying through the air like the rest of them(Though not before seeing the strict looking blonde ladies surprised face and the… Well, the other didn't show anything and just continued to sip from his cup, which kind of pissed Naruto off if he was being honest here.).
While soaring through the air, he looked all around the ground below for the place these 'Relics' would be held, but thanks to the dense foliage, he couldn't pinpoint where they would be at. "Damn." Naruto cursed to himself as he eventually hit the pinnacle of his ascent, and started falling to the ground thanks to gravity. Not wanting to explain how in the nine hells he survived over a 250 foot drop(Much less without Aura- wait, could he even unlock his Aura, did he even need to unlock his Aura? Questions for later.), he chose the nearest tree to land on the branch of, and surveyed the area from there. "Hm. Cameras everywhere; that's gonna be a pain to get around." He mused to himself as one particular camera honed in on his location.
Too bad he wasn't in the mood to give the headmaster a show, now wasn't it?
Jumping to the next tree in the line, he quickly set a pace of tree hopping that even with all the camera's watching the area, it was hard to keep on him, if not impossible, and he soon found himself on the last tree before a clearing with stone ruins that was most likely the place where the relics were held. "Okay, this looks like a spot to hide things if I've ever seen one. But where are the relics at, though…" Naruto jumped down from his hiding spot and walked up to the ruins, curious as to where the school had hidden them. But when he got a closer look, it was rather obvious to see that the 'Relics' weren't so much relics as they were just game pieces placed on pedestals(Oh come on, they didn't even TRY to hide them!).
"Now, I'm not an archeologist, or anything along those lines, but even I know these can't be considered relics." He picked up a small piece that resembled a castle. "Especially when they look and feel like they were either bought or made within the last week." Shaking his head at the insanity of it all, he just pocketed the piece inside the pocket of his jacket and started making his way back to the cliffs. "Well, this was easily the biggest farce of a test that I have ever had the displeasure of being a part of... Er, scratch that, at least I didn't have a man double my age slamming his fingers into my poor-" He didn't get to finish the thought, however, as rumbling came forth from the forest in front of him, and the same redhead from earlier that day came sprinting out of it, looking out of breath.
"Uh, you okay there-" "You have a partner?!" That was rather sudden. "No, I didn't meet anyone yet-" "Perfect!" Without any further prompting, she picked him up(He also couldn't help but notice she was also taller than him- he was destined to forever be a midget, wasn't he?) and threw him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes and started running the opposite way he was trying to go before. "You realize that the cliff is the other way, right?" "Yes! And so is that!" Blinking in confusion, Naruto looked forward(Which was her backwards with the way she was manhandling him.), and saw a diminutive(Look, when you have fought several story tall monsters made of Chakra like he had, and even have one stuck in your gut, it takes a lot to impress a guy.) Grimm in the vague shape of a scorpion trampling it's way towards them, trying to catch them(Or the girl, in this case, as like he said, invisible.) and most probably snip them alive.
"So?" "SO?! Are you seeing what I am seeing?! There's no way either of us can kill that thing before it kills US! It's impossible!" Pfffft. He couldn't help the snickering that left his orifice at the sheer thought of anything being impossible to him.
He was the one that set the precedent of making the impossible possible here!
"Relax." Looking around to see if there were any cameras around, he was surprised, but also delighted to see the girl had dragged him into some sort of blind spot for the things, so his next act wouldn't be caught on film for that indifferent headmaster to get his stingy hands on. Wiggling free of the girls grip on his back to ensure he didn't fall off, he landed on the ground in a crouch, with the girl sending him a look that made it clear that she thought he was one hat short of being mad. Standing back up, Naruto reached inside his tracksuit with his left arm and subtly summoned up a Gudōdama that quickly altered into a Bō staff for him for him to use as he made a show of pulling it out of his jacket.
Twirling it with skill that someone with only one arm really shouldn't have, Naruto stopped the claw that tried to slam into him with his weapon and kicked up his right leg, veering the other one off it's course of his head. Using the creatures confusion over pondering just what the hell person had just stopped it from killing the girl, Naruto retracted his Bō from it's stalemate and proceeded to stab it into one of its many eyes, making it screech in pain and instinctively try to slam its tail down on the offender. Jumping over it to avoid the attack, Naruto, being the Shinobi he was, landed without putting any more weight on top of the tail as it went back to its previous position, and waited until the tip was dangling just above its head to kick off and slam the Gudōdama into the tail, sending it rocketing down onto the head and effectively killing it.
"Well that was disappointing." He landed back on the ground without any issue while the scorpion like Grimm behind him was already in the midst of vanishing and his new partner gaped at the event that had just transpired before her. "Oh, hope you don't mind that I already picked up our piece for us." Fishing out the Rook from his pocket, he showed it off to the still stunned girl. "You know, if you keep that up, your face will freeze like that." And with that, Naruto walked past the girl to get back to the ruins to await their future teammates, while closing her dropped jaw.
Walking back out into the clearing(After getting rid of the Gudōdama, of course.), he saw that a group of students had already gathered at the architecture, and one of those people happened to be the girl who he had talked to yesterday so he decided to go up and converse with them. "Heya!" He gave off his trademark grin as he approached the other teens. "See Yang?! I TOLD you he was real!" He then sweatdropped as the small black haired girl started pointing frantically at him for his fellow blonde to see. "Indeed he is, little sis. But you neglected to inform me of just how handsome he was. Me-ow." To Naruto's confusion, the blonde haired girl stared at him with half lidded eyes and tried to imitate the purring sound cats make while throwing a claw-like motion his way.
Did she have some kind of animal fetish? Because Ero-Sennin once told him to steer clear of women like that(Something about fur magnets and indirectly kissing an animal cock of some kind, he thinks? He never understood why that man loved talking about chickens so much...).
"And he actually IS missing an arm. Man, that must make you some kind of prodigy at killing Grimm if they allowed you in here!" As the younger girl started berating the blonde haired one for not showing any 'tact', Naruto could only blink and stand there, stunned at what she said. Not once, in his whole life, had he been called a prodigy of anything(Sure, he's been called a genius of hard work numerous times by Bushy-Brows and Bushier-Brows-Sensei, but a prodigy? Never.). He's always had to work his ass off for everything in his life- teaching himself the Kage Bunshin, learning the Rasengan, creating the RasenShuriken, becoming a sage, beating Kurama to gain access to his Chakra, all of it was earned through sheer force of will, not because he was really prodigal at things like Kakashi-Sensei, or Itachi, or even Sasuke.
And now that he was called one for the first time in his life, he couldn't help but feel… Kind of offended, actually, for being placed on the same level as Sasuke-Teme and his pervert of a Sensei who's favorite pastime is to read porn in public.
"Right! I totally forgot to get your name yesterday!" Coming back down to Remnant form his thoughts, he saw the red caped teen rubbing her head sheepishly as she asked for his name. "My names Ruby, and this is my sister, Yang." "Oh yeah, I suppose I didn't give that out. Name's Naruto, uh, Arc." Man, he's so used to adding Uzumaki to his name that anything else just felt, wrong. "I also go by Naruto Uzumaki, though." "Two names?" "And foreign at that?" The two females were rather curious about that. "Yeah, before a couple weeks ago, I thought the second one was my real name and was using it for basically my whole life, but then I found that who I thought were my parents weren't my parents, and that my real parents had the name 'Arc'. So then I went on to find them, talked to them, found out I had seven sisters that attended this same academy, and here I am!"
They tried to keep their jaws off the ground, they really did.
"Wow, Whiskers, sounds like you've had an eventful month." Naruto snorted. "You have no idea." Glancing behind the two, he saw a black haired girl with a bow on the top of her head idly reading a book and a male with long black hair ending in pink highlights trying to calm down a hyperactive ginger who was currently prancing around with the other castle piece on the top of her head. Taking a quick headcount in his head, Naruto found there to be an odd number. "Hey, aren't you guys missing one? There's only five people here, including me and my partner." Who he totally needed to get the name of whenever she shows up again…
"HEEEEEEEY!" Looking up along with everyone else, his question answered itself. "HOW COULD YOU LEAVE MEEEEEE?!" "Wait, did you jump off a Grimm to get here?" "Errrrrrr- no?" Watching the Nevermore fly above them while the white themed girl hung on for dear life, Naruto couldn't help but think she was lying to him. "She's gonna fall." "She'll be fine." "She's falling." True to observation, the girl was now hurtling towards the ground in a screaming heap. "Soooooo, any of you gonna do anything, or-" Gazing at the other students, he sent them an expectant expression. "Mmmm, no, not really." "I was never a big fan of her, anyways." "PANCAKES!" "I have to watch Nora." "OH GOD, I GOT MY PARTNER KILLED!" He sweatdropped.
"Wow, I'm glad the fate of the world rests in all your hands." Reaching into his jacket once again, he lifted up the Bō staff to the sky and aimed it at the falling girl. 'For once Orochimaru was useful for something.' With that thought, he gripped the weapon harder and the pole outstretched just like the Kusanagi did and sped past the screaming girl, catching her by her bolero jacket and slamming into the startled Nevermore by pure coincidence. Withdrawing the Gudōdama from the sky, the girl slowly lowered to the ground as the weapon shrank in size and the still confused Nevermore fell conveniently into the canyon directly below itself, never to be heard from again(Naruto, the people get it by now. (You never know, Kurama, you never know.) Not if you're you, you certainly don't...).
"What was that?!" As a starry eyed Ruby inspected his Bō up and down to see how it worked, the thing finally retracted enough to the point the white haired female could fall to the ground without becoming injured. "How could you just leave me up there?!" "Hey, I said to jump!" As the two starting bickering, Naruto looked around to see if he could spot his partner, and frowned when he couldn't spot her. The clearing wasn't that far from where they had ran to, surely, so where-
"EVERYBODY RUN!" Oh, there she was. Running away from well over a couple dozen of Grimm- wait, what? "Pyrrha?" Now how did the white clothed girl know his partner's name, and he didn't? "What are you- OH MY OUM!" "That is a lot of Grimm!" Slowly but surely, everyone noticed the growing horde of monsters following the poor girl, and as they did, panic began to seep in. While everyone began to turn tail and run from the group of Grimm, Naruto couldn't help but wonder if this was what everyone who he had ever beaten down on with Kage Bunshin had felt when they saw hundreds upon hundreds of blonde devils charging at them, ready to beat them bloody.
He'd like to think he was scarier than some weird black wolves and bears wearing Halloween masks, though(Maybe if they were one foot tall and made out of plush, sure. (Not helping, furball.) Who said I was here to help?).
Looking over his shoulder at the retreating teens, and back at the rampant creatures hell bent on tearing them all to pieces, Naruto sighed. He was hoping to breeze through this without having to do much to alert him to the workings of that creepy headmaster, but it seemed that wasn't going to happen as these things would most likely catch up to them once they tired out, and one of those idiots would get it into their head to sacrifice themselves to let the others live(Oh Kami, this is what everyone who's ever worked with him thought about himself, as well.), and he honestly wouldn't put it past the indifferent school leader to let them do that, so as to either make that teen a martyr for the rest of the student body to look up to and no doubt manipulate it into his favor to control and lead them better, or just see how things pan out and see if he can unlock some kind of bullshit hidden ability or trait that the person has hiding inside of the, or some stupid shit like that so he can use it for himself.
So with that thought in mind, Naruto thought that maybe slaughtering a few dozen masked freaks wouldn't be too bad a trade-off to either screw up that Ozpin's plans or just save innocent lives down the road that these beasts might eventually take.
Twirling his Gudōdama in its staff form, he once again lengthened it to an absurd size and took a stance similar to a sports player he had seen play some sort of game on his parents television in the short time he had been with them. Winding up for some power in his next move, he swung the weapon like a bat, crashing into the front row of the beasts and sending them flying into the air and out of sight, already vanishing in a wispy smoke during their trip. Shortening his Bō staff once more, he charged towards the nearest wolf looking monster while they all looked around confused(Okay, seriously, he knew they wouldn't be able to sense him coming, but he couldn't actually be invisible to them, right?) and shot the staff straight through its mask and it ended up out the other side of its head.
Flipping over the dissolving body, he chucked it at a group of five of the same creatures, causing them to topple over onto the ground. He jumped into the air above them and morphed the end of his Gudōdama into a giant mallet, before heaving it onto the disorientated Grimm and squashing them in the newly created crater in the ground. Leaping over to one of the bigger bear like animals of darkness, he climbed on top of its back and stabbed his pole(Ha! (Shut it, Kurama!) That was funny, and you know it!) into its neck, causing it to choke and slowly suffocate to death while Naruto forced it into its hind legs, and grabbed ahold of its large, meaty paws(Well, one of them anyway- only so much you can do with one arm.) and started whacking away at the other surrounding Grimm. Feeling his ride slowly fade soon after, he withdrew his weapon and hopped further ahead and stuck his Gudōdama into the ground.
Seeing the crowd of Grimm he stuck himself into, he hefted himself onto the Bō and started spinning around, sending out kicks and hammering his legs into the monsters hard enough to crack lob off heads(Yeah, you work that pole, Naruto. Heh heh heh… (I don't even know what that means!) Meh. Not my fault the author made you innocent as hell.) in helicopter fashion. Finishing his onslaught with a flair of his lower limbs, he landed on the ground and took out his current weapon while getting a head count of the rest of the diminished army of beasts. "Whaaaaaat? There were like, 60 of you before and now there's only 20 left? Talk about disappointing." Clenching his sole fist, his Gudōdama shifted itself from a staff into a guardless katana. "Oh well, might as well not half-ass things while I'm at it." Crouching low, he sped towards a smaller of the bear like things and sliced it in half before it could blink.
Doing similar actions to two other of the annoying creatures, it would seem they all finally gathered some semblance of intelligence, and decided a retreat was the best option at the moment. But Naruto wasn't feeling so nice, today. "I wonder where they are going, Naruto?" He mused to himself as he speared his sword into the ground and formed a half ram seal with his left hand. "Obviously to the afterlife, other Naruto." Suddenly, small tags that he had placed on ten of them during his earlier rampage on one of their kin lit up in a small blaze, before those same ten soulless abominations became smears on the ground. Plucking the Gudōdama from the ground again, he threw it with precise aim into the rear end of the last of the large bears, and the result was as sickening as it was amusing as it stuck into his ass, and soon after Naruto willed it to grow, shot out of its mouth from the opposite end.
Shooting towards his weapon, he grabbed before it could hit the ground after the mindless critter died and poofed out of existence, and he lengthened the size of the blade into something even Samehada would be jealous of. "And then there were-" He heaved the giant blade and easily sliced the remaining enemies that were trying to run away in half. "-None!" Grinning to himself, he returned the sword into its original orb state and sheathed it to… Wherever the hell those things went when he wasn't using them(So eloquent, Naruto. You should become a poet with verses like those.). Naruto wondered just how far he had to go to catch up to the others and how much time he had to make up a believable cover-up story, though judging from the sun's current position, he'd say more or less five minutes… That time might be increased, however, because he most certainly couldn't remember the exact area they had run off into.
So with a sigh, he condemned himself to walking in the general direction of what he hoped he remembered them running off to, because Kurama was being a dick and not helping by laughing his ass off at his own jokes.
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" Luckily for the one armed boy, performing jutsu with only one hand wasn't necessarily impossible, just very difficult, and doing it with NO hand signs at all, like what he had to do in this case scenario, was even harder and much more Chakra consuming. Of course, Naruto being Naruto, was used to doing the impossible and had Chakra to spare, so summoning a toad like that was just about as hard as breathing(The training he did at Mount Myōboku also had a hand in that, but still.).
Currently, Naruto was holed up inside the bathroom of his new dormroom(He made sure to disable any and all cameras he found inside the room, and then went on to find the ones the sicko who set all this up installed in the bathroom as well. Seriously, he was one strike away from suing the hell out of this school-) of the newly formed PRAN(Team 'Prank', officially dubbed so after the staff of the academic institution entered their classrooms about five minutes after Initiation finished, only to find literally every piece of furniture stuck to the ceiling with some form of homemade super glue that only seemed to come off with liberal use of ungodly amounts of heat that they couldn't produce themselves, so they would be having to forestall classes for a week while experts came in and fixed everything up. Sadly(For them, at least.), no one could figure out who did the deed, and the only evidence they had was that it had to be a first year because the other students in senior years weren't arriving until the next day. They all suspected his team, though, because he didn't exactly look innocent with his shit eating grin, and Nora wasn't helping by laughing so hard she passed out. They couldn't pin him however, because they knew for a fact that he was in the forest participating in Initiation. Heh, heh, gotta love Kage Bunshin.), consisting of Lie Ren, Pyrrha Nikos, Nora Valkyrie, and the leader(Did you really expect anything different?), Naruto Arc.
He wasn't really upset about team placements, and he already knew from the look on that Ozpin's face that he would be made leader, and as much as Naruto didn't want to lead his fellow teenagers, he just sucked it up and thought of it as great training for when he would be made Hokage.
Speaking of Hokage, though-
"Kōsuke." Needless to say, when the toads had learned of the revival of the once deceased clan member along with everyone else in Konoha after Pein's invasion, they threw a massive celebration that Naruto was forced into attending. The young sage didn't like thinking about it much, because it brought on terrible memories of the first(And only time, he promised himself!) time he had drank alcohol and gotten drunk(It actually took 10 Gamabunta sized bottles before he could even start to feel the effects of the drinks, and while Naruto enjoyed the fact that he had outdrank the boss toad in his own game, he was taking very frequent potty breaks by the end of the night because of it.), and the unholy headache the morning after was very much not worth the effort.
"Yeah, boss?" Naruto reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a sealed scroll that he handed to the small red and blue animal summon. "I need you to give that to Tsunade, the Hokage of Konoha, and don't let anyone else even KNOW about it, got it?" "Yeesh, boss. You make it sound like the fate of the world lies inside the contents of this scroll, what's going on?" The toad swallowed the scroll like just about every other summon the teenage ninja has come across, and crossed his arms. "Something fishy is going on at this place, and I don't like it. First I feel a faint life signature at the very bottom of this school with sage mode with some kind of energy that I've never felt before, then I see the headmaster for the first time and he is way too indifferent to the goings on at his own academy, and the worst part is, he has a look in his eyes that is much too similar to Danzo to either be a good thing, or a coincidence."
At the name of the very man that had killed him back in Pein's invasion, the talking animals eyes hardened. "That's not good. If that is the case, you need to get out of here and fast, boss. I've seen what someone like Danzo can do firsthand, and threat to Konoha or not, it's not worth your life to stay." While Naruto was heartened to hear that his summons thought of his safety before anything else, he needed to stay here to both monitor and, if need be, fix the situation at hand. "I appreciate the concern, Kōsuke, but if my gut is correct, Konoha isn't the only place that could be in danger because of this. And I'll be damned if I let the world burn when I have the ability to stop it."
Heaving a sigh of exhaustion, he ruffled his hair with his only hand.
"Still. As much as I like to think I've curbed my arrogance in the last few years, I know for a fact that even without an arm, I am the strongest Shinobi of Konoha- hell, in the entire Elemental Nations, with the exclusion of Sasuke. If anyone's fit to do this, it's me. Besides that, these 'Hunters' as they are called, would have barely been considered a threat to me back when I first returned to the village after my training trip with Ero-Sennin. But now? I could honestly say I could rule over all these continents with an iron fist if I so chose."
Not that he ever would(That was more Kurama's cup of tea. (Damn straight.) ), mind you, but the fact was he could.
"Mmm. Even the worst of men will clutch at a straw if he's drowning, boss." "Trust me, I know." That same exact thing happened to all five hidden villages who teamed up to battle against the Akatsuki, after all. "Well, if you're so sure." He still seemed skeptical at this point, but knew there really wasn't anything he could do about it. "Oh! And tell Baa-Chan that when I can successfully nab this person I mentioned in the scroll, that I will be transporting her to the only place I think will be safe for them- obviously the village." "You got it." With that last piece of information, the toad poofed away to do its job as Naruto sighed once more and left the bathroom, revealing that it was the middle of the night and all his teammates were sleeping.
Quietly sneaking past the others to make it to his own bed, Naruto sat down onto it and put his sole arm behind his head while he contemplated what to do next.
Well, for starters he would need to find out just what Ozpin was plotting with the near dead body deep down underground, then, depending on whether or not the school was actually storing bodies down there for their nefarious purposes, Naruto would… What?
Truth be told, there wasn't really anything he could do. He only just came to this land, while the teachers here(Or so he was told.) have been here for decades, and have made names for themselves that put them far above his own in the eyes of the locals, so even if they were taking and experimenting, or(Kami forbid.), KILLING the students that came here, who would believe him? Even if he provided sufficient evidence, what's to say that they couldn't pin that on HIM?
Or(And this was the one he was afraid of the most, by far.)... Who would even care?
He's seen the treatment of faunus by human hands, and seen the hate those same faunus hold over the differing race, and it wouldn't be too far-fetched in the Shinobi's eyes if, by chance, the things down there were all faunus related, that the humans who are in charge here wouldn't really be too upset or offended. Hell, if anything, they might CONDONE that sort of thing! And if the victims were human, he wouldn't put it past the faunus to laud it over the heads of the other humans, and then start something bigger than Naruto ever intended to shut down, and thus in the ensuing chaos, be sweeping the original problem under the rug.
And he couldn't just kill them(Naruto was Naruto through and through. He had his morals, and killing was strictly against them.) if that were the case, so, as much as he hated to, he would have to bide his time to wait for an appropriate moment to expose them to the rest of the world without any turn arounds that could happen to him or others in the process.
Or maybe he would just talk to Kurama in the morning about it when he woke up from his sleep and hope he some plan that Naruto himself couldn't' think of…
"Naruto, over here!" Glancing around the training room with the rest of his team, Naruto found the short and not-so-short sister duo of Ruby and Yang(Was he annoyed that his fellow blonde along with his giganto partner and male teammate were taller than him? Pfft, of course not! (Naruto, you can't even lie to yourself, well.) NO ONE ASKED YOU, FURBALL!) waving them over while their respective partners just stood at the back, trying to blend into the background.
"Heya, shorty!" Yang greeted him when they all approached their sister team. "Sup, cow tits. Cross any nice construction sites to get leered at recently?" Not one to take a teasing laying down, Naruto laid it on thick. "I don't know, you parked in any good handicap spaces lately?" Naruto hummed and crossed his arm across his chest. "Hm. Touche." "Yang!" Ruby, for her part, was mortified that her sister would be so blunt about making fun of someone missing an entire limb. "Oh relax, little sis, it's all in good fun, right?"
When Yang went to turn to get her confirmation, however, she was shocked to see Pyrrha hugging a downcast Naruto. "It's okay, Naruto…" "I-I know, its just… I get really sensitive when people make fun of my arm, you know?" As the male started sniffling- SNIFFLING- while his partner rubbed his back in comfort, Ruby glared at her sister heatedly. "All in good fun, huh?" "I thought… What?" As her sister also went over and started patting his back while reassuring him that her sister didn't mean anything by it, Naruto shifted his head that was placed on Pyrrha's shoulder so that he was looking directly at her, and neither of the girls could see the coy smirk on the boys face that left Yang gaping and trying to come up with a response.
That-That little shit played her!
"Okay, I think I'm better, now." Returning his face to a neutral look, he was glad he had sent his message of 'Don't mess with the prank GOD' to his yellow haired companion. After releasing the boy from her embrace, Pyrrha couldn't stop the curiosity that peaked inside of her when she saw the folded sleeve of his jacket that held his destroyed limb. "Naruto, if it's not too painful to talk about, what-" "Happened to my arm? Sure, I don't mind." Feeling slightly shocked that she was read so easily, she shook it off and leaned in along with the others to hear the story on what happened to him to give him that sort of injury.
"You see, once upon a time, there was this boy. This boy was easily the gayest prick the land had ever seen!" The looks on their faces made it impossible not to laugh as they were stunned and horrified at the path this story was taking(Hey, they always say that the winners get to make the history, and he totally won that last fight, so he'll tell the story however the hell he wants to!). "Okay, okay, I might have exaggerated a little. In truth, this guy was my best friend, but he wasn't really all there in the head because he lost several people close to him years earlier, and soon after we started our training to become, uh, Huntsman, he left our village to go off to be trained by someone he thought could give him more power than anyone else in our village. So I tried to stop him, failed, and-" "And that's how you lost your arm?!"
Sending a dry look to the red cloaked offender, he continued on. "No, it isn't. Several years later, my friend finished his training, and left to go after the man who killed his family-" Several gasps left them at that. "-And he succeeded in getting the revenge he so sought after. But then, he became lost. His one and basically only purpose was fulfilled, so what else was there to do? Not long after that, though, an intense battle between my village and its enemies, uh, the Grimm started up, and-" "And you lost your arm in the battles that came!" Glaring at the person who interrupted him this time(The sister of the last offender.), he kept it up for a few seconds before moving on. "And in the middle of the chaos of battle, he actually joined back up on our side, and thanks to our combined efforts, we beat back the Grimm. Sadly, though, that wasn't the end of it as a Primordial… Grimm-" Were those a thing? "-Appeared on the battlefield, and, in one move, dealt with all but me, my friend, our third teammate, our old teacher, and our teachers estranged teammate. The fight was intense, with our teachers friend sacrificing his life to save me, and-"
"And you fought the Grimm, but lost your arm in the process?" "How about you all tell the story, as you seem to know what comes next before ME!" Ruby, Yang, and Pyrrha blushed red and chuckled apologetically. "We fought the Grimm, and with all our combined efforts, we beat it, and saved the w- village! But, being the gay prick he was, my teammate wanted to kill our village leader in their weakened state and become the leader themself." Everyone jumped in shock at the surprise turn of events. "Trust me, if you think YOU were surprised, you have no idea how I was feeling. Obviously I wasn't about to let that go down, so we started an epic fight that easily surpassed anything even our own leader was capable of that scarred the very ground on which we stood! As the fight continued on, we were still very tired form the battles before hand, so soon we were both on our last legs, and decided one last attack would decide it all, and-"
"And his attack blew or chopped off your arm?" This time it was Blake that intervened, and while everyone was expecting another outburst from the volatile teen and prepared themselves accordingly, they were disappointed when he just shrugged. "Yeah, actually. I lost my arm to him." Everyone was silent…
"WHAT?!" For all of five seconds.
"Yeah, bastard had an edge over me, but I still beat him in the end." Because- and he was willing to admit this- while his Rikudō Sennin mode was bull shit, Sasuke's Rinnegan was even more horse shit, and he stole the Chakra of the trapped Biju to power himself, and even stole Naruto's OWN Chakra, and yet somehow lost still(Naruto accredited it to being fucking awesome.). "You lost your arm, to someone you claim is your FRIEND?!" "Oh yeah, totally. He might have been a bastard and probably still is, but I showed him the errors of his way, and of course gave as good as I got." Naruto grinned toothily as flexed his arm and moved to place his hand on it, only to realize once again that he was still missing an arm.
"You know, that just gets more depressing each time it happens…"
Shaking his head and putting down his arm, he went on with his explanation. "Yeah, we're still best friends. He was just a bit… misguided, before. But now we're cool! And the village is safe thanks to his help as well, so it's all good!" Okay, he knew it was a strange story(Ever to himself.), but their faces and responses to this was a bit ridiculous. "Anyway, what did you call us out here for, Ruby?" That seemed enough to knock the young girl from her reverie, as she coughed into her fist and recomposed herself. "Right! Seeing as how we have the week off because of someone messing with the classrooms throughout Beacon-" Naruto couldn't help the slight smirk that formed from Nora's snorting to try and avoid outright laughing and Weiss' glare.
He knew that the white themed teen thought well of all authority figures and the teachers of this school, respecting them greatly. Which is why it was that much funnier to him when she became enraged at some 'Childish buffoon who had wasted time they could have spent attending class by pulling an immature prank'.
As a childish buffoon who had wasted time they could have spent attending classes by pulling an immature prank, he took great offense, until she got it in her head that he did it(Which, he did, but nobody knew that… Or could prove it, at least.), at which point she went off on him. Then whenever it was brought up in her presence and he was there, he took great joy in lauding it over her head.
Like now.
"-I thought it would be a good idea to train up with that off time!" While everyone seemed to think it was at least a decent idea, the black haired girl Naruto thought was named Blake just looked indifferent, while Weiss seemed to take it horribly if the glare she sent the young girl was anything to go by.
"Or we could be using it to actually study for the classes that we'll be attending in another week." Yang groaned as her sisters teammate just kept bringing up horrible suggestions. "Yeah, but that's boring. It's fight-fight time, and I've been wanting a piece of red hot over there ever since I saw her at this school!" Grinning in excitement as the weapons on her wrists started to morph into their battle form, the other students also got out their weapons of choice, even a reluctant Weiss.
"Team vs Team?" A smiling Ruby asked a still confused Naruto that hadn't brought out his Gudōdama yet. "Uh, I'm not sure I'm really up to the task of fighting, right now…" Well, he wasn't prepared to not utterly destroy anyone he has to fight yet, if more to the point, but same concept. "Oh come on, shorty! You can't use the one arm card forever, you know?" Pyrrha, still thinking he was sensitive about that subject, scowled- honest to goodness scowled- and shot off in a blur and reappeared with her shield slamming into the blonde girls stomach.
"Oooph!" Said blonde grunted and was forced back several feet from her starting position, and just when it looked like she was recovered, Pyrrha came at her and started hacking and slashing at an alarming rate.
"Uuuuuuuh…" Naruto was still hesitant on this, but the others seemed intent on finding out which team was the best, and Nora let out a battle cry(Read: A battle yodel.) while jumping into the air and slamming her hammer down on a yelping Weiss, who barely dodged out of the way at the last second. Ren and Blake locked eyes for a few moments before they both shrugged and rushed towards each other, locking blades when they met in the middle. "Okay, Naruto!" The teen glanced over at a hyper Ruby, bouncing from foot to foot, wanting to start a round herself with her scythe at the ready in her hands and a split second away from going for him. "Get out your weapon so we can start!"
Thinking quickly to try and get out of this, Naruto was forced to slowly reach for the inside of his jacket to form a Gudōdama to fight with, when he suddenly had a stroke of inspiration at remembering about his old teacher and examining Ruby to find out her battling style. "Hm. You sure you want me to get out my weapon?" "Yeah, yeah!" She nodded excitedly. "You sure?" "Totally!" "Completely positive?" "YES!" Seeing her become impatient, Naruto smiled slightly and fully reached into his jacket. "Well, if you're so sure…"
And pulled out a tiny orange book.
"... What?" She was so shocked she almost completely let go of her creation. Naruto just eye smiled at her and opened up the book to start reading it, fairly confident he could outlast her in a battle of stamina, and was content to just let her tire herself out. "Naruto, why did you bring out a book?" "Well, to read and find out what happens next, obviously." Giving her another eye smile, he relaxed his body. "But- you- me- fight!" "Oh, we can still fight if you really want." He flipped a page in the book. "Then put down the book and get serious!" Naruto smirked inwardly, thinking back on how easy to rile him up in the past with this same trick as well. "Why would I do that, when I will not even need either hand to fight you?"
That got her red in the face, as she glared(More like pouted angrily.) at him, and tightened her grip on her scythe. "Seriously, Naruto. I don't want to hurt you needlessly, so just put the book down." "Hmmmm. Nah, I think I'll keep reading." "GRAH!" That seemed to be the last straw for the young lady, as she sped forward at a speed that Naruto honestly wasn't expecting, but was still prepared for as he leaned to the side, letting her overhead slice miss him completely. "Wha-" As his sparring partner blinked in shock, Naruto moved behind her, and lightly tapped her behind, ruining her balance and causing her to fall to the ground.
"Man, that was a weird breeze just now. Did you feel it too, Ruby?" Man, now he knew why Kakashi-Sensei antagonized him so much when he was younger- it was hilarious! "THAT DOES IT!" The kiddie breaks seemed to have come off for her as she got up and started wildly swinging her weapon at him, hoping to hit him with a speedy onslaught, but was dismayed when he kept ducking, leaning, jumping, and just dodging her attacks, without even moving from his spot!
"Hold still, will you?!" A panting and red Ruby kept attacking and attacking, but no matter what she did, he would just dodge, and he didn't even look winded! "Okay, if up close isn't going to work, then try this!" Leaping back, she took aim and shot off a sniper round directly at him. Not even glancing up at the sound of her shooting off a bullet, her eyes widened when he just flipped a page and bent his knee up, allowing the bullet she shot at his shin to miss and continue on behind him.
"But- you didn't even look at it!" Gritting her teeth, she shot off five more rounds in quick succession, that, to her amazement, he simply flipped over, letting each of the metal casings fly under him as he soared in the air, and then landed when each passed the point they could hit him. "Are there pests flying around? Because that's what it feels like to me." Roaring in absolute rage, the girl jumped forward once more, and slashed diagonally at his chest, but he simply leaned back slightly, and she missed.
She then went on for three straight minutes, trying to slash him, to no avail, and soon after, she could barely keep ahold of Crescent Rose with how tired she was. "How… Are… You… So… Agile?" "Lots and lots of milk." He promptly closed his book, and gently tapped her on the nose, making her fall onto her back and lose consciousness as her chest heaved harshly to try and get the much needed oxygen her body craved.
Hearing the background sounds of fighting stop, he turned his attention to his teammates, where Pyrrha was standing over a bruised and dazed Yang, Nora was locking metal with Weiss's own weapon, and Ren was lying on the ground, sleeping, while his opponent sat on the sidelines, book in hand forgotten as they all stared at him in disbelief.
"What? You've never seen Icha Icha before?"