Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or RWBY. And since I don't own the Dragonballs, I can't wish that I did.

Chapter 13: The Preliminaries

There were two reasons Naruto didn't like hospitals. One of them, and the reason that he only just realized, was that doctors always assume they know exactly why you were there. For example, the doctor currently wrapping his arm in bandages, because the fox was refusing to heal it, was berating him for 'pushing himself' just after he was released from the hospital.

By the time his arm was wrapped up, he had suffered through no less than four lectures worth from that doctor. He left the building a bit sour, a feeling which had luckily faded by the time Blake was next to him. "So, Pyrrha told us you scarred your arm. How?" she inquired, looking over it closely.

"Uh… I tried to make a Rasengan. As you can see, it didn't work," he answered, gesturing to his bandaged arm. Blake sighed, shaking her head in mock disappointment.

"You moron."

"Hey!" Blake laughed. He grinned.

"Is it really that dangerous?" Blake questioned. Naruto nodded. "Is it even worth it, then?" He nodded again.

"You've seen what it can do. Actually… no, you haven't. Hm…" Naruto began to think. He could make the full Rasengan with a clone, something Blake knew he could do now. The clone part, that is. Which reminded him, "Hey, Blake, can you make more than one shadow clone at a time?"

"No. Mostly because they form wherever I'm standing, as I dodge out of the way. Why?"

"Oh… alright. I just wanted to know."

"Naruto… how do you make your clones? What happened that let you do that?"

As before, his face darkened, like when she had asked about how his parents died. She immediately regretted asking. "It was something back home. Don't worry about it."

Naruto, while he had never needed it, was feeling just a little smug about his ability to act and lie right to people's faces. But past that small amount of smugness was guilt. He didn't like lying to his friends, even when the alternative was so outlandish that they would never believe him.

The problem, however, was laid out plain and simple. He was weaving a web of lies so vast that it could blot out the entire sky, and then some. All right, so maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration. But, if he remembered correctly, the only person he'd told the truth about his abilities to was Ozpin, and even that was only a fraction about Sage Mode, not even delving into the benefits to it, just how he accessed it.

In a situation like he was in now, Naruto found himself, for the first time, wanting advice from Kurama. But of course, the fox wasn't talking to him after Pain. Who would have thought that the literal embodiment of hatred could hold a grudge? Although, the trade-off was that Naruto had met his dad, albeit briefly.

Remembering the praise the Fourth had given him, he smiled slightly to himself. Blake, obviously, didn't know what he was thinking, and the smile only served to confuse her. She was thinking that it had some kind of negative connotation to it, but the somewhat cheery smile was sending mixed messages. "Uh… Sorry, Naruto," she said, walking away slowly, just in case he responded.

He did give a small wave to her as she turned around, but he didn't say anything. Naruto was too preoccupied with his thoughts, apparently.

Naruto, tearing himself away from his thoughts of praise, looked around for a moment, trying to decide what he could go and do. He wasn't about to go and train, not with his arm still bleeding from how deep the wound had cut. The Rasengan had an almost scary amount of backlash attached to it. At least it didn't sever the connections of his chakra coils, like its completed form.

So, training was off the table, he wasn't hungry, Vale sounded boring, and the fox wasn't talking to him. And all of a sudden, Naruto felt like a dumbass. What could he do that wasn't intensive on his body but would be productive? He could go and practice Sage Mode! Truth be told, he didn't really need to practice it anymore, but some familiarity after how his mission had gone would do him a world of good. Besides, it would heal his arm faster.

As Naruto headed for the roof, he chuckled to himself. Now that he thought about it, his fight with Pain was what used to be familiarity.

Pleasantly, the roof was clear. Normally, Jaune and Pyrrha would be training up here, rather than use the training areas provided by the school. As such, Naruto was able to sit down on the edge of the roof, and allow the Natural Energy into his body. Very quickly, after only about half a minute, he had entered Sage Mode, and his arm had begun to heal.

He always found it relaxing, being able to sit so calmly, just meditating. As he normally did, he started sweeping over Beacon's grounds with his sensory abilities, not really looking for anything in particular.

So imagine his pause when he felt of people who possessed Natural Energy.

Not just one, but two people. Both of them had roughly the same amount of it, and each one was about double what Naruto could use safely. That was more than a little disconcerting. He frowned, and kept watching them. One seemed to be under Beacon Tower, sitting still, while the other one was intermingled with other Auras.

Perhaps even more interesting was that each of these two people had Auras of their own. Which meant that they somehow could use Sage Mode, even without Aura. And as far as Naruto knew, that was impossible. Since you needed to balance the ratio of chakra to nature energy to avoid becoming a stone statue, having chakra was essential to the transformation. Otherwise, you'd just transform immediately, at least according to Geezer-Sage.

In other words… these people couldn't be using Sage Mode. Which meant they could just somehow hold massive amounts of Natural Energy without turning into a statue. Naruto was confused. He'd have to look into this later. Maybe if he could find one of these people…

But right now, his arm was fully healed, thanks to Sage Mode's regenerative properties. So for the moment, he forgot about the two anomalies. Standing up, and still in Sage Mode, he extended his palm. Then he placed his other hand over top of it. If he could make the Rasengan in one hand while in Sage Mode, then with two hands…

Before he even started, he stopped himself. Seeing as the Rasengan was destructive enough to make a small crater in a metal floor when it was failed, he didn't really want to find out how much damage a failed Rasenshuriken would do to a metal roof. He sighed, and resigned himself to not practicing landscape-altering techniques on top of student residences. Ozpin might take issue with that.

Instead, he released Sage Mode, and went back downstairs, and outside. It was about six, which meant he would probably find his team eating dinner in the lunch room. Or… well, he could spend the rest of the night trying to contact Kurama, but it would probably be in vain.

So instead, he decided to go and eat with his team. After all, Imperius had mentioned they needed to work on teamwork, and you couldn't have good teamwork without being a team, right?

As it turned out, his team was in fact sitting down for dinner just as he arrived. Melissa spotted him first, and gave a friendly wave as an invitation to come and sit down. Troy followed her gaze once he saw her waving, and gave a small frown in Naruto's direction. Naruto hadn't even sat down for half a second when Troy asked the first question.

"Naruto, you never gave an explanation to us: How are you so strong?" he asked, his eyes boring into the blond with great intensity, something Naruto didn't understand.

Naruto sighed, as if he was about to begin a long tale that wasn't entirely pleasant. And to be fair, he was. "Do you really want to know?" Troy nodded determinedly. "You remember when I said that back home we got sent out on missions on occasion?" Troy nodded again. "Well, those missions didn't always go like they were supposed to. But we weren't new to this, and so we began to train our future warriors from a very young age. As in, I think five was the earliest." Troy's eyes widened just a bit.

"But after that, actually going on the missions, it's different. See, nothing prepares you for combat like real combat. I've been training since I was seven, and I've had to fight for my life more times than I can think of, ever since I was twelve. So unlike a lot of people here, I have actual battlefield experience to help me in a fight."

"But we all do to. I mean, just look at sparring class. Isn't that experience?" Troy tried to reason. Naruto shook his head at the naïveté of his teammate. Although, it wasn't his fault. This world didn't have any reason to send people, or, at least, students, on life-and-death missions, one certain recent mission notwithstanding.

"No. You'll notice it the more missions you go on. When we spar, there's no real danger. The teacher will step in before anything can go wrong," Naruto answered. He thought of an old mission that he had gone on long ago. "My first lesson about this was on my very first mission. We fought a man who had only become a student at his village's school after he killed all of what would have been his classmates. He told us that we would never match him, not until we'd gone to sleep each night wondering if it was our last night."

"Wait, he what? And his village didn't execute him for that?" Troy asked in disbelief. Melissa seemed concerned as well. Diana, obviously, was more focused on the important things in life, like how many pretzels she could eat in one bite.

"Nah. His village was ruthless, just like him. Those people he killed would have each done the same for their graduation. Either way, you need to understand the difference between sparring and fighting. Sparring'll get you ready for a tournament, with rules and a safe environment. Fighting, especially for your life, will get you ready for anything."

"So that's your explanation? You've been in 'life-or-death' situations?" Troy shook his head. "Sorry Naruto, but I need something better than that. I'm sure Blake has been in the same positions, but you're a lot better than her, too."

Naruto frowned slightly, avoiding the actual issue Troy had raised, "I think you're underestimating just what experience can do. I'm telling you, by the time we graduate, what I can do now will seem like nothing, even to the worst in our class."

"NO!" Troy shouted angrily. "Naruto, I saw the exchange between you and Imperius. He's got easily as much experience as you claim you have, probably even more, but you beat him with one punch."

"One surprise punch. He didn't have his guard up, not against me. You know how you're not supposed to ever let down your guard? That's not just something they say on TV. One slip up can and will mean death on the battlefield."

"But… But…" Troy's argument seemed to be petering out. "But what about the man you fought? How did you do all of that? With the throwing Aura, and the clones?"

"I told you before, it's something my godfather taught me. Well… kind of. It's a move I came up with using my Rasengan, but mixed with Dust," Naruto explained, for the second time. "Wind Dust, to be exact. It gets more adaptable, and I can throw it around without much trouble. We came up with things like that out of necessity. Because of arguments between villages, we constantly ended up fighting people in those other villages." As an afterthought, he added, "Coming up with it took a lot of work and practice, and I still can't do it properly."

"What do you mean? You seemed to use it alright," Troy inquired skeptically. Naruto shook his head.

"No, usually it actually does something. The dust reacts extremely to the Aura, and it explodes. When I tried to use it, it just fizzled out, because I didn't use enough Aura." Truthfully, the Rasenshuriken failed whenever he put too much wind chakra into it. It overpowered the rotation, and caused it to turn into just wind chakra, which really do anything without being directed.

"And the clones?"

"I'm not talking about that," Naruto replied darkly. Melissa glanced at him, worried. He had been acting… different since the mission. Since he'd woken up. He said the man was someone he knew; maybe that had something to do with it.

Troy wasn't about to let it go, as he angrily demanded, "No. You're going to tell-"

He stopped, but only once Melissa cut him off with a glare and a slap across his face, "Shut it, Troy. He doesn't need to explain it. Not if he doesn't want to." Troy glared back, then stood.

"Fine, he can keep his secrets." Troy walked away, prompting Diana to look from him to Naruto, then to Melissa apologetically, as she stood and followed him. Melissa turned to Naruto, who seemed to be looking down more out of guilt than of sadness. Though, she didn't realize that.

"Are you ok, Naruto?" She asked. He nodded.

"Yeah… I just feel bad for causing a fight like that."

"No, you didn't cause it. He'd been acting that way all the time before you woke up. Whatever you did seems to have left an impression on him."

Naruto looked up, just as Troy walked out the doors. His need to act a certain way about his cloning had led to his partner basically yelling at another one of his teammates. While it may have been a good way to avoid explaining, by making it seem like a painful memory, he felt like it was causing more issues than it was solving. Speaking of his teammate, he turned to Melissa, "Why do you care so much, anyway?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why were you so protective just now? Cause you always are, whenever someone is bothering me, no matter how small it is," Naruto clarified. Melissa looked away.

"Uh… well, see… Thing is… I didn't really… have any friends before you. So, I might be going a little overboard."

Naruto chuckled to himself. Melissa turned back, confused, "What did I say?"

"Nothing, it's just that you reminded me of my younger self there for a moment. It was when I learned I could use my red-eyes power. The first time I ever used them was when someone almost killed my best friend. I was so angry that something snapped inside of me," Naruto was being literal. When he first used Kurama's chakra, the cage had cracked in a few places. Though, he really wished he had come up with a better name than 'red-eyes.'

"That's… that's incredible. You got that power to protect your friend?" Melissa asked, amazed by her partner. And she thought she was willing to go to great lengths for her friends.

"Yeah, kind of." Melissa was a little confused, but she wasn't going to question him about it. She didn't know if it would open up a whole new can of worms. He seemed to have more than a few bad memories, and she felt like a friend almost dying would probably be on that list.

They sat in a somewhat awkward silence for a while longer, just eating. Melissa eventually broke the silence with a tentative question, "So what happened to your friend?" Pleasantly, Naruto got a small smile on his face.

"It turned out that the guy was never trying to kill him, so he ended up ok," Naruto explained. Haku had apparently always been too soft, but Naruto wasn't complaining. Maybe he should have, given what Sasuke did later, but Naruto hadn't ever given up on his friend. Internally, he felt bad that he couldn't help Sasuke anymore, not while he was on Remnant.

But with the Leaf gone, Naruto had only Sasuke as a reason to try to get back to the Elemental Nations. That would mean leaving his new friends, however. And he didn't want to do that, not by any means. That was the unfortunate thing. He had been torn between his old home and friends, and his new friends. Besides… This world, unlike his own, was always so pleasant, so happy.

At home, being seventeen and a ninja meant you were a seasoned warrior, who had been in potentially fatal combat more times then you could ever hope to count. Being seventeen here was so much different. It meant being a kid, just learning to fight. At this point, most of them thought of this more as fun than anything. Ruby herself was kind of proof of that. And even though she may have been younger than the rest of them, it was only two years.

And yet, she always acted so upbeat about the fact that her chosen career path meant she would end up as basically a trained killer. Perhaps it wasn't that extreme, but the parallels between shinobi and huntsmen were uncanny.

Naruto leaned back in his seat, hands behind his head. He probably would have let out a whistle, but he wasn't ready quite yet to check off every box on that list of clichés.

'Wow. This is usually the part where you interrupt me, Kurama.'

He was resorting to tempting the fox to insult him. That was how much he wanted to be able to talk with him. But no, the fox left him to his rather uncharacteristically deep thoughts. Melissa tapped Naruto on his shoulder.

"Naruto?" She asked. He blinked twice, then turned to her. He seemed to have been thinking for a while.

"Huh?" he responded.

"Are we going back to our dorm now?" Melissa questioned. He looked around, and saw that for the most part, the lunchroom had emptied of people. So, it was probably late.

"Yeah, let's go." They both stood, and began to make their way back. Melissa asked another, rather good question while they walked.

"So, what if Troy's waiting there? And he starts grilling you again?"

Naruto shrugged, "I don't know. I'll probably just ignore the questions I don't want to answer. I can't really blame him, though. I guess it's natural to be suspicious." Melissa nodded. "You probably would be, in his position. Diana would never really change, but Troy also watched the entire fight."

"But… I don't know. It just seems like he shouldn't try to pry like that."

"No, I agree. It's none of his business how I can do what I do."

If he ever did have to come clean, entirely, then Naruto made a note to apologize to Troy for this. He was lying to everyone that his clones were something negative, and it was causing friction amongst his teammates. Kami, he wished he'd used a better cover story when Ozpin questioned him.

Possibly luckily, possibly not, Troy wasn't in their dorm, allowing for Melissa to not get into a potential shouting match. Though, that may have just been because it was still somewhat early. It wasn't even eight yet. Well, at least Naruto could fill his time with something pointless.

'Kurama?'

Combat class always seemed so interesting. Which was why, for most students, it was the highlight of the day. Naruto, as he was the day prior, was excited about the prospect of being able to train again.

He was sitting with Team RWBY and, of course, his team, while Team JNPR hadn't arrived yet. Troy was sitting nearby, but as far from Naruto as he could. He seemed both angry and upset. He also kept glancing over towards the ninja.

Either way, Naruto was choosing to ignore it. He figured his teammate was probably just mulling over yesterday. For now, Naruto was listening to Glynda speak down below, about the qualifiers, "Each team this wishes to participate will be placed in combat against another team from a different school. Those that win their match will progress on to the actual tournament, those who fail will just have to make do by watching the tournament.

Now, are there any volunteers for the first match today?" Naruto looked around, but saw no hands in the air. It was always strange how these people didn't jump at the chance to fight in a completely safe environment. He raised his own hand. Glynda looked around a bit more before calling him, "Mr. Uzumaki has volunteered to be our first combatant. Are there any volunteers to fight him?"

In the end, Goodwitch just used the randomization process to decide his opponent. He was getting to fight Cardin. And he was excited. He finally had a sanctioned place to kick the hell out of the racist. It wasn't long before Naruto was anxiously waiting for the teacher to start the match.

"Begin."

And like a rocket, Naruto was off. He sped right for Cardin, whose eyes widened in surprise, before he swung his mace in a wide arc in front of him, warding off a direct attack. But Naruto was a ninja, and used to attacking from the most inconvenient direction he could. He found himself over Cardin's head, poised to strike at the back of his neck.

The boy had durability, he would give him that. He took Naruto's attack like a champ, and seemed ready to counter already. Naruto unsheathed his chokutō, feeling the need to practice with the blade that he still tried to use like a kunai. He was working on it.

He moved in at what most would consider a normal run, having a plan in mind. Cardin smirked as he saw Naruto coming, and swung his mace in another arc. Naruto tossed his chokutō into the air just above the mace, then slid under it, and grabbed the boy's arm, stopping his attack. He grabbed his blade from the air, and slashed across Cardin's legs.

Cardin grunted in light pain, and stepped away quickly. He raised his mace over his head, and began to swing it downwards. Naruto smirked just a little, and caught the mace in his hand, the same as he had done when he showed Blake his Rasengan. Cardin growled. Deciding it would be worth it, Naruto made his small Rasengan in his hand.

In a familiar move, he thrust in upwards into Cardin's stomach, sending to racist boy into the air. He, however, was much less coordinated then that tiny girl, and landed by flopping down onto his back, with a rather pained groan. Nevertheless, he stood, as Naruto ignored the small amount of throbbing in his hand.

He really needed to find out how to prevent that. He wasn't sure if it was doing anything beyond what he could feel, but if the backlash was comparable to his Rasenshuriken, then it probably wasn't a good idea to keep using it.

Bringing himself back to the battle at hand, Naruto readied his sword for Cardin's approach. Before the boy got far, he collapsed, clutching his stomach. It seemed the Rasengan had done more damage than Naruto had thought. But, as soon as the boy had collapsed, he stood again. Naruto, admittedly, felt a little bad about beating up on this poor soul. So, he decided to finish it quickly, using the first move Kakashi-sensei had ever taught him.

Like a flash of light, he vanished, reappearing behind Cardin, "Don't let your enemy get behind you." Naruto taunted, only for a moment. He placed his hands together in what looked like the Tora handsign, he prepared for the most powerful taijutsu move in the entire Leaf Village. "Konohagakure Hiden Taijutsu Ōgi: Sennen Goroshi!"

What happened next was a little too graphic for anyone to ever wish to tell about. But soon, Professor Goodwitch wasn't sure if she needed to reprimand the blond or not. On the one hand, it was a 'legitimate' move, but on the other hand… just… no. It was vulgar, and inappropriate, and cruel, and several more adjectives.

Obviously, the students above were in various states of uproar. Most of them were laughing, but there were a few brave and stupid souls calling down, "Only an animal would come up with that move!" The odd thing was, not even those people seemed to mean it negatively, as evidenced by the laughter that preceded and followed the comments.

Well, if nothing else, Naruto Uzumaki had distinguished himself even more, something Glynda didn't expect to happen after he handily beat Ms. Nikos. As for the blond himself, he was grinning like a mad man, walking back to his seat.

Trying to reestablish order, the professor spoke up, "Well, that was certainly… unorthodox." She glanced at the unconscious boy. Perhaps in the future he wouldn't act so poorly around Faunus. Probably not, though. "The *ahem* winner… is Mr. Uzumaki."

Naruto sat back down, all of his friends gaping at him, while also laughing. Even Troy was snickering. Pyrrha, who had apparently arrived with her team sometime after Naruto went down to fight, was shaking her head, as if she couldn't believe this was the same guy who she had fought yesterday. Blake was the first to ask what they all were thinking, "Naruto, where did you learn that?"

He grinned, and turned to her, "Remember when I said my old teacher was strange?" A look of realization began to dawn on Blake's face, which was attached to a look of horror, as she realized how he had learned it.

"Oh my…" She muttered to herself. Yang was grinning at Naruto.

"Gotta say, Whiskers, that's the kind of move I would expect from you." Naruto raised his eyebrow at her. She explained between laughter, "It's just that you act so goofy all the time. And that move is a good example of that!"

Naruto grinned back, "You're just jealous 'cause you didn't think of it first."

"Maybe a little…"

Naruto chuckled to himself, and turned back to the arena floor. Cardin had been moved off of it by Glynda, and now two Atlas students were getting ready to fight.

Despite the 'excitement' of combat class, Naruto was reminded of why the mission and dance had been so interesting. Every day at Beacon usually felt basically the same: wake up, classes, eating, and sleeping again. Even sparring didn't help to alleviate the boredom, especially since Goodwitch didn't let him fight for some reason after Monday. Of course, the schedule did usually afford them several hours each day for their own activities.

Thus was when and how Naruto found himself stood over the Emerald Forest on Wednesday afternoon that week. With the preliminaries that Saturday, the blond felt he needed to perfect his Rasengan. Or rather, he wanted to have it 'on hand' during the tournament. And since it wasn't likely that he could make explosions on Beacon's grounds, he would have to use somewhere else to train. So, why not the training grounds the school provided?

Grinning to himself, he backed away from the cliff side, then broke into a full sprint right for it, leaping off of it into a free-fall. Pumping chakra into his legs, Naruto flipped over in midair, landing feet-first on the ground. It was always a lot more fun than it probably should have been to do that. Giving himself a few moments, Naruto entered Sage Mode, to make sure he could still make a Rasengan in one hand while empowered by Sage Chakra.

As it turned out, he could, and it was much easier than during the fight with Pain. The orb spiraled into life in his palm, glowing its usual magnificent blue. And, just to test himself, Naruto put his other hand next to it, palm facing it, adding wind chakra. He was able to add just a little, enough to make it start to produce the shuriken blades, before it exploded in his hand. Thanks to Sage Mode, he was mostly unharmed, and the damage he did receive was being healed quickly.

He sighed. Well, maybe one day. For now, he was meant to be focusing on his Rasengan. Dropping Sage Mode once he was healed, Naruto held up his hand. The chakra began to swirl about, reaching about the size of a golf ball, as a few days ago. Risking it a bit, he tried adding more chakra to it, bit by bit. He was able to grow it just a little more, before it warped strangely in his palm. Immediately, he cut off the chakra, and the sphere dissolved. At least it hadn't exploded, sparing his arm the pain. Perhaps that meant he was making progress.

Which meant that he had to keep going. If he was making progress, then it meant he had to be close, right? If he could just use clones, he could probably make this progress much faster. But since he knew that the entire forest could be watched by Ozpin, Glynda, and the rest of the staff, somehow, he would have to be careful, not reckless like that. Some part of him was slightly regretting labeling his 'Semblance' as speed. His clones would help with training so very much.

Unfortunately for Naruto and his desire to train, he only had a few hours to do so. Eventually, the sun began to lower in the sky, darkening the forest. Not that that was a problem for the young Faunus, seeing as he could pretty easily see in the dark, but it still signified that it was getting to the time when he should be getting back to Beacon, or risk Diana making a poster for his return. She tended to do things like that, he'd noticed.

And so, he climbed back up the cliff, headed back. But at the top, he got a feeling of déjà vu, when he found someone waiting for him. Not Ozpin, however. This time, it was Blake, smirking at him for some reason.

"What's got you out here so late, Naruto?" she asked, walking over to him.

"Training. I need to get this Rasengan down. What about you? Why are you here?"

"I came looking for you. You've been out here all day."

"That's it?"

She rolled her eyes, "Yes, that's it. How's your move coming?"

"I think I'm getting closer," he answered. "Just a little more, and I'll have it at the size he did."

"Who did?"

"My godfather. Well, him and Kakashi-sensei," Naruto thought for a moment longer, about anyone else who might have been able to- Oh, right. His dad could.

"Who came up with it, anyways?" Blake asked, as they began to walk back to the school. "Your godfather?"

"Nah, Ero-Sennin wasn't the one. Our fourth leader did, after three years. He even managed to condense the learning process into three steps."

"Wait, so anyone could learn how to do it?" Blake asked, surprised. She would have expected a lot more people to be using their Aura like that if that were the case.

"Maybe, I don't know. The steps to learn it are simple enough, but they still take a while to learn. Not to mention a lot of patience."

"And pain tolerance?" Blake queried, with a little wink and a smirk.

"Yeah, that too." Naruto rubbed his arm. He hadn't had any major explosions, but his arm still throbbed from using so much chakra in a few hours. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, though. Blake snickered a little to herself at his answer. "Is your team ready for the qualifiers?"

She nodded, "We've got our teamwork to a pretty good point. What about you guys? Melissa was saying your huntsman said you guys weren't great together."

"Yeah, it was something none of us really thought about."

"So… are you guys going to be ready?"

"We'll be able to pull through," Naruto answered. "We're gonna have to work on it before the tournament starts, or we're gonna lose fast."

"That's good to hear, I guess. Ruby kind of insisted that we get team moves together, and we just kind of built on it from there." They were almost to the school now, just entering its grounds. "Have you guys really never fought as a team?"

"Not until that mission."

"How did you guys manage to do that?" Blake had no idea how four people who more or less lived together were able to just never work together.

"Well, I spend so much time hanging out with you and your team, Melissa does a lot of sniping, and Diana eats a lot of baked goods. So she and Troy are always in Vale, buying more," Naruto answered. "So we don't really spend a lot of time together."

"Huh. I hadn't actually thought about that. How come you don't hang out with you team?"

"I dunno. I just got along with you guys easier. Troy's hard to talk to, and Diana is like a child, but Melissa's kind of an anti-social person."

"Wow, didn't know you thought so poorly of your team." Naruto shrugged.

"Well, I don't. That's just why it was so hard to become friends with them. Now, I'd have their back no matter what."

'Especially after Konoha… I'm not losing another friend.'

Blake smiled, and nudged him, "That's a good way of thinking." Before she walked away, she called one more thing over her shoulder. "Maybe one day you can help me with someone from my past."

Naruto was left to think, to try and imagine a person Blake would need help with. She hadn't ever mentioned anyone she didn't like much, so he was lost. Eventually, he shrugged it off and walked back to his dorm. By the time he got there, it was after midnight.

"We really need to start training together."

Naruto nodded at his leader's suggestion the next morning. Troy gave a single nod, then continued getting ready for Port's class. Diana also liked the idea, giving her bouncing. Melissa continued, "So, after Oobleck's class today, we don't have any more. Once it's over, we're heading to the training rooms."

Once again, each of her teammates nodded. They each knew that they needed to work in sync better. Otherwise, they probably wouldn't last long, not against skilled teams. They couldn't completely rely on Naruto, could they? What would be the point of them being a team then?

Melissa spent practically all day dreaming up team moves for them, like the ones that Team RWBY had. As it turned out, having a guy who can teleport with anyone who's touching him makes for a number of ideas on how to use that ability. Especially when another teammate could move at practically the speed of sound. That might have been a bit of an exaggeration.

There was one where Naruto dashed right next to the opponent, cutting horizontally with each pass, before Troy teleported him to another side of the opponent, and he would cut again. And they repeated that. She called that one Blindsiding. She felt it had a good ring to it.

She had scenarios for each of the rest of them working with Troy, but that was the best one she'd come up with. Other than that one, she didn't really have any good ones. But hey, she was still working on it. And besides, they didn't necessarily need specific attacks for teamwork to exist. She was sure they would do well enough just by starting to train as a team.

Ooh… What if Naruto made his Rasengan while she shot through it? What would happen with his condensed Aura? Now she really wanted to try that. Unfortunately for her ambition, she would have to wait through an entire day of classes.

Naruto was debating trying the Rasengan under the table in Port's class. That was how bored he was getting. He found even Oobleck's class interesting, and as far as he knew, he was the only one. If only because he liked how eccentric the teacher was. That, and learning a history where large explosives were used to decimate large black demon-creatures tended to be interesting. Or maybe it was just that he wasn't used to it.

Back to Port's class, however. The blond made a small Rasengan, really just to do anything else besides listen to the teacher drone on about the time he killed three Nevermores, Four Deathstalkers, and a King Taijitu in one fight. He extinguished it, waited, then made another. It really was just him entertaining himself, and it was failing.

Hell, why not go a step further? He closes his eyes, focusing. After several moments, he had enough natural energy to enter Sage Mode. Although, he noted, it was much harder indoors, probably because the natural energy couldn't breach the walls easily. Because of this, his hands distorted slightly. Luckily, he had them under the table, so no one could have seen them. He wasn't sure if his face had changed any, however.

No one said anything, so he released the Natural Energy, and looked around. Everyone was distracted themselves in the same way as before, so it seemed as though no one had seen anything. He tried again, this time going slowly and carefully. Then, as if by comedic coincidence, the bell signifying the end of class rung.

"Oh… uh, well, it seems we'll have to conclude this fine tale after the Vytal Tournament ends! Remember students, there are no classes next week, so be sure to attend the Festival!" Port announced. Naruto practically sped from the classroom, finally escaping the boredom that was Professor Port's classes. He waited outside for his team.

"Hey, Naruto?" Melissa asked when she walked out. He turned to her. "Later today, during training, I wanna try shooting my sniper through your Rasengan. I'm curious what the Dust rounds will do when shot through Aura like that."

"Probably explode. A lot," Naruto replied jokingly. Troy and Diana came out of Port's room, and they began to make their way to Oobleck's class.

Eventually, Oobleck's class was finished, though it felt like an eternity to Melissa. Partially because that's what it always felt like, but also because she really wanted to start the team training. As soon as the class ended, she practically herded her team out the doors.

Conveniently, no one was using the training rooms that day, meaning they had free reign to whatever room they wanted. Although, since every room was exactly the same, perhaps that meant less than it seemed to. Well, almost exactly the same. Some of them took more time to be repaired after some of the training people did, especially when fourth year students used them. Or when some blond just so happened to create an explosion with his bare hands.

"Right, first things first. Naruto, make your Rasengan," Melissa commanded. Naruto raised an eyebrow.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? I can't really keep it stable, you know."

"Do it!" Melissa hadn't sat through all of Port's and Oobleck's classes just to be rejected now. Naruto relented after a moment of hesitation, and held out his hand, with the Aura beginning to swirl about.

This felt like a really bad idea to the only Faunus on Team MDNT. Especially since he had no idea how dust would react with his chakra. He suspected it would either do nothing, or explode in a rather spectacular way, but in his hand. Meaning it would probably be painful. So he wasn't exactly looking forward to it. He reached what he estimated was his maximum safe size for now, a larger than a golf ball, but smaller than a tennis ball.

Melissa was almost as excited as Diana usually was as she slung her rifle off of her shoulder, putting the barrel just behind the blue orb. "Ready, Naruto?" He nodded. She fired once, and after only a single brief instant, the entire far wall froze over in a majestic ice bloom. All four of them were rather surprised at the result, but in different ways. Diana clapped like she usually did whenever something amazed her, Troy nodded in approval, Melissa was practically bouncing up and down, and Naruto just stared at his hand, amazed that chakra could activate Dust.

"I'd call that a success, right Naruto?" Melissa asked in her excitement. Naruto nodded, still in disbelief. Why, this opened a very small new world of possibilities, pretty much all of which involved using Dust with his chokutō and pistol.

Melissa walked over to the wall, and began studying it. "Aha! Knew it!" They each looked over, as she pointed at the wall. "See here, where it all comes out of? I found the remnants of my bullet here, so the Dust only reacted once it hit something.

Inwardly, Naruto had a thought. He wondered if it was possible for him to make chakra-sensitive metal, so that he could re-make his sword. He suspected not, but he would have to check once Kurama started talking to him again. He would also need to learn how to work a forge. And whether or not the forge meant the entire thing, or just the hot part.

"Alright, next thing!" Melissa shouted. "Naruto, Troy, if you two could try something for me for a moment…"

For a few hours more, Team MDNT, as they hadn't really ever done, hung out as a team, sometimes training altogether, sometimes working on individual skills. Sometimes taking things seriously, sometimes joking around like the teenagers each of them were.

When Saturday came, it brought with it both a feeling of excitement and one of incredible nervousness. While Team MDNT were glad to have the chance to test themselves and possibly even get into the tournament, but even Naruto was a little tentative about the idea of facing another team. Just less so than his teammates. He was used to this, after all. It was him who had managed to fight off six people at once, albeit with some difficulty, and some help from Kurama.

Although, Ozpin had asked him not to use Sage Mode, to level the playing field for everyone. Naruto wasn't sure how the headmaster knew how powerful Sage Mode was, but he assumed that it was based on what he had heard from Imperius.

And since Naruto neither wanted to nor had the option to use Kurama's chakra, he had to just use his normal power. Which, honestly, was fine in his opinion. He felt he needed the practice anyways. He was just hopeful that the scanners in the tournament would pick up his chakra as Aura, the same way the arena and scrolls here did.

But besides the training, a nice, safe, just-for-fun tournament sounded appealing to the blond, especially after he nearly died to Pain. Thank Kami the rest of the Akatsuki couldn't get to Remnant. After all, how would they know where to look?

All these thoughts and more surged throughout Naruto's head as he journeyed, with his team, to the qualifier's arena, which was just one of the training rooms that was slightly bigger than the rest. And the extra space was all devoted to seating up above, for occasions where many people would be waiting for their turn on the arena floor.

Luckily, Team MDNT was one of the first teams to be called down to fight. They were up against a team from Atlas. And, pleasantly for Naruto, they were the same people he had met twice before. He flashed them a wicked grin as they waited to start. All four of the glared back, as if they were determined to get revenge.

Glynda called out, "Begin."

Troy, standing to the left of Naruto, reached over and put his hand on Naruto's shoulder. They vanished, and reappeared just behind their opponents, Team BLND. (Blond) Naruto unsheathed his chokutō and prepared to slash across one of them. He moved forward just as they began to turn after hearing his blade be drawn, and nicked one of them as he passed. Troy appeared next to him, and restarted the maneuver.

Once more, Naruto attacked, this time almost breaching the shield of Aura. Now, when he and Troy teleported again, they reappeared by Melissa, having deemed the move a success. Naruto gave a nod to Melissa. Deciding to test something else out in battle, Naruto raised his palm in front of Melissa's barrel, as Team BLND charged towards them. Troy and Diana went to meet them, and distract them while their teammates readied their move.

The Rasengan swirled into its brilliance soon enough, still under the size of a tennis ball. As soon as they each heard the familiar sound of the 'Aura' having fully formed, Troy and Diana leapt out of the way. Melissa fired a single ice round at the ground, which expanded into a large ice pile, freezing two of their enemies inside it. The other two had been smart enough to dodge out of the way as soon as Troy and Diana had.

Interestingly, every time they tried that move, the Rasengan was completely used up by it. Possibly because the rotation was distorted. Either way, it was clear who would end up winning this fight, as Troy engaged one of the two remaining enemies. Four against two weren't great odds.

That didn't stop the other team from being incredibly cocky and just a little bit petty, since one of them tried to taunt Naruto, "Good to see that even wild animals can learn to obey their human masters." Though, since he wasn't exactly quiet about it, basically everyone cheering stopped mid-cheer, and began practically demanding blood. The blood of that one member. Amazing how racism suddenly disappears when you enter a school that is firmly against it.

Naruto smirked back at the student who insulted him, and, in the eyes of the boy, vanished into thin air. In reality, he simply used his remarkable speed, with no small help from chakra in his legs, to move behind the boy. And then kick him across the back of the head. Into a wall. Hard.

With one guy left, the black-haired student from Atlas nervously looked at both his teammates and his opponents, before dropping his spear in conceding, with his hands raised into the air.

"The winner is Team MDNT," announced Goodwitch. The Beacon team returned to their seats, glad of their victory. And also relieved, naturally. After all, even if they were moving on to the tournament, where it would be much more difficult, they would have more time to train together. They may have used two team attacks during their fight, but they hadn't really done anything beyond that.

The next several fights passed with relative boredom, though some people seemed to find them interesting. Different people for different fights, as one might expect. Naruto watched Team RWBY's match with interest, of course. They won rather easily. The same went for Team JNPR, obviously. Pyrrha's magnetism gave them a rather large advantage over people using metal weaponry. Especially when they never seemed to notice that their weapons were moving of seemingly their own accord.

Several hours afterwards, the Teams MDNT, RWBY, and JNPR were all sitting about the common room of Beacon's dorm building, congratulating each other. And there were cookies and pancakes and pretzel buns and ramen galore. In other words, it was party. And it was a good time. And they didn't sleep for hours afterwards. And they slept all through the morning of Sunday.

Ah, another (maybe)fine chapter finished.

I'm moving this story to Sunday only.

Until Chapter 14!