Disclaimer: By now, you really ought to get it: I don't own Naruto or RWBY.

Chapter 14: The Wait

Though the preliminaries took place on Saturday, the actual Vytal Tournament only began on Friday the week after. As a team that felt they needed to work together more effectively, Team MDNT felt this was a rather fortuitous break. Especially when one considers that they had no classes for the entire week, since Beacon needed to finish the preparations for the tournament.

As such, Team MDNT found themselves using the training rooms quite often over the next several days, sometimes alongside Teams RWBY and/or JNPR. There were several teams participating in the tourney, so, as expected, there were also several teams training daily for it.

Currently, all three teams were sharing one room. Pyrrha, Jaune, Weiss, Yang, and Ruby were all having some kind of free-for-all spar in the center of the room. Melissa was aiming at small targets that Troy was holding, while he was also teleporting around on the other side of the room from her. Impressively, and fortunately for Troy, she wasn't missing a single shot. Though, somehow, none of the bullets pierced through the targets.

Diana and Nora were battling one against the other, over in a far corner. And in another one, Naruto, Blake, and Ren were each watching something with interest. Naruto was moving one of his hands erratically, much to the amusement of Blake at first. But then he began to form his Rasengan in his right hand, and managed to grow it larger than she'd seen yet, so she guessed there was a method to the madness.

Then Ren had come over, since he had had nothing else to do. And seeing that Naruto was succeeding at the technique he had failed a week prior, he had taken interest. Naruto was sweating, but he was managing to hold the orb at roughly the size of a grapefruit.

Blake almost felt like she should be clapping. But then, she noticed a tiny distortion in the sphere as it rotated. And a moment later, the entire thing warped perilously, like it was preparing to explode. Naruto faded it away immediately, and rested his arms for a moment.

"I thought that would work better… I guess I was wrong," Naruto muttered. Ren, who had apparently been bracing for an explosion, nodded. "Alright… one more time."

He raised his arms once more, placing one over top of the other. He began to make scratching motions over his hand, in what looked to Blake like the motions of a cat playing with a water balloon. Then she frowned at herself, questioning the oddly specific thought.

The Rasengan grew and grew, slowly. Naruto eventually held yet another grapefruit-sized blue orb. After only a few seconds, Naruto let it dissolve. He took a few breaths, "Well, that went better."

Ren appeared to have decided something, "Naruto? Is it possible that you could teach me how to do that?"

Naruto seemed taken aback, with wide eyes, "Uh… I don't know?" Honestly, he wasn't sure if Aura could be used as a substitute for chakra. While they may have had similarities, they still both behaved very differently. For example, chakra on its own couldn't be used to heal wounds. It took special jutsu and incredible chakra control to do that. Bijū chakra seemed to be an exception. But Aura naturally healed wounds, without the need for conscious instruction from its wielder.

Though, at the same time, Aura couldn't be used to fuel massive, world-ending, continent-sinking, moon-shattering jutsu. So, ya know, that was the tradeoff. And call him crazy, but Naruto felt like Aura got the short end of the stick.

"What do you mean?" Ren asked, head tilted slightly.

"Ehhhhh… well, I don't know if I would be able to teach it. I mean, I guess I could tell you how I learned to…"

"Alright then."

"Alright, so, first. Take a water balloon, then project your Aura into it and spin it in a bunch directions until the balloon explodes. Second, do the same thing with a rubber ball. Third, make an air balloon, and rotate your Aura in a contained sphere, so that it doesn't pop the balloon."

"That… sounds remarkably complicated," Ren said unsurely. Naruto shrugged.

"It's how I learned it. And the steps my dad came up with to teach it."

Blake raised an eyebrow, "Your dad? I thought…"

She stopped, but Naruto frowned towards her, wondering what she could be thinking. "Uh… yeah," he continued. "It took my dad three years to perfect it. He always meant for it to be the most devastating use for Aura. And when he combined it with his Semblance, people said that he succeeded."

Ren was a little amazed at the blond's father. He must have been a great huntsman, especially considering Naruto had said that Troy would have been nowhere near a match for him, in regards to teleportation prowess. He wanted to meet the man.

From out of nowhere, Ruby slammed into the wall next to them. Yang called over, in a genuinely worried voice, "Sorry, Rubes!" Ruby shook her head, dazed more than anything.

"That's ok!" She called back over. The small girl glanced to her left, to see the three ninja staring at her.

She gave a cheery wave, "Hey, guys!" Naruto chuckled to himself, while Blake awkwardly returned the wave. Ruby stood, and dusted herself off. "Man, Yang packs a punch…"

"Yeah, it's what she does," Blake said in a rather sarcastic way. "Shouldn't you know that by now?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know…" Ruby muttered. "Ooh! Hey, Naruto! You and I should have a race!"

Naruto chuckled to himself again. This was a great example of how much more cheery this place could be, compared to his home. "Nah, sorry. I don't feel like losing right now."

"Awwww!" She complained. "Come on!"

"Sorry, Ruby," Naruto apologized, before setting his left hand over his right once more. He began to form the Rasengan with his right hand, spinning it as much as he could on its own. When he couldn't rotate it steadily anymore, he began to provide the rotation with his left hand. It was a good way of training himself to be able to do it on his own, but he still wanted to be able to form it without a clone. While not in Sage Mode, that was.

Ruby, of course, wasn't one to give up so easily. That said, she was still captivated by the blue orb Naruto had formed. She hadn't seen his Rasengan yet, so it was a new experience for her. "Woah…" She exclaimed. "That's cool…"

What she wasn't expecting was for it to collapse in on itself. But judging from Naruto's reaction, it was normal. "What happened to it?" she asked.

"I reabsorbed the Aura," Naruto explained. "I couldn't have held it much longer before it exploded."

"Oh, ok. Let's have that race now!"

"Ruby, you've already beaten me in a race once, why do you want to again?"

"Troy said that you went really fast when you fought that Pain guy. He said you were faster than anyone he'd ever seen."

"Really? That's it?" This time, it was Blake who responded, rather than Naruto. "That's why you want to race Naruto?"

Ruby seemed moderately offended, like Blake had questioned the sacredness of cookies, "Of course it is! I need to know if I'm the fastest!"

Blake laughed. By this point, Ren had lost interest and wandered off. Naruto sighed, "Alright, fine. From here to Vale?" Blake stopped laughing.

"You guys are running that far?"

Naruto nodded as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "Yeah. It's what we did last time."

"You guys have done this before?" She asked incredulously.

"Of course we have. Twice, actually. One time to get my chokutō."

"Come on, Naruto!" Ruby complained impatiently. "Let's go!"

Naruto rolled his eyes in amusement, "GO!"

And they were off like two red-clad rockets, intent on breaking the sound barrier with their speed. Everyone in the room felt a gust of wind follow them out from the shock of such high speeds.

Naruto and Ruby, however, didn't feel the wind behind them. They did, however, feel the wind smacking them in the face as they went, making it feel almost like their skin was peeling off. Or it would have, had they not both developed a tolerance to it over the years they'd each been doing it.

As it was, Naruto was losing ground to Ruby. Then she went even faster, seeming to think that he was far ahead of her, since she couldn't see him. So he started losing ground to her faster, and decided to use more chakra in his legs, about as much as they could take. In his next step, he felt the ground rise up behind him as he lifted his foot.

And as he hurtled through the forest, catching up to Ruby in no time, and even overtaking her for a moment, before she sped up even faster. Seriously, this girl was as fast as Bushier-Brows-sensei. Well… maybe. It was hard to tell, just from memory. Especially since Naruto had never really seen Bushier-Brows-sensei in a fight.

But she was probably faster than him. Regardless, Naruto needed to focus on not running straight into trees. And with him and Ruby neck-and-neck, with Vale within a minute more of running, one slip-up could mean a loss.

But Naruto didn't have a speed semblance without repercussions on his body. He had his chakra, and that definitely took its toll. He couldn't keep up this speed for any longer without getting to feel it in the morning, so he was forced to lower himself to a 'normal' running speed, and Ruby easily left him in the dust.

He hopped up into the trees, and began to speed his way to Vale, where he found her waiting. "Why'd you stop like that?" She asked. He shrugged.

"I can't keep up that speed for long, or I'll feel it later. You're just better at this than me, Ruby," he answered, much to her embarrassed delight. She blushed lightly, and waved off the praise.

"Oh, stop it…" she mumbled. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

"Nah. You're the best, Ruby! And don't you let anyone tell you otherwise," Naruto continued, much to her rising embarrassment.

"Well, I'm not running back anytime soon. What now?" Naruto questioned.

It was Ruby's turn to shrug, "I dunno. I just wanted a race. I guess we could go to the weapon store?"

"Yeah, alright."

They began to make their way down the street, working towards Bangs and Bombs. Along the way, Naruto heard a faint voice nearby, "All hail the great god Pain!"

Naruto stopped for a moment, stumbling on the stop. It sounded like he had just heard someone praising the guy who had destroyed a lot of villages. But no, that couldn't be right. Even if Ruby had mentioned that people were hailing him as a god, there couldn't be any way people thought he was good, right?

And then, in response, he heard, "HAIL PAIN!" It sounded like it came from a somewhat large crowd, as well. He looked around, but didn't see anyone actively bowing to anything, so he assumed that they weren't nearby. His newfound Faunus hearing meant that they could be halfway across the city, and he would still be able to hear them.

Either way, not important right now. What was important was wasting time until he felt like he could run without negative consequences again. He had seen what happened to Bushy-Brows when he had opened the Gates; he wasn't interested in having something like that happen to him, at least not again. It already kind of had, after he had fought the tiny girl, whose name apparently remained a mystery, even after Yang fought her. And from what he heard, she lost, badly.

Once they finally arrived at Bangs and Bombs, which still remained as Ruby's favorite place to buy weapons, since, according to her, they had more weapons than anywhere else, Naruto remembered that he actually needed kunai and shuriken. He hadn't bought any since he had arrived on Remnant, and he had only had three kunai, four shuriken, and he had used his explosive tag. Well, at least the trip wouldn't be in vain.

Luckily, and as Ruby had said, Bangs and Bombs offered several 'primitive' weapons. Naruto grabbed ten kunai, and ten shuriken, and a few other supplies and surprises. Unfortunately, he had the sneaking suspicion that this place wouldn't have little pieces of paper that exploded into huge booms, just by filling them with a mystical energy that this world didn't even have. Just a hunch.

All the same, he felt a little better, with twenty new throwing weapons at his disposal. He supposed he could just try and use only his chokutō, but he felt like not ever using kunai and shuriken would just feel… foreign.

"Ready to race back yet, Naruto?" Ruby asked, bobbing up and down on her toes. Naruto grinned, then nodded.

"Let's, uh… let's wait 'til we're at the edge of the forest though, ok?" Naruto added. Ruby looked almost disappointed, but relented.

And he thought Diana was weird.

Monday went by quickly, even after the two arrived back at Beacon from their brief excursion into Vale. It had been around midday when the pair had left, and the sun reigned supreme above. It wasn't much later by the time they got back, and yet the day seemed like it was almost over.

Thus came Tuesday. Given that there were no classes, and students were practically expected to train, the Teams of MDNT, RWBY, and JNPR once again came together in the same training room as the day before, this time for their own little faux-tournament.

A series of one-on-one matches, really. Just for fun, and refining a few points of weakness. After all, what was the best way to train for fighting humans? Fight other humans, and learn how they can beat you.

First up was Naruto, with his opponent as Yang. As Naruto stood facing her, he realized they hadn't ever fought, not even in a friendly spar. And thanks to that realization, he was a little excited to see what she had in store for him. He had five kunai and five shuriken, as well as, obviously, his chokutō, at his disposal, whereas she only wore her gauntlets. That said, Naruto knew to watch them closely. They certainly had firepower, given that she could use them to almost fly.

Ren called down from the stands, "Begin."

And immediately, Yang came rushing at him, using her gauntlets for additional speed. Easy enough to dodge, but Naruto forgot the fact that she was used to speedy fighters. She was Ruby's sister, after all. When he jumped into the air above her, she fired four quick shots. Two were in front of her, stopping her dead in her tracks, while the other two propelled her into the air after him.

He barely had time to pull his chokutō out in time to even try to block her punch. Indeed, he decided, this was not someone who he could beat just by dodging with his speed. She had a strategy for that. Unless… he could turn up the speed. Sage Mode wouldn't be impossible to access, not in this battle. Hm… Nah. Ruby would question him afterwards about his speed, and then she'd want another race. He still wasn't even sure Sage Mode was faster than her, but he was fairly certain.

Back to the fight however, Naruto managed to barely deflect Yang's punch off to the side. She may have had a way to deal with his speed, but she still had that whole 'raw power' thing. Not really refined or focused. He stabbed downwards with his free hand, but she blocked it with her left gauntlet. They fell back down towards the floor. Naruto used her gut as a springboard, putting distance between himself and her, while also sending her into the ground.

According to Ruby, her semblance let her deal back any damage she took. So he would have to be careful about how long the fight went on, or she might accidentally kill him. Oh, and he had to remember: Under no circumstances should you ever, ever touch Yang's hair. It was an oddly specific warning.

Yang stood, grinning like crazy at him. She performed the same move as before, rocketing towards him quickly. He sidestepped, and stabbed inwards as she came closer. Had it not been for a timely dodge on her part, she would had had an arm cut off by his blade.

As it was, her counter to his move was to just let herself tumble to the ground, trying to sweep his feet out with her own as she recovered. He tried slashing once, only for her to hold up her gauntlet to block the attack once again. Still grinning, she reeled a fist back.

'Oh, crap.'

Naruto managed to duck under the blast, but he could certainly feel the heat off of it. Alright, so perhaps he wanted to avoid the explosive shotgun gauntlets of painful death. Go figure. He countered with a jab at her midsection, only for her to more or less just take the hit. Her grin bordered on a somewhat cocky smirk as she did, and she slammed her elbow into his back. It didn't really hurt, not compared to, say, having a hand covered in lightning piercing your chest, but it still felt uncomfortable.

He stepped back, holding his chokutō out towards her. She jumped towards him, spinning her leg around in some bizarre attempt at a stylized kick. He blocked his with his arm, and stabbed at her once more, aiming for her left arm. He barely grazed her, his blade passing right over her shoulder.

'Damn it.'

She pulled back instantly, landing a safe distance away. Then she noticed a faint tinge of a bright color on the end of Naruto's sword. A bright blonde strand. He didn't seem to notice it, but it could never have gotten past her eyes. And she was not happy, needless to say.

"You… HOW DARE YOU!" She shouted at a thoroughly confused boy, who cocked his head firmly to the side. Not giving an answer, her Semblance flared to life, with her hair burning bright and her eyes blood red. Her gaze met Naruto's, and for some reason she didn't get, his eyes widened immensely.

Right, so Naruto had something to piss of Yang. And judging by the faint strand of blonde hair on his sword, he had the feeling that he knew what it was. But when she began to almost… burn, like a sun, he had looked at her eyes, directly. And saw that they were both bloodshot.

Given what it meant whenever he himself had red eyes, Naruto admittedly panicked a little, wondering what in the hell had happened. But, seeing that her pupils were still circular, he calmed just a little. Besides, it wasn't like she could have Kurama's chakra. It was still eerily similar to his own ability, though. Red eyes? Check. Big heaping of anger? Check.

Nevertheless, his focus now was not being hit by another punch, not now that she was doing whatever this was. He assumed it was her Semblance. How strange that it was so similar to what he could do. She flung herself forwards, arm cocked behind her in rage. Naruto managed to avoid her strike at almost the last second, not giving her time to react and turn to him. From where he was in the air, Naruto fired a few rounds at the blonde.

She almost didn't seem to even notice them, with her hair just glowing a little brighter. She hit the wall feet first, and sprung off of it, turning her residual force around towards him. She flew at him, leaving him in midair with nothing he could really do but raise his arms to block the attack.

He managed to block the worst of it, but was sent flying towards the ground as a result. When he hit the ground, he felt the floor beneath him sink in a little from his momentum. He groaned to himself mentally. Now that he thought about it, he probably could've used a clone to get out of the way. He stood up shakily, facing a still furious Yang, who came at him the moment he stood.

He moved underneath her strike, punching her in the stomach and sending her into the air. She turned around midflight, and began to fire down at him. He flipped along the floor backwards, avoiding the explosions entirely. Yang kept firing until she was kneeling against the ceiling from her attacks. She pressed off the roof just before gravity set in, launching herself towards Naruto with gusto, just after he was finished dodging the last of her shots.

She wasn't leaving much time for him to counterattack amidst her own, and yet he still managed to end up a foot in her gut as she came towards him, sending her back towards the roof. She slammed into the ceiling with a loud crack, and fell back to earth. She was out cold. He may have kicked her harder than he meant to, if he could practically drain her entire Aura with one attack.

"Looks like Naruto wins," Ren called out, rather redundantly. Everyone could clearly see that Naruto won. "Who's up next?"

Nora excitedly raised her hand, right before Troy did the same. Ren glanced over at each of them, and announced that they would be the next match.

Despite there being nine matches total, the entirety of their little tournament only took about two hours. Because of this, the three teams found themselves all gathered now for lunch, with six of them being rather exhausted. Naruto had fought Ruby in the second round, and she was getting better stamina-wise. She had pushed him into a battle of just trying to hit her. After roughly ten minutes of constantly missing, she finally ran out of gas, and tumbled to the ground, giving him the win.

At the moment, Naruto found himself in the middle of a delightful conversation with the short girl and her sister. "I've got to say, Ruby, I thought I was gonna lose for a moment there," he praised.

She obviously still hadn't gotten much better at receiving said praise, since a light red hue appeared across her face as she mumbled a few intangible words. Yang laughed at her younger sister's shy demeanor, "Ah, come on, Rubes! Naruto just giving you a compliment! There's no need to be so embarrassed about it."

"Well, it's not every day that someone tells me I'm really good at fighting!" Ruby responded. "I'm just not used to it…"

"So, Whiskers?" Yang asked. Naruto turned to her. "Think we'll see you guys in the tourney?"

Naruto grinned, "Maybe if you guys can make it to the finals."

Yang grinned back, "It's on. But just so you know, I'm gonna be the one in the finals. I wanna fight you for real."

Naruto rolled his eyes, "Yang, I already beat you once today." Yang huffed.

"That was just a friendly spar, nothing more. It didn't mean anything."

Naruto chuckled at the blonde's attitude about it. Prideful was a good word for Yang. "Say what you want," he half-taunted.

Yang crossed her arms, and turned away, as Blake sat down next to her, across from Naruto and Ruby. She had won her first round fight against Ren, but couldn't beat Pyrrha in the second round. "That was a good match, you two," The comment was directed towards Naruto and Ruby. The blond rubbed the back of his head, while Ruby seemed to shrink in on herself more.

"Thanks, Neko-chan!" Blake rolled her eyes at her fellow Faunus, but mostly in mild amusement. She still kind of wanted to know what 'Neko-chan' meant, but it wasn't all that important. She was more curious about other things Naruto said.

"Yours was good, too," Ruby returned. Blake shrugged.

"It was alright. I definitely should have hit more, even with her Semblance giving her an edge."

"Don't beat yourself up over it. She can keep Ruby from hitting her, even with how fast Ruby is. Hell, she can keep track of her when she moves." Ruby nodded in agreement. She'd only fought Pyrrha once before, but it had been annoying when her precious Crescent Rose kept moving on seemingly its own.

"I guess. But you better win, Naruto," Blake more-or-less demanded. Naruto, Pyrrha, and Weiss were to do a three-way free-for-all after the lunch they were all enjoying. "Don't… uh… don't tell Weiss I said that. She'll think I'm betraying her."

Naruto laughed, "Don't worry, I won't."

"Me neither," Ruby added. "I'm rooting for Naruto, too." Blake snickered.

Naruto copied Blake, "Aw, thanks, Ruby." The cloaked girl beamed.

"So, how's your move coming, Naruto?" Blake asked.

"Pretty good. I think I need some combat experience to really get it down. Nothing teaches better than necessity."

Blake frowned at him, "Really? I would think that you'd want to know that it works going in."

"If you can, sure. But I'm not getting any further on my own." To prove his point, Naruto lifted his hand up, and began to form the Rasengan with just his one hand. It got to the size of a baseball before he began to use his other hand to rotate it. The biggest it got was the same grapefruit size that it had been the day prior. Ren sat down next to Blake, Yang having long since left.

"I still don't understand how you do that," he began. "I tried, but I can only get Aura to line my palm, and provide a defense. I can't emit it like that."

"Well, ya know. Years of practice," Naruto dismissed. It wasn't entirely true, but nor was it entirely false. He had several years of forming the Rasengan on his side when it came do doing it with a clone, sure. But not one-handed, like he was trying now.

"Hm," Ren grunted.

In a triangle formation on the training room floor, Naruto, Pyrrha, and Weiss all halfheartedly glared at each other, waiting for the match to begin. When it finally did, there was an initial moment of pandemonium.

Naruto charged towards Weiss, seeking to get it down to a one-on-one with Pyrrha. At the same time, Pyrrha charged towards him, while Weiss did the same, rapier outstretched. He dodged under it, and stabbed upwards with a kunai. He pulled his chokutō out as a pistol, aiming it at Pyrrha, and firing several bullets to distract her.

Weiss held the revolver section of her rapier in the way of Naruto's attack, blocking the kunai. He moved to the left, standing upright once more, and swiftly firing at the Ice Queen. She formed a glyph in front of her, which stopped the bullets dead in their tracks. Pyrrha came from behind her, but she leapt over the redhead's swipe, firing dust at her. Pyrrha rolled forwards, as Naruto met her with his kunai and chokutō, leaving her to block both. His sword met hers, and her shield blocked his little knife.

Weiss glided at them, rapier poised to stab one of them. Pyrrha flipped over him, and he was left to try and block two strikes from either side. At a time like this, he wished he had the eyesight of the Sharingan. He spun his chokutō in his left hand, blocking away Weiss's stab, while also trying to block each of Pyrrha's strikes.

Weiss slashed at him, but he ducked under it. As he did, Pyrrha shot at him, and he threw his kunai at the bullet, deflecting it. Pyrrha stabbed downwards, and he rolled out of the way, while Weiss stabbed at the other girl. Pyrrha blocked the rapier with her shield. Naruto flipped backwards through the air, shooting at each of them at the pinnacle of his jump. Pyrrha blocked each bullet with her shield, whereas Weiss simply dodged out of the way.

He hit the ground again, sprinting for Pyrrha the moment he did. She held up her shield in preparation, but instead of attacking her, he used it as a spring board to jump over her, headed for Weiss. She held up her rapier to block the worst of his swing, but she was still sent a few feet back from the force behind the attack.

Seeing Pyrrha come up from behind him, Naruto began to form the Rasengan in his hand. Weiss came from in front, but just as she and Pyrrha were both ready to attack him, he ducked down, letting them hit each other, before he slammed the blue orb into the ground, kicking up a shockwave.

Pyrrha and Weiss both held their arms in front of their faces, shielding them from the dust sent out by the technique's impact. In the moment of distraction, Naruto began his assault on Weiss. His first three strikes went unblocked, severely damaging her Aura shield. She finally thought to try and block with her blade by the time the dust settled, but by then it was too late. With his speed, he had moved behind her, and kicked her into Pyrrha.

Pyrrha's eyes widened as Weiss flew towards her, but she had no time to dodge. She held up her shield to hold back the impact, and braced it with her right arm, but she still felt Weiss slam against it, knocking her over from the weight. Weiss was out cold. The redhead recovered quickly, to find Naruto bearing down on her, chokutō ready to strike. Her shield was sufficient to block it, leaving her sword open to counter. He grinned, and reached behind himself. Knowing where this usually went, she swung at him immediately.

He whipped his hand back around, blocking her sword with three shuriken, held in between his fingers. There was a thin coating of blood forming on the edge of her blade, so she guessed that the shuriken hadn't protruded enough to block it entirely. Nevertheless, he thrust his hand into her sword, pushing it away. Before she could bring it back under her control, he threw all the shuriken at her, from a close distance.

She panicked, and exerted her Semblance outwards, halting the shuriken in midair. She swore Naruto groaned, but her focus was more on his moves than his displeasure. She let the shuriken drop to the ground, and swung once again at Naruto. Though he had still held his blade against her shield, he pulled it away, dodging under her attack at the same time.

He stabbed at her, almost hitting but for her stepping back quickly. He rolled his eyes. This was going nowhere. In as swift a motion as he could, he dropped both his sword and his weapon pouch to the ground. Pyrrha held her shield towards him, knowing his plan. He knelt down, hands on the ground in front of him, one leg stretched out behind. He held that pose for several seconds, completely still.

Just as Pyrrha was ready to make her move, some weird marks appeared around his eyes, and Naruto disappeared. She held up her shield again, trying to hear where he went. But she wasn't ready for his being above her. She felt his foot impact the side of her head, right before she was sent straight into a wall, on the opposite side of the room.

'May have overdone it a little. Whoops. At least I remembered not to go too fast. Don't need Ruby questioning that.'

Naruto dropped Sage Mode before he hit the ground, watching Pyrrha closely. She tried to stand for a moment, but her brain was still rattling around in her head. She fell back to the ground, but still managed to give a thumbs-up, showing she was alright.

Naruto stood back up to his full height, breathing out a deep breath. The other nine people, the ones who hadn't been fighting, were clapping. Diana even let out a cheer of excitement. Naruto almost felt like he should be bowing.

As the blond rode the elevator up, he was more than a little nervous. Ozpin had already called him in once, but now he wanted to talk again. And this time, Naruto had no idea what he might have wanted. There wasn't much else he hadn't asked about.

Finally, the elevator reached the top, and Ozpin gave a friendly wave as the door opened, "Come in, Mr. Uzumaki. Have a seat."

Naruto complied, tentatively sitting down across from the headmaster. "Now, I'm sorry to trouble you, but I need information. I need to know about the Vulpecula, and it's clear you know something."

Naruto paled a little. Apparently, he hadn't hidden it as well as he had hoped. Ozpin sighed, "I am sorry, Naruto. But if this Grimm is a threat, then I will need to know what it is and what it can do."

Naruto gave several moments of thought to how he would get through this before he spoke, "Uh… My village had a history with it. It attacked the village some time ago, and it ended up killing a lot of people. It's… well, it's the actual reason people hated me. They thought I was just like it, because of the whiskers."

Ozpin showed a look of concern to the boy, but behind it was a calculating brain. So, it was certainly hostile to humans, and had caused the boy before him no end of grief. "What exactly can it do?"

"It had some kind of explosive technique it could use. Other than that, I don't know."

'Sorry about calling you 'it,' Kurama.'

"Are you certain? Do you know anything else about it?"

"No, not really. I know people used to talk about how the first person to lead the village could control it."

Interesting… a Grimm that could supposedly be controlled. Finding out how that was done might be useful. If they had something that powerful on their side, something that could kill other Grimm with nary a hesitation, according to Imperius, it be fantastic weapon against the forces of Salem. Though, more importantly, did this mean that other Grimm could be controlled, as well?

But right now, Naruto was asking about something, "Sir? I was wondering… those four who can use Natural Energy, do they have marks around their eyes?"

"That's a peculiar question. Why do you ask?"

"I'm just wondering."

"Ah, I see. No, they do not have any such eye markings. However, when using their powers, their eyes may glow," Ozpin answered. What a strange question for the boy to ask. Perhaps it related to what he called 'Sage Mode.' Speaking of which… "I'm curious as to the nature of this 'Sage Mode' you mentioned to me. What does it allow you to do?"

"I heal faster, I move faster, I'm stronger, and the Natural Energy around me helps me fight." Naruto left out that he could sense people's Auras. That would likely raise more questions from the man, more than Naruto wanted to answer. Although... "Professor, you mentioned there are four people on Remnant who can use Natural Energy, right?"

"I believe that there are four people whose abilities are derived from a similar source, yes."

"Well, I can sense Natural Energy in Sage Mode. And I felt two other people using nature energy in Beacon."

"I see... that would be all I had for you. Farewell, Mr. Uzumaki."

As Naruto walked away, Ozpin reflected on what he found rather humorous. Each time he spoke with the blond, he would always end up with more questions than he had had before. Truly, it was rather strange. For example, why had the boy asked about the Maidens? And where did he get the term 'Natural Energy?' Not to mention the 'two people' he had felt with it on Beacon's grounds. One would be Amber, of course, but who was the other? It could only be one person, really. There was also the hesitation that Naruto had kept up throughout the conversation, like there was still something he was leaving out about the Grimm that killed the man who destroyed his village.

Thursday was upon them before they knew it. Wednesday had been spent, for Team MDNT anyway, training with each other, working on their still-abysmal teamwork. Though, they were making progress, for sure.

Thursday they were spending in the Emerald Forest, to kill Grimm together. Melissa's rather dangerous goal was to have them fight four large Grimm at once, and still win. Naruto was looking forward to it. He needed to practice his Rasengan in a fight, anyways. And there weren't many ways he could do that outside of fighting Grimm, since the other way he could would probably end up injuring his hand a lot, given what happened when a small Rasengan hit Aura. He could only imagine that a larger one would be worse.

Standing atop Beacon Cliff, Melissa, Diana, Naruto, and Troy all stared down into the forest, bracing for the task ahead. Naruto was the first one to jump off into the foliage below. He landed next to Troy and Diana, with Melissa following suit soon enough.

"Remember guys, when you find a Grimm, try not to kill it immediately, at least not if it's a big one," Melissa requested. They all agreed, then split up, with radios each of them could use to communicate.

Naruto immediately leapt into a tree, going roughly a hundred yards, before he sat down and began to meditate. After several moments, two familiar orange marks appeared around his eyes. He began to reach out to find Grimm, but only felt Beowolves and Ursai for a little over three miles. Then, on the edge of his sensory range, about four miles from where he was sitting, he could sense just one Deathstalker. Not exactly the four that Melissa was going for, but it would work.

He grinned, and stood up, ready to go. Bending his knees, slightly, Naruto pressed off the thick branch he was standing on, breaking it in the process. He flew through the forest at break-neck speeds, hitting the two mile mark in only ten seconds. After a few more, he had reached a large clearing, the middle of which hosted the giant arachnid-like Grimm. Entering Sage Mode one more time, he was shocked to feel seven rather large Grimm nearby. Three were Deathstalkers, including the one in front of him, two were King Taijitus, and the two others were Giant Nevermores.

Quite a plethora to choose from, really. Naruto turned on his radio, "Guys, I found seven big Grimm. They're a little scattered around me."

Melissa's voice came back over, "Where are you, Naruto?"

Shortly, Troy and Diana appeared next to Naruto, with Melissa joining them after a few minutes. Naruto pointed at the scorpion Grimm before them, "This is number one. There are two others like it, and a few other Grimm, as well."

Melissa grinned. Time for fun. "Well, let's get their attention." She pulled her rifle off her back, aiming at the Grimm in front of and below them, and firing several rounds at it. Though they seemed to do little damage, the Deathstalker screeched with rage, whipping around to face them. Naruto hopped down to face it, Troy and Diana right behind him.

They all stopped for a moment when multiple other shrieks identical to the Deathstalker's rang out all around them. It seemed that its friends indeed had been alerted to their presence. Naruto grinned to himself. He made his baseball-sized Rasengan in his hand. Truth be told, he was proud of being able to make it this big with only one hand, even if it was still smaller than Ero-Sennin's own. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and saw Troy smirking at him. Naruto nodded, a similar smirk spreading across his face.

The next moment, Naruto and Troy were above the Deathstalker's abdomen, and the blond thrust the majestic blue orb into it, digging into the bony armor, through to the flesh beneath, acting almost like a blender as it ground it up. He let go of the technique, and the scorpion was driven into the ground from the aftereffects.

Those three other Deathstalkers burst into the clearing, each one coming from roughly the same direction. Naruto rolled his eyes, despite knowing this would happen. He pulled out his chokutō, but was taken by surprise when the Deathstalker he and Troy were standing on began to shift around. It wasn't dissolving, meaning it was still alive, even after that.

Naruto and Troy both had the same idea, and they both began to fire multiple rounds into the sizable hole Naruto had left in its armor. Both of them weren't expecting a much larger blast to appear in the wound, but Melissa certainly delivered her help on the fight, still in the tree. Her voice came over the radio, "Get going; there's still those three."

Naruto and Troy each gave a thumbs up to her, before Naruto sped towards them while Troy teleported to the three. Diana was right behind them, giant sword at the ready. Naruto distracted it by leaping over the main part of its body, cutting at various points, leaving Diana and Troy to do damage to it. The rainbow girl swung her sword like it was a toothpick, actually managing to cut off one of the Grimm's pincers. Melissa immediately took her chance, and filled the newly opened wound with ice dust rounds, freezing its insides. One of the ice blooms pierced through its head, skewering its brain, killing it instantly. Two left.

From behind, Diana was almost taken by a stinger, but for Troy teleporting her out of the way and Melissa firing several rounds at the tail. Naruto stabbed one of its eyes, blinding it on its left side. It screeched in pain, but Naruto wasn't done by any means. Or at least, he wouldn't have been. It seemed that these Grimm were figuring out they should work together. That, and the birds had shown up. One of them almost ate Naruto, but he was able to mount it by grabbing onto some feathers after dodging.

From the air, Naruto had a rather great view of the forest around them. He also had a great opening to the weak points on the bird. Using his chakra to keep himself steady, Naruto began to slash at the bird's back over and over, not really doing damage to it. Sighing to himself, he switched over to his pistol, loaded with one of his 'surprises' from the other day: lightning dust. Placing it against the feathered back, he fired once, twice, three times. The Nevermore squawked in pain, beginning to try and throw him off.

He had chakra connecting him to it, so that wasn't a concern he needed to worry about. He decided to end the bird quickly, so he could help his team. Making a quick Rasengan, he thrust it into the bird's back, as with the scorpion before it. With the loudest shriek yet, it fell to the ground, a little ways away from the clearing where the rest of them were. Naruto leapt off of it as it fell, trying to get as close as he could to the clearing by the time he hit the ground.

He managed to get close enough, and began to sprint back, making it to the battle in under a minute. By this point, another Deathstalker was dead, and a King Taijitu had shown up. Diana was still fighting, but Naruto couldn't see where Troy was. Melissa seemed to still be firing at the Grimm, given the ice that would sprout against them. He heard his leader's voice come over the radio, "Naruto! We could use some help here!"

"Coming! Where's Troy?" Naruto asked.

"He's on the other bird. It looks like you gave him an idea."

Naruto looked up, and indeed, there was another Nevermore high above them. He returned his focus to the snake slithering up behind Diana, who was preoccupied with the Deathstalker. She deflected its stinger with the flat of her blade, but the Taijitu was just behind her. Naruto moved in between the two of them, and stabbed upwards through the snake's mouth, managing somehow to not impale his arm on any of the fangs.

Then, of course, he got a rather dumb idea. He climbed into the snake's mouth, and it closed behind him. Melissa was about to scream into her radio, but before she could, Naruto's blade, which had pierced the top of its head, began to move in a circle. Naruto was cutting a hole in its head. The skin fell inwards, and, as it was dissolving, Naruto climbed out, grinning like a madman. Meanwhile, Diana had finished off the other Deathstalker, it having already been half-blinded by Naruto.

Troy appeared next to them, as the husk of the vanishing Nevermore slammed into the ground in the middle of the clearing. Finally, the last of them broke the tree line: the King Taijitu. Naruto glanced at Diana and Troy, grinning ear to ear, and charged the big snake with them, Melissa still playing support.

Barely five minutes later, Team MDNT stood amidst a field where, by all rights, there should have been seven large corpses. It still strange to the blond member of the team that they just faded away. Melissa was the first to speak, "Well, that was fun."

At last did Friday dawn upon the school of Beacon, bringing with it the kind of tension one may find the night before a major holiday. Which, all things considered, made sense, since the Vytal Festival was a major holiday.

Given that they would be spending the next week or so beating the living hell out of each other, Teams RWBY, JNPR, and MDNT all felt that they could use this last free day to hang around. Perhaps training would have been a better use of their time, but no one was telling them that.

Their day began with simply all gathering in the common room of the dorms around noon. No one else was there, presumably because most teams had gone into Vale for the day, to partake in the festivities. But not these three teams. These three teams weren't ones to follow the group. These three were going to spend the whole day at Beacon, especially when it was this devoid of people.

At the moment, they were all just chatting amiably with one another, discussing various topics, such as the upcoming tournament, or plans after the tournament. Naruto found himself speaking with Ruby, Diana, and Nora at one point.

"I don't care how many times you say it; it's not true," Naruto objected. Ruby huffed.

"Oh, and you know everything about it?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

Diana gave her two cents, "You're both wrong!" They turned to her, glaring. Nora chimed in as well.

"I don't get how you three can be so ignorant: Pancakes are obviously the best food there is!" she proclaimed. Naruto shook his head vigorously.

"Ramen is better; I'm sorry."

Ruby covered her ears dramatically, "Cookies can beat all of them easily!"

Diana, despite being in the most important argument of her life, was still beaming away, "I heard Kami likes pretzel buns!" Naruto cocked his head at her.

"Since when do you say Kami?"

"You said he exists!" replied the rainbow girl. Naruto chuckled to himself, shaking his head.

"Who's Kami?" Ruby asked.

"I think you guys call him God?" Naruto half-answered, half-asked.

"You guys are missing the point!" Nora almost yelled. "Pancakes can't be beaten!"

"Ramen is the food of the gods," Naruto countered. Okay, so maybe he was a little biased. But hey, when you're a starving orphan who can get free food from a ramen stand, you tend to pick a favorite food pretty quickly.

Four hours went by quickly in the common room, and soon the teams were thinking up new activities. The first one they picked? Capture. The. Flag. A little lackluster, but for the fact that they were all highly trained super-warriors.

One team was given all of Beacon's grounds, while the other team was given the Emerald Forest. Six vs six, with the captains being decided in rock-paper-scissors. Ruby and Jaune beat Melissa, leaving them as the capture-the-flag captains. Ruby beat Jaune afterwards, and thus she picked first.

"Yang!" came the unsurprising answer.

Jaune picked next, "Pyrrha!"

"Uh… Weiss!"

"Nora!"

Ruby looked between all of them that were left. She pointed at Naruto, "Naruto!"

Jaune had a deviant smile on his face, "Blake."

Yang gave him as dirty a look as she could. At the same time, she had to admire him for it. Ruby didn't skip a beat, "Troy!" A little surprising it took so long to reach him, considering that he could teleport. You know, right past them.

"Ren."

"Melissa!"

"Diana."

Ruby clapped her hands together, obviously excited, "Let's go over the rules one more time! Remember, you have to have the flag in plain sight. No hiding it in trees!" She gave a cute pout to Jaune. "Dividing line is Beacon Cliff. First person to get up or over the cliff with the flag wins."

Jaune's team nodded, then ran off towards the forest with the bright red flag, roughly ten feet tall. Ruby's team had a similar flag, but it was blue. And they had to find out where and how to guard it. Naruto looked around, not seeing anywhere great for it.

Ruby handed it to Melissa, and pointed to the top of the student dorms. Naruto had to appreciate her quick thinking. It was a good, hard-to-reach place. When Melissa returned, Ruby launched into her strategy, "Alright guys, here's how we're gonna do this. Naruto and I will guard the flag. Nobody's going to get past us!" She and Naruto high-fived. "Weiss and Melissa, you look around their area from the air. Yang and Troy, wait on top of the cliff for those two to tell you where their flag is, then go get it!"

Naruto couldn't help but smile at how into this she was getting. He wasn't the only one either. Yang was beaming at her little sister. "Right!" several of them said in unison, before scattering. A few moments later, Naruto was next to the flag, with Ruby right there next to him.

"Good plan, Ruby."

She waved him off, a light red hue adorning her cheeks, "Oh, it was nothing special… Just something that seemed obvious."

"Yeah, but we probably won't even see the other team all game, with this plan you've got."

Ruby began jumping up and down excitedly, "OOH! We should hide, and then wait for them to come get our flag! Then, once they do, we tag them!"

"Yeah, ok."

Unfortunately for Ruby's plan, they never saw anyone, as Naruto had joked. Instead, their attention was drawn several hours later by the bright red flag headed their way. They stood up, and saw it was Troy holding it, with a small disgruntled band of people behind him. He had a bit of a cocky smirk on his face, carrying that flag.

As a celebratory party for winning, the three teams regathered in the commons room, but with all sorts of food and drink this time. By now, it was after six, and the first teams were coming back from Vale. For some reason none of the members of the three teams could fathom, all the returning students avoided entering the commons room.

Perhaps it was because of the music Yang had selected, or perhaps it was because of the absolutely taboo light beer being passed around. For Naruto, it wasn't exactly a new experience, but he knew that it probably was for some of the others, Yang not included. Why he thought this? Well, she was the one supplying it, so there was that. And the fact that her uncle was, according to her, always drunk.

Eventually, he elected to remove himself from the small party, beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol. Since he couldn't rely on Kurama to heal him at light speed, he could have theoretically gotten drunk, for the first time. But instead, he decided to keep a level head for the next day.

And so, he went up to the roof, sitting on the edge of it for what must have been the thousandth time. There was something oddly tranquil about the rooftop. But, and seeing as how he had just walked out of the party, it shouldn't have been a surprise, someone had followed him up to the roof. Blake wasn't exactly unwelcome, though. He smiled warmly as she sat down.

"Why're you up here, all alone?" she began.

"Eh, I've never been a big fan of drinking. My godfather, uh, well… he's the one who got me like that. I'd say you would have liked him, but you probably would have spent half your time breaking his fingers. He was a pretty big pervert."

Blake chuckled, but only for a moment, "So, what about your actual dad?"

"What do you mean?"

Blake took a pretty deep breath, likes she was preparing for a long speech, "Well, you told us that your dad created the Rasengan. But you had told me before that it was made by the fourth leader of your village."

Naruto followed along, wondering where the issue was. Amazing he couldn't spot it yet. Blake continued, "So, I'm glad your dad was great and all, but… well, you had also told me you never met your parents, and that no one had ever told you anything about them."

And like that, realization hit Naruto in the face. He had just witnessed the first rip form in his web of lies and half-truths. And one hole would lead to several more, if it wasn't fixed quickly. So he began to think.

But then, suddenly, he stopped. This could be a great opportunity for him. A chance for him to get one of his biggest secrets of his chest, even if it was only to one person. He sighed, "Blake, please keep this a secret, ok? I don't want the others to know about this. I'm worried how they might react."

"Ok."

"Promise me, Blake."

Blake frowned at his sudden change in attitude. It was like when he had told her the story of his fight with his friend. It was Naruto's turn for a deep breath, "My dad was... unique. He had a lot of talent, and so people always called him a prodigy. And he had one talent that was really strong, and helped a lot with his Semblance. It… um… it's hard to describe. People always called it Fūinjutsu. Basically, he wrote seals. Think of Weiss's glyphs, but on a paper, or really any surface. And much more powerful, too."

"Alright… Where are you going with this?"

"We had a problem with a demon. Or, at least, we called it a demon. But it wasn't just some Grimm. What we had to deal with was absolutely monstrous. It was a colossal foxlike being. And it was dangerous, and powerful. It had destroyed a huge part of our village by the time my dad beat it.

But something like that can't just be killed. He needed a better way to deal with it. So, he wrote a seal on his newborn son. And it was meant to imprison the fox."

"Oh…"

Blake seemed shocked, having picked up on what Naruto was saying, in a way. Naruto really hoped this was convincing. Now that he thought about it, he could have passed this off by saying Pain told him. Huh. Oh, well.

"But that's not it. People always assumed that the fox, who we all called the Kyūbi, was too strong, and would break out with no problem."

"Wait, but didn't you just say that your dad was a prodigy at this? Did people not have any faith in his power?" Blake asked incredulously.

Naruto smiled brightly internally. Perhaps Blake was the right person to tell this to. She would probably understand, at least a little. Funnily enough, Ero-Sennin had actually said something almost exactly the same one time. He finished, "No, they didn't. They always thought the Kyūbi would break free, and kill them all. So they always ostracized me, telling me I was nothing. As for how I found out who my dad was… Well, I almost did lose control, on the mission last month. But my dad was really smart, and he said he worked it into the seal that he would show up if I ever lost control. I got to talk to him for a while." He grinned at the memory. "Do you get why I don't want anyone else to know this?"

Blake frowned with a mixture of concern and happiness. She could see why this should be private, but at the same time… "But… you're a good person. I know you'd never do anything to hurt anyone!" Blake seemed to be getting frantic over the subject. "And I'm sure everyone else would agree. You're not this 'Kyūbi' thing, you're Naruto! You're-"

She was cut off by Naruto gently grabbing her chin, and pulling her in. He kissed her lightly on her forehead. When he looked into her shocked eyes again, she could see them glistening, and he was smiling.

"Thank you, Blake."

Eh… I don't know. I think that at some point, I'm going to need to go back and rewrite the dialogue for that last scene. But right now, I'm far too lazy for something like that.

And thus, Naruto reveals one of arguably the biggest things about himself to Blake, albeit in a haphazard, roundabout way. I'm okay with it though. Still have no idea how I'm meant to have him reveal his being a ninja. Not exactly a common conversation:

"Hey, man, did I ever tell you that I'm a ninja from another dimension?"

"Wait, what?"

Until Chapter 15!