NITL
Volume One
Arc One: Beginning of a New Story
Chapter Three: Getting Mugged
Rushing to the café he had just exited not even 5 minutes ago, Naruto looked around the fire. Seeing several workers getting up and either helping the few customers or trying to reorganize the dropped boxes of Dust and miscellanies items, Naruto spot Carol, trapped underneath two cupboards, as two other workers were on the case of getting her out.
Activating his Semblance, the blonde's outfit soon glowed a tiny bit of yellow before he grabbed the cupboards.
"Brace yourself, Carol!"
And with a heave, threw the cupboard outside where the sound of breaking ceramics and wood were heard. Flinching at the sound, Naruto stepped back as the workers beside him ran in to help Carol up. Looking around, he couldn't find anything significant enough to show what could have cause the explosion.
What he did notice, however, was the sound of a Bullhead flying overhead. Immediately looking up, Naruto was given the view of the flying contraption floating above their heads. The doors on the Bullhead suddenly opened, showing the familiar uniformed grunts as they shined lights upon the café. Squinting his eyes, Naruto could barely see the grunts jump down to the café.
"It's the White Fang!"
One of the customers, a female one with a fancy hat, screamed out loud before one of the infamous group's member knocked her to the ground. More and more grunts began to land in the café, blinded by the lights from the Bullhead, all pointing their weapons, be they swords or guns, at the customers and workers.
"Hands up!"
"Kneel, humans!"
Naruto blinked as a gun found itself on the back of his head. "On the ground, kid, now!"
He simply blinked and turned to look at the barrel of the gun pointing at him. Raising a brow, Naruto simply stared as the masked man yelled, "I'm not kidding, kid, on the ground!"
"N-Naruto…!" He heard Carol attempt to get his attention. However, he ignored her in favor of looking straight in the eyes of the White Fang member. It was an old trick he learned from one of his former mentors back when he was just a preteen. When in a dire situation, if you even stare at the problem right in the eye, then the perpetrator would usually back down or flinch back.
Of course, Naruto mistook this to being used in nearly every single dire situation he'd been in. Including, but not limited to, Grimm, fellow Humans, Faunus, and even wild animals at times.
The light scars he bear on his chest shows just how courageously idiotic the blonde could be.
Upon noticing the man flinch, Naruto immediately sprang into action. "Hah!" Knocking the gun out of his face with his right hand, Naruto lifted his sheathed sword on his left, and jabbed the White Fang on the chest, forcing him to gasp for breath while kneeling on the ground.
Spinning once, Naruto kicked the man right where the corner of the jaw was and knocked him out.
"What the fu-!?"
"Get him!"
Blinking, Naruto turned his gaze at the small group of White Fang grunts rushing towards him with a cutlass in hand. Narrowing his eyes, Naruto gripped his sword, which was a traditional oriental katana, and unsheathed it. Raising his blade, Naruto stopped the first grunt before quickly kicking him in the chin. Spinning for a back kick, Naruto knocked the man out before turning to the second grunt. Noticing the twitching bear ears, Naruto dodged a strike and went for his own attack.
Quickly turning his sword around, Naruto knocked the second grunt out with the back of his sword.
Immediately soon after, Naruto raised his sword to block a third strike from the third grunt, this time a female, if the slimmer waist was any signification. Trading blows for a while, Naruto moved to a different approach by immediately using a single-handed strike before moving his left hand to grab the Faunus by her collar. Shrieking, the Faunus yelled before she was slammed onto the floor. Looking up, the last thing she saw was the bottom of Naruto's hilt before she blacked out.
Turning around, Naruto was met with several of the remaining White Fang pointing their guns at him. Narrowing his eyes, Naruto blinked when the ground shook.
"What seems to be the problem?" A deep voice asked in such a deep accent that even Naruto had a slight trouble deciphering what was being said.
"C-Captain!?" A grunt voiced out.
A twitch on the eye was the only reaction Naruto could give as he stared at the hunk of muscle in front of him. Well, that as well as, "Holy shiz…?" that he managed to blurt out.
Wearing a modified white uniform of the White Fang, the man stood at a frightening height of almost one-hundred-and-ninety-eight centimeters high. Despite his age, Naruto could still call himself tall, being at the height of 176 cm. However, looking at the man in front of him certainly made Naruto feel small. The two stared at each other, one in slight amusement, while the other in complete nervousness.
Looking at the towering man, it was obvious that he was a Faunus, no offense. He had no extra animal ears or tail, but he had a set of two recognizable horns on each side of his head. "An ox Faunus…" Naruto thought to himself, "Or maybe bison. Either way, he's obviously a bovine Faunus…" Despite being human, Naruto had a rather uncanny smarts on Faunus anatomy, even their sister species, the Fauna.
Going back to the White Fang captain's description, the man had messy curly brunette hair. His mask was customized to look like a raging bison, which Naruto almost snorted at, and around his arms were blocky gauntlets with hooves covering the fingers. The man cocked his head back to laugh.
"How amusing!" He spoke with his heavy accent. "Seasoned White Fangs and you can't even match a single nameless human boy!"
"B-but sir-!"
"Silence," The calm tone the Captain used was so eerie and grim that Naruto couldn't help but shiver. "Those who can't even do a simple job can do nothing but expect punishment."
The grunts all shivered at the last comment. Naruto bit the inside of his lip, not knowing or even noticing the silver haired man earlier was calmly sipping his coffee. Gripping his katana tighter, the blonde turned to face the bovine Faunus. There was a stare off for a few seconds before the Captain suddenly moved in front of Naruto.
His eyes widening faster than ever before, Naruto quickly raised his weapon to block the incoming strike from above. The horned Faunus chuckled.
"Impressive! To see your weapon standing against my own, it must be specially crafted!"
"Heh, what can I say…?" Naruto gritted, "It's metal pure steel…!"
Whether the man noticed the pun or not, was not shown on his face (or rather, nothing did, since his face was covered by a mask), but the slight cough from the sidelines showed that the joke wasn't really appreciated at this situation. Slightly frowning at the critiques, Naruto yelped when he was suddenly grabbed by the Captain and thrown to the side.
Grunting as he made contact to the wall, Naruto immediately jumped onto his feet and rushed to the Faunus. His grip on his sword's handle, the blonde quickly unsheathed his weapon. Tapping onto his Semblance for single moment, Naruto disappeared before reappearing behind the Captain, who raised his gauntlets to block against a hidden attack. Sheathing his blade, Naruto shocked to see only a scratch on the larger man's gauntlets.
The man could only laugh, clearly amused at Naruto's ability to cut him, if only just barely.
"How amusing! To think that a no name human is able to cut someone such as I!"
"Believe me, give me some time, and I'll cut you in half…" Naruto taunted.
Not falling for the obvious taunt, the Captain simply appeared before Naruto again, attempting to flinch the young man. Unable to stop himself from flinching once more, Naruto was forced to become the victim of the giant once more, as his leg was grabbed onto before being hoisted into the air.
"WOOOOAAA- GAH!" Naruto grunted as he slammed onto the floor, creating a small crater in his image.
Once again hoisted into the air, Naruto was slammed two more time on the opposite side, creating a double crater.
Having what he assumed to be a concussion, Naruto was unable to concentrate hard enough to activate his Semblance. "Gahah…" Naruto could only moan as he was lifted into the air upside down.
"Why won't you let go of your sword?" The Faunus asked, honestly curious as to why Naruto wouldn't let go of his weapon. Despite his left arm shaking heavily, the boy would refuse to let go. "If you let go, I can guaranty that, while you will may be in intensive care for a while, you will still live."
Ignoring the cries of his underlings, the Captain waited patiently to hear Naruto's answer.
Gasping and rasping for breath, Naruto smirked. "If… if I let go of my sword here right now… then I'll be going against the hopes of everyone. The people of my village. The children, the old men, the people of Vale, and even all of Remnant…" Pausing to get rid of the blood that filled his mouth, Naruto continued, "But most of all… I'll be going against my own words and my own self… and if there's one thing you should know 'bout me… is that I don't go back on my words… and I never go back on my own self… so it doesn't matter what the fuck you say… I'm never lettin' go of my sword…"
The Faunus was silent for a very long time. In this silence, Naruto could only watch as the man silently lift his left hand, covering Naruto's own arm.
"Very well."
And with a pull, a large popping sound was made.
"GWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" Naruto screamed in pain as his dislocated shoulder simply hung where it was.
"Now, drop the sword."
Gasping for breath to calm himself, Naruto glared at the larger man. "Fuck… you…"
"… In that case, I'll-…"
"Now now…"
Everyone turned to see a familiar silver hair man as he walked up to the group, calmly sipping his warm beverage. Most of the White Fang raised a brow at the gutsy man while a few, as well as the Captain, widened their eyes in surprise. Some even grew pale.
"Before you do anything else to that poor boy, I would like you to really think about what you're about to do next."
"Yeah? And why should we do that, old man?" One of the stupider grunts asked, pointing his pistol at the man.
"No DON'T-!"
The Captain called too late, as the grunt suddenly disappeared from his standing point. Naruto could only stare in awe at what the old man did without lifting a finger. "Whoa…"
"Judging from your reaction, should I be entitled to believe that you know who I am?"
"Ozpin, 'The Great and Powerful'…" The Captain began, dropping Naruto onto the ground, enacting a cry from the boy, "Known to be one of the six strongest Hunters in Remnant, the Headmaster of Beacon Academy… As well as the man responsible for that incident…" The Captain took a single calming breathe before continuing, "What is a man such as yourself doing in such a shoddy place like this?"
The man seemed to pause for a bit, thinking over his answer before answering, "Well, I do need some fresh air once in a while… And, I do love the smell of a newly opened coffee shop."
The Captain said nothing as he single handedly cracked both his knuckles at the same time.
"But this isn't the time to be asking me questions," Ozpin pondered, "No. Right now, the time is for you to be asking yourself the question… can you really afford to be fighting me right now…?"
At that, the White Fang Captain paused and looked to his left, then to his right, looking over his fellow White Fang. Growling to himself as his superb hearing heard the sounds of the police coming, the Captain snarled out, "Let's go."
And like that, the White Fang disappeared, all boarding the Bullhead before flying off into the night.
Ozpin watched, quietly and calmly sipping his beverage as Naruto groaned. Lamenting at his dislocated shoulder as he tied it to a nearby column, he turned to the older man and asked, "How… why… who are you?"
Ozpin paused for the sake of dramatics before answering, "Right now, I believe you should be more worried about your own injury as well as helping those who need help. Such is your word as well as your own self, is it not?"
Grunting and moaning at the pain of rolling his left shoulder back into place, Naruto gave it a light massage before quietly agreeing. He turned and quickly jogged to Carol as he asked what he could do to help. While this happen, the police finally arrived and began helping the injured.
The sheriff walked up to Ozpin and asked, "Sir, is there anything else you would like us to do?"
Ozpin hummed, drinking his beverage once more, before answering, "Yes. Yes I believe I do." Turning to Naruto, a calculative look in his eye, Ozpin simply took out his scroll and looked mildly interested at the message from his co-worker-slash-secretary at her own discovery of a Dust Shop robbery from one infamous thief, as well as a certain young girl who needed some discipline for late-night activities. The man smiled, thinking over how eventful the beginning of the year has been so far.
A/N:
Merry Christmas Everybody!
So we got to see some action. Finally. Granted, it's only a few chapters in so far, so please hold your words for now! I am surprised, though, that nobody picked up on the references to The Pelican shop and workers.
