NITL

Volume One

Arc Two: Initiation

Chapter Sixteen: TRY HARD or DIE HARD


"Did you hear that!? Some girl's in trouble!" Yang asked, her arms cocking to activate her weapon. Blake simply looked around, her ribbon twitching every now and then.

"I don't think so…" Blake commented, having heard something else. The sound she heard was rather different than what Yang heard. In fact, it sounded like…


"RUN!" Naruto screamed, rushing through the forest with Ichigo sprinting besides him. The two ducked and jumped over twigs and branches, moving their legs as fast as they could as the feline Grimm chased after them.

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, WHY does there have to be a large freaking Grimm behind us!?" Naruto wailed in fear of being eaten alive.

"Well, maybe if you hadn't tripped on its tail, we wouldn't be in this mess!" Ichigo yelled.

"HEY, let's not throw any blames around here!" Naruto shot back.

The two ran and ran until the trees diminished and a clearing is seen. At the end of the clearing, however, was a deep gorge with the other side of the forest on the other side. Naruto gazed at the gorge, thinking for a moment before he turned to Ichigo.

"Hey, I think we can make this jump!"

Ichigo glared at him, appalled, "ARE YOU INSANE!?"

"…" Naruto bit his lips. "Yeah, you're right, forget it!"

As one, the two split right where the gorge began, doing a deep turn that caused a large cloud of dust and dirt. Not knowing or seeing the gorge, the Grimm continued on, eager to eat both of the humans that dared to disturb its catnap. Mostly the blonde one, he smelled better.

The Grimm growled, the dust getting into its eyes as it continued to run. Suddenly, it felt weightless. Screeching to a halt, the feline looked around, the dust starting to settle in. Looking down, the Grimm could only let out a small panicked meow before staring back at the ground it was once on. Gravity took hold and the Grimm was suddenly sent falling down into the bottom of the gorge.

Panting and wheezing, Naruto grinned as glared at the cat Grimm. "HAH! Take, take that, you feline bastard! Shows you to –haa– to ambush us!"

"Let's –wheeze– never do that again…!" Ichigo panted.

"Ag-agreed!"


"PLEASE! Please, oh please, oh please, oh please be a part of my friends!"

Tsuna groaned as Luffy continued to beg and beg for his permission to become a part of his "future group of hunters that go around the world hunting for treasures and killing Grimm" group. The two continued to walk for what seemed like hours, swatting branches away from their faces and watching for any Grimm.

Sooner or later, they finally reached a clearing within the forest. Tsuna sighed, seeing the temple he had seen earlier at the edge of the clearing.

"Finally," He thought to himself. Seeing a familiar shade of yellow hair, Tsuna immediately smiled. At least there's one thing happening today that brightened his day. No pun intended.

"Yang!"

"Tsuna!" Yang greeted with a happy grin.

"I take it you know each other," Blake rhetorically asked.

"Yep!" Yang grinned, "We're totally the best friends and, dare I say it, un-shell-prable!"

Tsuna immediately palms his face while Blake held a confused face. Trying to figure out what the blonde girl meant, Blake simply stated, "What?"

"Don't bother," Tsuna answered, "Some stuff are best not answered…"

"Alright…" Blake slowly replied, not sure how to take the whole situation. Luffy simply stood at the side, his head flushed red in concentration while steam threatened to leave his ears.

"Anyway, did you hear that scream earlier, Chestnut?"

"Scream?" Tsuna wondered, remembering a pair of familiar screams earlier, "You mean Ruby and Weiss?"

Yang blinked, "Ruby and who?"


"RUUUBYYYYY!"

Ruby blinked, the force of the wind against her eyes preventing her from seeing clearly. "WHAT!?"

"I'm telling you that THIS is a TOTALLY and COMPLETELY INSANE IDEA!"

"Wha- Oh come on, Weiss! Stop worrying!" Ruby replied back to her white-colored partner. "Everything'll be JUST fine!"

"Worry!? Worry!? WORRY!?" Weiss screamed back, "I am SO beyond WORRYING!"

Ruby pursed her lips. "In a good way!?"

"In a BAD way! In a VERY BAD WAY!"

"If it's so bad, then why don't we just jump!?"

"ARE YOU CRAZY!?" The heiress couldn't help but scream. When silence answered, she cracked open her eyes to only see the black feathers of the Nevermore she was on. Quickly looking down – her very small fear of heights not playing a part on this – Weiss saw a falling black and red figure in the sky below her.

"WHY YOU LITTLE RED BI-


"Well, that was fun…" Negi rhetorically commented, using his javelin as a means to levitate over the forest. Behind him, his partner and two others flew alongside each other. Stella's right eye was burning in blue fire while Natsu was using his sword as a pseudo-jet pack and Maka used her scythe – which Negi found out was the combined form of her kusarigama – as her own method of levitation.

"I know right!? We should totally do that again!" Natsu cheered with his arms raised up high. Almost immediately, two members of the little groupie shouted,

"NO!"

"Pooh, you guys are no fun…" Natsu grumbled, crossing his arms.

"Natsu, I swear if you go looking for more Grimm, I'll beat the living shit out of you!" Maka yelled at her partner. Natsu shivered for a moment, remembering a particular long lost memory, before shaking his head and continuing to fly with his associates.

"Scream…" Stella whispered.

"Huh?"

Everyone turned to the quiet girl, seeing her look at something far off to the distance. Turning around to see where Stella was looking at, the group faintly heard a scream coming from the same direction. Looking closely, they could see white over black with blonde hair over it flying over to their direction. Squinting, Natsu could make out what looked like a sword, but with the wind and how fast the blonde was flying, it was rather difficult for him to clearly see.

"Is that-…?"

"aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAHHH!"

"OOMPH!"

Natsu, Maka and Stella all stared as the blonde flew right into Negi, knocking him off his weapon and into the sky alongside with the blonde. There was a pause as the weapon, with no wielder to keep it active, dropped to the forest below.

"Umm…?" Maka didn't have any words to say as Natsu watched Negi disappear with the flying boy.

"Was that Joan?" Natsu asked himself in repeat. Maka simply stared back at her partner, wandering in her memories to see if she ever met someone named "Joan" yet.


"You hear somethin'?"

"Hmm?" Ichigo blinked, trying to hear what Naruto heard. Hearing nothing, the orange head shrugged, "I don't hear anything."

"You sure?" Naruto asked. Seeing a shrug being given as an answer, Naruto simply scrunched his face. "Hmmnn, I'm pretty sure I hear somebody screaming…"

Naruto looked up whereas Ichigo deadpanned. "What'd you mean you're 'pretty sure'…? That just means that it might or might not have been a scream. Hey, you listening to me?"

"Yeah… sure, uhh… hold that thought, Strawberry…"

"What'd you call me-!?"

Ichigo covered his eyes when Naruto suddenly vanished in a golden flash. Twitching an eye at the empty spot where his partner used to be, the orange head growled. "Why that yellow little fuc-"


"Seriously Tsuna! What did you mean by Ruby and that Weiss chick screaming?" Yang asked for the fourth time. While she was asking her question, Tsuna and Blake were both looking up into the sky. Luffy was too, but for a totally different reason.

"Ooh! A birdy!"

Tsuna gulped, his throat almost dried after not drinking something to parch his throat for so long. "W-well, uhh…"

"What?" Yang asked, turning form Tsuna to Blake after the black headed girl pats her. Looking at her partner, Yang looks as Blake points up.

"hhhhheeeeaAAAAADS UUUUUPPP!?"

"Ru-!?"

Yang blinked when her sister apparently fell from the sky before disappearing from a flash of yellow. "What in the-!?"

Ruby creaked her eye open to see a familiar face holding her as they flew through the sky. Sort of.

"Hey Ruby! How's it hangin'?"

The redhead deadpanned. "That was terrible, Naruto."

Naruto blinked. "Was it?"

"Yes. Yes it was. And you should feel terrible for saying that."

"Oh, my bad."

Ruby looked around, "By the way, how are we…?"

She trailed off when she noticed the clouds moving up in high speed. Gazing up, the girl watched as the clouds began to grow smaller, if that little wording pattern was even correct. Ruby looked down only to see the ground now growing larger within each passing seconds.

"We're falling, aren't we?"

"Well, you were falling so I just sorta, y'know, jumped and caught ya…" Naruto offered with no clear evidence of wanting to stop them from falling into their impending doom. Ruby sighed with tears in her eyes.

"And I wanted to become a great Huntre- OOFH!"

"OWWWW!"

"WAAAAAAAAAH!"

"AAAAAAAAAHHH!"

Ruby was interrupted as two more figures crashed into both her and Naruto, enacting a surprised yelp of shock and pain. The pain was short and sweet, but it was the only stimulating emotion the two Hunters-to-be had before they crashed violently into a tree and all went black.


A/N:

So I just noticed that in the Prologue, Yang had (or will have) her right arm bisected. I dunno about you guys, but I was a bit weirded out.

Anyway, let's get back on track! Some of you guys seem to be worried over the many character's I've added into the story. Well, to be honest, I only added them to fill in the blanks of the black silhouetted characters we often see in Volume 1 of the RWBY canon. But after a while, I began to make backstories for them, and soon enough, I now have big plans for each and every one of them (almost), especially a certain Dragonslayer counterpart.

Either way, I got big big BIG plans for this story, and I can't wait to show it to you guys!

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