NITL
Volume One
Arc Three: Class Time
Chapter Twenty-Two: First Official Team Meeting!
"So how should we do this?"
Ichigo stopped midway during his biting of breakfast burritos. Raising a brow at his blonde leader while lowering his breakfast, the orange head questions, "What do you mean?"
"I mean, like, we're a team now! So… um… I guess we can introduce ourselves?"
As the team's leader mulled over his own suggestion, the rest of the team looked at each other. Except for Luffy who was too busy stuffing his own face with bowls of cereal and a good assortment of fruits. Ignoring Luffy, Tsuna put down his toast.
"Sounds like a good idea. You have something in mind?"
"What'd ya mean?"
"I mean, like an example. Do you want to start it off with something?"
Naruto, chewing on his waffle sticks, wiggled it in his mouth before fully chewing it and swallows. "I guess with likes, dislikes, uhh, what'cha wanna do afterwards and stuff…?"
"Works for me," Ichigo began, "Guess I'll start first. I… don't have a lot of stuff I like… but if I have to choose, I guess it'll be swords… Dislikes? Anything to do with fortune telling, horoscopes and all that fancy feng shui stuff I can live without…" Taking a bit out of his burrito, the orange head continued, "As far as future plans go… I don't really got one at the moment. –swallows– I guess being the same Hunters like my parents."
Tsuna chuckled slightly, deciding to keep the knowledge of him using horoscopes as a hobby a secret for now.
"So," Naruto chewed, ignoring Tsuna's efforts to show him proper etiquettes, "Who's next?"
"OH OH OH OH, I wanna go!" Luffy immediately volunteered.
"Do you even know what we're talking about?" Ichigo had to ask.
Instead of being offended, the straw-hat wearing boy simply laughed, "Well, duh! We're talking about stuff we like, stuff we don't like! And even about what we're gonna do in the future, right!?"
His teammates blinked with surprise, not expecting the most… empty headed of the team to have actually listened to the conversation.
"Anyway! I like a lot of things! Meat! Treasure! Adventure! Meat! My straw-hat! And eating!"
"I'm pretty sure you mentioned 'meat' twice…" Ichigo deadpanned.
Luffy blinked. "You're right! I should say it again! MEAT!"
The Mistralian simply dropped his face into his hand as the boy began laughing out loud. Tsuna began shaking his head while Naruto tries to figure out why saying it three times was worth the effort.
"So yeah! I don't like vegetables! They're gross!" At this, Luffy makes a disgusted face, "And my dream for the future is to go on an awesome adventure and go treasure hunting!"
"Loud…" Ichigo thought to himself as he finished his breakfast. Besides him, Naruto comments,
"That's pretty cool."
"And a bit predictable…" Tsuna murmured, cleaning up his breakfast. Clearing his throat, the boy began, "I'll go n-…"
"I like gardening and staying with other people!" Naruto suddenly interrupted, not noticing Tsuna's face of shock. Lufffy snickered while Ichigo rolled his eyes as their leader continued, "I don't like sour and bitter food and I don't really got a dream for now, but I do wanna fight to protect people."
Finishing his introduction, Naruto turned to Tsuna for his turn only to pause at the mild glare the boy was aiming at him. Blinking in confusing, as well as weirded out by how much Luffy was now laughing, Naruto had to ask, "What?"
Realizing that his team leader hadn't realized, and most likely won't, Tsuna sighed and rested his head onto his hand. "Nothing," He responded, "The things I like are tinkering with weaponry and their specs as well as the color of yellow."
"But you wear orange…" Ichigo had to interject.
"Not that I'm complaining!" Naruto grinned, liking the fact that two of his teammates also share the color he favors, not realizing that Ichigo dislikes it and Tsuna wore it out of habit.
"Well," Tsuna coughed into his hand, "That isn't by choice… anyway, I don't like being forced into doing things and insects…"
"That's a pretty shitty dislike…" Ichigo once more commented as Luffy was now laughing even harder. Naruto had to bite his inner cheeks from laughing as he went over what Tsuna had a dislike over.
"W-well, it's more of a fear than a dislike…" Tsuna sheepishly admitted.
"That right?"
"Yep."
All went silent as Tsuna and Ichigo played with their food, paying little attention to Luffy laughing his breath away while Naruto manages to stop his laughter. As the morning went on, the two thought to themselves, "Well this is one unique first team meeting…"
Sighing as he waited for Luffy to stop laughing, Tsuna thought to himself, "I wonder how Ruby and Yang's team are having their first team meeting…"
"Most boring first team meeting ever…" Yang thought to herself as she watched, not listened, to Weiss list off her likes and dislikes as if it was a shopping list. Like Naruto, Ruby had thought to use a simply template for introducing the team member to each other with likes, dislikes and dreams for the future. Unfortunately for them, Weiss has kept a list – an actual legit 3-foot long list, Yang might add – that listed off each and every thing Weiss either favored or found distasteful.
Yawning into her hand, Yang had to prevent herself from interrupting Weiss again – lest she had to endure endless hours of the princess lecture her, the blonde saw what happened when Ruby did it last night – as the girl whipped out another list of things she liked or disliked. Twitching an eyebrow, the girl could only groan into her hand and finish her thoughts, "… of all time…"
"We must do something about this…"
"For once, you and I agree…" Qrow Branwen muttered as he glugged onto his flask.
Glynda frowned at the Hunter's behavior as she crossed her arms. Next to her, Ozpin sat with his forehead leaning onto his hands as he listened to his colleague from Atlas speak his mind.
"It was a good thing that you called us, Qrow-…"
The headmaster of Atlas Academy was interrupted when Qrow said, "I didn't call you because of that, Jimmy. I called you simply because you were the closest one I could get to in short notice. In case you hand't notice, we were nowhere near Vale or Vacuo, and under no circumstances was I gonna call Mistral for help anytime soon. You were simply the best choice at the time. Don't let it get into your head too much. If I could, I would've rather call my sister than you."
There was a pause as James Ironwood coughed.
"Yes…" He finally began with much hesitation. "Well, nonetheless… we managed to save Amber. Now we must find out who the culprit is-…"
"If I may, General…" Ozpin was the one to interrupt this time.
Nodding at the man he trusted, James listened as Ozpin continued, "This is simply the first days of the school year. Let's not waste too much effort to find the culprit."
"Are you suggesting we don't?"
"I said no such thing, James. I'm simply saying that we must be careful, especially at this time of the year," Ozpin explained. "With the Vytal Festival only a year away and the start of a new school year beginning, we must act; but we must act with caution."
Raising a brow, Qrow had to stop drinking to listen to what Ozpin had to say.
"This is not be the first time that a Maiden has been ambushed. And I hardly doubt this will be the last," Folding his hands in front of him, Ozpin slowly said, "What we must do ensure that whoever has become a Maiden, stolen or not, will not use it for the wrong reasons or for the wrong intents. As Bartholomew would quote, 'if we cannot learn from our history, then we are destined to repeat it'."
"Seems to me that we're doing a pretty crappy job learning about history then…" Qrow decided to quip.
"Qrow!" Glynda growled.
Sighing, Ozpin looked at his fellow headmaster. "Nevertheless, upon these next days," Ozpin's lack of mentioning of "weeks" or "months" was not hidden from the other occupants, "We will have to act carefully and with great caution. What is dangerous about the Queen isn't her methods or her powers, it's her patience."
The room grew quiet as everyone soaked up the words of the wise man.
Clearing his throat, James asked, "Then what should we do?"
At this, Ozpin smiled.
"We do as the Queen orders," He says almost mockingly, remembering a certain Faunus, "We wait."
A/N: Sorry for the wait as well as the short chapter... life's been giving me a hard time. I know, it's a shitty excuse, but it's the only one I got, so you'll have to make do.
I'll do my best to try and update my stories, but please have patience.
