-Last time-
"We gotta show you some-!" Qrow covered both of their mouths with his hands, effectively muting them.
"Sorry, would love to stay and chat but me and Ozzy here have a job to do." He told them bluntly before pulling his hands back.
"He is correct," Ozpins said as he dusted himself off and accepted his cane from Pyrrha with a nod of thanks, "We have to get going, but may I ask what you all are doing up at this hour, and why is Ms. Valkyrie not present?"
"She's barricaded in the bathroom, giving a bath to a faunus kid she found on campus and now wants to adopt." Blake told them bluntly getting blinks of surprise.
"…"
"… He wouldn't happen to be about this tall, blonde, nine red tails, and love to eat dust, would he?" Qrow asked while holding his hand at hip height, getting baffled looks from all the teens.
-And Now-
"Yeah, how'd you guess?" Yang asked, being the first one to snap from her surprise, making Qrow laughed as he took out a flask and took a long draught.
"Because it wasn't a guess, I was the one who brought that little brat here. Which was a major pain in the ass by the way."
"Swear Jar!"
Qrow just stuck his tongue out childishly at Ruby as he took another drink. While on the outside he was the perfect picture of calm and collected, internally Ozpin was palming his face with a sigh. Why couldn't he have a single hunter or huntress that didn't have some odd quirk or unusual personality? Just one!
Finished with his mental plea, the headmaster of Beacon Academy walked over to the bathroom door and rapped on it a few times with the top of his cane. "Miss Valkyrie, would you please come out here so we can talk?" Straining his hearing slightly, he could just make out a soft muffled gasp from the other side followed by light footsteps as something got closer to the door.
"P-p-professor O-Ozpin?" Nora's voice called through the door nervously, making the man nod slightly despite her being unable to see it.
"Yes it is, now I just want to talk about the boy-"
"No! I'm not coming out! You aren't taking him!" She cut him off, surprising the grey-haired man at the sudden change from nervous to determined, though given her personality he really shouldn't have been.
"Please open the door Miss Valkyrie, this is a very serious situation you are getting yourself into." Ozpin tried to reason with the orangette, sighing after a minute or so when the only response he got was the sound of the shower turning on. "…I'll call Glynda," He said while rubbing his forehead and pulling out his scroll.
"Don't bother, I can handle this." Qrow said confidently as he approached the door, taking Crescent Rose from Ruby as he passed, much to her displeasure.
"Hey! Give Crescent Rose back you jerk!" She demanded while pounding her fists uselessly against his back.
"In a second brat, just need to do… this!"
As he was talking, Qrow activated the weapon, causing it to unfold into a massive red and black scythe with a curved grey blade, two smaller hook blades opposite of the main blade, scope, bolt lever, and cartridge slot in the middle of the handle, and a blade attached to the bottom of the handle. With an almost casual looking motion, Qrow swung the blade twice at the door before deactivating the scythe and tossing it over his shoulder and into the waiting arms of Ruby.
After a few seconds passed for a classic dramatic pause, the door fell to the ground with a solid *THUD*, the hinges and lock cut clean through. Peering over the various items used to block the now doorless doorway, Qrow open his mouth to talk only to duck down when he heard a cry of "BAD MAN!" just being missed by the bolt of electricity that flew past where his head was. Unfortunately, this ended up leaving poor Ruby in the line of fire as the charge quickly homed in on the large piece of metal in her arms.
The short girl's shriek of surprise was turned into a garbled mess as her hair puffed out into a static afro and her weapon fell to the floor with a clatter with her following a few seconds later. Yang was at her sister's side in a heartbeat, making sure she was alright while Qrow chuckled awkwardly. "Riiiiight, kind of forgot to mention. That brat doesn't like me… at all."
"Oh really, what could possibly give you that idea?" Blake asked sarcastically while rolling her eyes. Qrow didn't have a chance to give one of his usual quippy returns as another blast, this time a tiny fast moving white cloud, shot through a small gap where he was hiding. Colliding with his hip, everything it came in contact with was suddenly flash frozen, including his flask which shattered to pieces from the sudden temperature change.
"…"
Qrow stared silently at the spilled alcohol with a blank expression. "Hit the deck!" Yang screamed as she dragged Ruby's limp form behind Pyrrha's bed, said red-head yelping as she was dragged down along with Blake a few seconds afterwards.
"Now you're asking for it you little punk!" Qrow roared as he bashed through the makeshift blockade with ease. Just as quickly as his anger came though, it puttered back out and was replaced with fear at the scene before him. A soaked (but still clothed thankfully) Nora holding little Naruto (who was naked) protectively as he growled adorably at the intruder, all nine of his tails pointing towards Qrow as the tips glowed brightly.
"…oh shit," Was all he managed to say before absolute chaos broke out.
Dozens of multicolored blasts shot from the tail tips, hitting Qrow all over and sending him flying right back out of the window he and Ozpin had arrived in with an effeminate scream. Even though he was gone, the blast continued forcing everyone to duck for cover like Yang had as everything in the room was frozen, burned, blown up, zapped, turned to stone, collapsed into itself, soaked in water, blown around, or roasted with hot air.
The mayhem continued for several minutes, slowly dying down until it was finally safe for the teens and headmaster to come out of their cover. *Long Low Whistle* "Daaaaaaaaamn, that kid sure had the element of surprise against Qrow huh?" Yang punned as she, Blake, and Pyrrha peeked out from under the remains of the red-head's bed to see the utterly destroyed room that was Team JNPR's dorm.
"God dammit Yang," Weiss, who was cowering behind Jaune's overturned bed with Ozpin and Ren, and Blake said simultaneously as they palmed their faces. Everyone else was focused on the equally destroyed bathroom, where they could see the unusual faunus had passed out, his tails dangling limply next to him and somehow only four feet long now and minus the colored tips.
Nora just stood there awkwardly as she held the naked child. "Uh, I'm ready to talk?" She offered weakly.
-Twenty Minutes Later-
"Isn't this a bit excessive?" Nora asked with a dull look as she sat on a couch in Ozpins office. Her question was towards the straightjacket, rope, and giant chains she was currently being restrained with. Naruto was right next to her sleeping peacefully as his now half-sized tails had wrapped around every inch of his body minus his face, with bits of one of Nora's shirts peeking out here and there.
"No,"
"Nope,"
"I say it isn't enough,"
"Definitely not,"
"Not even close,"
"Not taking any chances here,"
"Sorry Nora, but it really isn't,"
These were the responses she got from her team and Team RWBY who were standing nearby making her pout slightly.
Huh, she didn't know if she should be annoyed at that, or proud.
Ozpin was sitting at his desk, Glynda standing slightly to the side of him with her usual stern expression replaced with tired aggravation as she rubbed her temple, while Qrow was at the far side of the room covered in bruises, burns, and water (both from Naruto's assault and him landing inside of a fountain during his second trip through a window) drinking from his backup flask.
"Will you all be quiet and pay attention." Glynda said snappily, she really just wanted to get this over with and catch some sleep. The students immediately clammed up with frightened faces, you didn't mess with a cranky Glynda, the last poor sap to do so was in therapy for a week with T.W.L.S. or 'Terrified of Witch Lady Syndrome'.
Nodding thankfully to the busty blond professor, Ozpin looked the group over carefully before locking his gaze on Nora. "Now then Miss Valkyrie, I understand why you reacted as you had. Given recent events that have happened, anybody with even a half decent conscience would be reluctant to turn young Naruto here over to the authorities. But that does not mean you can just blatantly refuse to report of such a thing all together."
"You should consider yourself lucky that we already intended for the boy to stay here for the foreseeable future, otherwise you would be punished severely for your actions tonight." Glynda said, throwing in her own two-bits. Nora didn't even flinch though, her eyes holding steady against the headmaster's.
"Um, what's going on?" Ruby asked her teammates quietly as the apparent staring contest dragged on.
"How should I know, I've been right next to you the whole time you dolt!" Weiss whisper/yelled, making the silver eyed girl squeak in fright and duck behind the mighty yellow fortress known as Yang.
"Oi! No need to bite her head off ice queen." Yang said while petting her younger sister on the head like she was a puppy.
"I told you not to call me that!"
"What'cha gonna do about it!"
"Why you little-"
*Creeeeeak*
Both girls froze as an ominous sound of something straining reached their ears. Turning their heads in sync slowly, their faces paled rapidly as they came upon the terrifying sight of Glynda bending her riding crop nearly in twine, a vein visible bulging on her forehead, the glare from the light reflecting off her glasses eerily, and a purple flame like aura lazily emanating from her body. "Be… Silent."
"Yes Ma'am/Yes Ma'am!" The two girls said with meek voices as they tried to make themselves look as small as possible.
With the silence returned, everyone turned their attention back to Nora and Ozpin who finally seemed to finish with their silent conversation. Nodding in apparent satisfaction, Ozpin pushed his glasses back up from the bridge of his nose with a small grin that caused Glynda's eyebrow to twitch. 'Oh Oum Dammit! He's got another cockamamie idea he's about to go through with!' She mentally screamed, the last time he had that smirk was when he allowed Ruby to enroll in beacon early.
"As Glynda said, we are planning to keep Naruto here for an undetermined amount of time, and before you ask why I have a question of my own. Have any of you ever heard of the Veil?" He asked with a sudden serious tone. All but three of the teens blinking in shock at the question,
"Uh duh, kinda hard not to hear about the place we're currently in and right next to." Yang asked back sarcastically while she pointed out the window towards the City of Vale, Jaune and Ruby nodding in agreement.
"Not VALE you dolt, THE VEIL," Weiss said with annoyance, putting extra emphasis on the wording. "It's been the biggest news around for almost two years now! How could you not know about it?"
"Well I don't know about noodle-boy over there, but Cookie and Temper here are from Patch if they haven't told you yet and that place tends to be little behind on the news." Qrow said as he somehow popped up behind the two sisters, ruffling their hair while laughing off the embarrassed glares he got from his nieces from the nicknames before continuing. "What Ozzy and Snow White here are talking about is an odd barrier like anomaly that was discovered several miles off the west coast of Mistral."
"A barrier?" Ruby asked, her head tilted slightly in confusion.
"In layman's terms yes, a barrier," Ozpin confirmed as he gestured to Glynda. Sighing, the blonde professor pulled out her scroll and typed in a few things before placing it onto Ozpin's desk. A hologram popped into existence showing a recording taken from a small boat.
[Holy crap dude, can you believe this shit!]
[I know man, this is way past weird!] Two different voices yelled off screen as the image zoomed in on the background. A good distance away from the boat was what looked like a tall silvery wall of water floating in the air and glistening in the sunlight.
"Roughly half a mile long, this 'Veil' as it was named was discovered when a team of huntsmen were sent out to find the cause for the sudden increase in aquatic grimm in the area. This is what they found." Glynda explained as the three seeing this for the first time stared in shock and awe. "Unfortunately, the team sent were just forth year students of Haven Academy, so instead of just reporting what they found, the team leader recorded this and posted it online. Be warned, this gets… brutal," She finished with a slight pause.
Ruby was confused at what she meant but didn't have time to ask as something started to happen. The wall started rippling in an odd way for several seconds before something started coming out of it. "Is that a boat?" Jaune asked as sure enough, an old fashioned and slightly crude looking sailing ship emerged fully.
On the ship was an assortment of oddly dressed men and women, the only thing in common being shiny metal headbands that most of them wore with four small wiggle lines carved into a square shape. Everyone visible either had weapons such as swords and knives drawn or were holding their hands in weird symbols.
Not even five seconds after they appeared though, nearly half of them fell to the floor screaming in agony for seemingly no reason. "What's happening to them?" Yang asked, only to get her answer from the video itself.
Tails, ears, horns, and other such animal like features started bursting out of the screaming people in a gory and bloody spectacle that caused Yang and Jaune to pale while Ruby was fighting down the urge to puke. A fight that she lost instantly when the unaffected passengers started outright murdering the newly turned faunus without hesitation.
"What the fuck!?" [What the fuck!?] Yang and one of the offscreen voices yelled at the same time as they watched massacre continue until every single faunus and more than a few humans were killed. With all that death and pain happening, it came as no surprise as several serpent-like grimm started bursting out of the water in droves and quickly overwhelmed the unprepared survivors, tearing them and the ship itself to bits in only a few minutes.
The image flickered out of existence after that as Glynda picked her scroll back up and put it away. "After that… first encounter, we had scientists study the Veil and discovered it is in actuality a stable two-way bridge to another reality. The kingdoms then tried to make peaceful contact with those on the other side. It didn't work." Ozpin said, rubbing his head as it started to ache just thinking about the political debacle.
"The first big problem we had is that dust becomes inert when brought to the other side, so special equipment and ships had to be made just to traverse there." He explained.
"Yeah, father was pissed about that. Spent days ranting about how much a wasted opportunity it was." Weiss through in, shuddering as she remembered her father's reaction when he had gotten that report.
While Weiss was talking, Ozpin took another sip from his mug before continuing. "Thankfully, the people on that side speak a language almost identical to our own so communicating wasn't a problem. What was, was that the leaders of the other world, which they call the Elemental Nations, refused to believe us about the matter. Instead they insisted that we had been the ones killing their ninja, yes I said ninja, that were being sent through and even declared war against us."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, we're at war?!" Yang asked/screamed with a shocked expression.
"Technically yes, but it's pretty much been the easiest war in history as every group of troops those ignorant dumbasses send at us end up just like those in that video." Qrow said with an uncaring shrug.
Ozpin sighed heavily as everyone turned their attention back to him. "That is true, despite being at 'war', we have yet to actually enter into conflict with the Elemetials. They either end up killing themselves or the grimm take care of them. Any survivors we manage to rescue either kill themselves or attack everyone in sight relentlessly."
"Okay, this is all very informative and all," Nora interjected, "But how is this got anything to do with right now?" She asked. Instead of answering verbally, Qrow walked up to the tied up girl and pulled a small black book out from the inside of his shirt. Flipping through the pages, he stopped about two thirds of the way through and showed the orangette with the others leaning in over her shoulder to see.
What they saw was a page full of odd writing that was smudged up from water damage, and a small picture in the top right corner of the page. The picture was of a smiling young boy with pure blonde hair, lightly tanned skin, bright blue eyes, and a familiar pair of whisker like tattoos on both cheeks.
"This is why it's relevant Thunder Rod," Qrow said in a lazy drawl. Ruby, Yang, Weiss, and Jaune were looking between Naruto and the picture as they were swiftly putting the pieces together while Ren, Pyrrha, Nora, and Blake were suddenly showing large amount of anger. Why you may ask? Because they could partially read some of the writing, Ren, Pyrrha and Nora do to being from Mistral, the most culturally and artistically diverse of the kingdoms, and Blake because her not-so-secret favorite book 'Ninja's of Love' was written in a very similar dialect. And they did not like what was written one little bit.
T..et N..me: Uzumaki Naruto
Bounty: 100,000,000 Ryo alive, 50,000,000 Ryo dead
D..ger: S Class
Pr..ority: SS Cl..ss
Infor…ion: Property of the H…den L…f …llage, C…ner o…the Nine Tailed Fox Demon, No known te…s, No known fighting style.
"Property… Property! PROPERTY! HE'S CONSIDERED PROPERTY!?" Nora screamed in outrage as she struggled fiercely against her bindings, electricity literally jumping off of her in small arcs. Just as angry but knowing there was more to be said, Ren grabbed Nora by the shoulder, ignoring the multitude of small shocks that zapped him, and focused his semblance through her.
Everyone but Ozpin showed surprise as Nora not only calmed down, but her entire body, clothes and all, suddenly became pale and dull looking. Ren kept her like that for about a minute before removing his hand, causing all the color to return to the girl.
Waiting a moment to see if there was another outburst from the now quietly seething girl, Ozpin continued. "As I'm sure you've figured out by now, Naruto here is from across the veil. That book Qrow has was one of the few things that were salvaged from one of the newest attack parties. We aren't sure how he got here, our best guess being that he stowed away on one of the ships as they crossed over and somehow managed to get to shore."
That was a lie, they knew exactly how he got here, or at least a good majority of it. But he also knew it would be a bad idea to reveal these details in front of a certain short tempered blonde. Because then he'd have to explain why the mother she was so desperately searching for, was currently hunting down anyone that was from the Elemental Nations to get revenge for the slaughter of her precious tribe.
"And I'm sure you noticed his rather unusual appetite," Ozpin said getting nods all around, "These things have made the poor child a target for many people, and most of them aren't the kind of people you trust with the wellbeing of children. Which is why I had Qrow bring him here, to one of the safest places in the kingdoms. Which brings us to now and one important question,"
Intertwining his fingers and resting his chin on then, Ozpin once again looked Nora straight in the eye. "How would you like to be made the boy's official caretaker?"
"…"
"…"
"YES!/WHAT!?"
-End Chapter-