-Last Time-
Speed reading through it, Winter's eyes visibly widened, "This is…"
"A signed and approved treaty between the Village hidden in the Leaves and the four kingdoms? That it is." Ozpin said with a poker face as he sipped from his cup. "Negotiations finally went through a few days ago and this here is the result."
Winter nodded in understanding while finishing reading, finding nothing wrong with what was written. "This is excellent news… however I do not see why it was necessary to inform me of this in person. A simple message would have been just as informative."
"Because Ice Queen…" Winter's eyebrow started twitching again as Qrow spoke. "…like any other government that's recently agreed to something important, they want a sign of trust to go with it."
"…They're sending an ambassador." The Schnee stated, getting an affirmative from the man in front of her. "Who?"
"A woman called Tsunade Senju and her two apprentices."
-And Now, Konoha, Hokage's Office-
A very old looking man sat behind a large desk that was stacked with paperwork, a tired sigh escaping his lips as he meticulously went through each and every sheet. This was Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Shinobi no Kami(God of Shinobi), the Professor, and currently the re-reinstated Third Hokage(Fire Shadow) of Konohagakure no Sato(Village Hidden in the Leaves). He looked to be completely absorbed with his work, but, if you looked closer you could see his eyes repeatedly glance towards a framed picture sitting on his desk with massive amount of sadness.
Said picture was of Hiruzen with a four-year-old Naruto sitting on his lap, big smiles on both their faces as the elderly man helped the boy eat some of his favorite food, ramen. 'Minato, Kushina, I can never truly express how sorry I am for my failure.' Hiruzen thought as he remembered all the mayhem these last two years had been, when the Veil had first been discovered.
It had been first discovered after news of several dozen teams of Mist ninja's vanishing at sea and he had sent some of his own to figure out what had happened. Upon discovering the anomaly, along with the various ninjas from the other four major villages and some minor villages which resulted in a massive multifront battle that ended with a draw and a neutral territory agreement.
Then after several months of fruitless investigation, Hiruzen had a small expedition sent across…
…only the leader, a man known as Ibiki, returned badly injured and with him a tale of the horrors he had faced. Horrifying monsters made of darkness and eyes of pure evil, many of the men and women under his command suddenly spouting random animalistic features in a shower of blood and gore, and no one was able to use chakra at all making their techniques useless.
When this information was brought to the council, Hiruzen's old teammate and rival for the position of Hokage, Danzo put forth the idea that what happened across the Veil was an elaborate nin/genjutsu. One being used to hide away a monstrous army that as being discreetly built up to invade and conquer all of the Elemental Nations. He then proposed they go on a full front attack to destroy these new 'enemies' first.
Hiruzen had argued against it, saying that they had nowhere near enough information to make a proper decision. However, that ended up playing right into Danzo's hand as he had somehow secretly gotten the Fire Daimyo's approval for a declaration of war and had used the Third's objections as grounds to have him removed as Hokage and himself instated in.
Many more months passed and Danzo's rule brought nothing but a chaotic mess that Hiruzen was still cleaning up after. He 'reinstated' his ROOT program which caused many of the ninja of the village to retire early in protest of such a cruel project. Meanwhile, the ninja clans outright went on lock down when they found many of their members had been 'drafted' already without their knowledge or consent. Not only that but Tsunade herself had been forced to return to the village under the threat of her and her apprentice Shizune becoming Missing-nin if they didn't comply.
Quite possibly the worst thing that that bastard had done however, was when almost exactly one year ago Danzo had Naruto Uzumaki, jinchuuriki of the dreaded Kyuubi no Kitsune and unknowing heir of the revered Fourth Hokage, caged up like an animal and carted off to sea for the war with himself and over half of his ROOT ANBU. The on-eyed man's plan was to use the mighty beast sealed within the innocent boy's stomach to utterly destroy his 'enemies' in a single swift strike…
…a week later, the top half of Danzo's corpse floated back across the Veil, a look of total shock permanently etched across his face.
Not wanting to give up hope on his surragte grandson, the instant he was reinstated again Hiruzen put up a bounty for Naruto's safe return. Unfortunately, one of the members of the civilian council somehow got his hands on the paperwork and managed to alter the new bingo book page, something that he regretted when Hiruzen had that dumbass tracked down and punished.
He was drawn from these dark thoughts when the door suddenly burst open and a busty blonde-haired woman with vibrant green eyes that were filled with annoyance and a diamond shaped tattoo on her forehead stumbled in with a sake bottle in hand. "What do you want with me you damn old coot? I was in the middle of packing my Sake when you called." She grumbled out plopping down in the nearest chair.
Rolling his eyes in exasperation, the elderly Kage leaned back in his chair with a sigh while pulling out wooden pipe from within his robes. "I apologize from taking you away from such important work Tsunade," He said sarcastically, quickly stuffing and lighting his pipe while the now named Tsunade flipped him off. "But I'm pretty sure you know why I called you here… how are they doing?"
At these words, the busty blonde's aggressive attitude died down slightly, becoming a blank stoic-ness as she took a heavy draught from her alcoholic beverage while quietly grumbling about wasting her time. "Well, just like the last dozen times you've asked me, for an eight-year-old little girl that has been recently orphaned, kidnapped, partly brainwashed, and forced to be a mother just over a year ago, Karin is doing astonishingly well mentally and has fully recovered physically while Mito is in perfect health." She stated in a neutral tone, though the crushed arm chair in her hand belied her apparent calmness.
Another one of Danzo's little projects was to ensure that, in the event of Naruto's untimely demise or crippling, there would be a suitable new host to hold the Kyuubi, preferably another Uzumaki. So, after many months of searching, his ROOT members managed to find one Karin Uzumaki, a small redheaded child, hidden away in Kusagakure with her recently deceased mother.
One kidnapping later and she was brought to Konoha where she was artificially inseminated with Naruto's DNA to ensure a baby was born with as much Uzumaki blood as possible, as soon as possible. The girl had just started to go through harsh mental conditioning when Danzo's death was confirmed and his supposed 'perfect force' basically collapsed in on itself. Turned out creating an entire military force that was entirely reliant on one person to run it backfires pretty badly when said person died.
Shizune had been the one who had actually found the poor Karin, confused, scared, and just starting to show signs of pregnancy within a small cell while she and a team of medics went through the gruesome remnants of the horrible project. It only took a few days for them to discover who Karin was and what had happened to her after they found a secret room filled with all the records of Danzo's pet projects. After that, she was placed into Tsunade's care as the busty blonde was a relative of her thanks to her grandmother.
But not before said blonde went down to the morgue and turned what was left of Danzo into a literal stain on the wall, her apocalyptic rage towards what that man had done completely overriding her fear of blood at the time. She would have left right after that, taking the girl with her naturally, but knew she couldn't as a life on the road was no good for someone who was pregnant, especially not in this case. Abortion wasn't even considered, as despite her callous and uncaring attitude Tsunade held a great deal of respect towards the right to live and couldn't in clear conscious kill off an unborn child.
So in the end, she had no choice but to stay, using her renowned medical knowledge to help the pregnancy go as smoothly as possible. It proved to be the right choice as just two months ago, Karin successfully gave birth to an adorable little girl with blond hair, red eyes, and two whisker-like birthmarks on each cheek they named Mito, after Tsunade's grandmother.
And now that both ridiculously young mother and her daughter were ready, Tsunade was up and ready to leave and get as far away from this village as possible when Hiruzen came to her with a mission as an ambassador to Remnant. One she almost turned down on the spot till he asked one key question… how much farther from a place could you get than an entirely different world?
To put bluntly, the speed of lightning paled in how fast she'd accepted the mission after that.
"For what it is worth, I truly am sorry for everything that has happened." Hiruzen said as he took a long draw from his pipe.
"I know you are you old coot," Tsunade said, releasing her death grip as she stood up and took another swig of her Sake. "Next time you call me for something, it had better be damn important." She stated before marching towards the door.
"There is one last thing," The blonde paused, "Please, keep an eye out for Naruto while you're there. I would give anything to know if he is okay right now."
Tsunade glanced back at her old sensei and saw the utterly defeated look on his face as he sat behind his desk. "Relax, the brat's an Uzumaki, if he has any of their infernal luck he's more than okay. And if he's anything like you describe, he's probably conning someone into buying him ramen."
-Meanwhile, NNPW (Naruto, Nora, Penny, and Winter)'s room-
The small dorm was currently very crowded as Team RWBY, Pyrrha, and Ren were all crammed inside along with the room's designated occupants. Jaune would have also been there as well but was stuck in Professor Goodwitch's new mandatory study class for low grade students. Anyway, the reason for their gathering was a simple one, Naruto needed his tails thoroughly groomed and there was no way Nora was going to do so all by herself.
So currently everyone but Pyrrha had a tail in hand as they carefully combed through the fluffy limbs with heavy duty comfort brushes. The reason the redheaded teen wasn't helping with the last tail was because she was assigned to hold Naruto still since his tails were so sensitive and wouldn't stop squirming from ticklishness and slight amounts of pain.
Everything was going smoothly with everyone idly chatting with each-other when, "ACHOO!" *Yoink* "YIPE!" Penny suddenly sneezed out a large cloud of dust and fur, causing her to pull too harshly on her brush through a knot and making Naruto thrash around in discomfort. Thankfully, before his tails could get loose from his flailing, Pyrrha managed to calm him back down by gently rubbing his head and whispering soft nothings into his ear.
"You can sneeze?" Ruby asked, her eyes twinkling slightly as she got right in Penny's face.
"It's a subroutine that was added in case too much foreign material built up in her air filters," Winter explained before the gynoid could speak, not even looking up from her work as she expertly smoothed the tangled fur in her grasp with slow even strokes. "Hence the large amount of dust and debris."
"Oh, of course! So that her heating, cooling, defensive, communication and fragrance systems don't get backed up!" Ruby exclaimed, getting a nod from Winter and Penny while everyone else but Naruto looked at the trio weirdly.
"Uh, I'll probably regret asking this, but what the hell is the fragrance system?" Yang asked somewhat reluctantly.
Ruby opened her mouth to answer but was swiftly cut off when a heavily blushing Penny slapped a hand over her mouth. "Nothing! It's nothing at all!" She said quickly, using her other hand to reinforce her arm other when the raven-redhead tried to pry it off. Sadly for the mechanical girl, Ruby didn't get the hint and after giving up trying to return her ability to speak, she simply reached over to Penny and pushed a hidden button just beneath her hairline that was disguised as a mole.
*Pfffffffft*
…
…
…
Complete silence filled the room except for Naruto's soft half-purrs as Pyrrha continued to subconsciously rub his scalp. Penny's face was so red it was practically glowing- wait scratch, that now she really did start glowing as everyone in the room started sniffing the air.
"Roses? You have a button that causes rose smelling farts?" Blake asked in a completely blank tone as Yang and Nora tried and failed to smother their giggles.
So caught up with her embarrassment, Penny forgot to apply the pressure keeping her hands in place and Ruby finally managed to pull them off with an exaggerated gasp. "It used to be cotton candy scented, but we had to change the cartridge after I pushed the button to many times." She said, causing her robotic friend to sputter indignantly.
"…Huh, so that's why are room smelt so sweet last week." Yang said with a chuckle as she patted Penny on the back. "Don't be so embarrassed, I have to admit I'm kinda jealous." Seeing the odd looks she was getting for the statement, Yang stuck her tongue out childishly. "Oh come on, like you all wouldn't want such a… Rosy Ass." She punned while slapping the orangette's rear end, making Penny to yelp in surprise while also earning herself a chorus of groans and boos from the others. "Screw you guys, that was hilarious!"
"As delightful as this current conversation is, I do believe there is still work to be finished." Winter said while she finished carefully brushing the tail in her grasp with a fine-tooth comb, managing to get everyone back on task. After slipping back on the appropriate gem belt, the elder Schnee released the fluffy appendage before getting up and walking over to Pyrrha with an expectant look.
Nodding in understanding, Pyrrha swiftly passed Naruto over to her and grabbed the untouched tail and a brush. "I heard Professor Peach fell ill the other day, do you think that mean we're not going to the Forever Fall Forest tomorrow?" The 'invincible girl' asked as she started bushing near the base of the tail.
"Nah, they'll probably just assign a different teacher for the trip, less lien wasted that way." Ren stated while pulling Nora back into her spot while she tried to stealthily give Blake a wet willy. "Speaking of that trip though, Nora you still need to find a babysitter for Naruto." They weren't allowed to take him as there was a chance of Grimm attacking and none of the teachers would be available to watch him as they were either busy with classes or preparing for the ambassador's arrival as for some reason they were staying at Beacon. Winter couldn't do it as she was also assigned to help set up for the ambassador, while also setting up several discreet monitoring devices, and Penny still needed a sitter herself so she was out.
"No I don't," She said with a grin as she also finished brushing. "I hired one before we started, she'll be here tomorrow at 10." As she spoke, the mischievous teen snuck her hand over to Wiess's legs and pinched her thigh.
"OW! What the-" *SHINK* Weiss was cut off mid cry as the sudden jolt caused her to pull the comb she was using too roughly and set off the tail, which just happened to be the ice one. In less than a second the heiress was almost completely incased in ice with the exception being the upper half of her head.
"Hehehe, hey Weiss how's it chilling?" Yang asked rhetorically before breaking out into laughter, completely ignoring the murderous glare her sister's partner was sending both her and Nora. The cold imprisonment didn't last long though, as Winter simple reached over and flicked her frozen sister with a mini gravity glyph over her finger. This sent a pulse of dark purple energy through the ice before it completely disintegrated into powder, leaving a shivering but otherwise unhurt Weiss sitting amongst a newly made pile of snow.
"What is the name of the sitter?" Winter asked calmly, already planning on the thorough background check on the person.
"It's Neopolitan, but she prefers to go by Neo."
-End Chapter-
-Canon Omake, First Impressions-
-Outskirt Town, Late at night, Seven months before arrival to Beacon-
Qrow sighed in annoyance as he stumbled through a mostly deserted town at a slow pace. He'd been assigned by Ozpin to track down this supposed Grimm bringer child that had been going around from town to town bringing chaos and destruction.
The headmaster of beacon was worried that these events could possibly be the actions of another of Salem's wicked creations and wanted the drunkard scythe user to get confirmation and if required or possible eliminate it. However, this wasn't what Qrow was grumbling about.
"I can't believe this place doesn't have a single bar or liquor store at all." The red eyed man groaned as he held his empty flask upside down sadly. He'd ran out of his favorite whiskey just as he'd gotten to town and had planned to restock while here only to make his horrible discovery. Already he could feel himself starting to sober up and knew the eventual hangover was only a few hours away.
He was snapped from his thoughts when his eyes spotted a slight movement in the corner of his vision. Stopping midstride, he made it look like he was casually looking around when in reality his gaze focused in on the source of the movement. Inside a darkened alley, a pair of glowing red eyes peered at him from within a large dumpster.
'A Grimm? Why hasn't it attacked me yet?' He wondered while discreetly reaching for his weapon currently strapped to his back. Instead of waiting to find out, Qrow vanished in a blur of speed, reappearing on the other side of the garbage container with his weapon in sword form. For a brief moment it appeared that nothing had happened, that was until a soft squeal filled the air as the dumpster split straight down the middle and both halves fell to the ground with a crash.
Peering back at his handy work expecting to see the dissolving corpse of a Grimm, Qrow's eyes widened in surprise when he instead saw a shocked faunus child tucked inside one half with a thin gash across his chest. He had bits of garbage clinging to his clothes and a piece of slightly moldy bread sticking out of his mouth while nine, four short and five long, tails stood on end. Before the hunter could recover from the fact he'd almost bisected a kid, the boy pulled the food out of his mouth and spat out a literal torrent of water that blasted Qrow clear across the street and into the building behind him.
"…Ow." Qrow said blandly as he pulled himself out of a pile of wood and furniture, dusting off the woodchips that had stuck to him while heading for the hole he'd made with his body. Just before he went back outside though, he spotted a tall glass bottle rolling across the floor and picked it up curiously, his eyes turning into stars upon reading the label. '120 proof Desert Blaze Whiskey! There truly is a god!'
Quickly checking that the coast was clear, Qrow swiftly transferred the expensive liquor into his flask before walking off with an innocent whistle. Arriving back at where he was shot away, he carelessly tossed the empty container over his shoulder while looking for any signs of the boy.
'That kid was definitely who I was looking for, matches the general description at least.' He thought while pulling out a small picture from his jacket. It was rather blurry, a touch grainy, and really dark, but you could just make out a humanish silhouette with a large bundled mass behind it and visible red eyes. 'But he was definitely not one of Salem's. There wasn't a hint of malice in his eyes, only hunger, surprise, desperation, and loneliness.'
Just because he had been caught by surprise didn't mean he missed a single detail, it was his job as an information gatherer to get every ounce of intel as fast as possible after all.
Pulling out his scroll, Qrow quickly selected one of his contact and hit the call button.
"Hey Ozzy, it's Qrow… Yeah, I found him… Yes I said him… no, it's definitely not her doing, he's something else… Yeah, he definitely can, experienced it firsthand… I know this complicates things… Not sure, he got me with a surprise hit before running off… Don't worry so much, I'll be able to find him again," Qrow said while glancing at the ground where a few drops of blood sat. "He's leaving a trail right to him, I'll call back when I catch up." *Click* Little did Qrow know, the next seven months would be the most irritating and sober time of his life since he attended Beacon as a student.
-End Omake-