Naruto was sitting at the cafeteria table with everyone from last week's escapade. Getting cleared of any wrongdoing was easy enough, but there had been a discussion. Vale's LEOs couldn't take down Roman, and it seemed that some of the deadliest people had joined his ranks.

"I'm saying that we at least think about it," Ruby said before dipping her cookie into some milk.

Naruto nods, "I hear you on that, but we need to tread carefully. The Pillar Men Gang, well now…The Black Rose Gang, aren't to be trifled with."

"You seem to know a lot about them," Weiss commented as she sips her coffee.

"I do my homework, in Signal I used to study news from Beacon. The incident nearly two years ago rocked the school to the core, someone had managed to fake everything and enter. Which, given the circumstances that followed, I doubt Ozpin allowed." Naruto replied to Weiss as he started circling his ramen with chopsticks.

He gave it a hefty blow cool air before taking some noodles into his mouth. Slurping them down, Dove then looks toward the group.

"We owe you guys one for looking out for our leader," Dove pats Naruto's back hard making him gag a little.

"Well we thank him for looking out for our friend," Weiss praised while nodding at Naruto's direction. "Blake, you okay?"

Blake was enjoying some sushi, "as best as I'm going to be."

"Anyone saw Jauney boy?" Cardin looked at their table, noticing that besides Team C.V.F.Y team J.N.P.R wasn't anywhere near them.

Ruby answers him with ease, "Jaune is taking care of his team, apparently, all of them got sick from something."

"Oof, it is flu season," Yang bemoans as she winced.

"Yay…" Ruby spoke while rolling her eyes, "I just hope I don't catch it."

Yang reaches over her side, "don't worry, I'll take care of you little sis."

"Yang cut it out!" Ruby complains as she childishly swiped at Yang's hand as it squeezes her cheek.

Naruto chuckled a little bit, along with the rest of the table. His thoughts traveled to Jaune however, wondering how his fellow blonde and the blue-eyed teen was doing.

Ren retches as he throws up into a trashcan, he was running a high fever. They all had been to the nurse's office that day, each one being assigned bed rest and some antiviral medication. Nora was currently thrashing in her bed, cold sweat poured down from her head as she shook from the "cold" room.

Pyrrha wasn't doing any better, "Jaune…"

"Hang on Pyrrha," Jaune makes sure that Ren is done puking before he quickly changes out the garbage bag.

Pyrrha groans as she leans against her headboard, her scroll was on her lap. The girl had been watching a small campy cartoon she enjoyed, ironically named camp-camp. The redhead felt like death was on her doorstep, she watches as her team leader attended to Ren.

Placing a wet cloth over the young man's head before quickly walking over to Nora. She hadn't thrown up, yet, but she was still burning up. Jaune sighed before walking him to Pyrrha, but then surprised her when he sat on her bed to place a cloth on her head.

"Are you feeling any better, Pyrrha?" Jaune inquires as she looks at him.

"Not really Jaune," she lowered her head, "I'm sorry."

She coughed a little, "I don't mean to be a burden."

"You're not Pyrrha," Jaune moved his hand onto hers, "you're just sick."

She gave a laugh, leaning back against the bed's headboard, "you're too kind."

"I know," Jaune smiles as he looked at her. "I already have a plan to go get you all something from the cafeteria, but you may not enjoy it."

"Broth?" Pyrrha asks.

"Yeah, chicken broth served in a fashionable thermos." Jaune laughs a little, "I kind of feel bad though…I don't really want to eat actual food in here with you guys."

"We'll manage," Pyrrha breathes a little harder, "ooh…man…this sucks."

"You ever got the flu before?" Jaune inquires as he looked at Ren.

She sighs, "no…to tell you the truth I never really got sick-sick."

"Oh…" Jaune sounded surprised, "not even a little?"

"Besides a head cold or two," Pyrrha thought back, "no."

"Lucky," Jaune chortled while rubbing her hand. "I got sicker than a dog often when I was a kid."

The redhead laughs a little, "aww…the irony."

"Yeah," Jaune then got his scroll from his pocket. "Here…something to bring your spirits up."

She looks down at his scroll, seeing a picture of him and his sisters. The young boy had a thermostat in his mouth, an icepack on his head, and pigtails from where his sisters did his hair against his own will. Pyrrha ogled the picture for a moment, smiling warmly, she never had a sibling.

"You look cute with pigtails," she jabs playfully before coughing on him, "sorry!"

"Don't worry about it," Jaune tells her, "because when I started getting immune the tables flipped on them."

"Older sister, Saphron," Jaune points out as she seemed the odd one out.

"Why is her hair…black?" Pyrrha inquires as she seemed confused.

Jaune got an evil smirk form over his lips, "I dyed it when was asleep from having some good old fashion NyQuil."

"That's so evil!" Pyrrha exclaims in shock before chuckling, "I like it."

Jaune got an idea before her and he looked into each other eyes. Slowly, almost maniacally, both began to cackle. Turning their heads menacingly toward Nora and Ren, Jaune noted that Nora had some NyQuil earlier to help her sleep.

Ren was having trouble sleeping, so Jaune got up, "Ren buddy o'l pal…"

His team lead reaches into his drawer, "want some NyQuil buddy o'l chum?"

"Yes please," Ren answered as he watches Jaune pour the dosage into the cup.

Ren took it, swallowing the contents easily enough before snuggling back into his bed. Pretty soon, much to everyone's surprise, he began to snore rather loudly. It wasn't the first time Ren cut logs, he was the loudest snorer in the quartet.

Pyrrha and Jaune looked between them both, then got a horribly evil idea.

Nora woke up later in the day, drowsy, "fearless leader…doctor…healer…"

Jaune was in the process of getting her a wet cloth, "oh hey Nora!"

The berserker smiles, "hey you too…"

The blonde walks over to her, placing the cloth over her head. She groans a little, sore and aching from the flu. She saw that Pyrrha was still watching Camp-Camp. The redhead looked over at her, smiling. She gives a small wave toward her friend.

Nora smiled, weakly waving back, "hey there Invincible."

The berserker turns over to face Ren, her lovely magnate eyed best friend. Only thing was, he looked different. Was that Ren, if not, who was laying on the bed? He had orange hair, yet he had the facial features that Ren had.

"Jaune…" Nora calls out, only to hear snickering.

She turns over to see a mirror, looking at herself she then quickly caught on. Nora's hair was black with a single bright pink piece of hair near her right eye. Her mouth was agape, in awe of the vision in front of her. She looks up at Jaune, then back at the mirror, and then turns back to Ren.

Instead of being angry the girl smiles, "nice…"

"Look," Jaune walks over to Ren, "this here is No-lie and you are Ra-ren."

Nora weakly chuckles, "I look good…"

Jaune laughs as he walks back over to Pyrrha, his bed was stripped clean. All of the blankets were given to them, his pillows as well. The teen watches as Nora calls over to Ren, who awakens briefly before his eyes widened at Nora.

"Nora…why?" Ren moans.

She giggles a little, "wasn't me Renny. Our fearless leader and perhaps our Invincible Girl just pulled a prank on us."

Ren's eyes narrowed, someone was going to get payback when he gets to feeling better. Pyrrha nervously chuckles as she pokes her head up from her scroll. Jaune had brought in their schoolwork. He didn't go to class and had a permission slip to take care of his team. Dr. Oobleck just told him to study, since they had a midterm coming up in a couple months.

"Hey, Renny," Ren looks at her.

She puts on a serious face, staring at him with intensity one could find in a dragon. Ren decided to just sigh, giving her a goofy smile and making his stretch all the way open. The two lifelong friends just smiled at each other, that was until Nora started to retch.

"Incoming!" Jaune yells as he flips forward and grabs the garbage can midair before landing in front of her.

Nora vomits, Jaune holding his own back as he walked forward to make sure none dropped to the ground. The redhead just looked at him as if had grown a second head, she shook her head, perhaps thinking it would clear the image she had just seen.

"Jaune," Pyrrha spoke up, "when did you…?"

"Oh that," Jaune nervously chuckles, "I been kicking some money over to a friend for some extra training sessions at night on the weekends."

She should've felt jaded, but Pyrrha was too impressed.

She finally asks him one question, "who?"

"Uh…" Jaune looks nervous.

Velvet stares at Jaune, "alright blondie!"

"When you said you'd be helping to try and train me to dodge," Jaune watches as Velvet took her camera out. "Did you mean I had to dodge literal light?"

"What no, no, this is just my weapon." Velvet tells him as she shows him, "it makes hard light copies of weapons and my semblance allows me to copy someone's fighting style."

Velvet watches as Jaune gushes, "man I hope my semblance is just as cool when I unlock it!"

"Oh," Velvet suddenly walks away before turning around, "how strong is your aura?"

"Believe it or not, I'm the second highest in Beacon…just behind…" Jaune thought of it, "I think I'm behind your friend."

"Naruto, yeah, he's got a monstrous supply. Not to mention his control his great," Velvet started pressing buttons on her camera. "You should ask him to help you out sometime, he doesn't have a semblance either."

"No…" Jaune breathes, "you're kidding me?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die," Velvet chuckles as she found what she was looking for. "Besides, I help him with weekend training if he doesn't go anywhere that day."

Jaune's eyes shined, "can you train me like him then?"

"Heh," Velvet's eyes became one of pure evil, "if you insist."

Suddenly a hard-light copy of Coco's minigun comes alive and forms into the Rabbit Faunus's hands. Jaune just looked at her, then behind him thinking there was some sort of Grimm. Unless Grimm now came in the form of a small bumblebee, then he quickly started to figure it out.

"Um," Jaune backs up as he looked at Velvet, "hehehe…when do I start running?"

"Yesterday," she answered with an evil glint in her eye.

"Whhhhaaaa!" Jaune screams as he began to run.

The hard-light bullets followed soon after.

Velvet laughs manically, "don't run from it Jaune, not even Naruto can dodge them all! Muahahaha!"

"You're pure evil!" Jaune yells as he began to duck and weave through the streams of hard-light bullets.

"You're right," she cackles, "which is why I enhanced them with electric dust."

"What?!" The Arc screams as a round impacts him, sending him to the ground twitching.

Velvet whistles, "you weren't lying, you have a very strong aura…continue!"

"Wait-wait-wait ahh!" Jaune gets up and runs for his life, unknowingly getting better at dodging them.

"Oh…are you…" Pyrrha winces as she saw a welt on his shoulder, "okay?"

"Of course, I am, never better actually. I swear though she had fun with it, saying that I don't attack back, which made it like target practice." Jaune then smiled proudly, "I actually did something that the resident prodigy couldn't this weekend."

Pyrrha's eyes widened, "what is that?"

"I dodged everything," Jaune puts the garbage can down before quickly getting a new bag. "The welt you saw came from me hitting a tree when I hid behind it."

She smiles brightly, "I'm proud of you Jaune…"

"Thanks, Pyrrha, but I'd never been able to get this far without your help." Jaune then walks out the room for a moment before walking back in, "besides if I can take care of you guys while sick it still wouldn't repay the debt, I owe you all."

"Oi," Nora groaned as she looked at Jaune. "You owe nothin' we're ya friends, but I really…really…want…food."

"Nora," Ren calls out to his friend, "you'll just puke back up."

"I don't care," Nora complained as she groans, "I am hungry…"

Jaune laughed while rubbing the back of his head, "well I can go fetch you some tomato soup."

"Please…" Nora all but begs, "I really need food."

Jaune was getting the various plastic bowls filled with the hot substance of the soups together. The teen was trying to figure out a way to get the bowls back to the room. They weren't allowed to take trays out of the cafeteria. Sighing, he looked around only to spot someone who could help.

Jaune stacks them in his hands, but when he takes a saw a couple of the tomato soup bowls getting ready to drop. That's when a Fox eared Faunus grabbed them, he looked at Jaune as he took another step forward.

"Hey, looks like you could use some help," Naruto comments as he grabs a few of the bowls.

"Thanks, Naruto," Jaune thanked his fellow blonde as they walked.

"Don't mention it," Naruto replied with a smile. "How's the team?"

"Sicker than dogs, Nora and Ren keep throwing up, Pyrrha is doing okayish." Jaune bops his head side to side, "how've the classes been?"

"Boring," Naruto answered him with a smile. "Say…Jaune quick question."

"Sure bud," Jaune balanced the chicken noodle soups in his hands. "Shoot."

"Do you have any advice on girls?" Naruto asked as he walks with his fellow teen.

Jaune was taken aback by the question, "oh…um…well…kind of. I grew up with seven sisters."

"Sheesh," Naruto laughs as he looked at him, "must've been fun Dattebayo."

"It was," Jaune laughed. "So, is this about Yang or something?"

"Um…well…" Naruto blushes as he stammers his answer, "kind of."

"Well I'd say just be you," Jaune answered as they rounded a corner. "I mean, I think you're a nice guy. I know we don't talk much, or interact hardly at all, but you're pretty much someone I aspire to be one day."

Naruto was slightly taken aback by the compliment, "like me?"

"Yeah man," Jaune gets to his door, "you're so strong and skilled…I just want to be that way so…"

"So, you can impress Weiss?" Naruto finished.

Jaune shook his head, "not really…there's someone else I want to repay for all that she has done for me."

"Jaune," Naruto smiled as he leaned against the hall. "I think you're doing too much already."

"Nah," Jaune shook his head, "I don't think I'm doing enough."

The two blondes stood there, Naruto then spoke up, "well…honestly, I hope to be as good as a leader like you and Ruby."

"Ruby is an awesome team leader," Jaune agreed as he unlocked his door. "But don't downplay yourself, man."

"Food!" Nora screams in joy, coughing soon afterward.

The two blondes entered the room.

Paloma was leading the dance class in a tango; her partner was for the day was Weiss Schnee. The two easily danced together, both shared an equal grace in movement. Ruby meanwhile fumbled with Yang a little bit, they were just there to have fun.

Stepping away with a twirl on their feet both Weiss and Paloma clapped their hand before rejoining them. Blake was sitting in a corner, reading a book as she waited on her friends. She had got done dancing with Ruby at one of the songs, and Yang was to come at the next song.

The song ends, Paloma and Weiss share a graceful bow to each other.

Weiss goes over to Blake where she was sitting, Ruby joins her as the girl gets up. The next song was a single's song that didn't need any dance partner. Blake got next to Yang, who followed the dance instructor when the music started.

Today was part-class, part partner, and part solo. Yang for being a brawler had some grace, Blake wasn't a bad dancer as well. It was something the girls found as innocent fun, no guys tried to hit on them, well not often. Today, however, there was a guy about their age at the end of the room that kept staring at either her or Yang.

She couldn't tell which.

It was February Eighteenth, four days before Lover's Day. Beacon wasn't going to do anything special, but luckily it fell on a weekend. The girls timed their dance together, easily keeping pace with one another. Ruby figured it was also a good idea to use this as a team building, and interestingly, it had been working.

Weiss's explosion a week ago kind of derailed the group's plans. The only reason they were here on a school day was since Oobleck got called to an emergency meeting and dismissed the rest of the classes for that day.

They didn't know why, and they didn't care, as far as they were concerned it was freedom. The song ends, with Yang and Blake working up a small sweat. The girls walk back over to their other two teammates, where they get ready to leave.

The guy walks over, "hey there, blondie."

Yang looks over her shoulder, "sup?"

"Noticed your dance moves out there," the guy extends his hand out. "I'm Neptune."

"Flynt," Yang extended her own hand. "I'm Yang."

"Nice to meet you, gush, I seem to be lost." The guy remarks as he looked at her.

"Um, really?" Yang asks as she seemed to be confused.

"Oh yeah," Neptune replied. "I'm lost in your eyes, reminds me of a field of flowers back in Vacuo."

Yang blushes lightly, "well hate to break it to you champ, but I'm kind of…"

The other girls of her team listened intently, Ruby's eyes gleamed curiosity.

The lilac eyed girl just struggled to find the right term for it, "I'm not really…but am…you know."

Blake stepped in, breaking their handshake, "she's in the process of seeing if this one guy is worth a shot or not."

"Okay, that's cool, I get it. Besides, as they always say there's plenty of fish in the sea." Blake really didn't know whether to smack this guy or smack herself from hearing that line.

"Well, I'm off," Neptune walks toward the door and then looks at Weiss, "catch you later."

Weiss for some reason starts to blush, which didn't go unnoticed by any of them. Yang just looked at her, then toward the doors where the guy went out of. This guy's cheesy lines were worse than Jaune's on a bad day, but here she was blushing at them like a giddy schoolgirl.

Ruby, however, looked at Yang, "so are you and Naruto…dating?"

"Not…well sort of," Yang got a little flustered. "I really didn't need you to speak for me, Blake."

"Hey," Blake shrugs, "what are friends for."

Yang huffed, "well…true."

"So, you do know the next date is magical number three," Blake hinted as she looked at her friend. "I recommend wearing some lip gloss."

"We're not really dating, it been just friendly outings. I mean have you ever just went out with someone as a friend," the blonde asks as she looked at Blake, "well?"

"Well of course, but you wouldn't be flustered if there wasn't nothing there." Blake teases a little bit, though it was flat in tone.

Pinching her nose Yang just noticed Weiss's thousand-yard flowery stare, "hey Weiss, you good?"

"Huh, what, oh of course." She answers, "of course."

"So, you would make out with me and Naruto at the same time?" Yang slyly asks with an evil glint in her eye.

Weiss's face turned into a deep crimson, "what?!"

"Ah, Weiss, you've struck by an arrow of love." Yang laughs as she walks out of the studio with her friends.

Weiss becomes flustered, "I don't what you're talking about…hey, wait up!"

Sasuke clashed his blade against a that of a cloaked figure. The cloaked figure had misshapen hands, webbed like a reptile. It was also much smaller, he dodged to the right and clashed his chokuto against the being's tanto.

Using his Sharingan, Sasuke easily stepped forward and blocked a few strikes from the being. Stopping as he put his sword right through the cloak, stabbing into the being the raven-haired teen watched as it dispersed into smoke.

"Good job my student," Sasuke turns around and kneels.

In front of him was a giant blue snake, it was coiled along a giant tree. The figures that littered the ground suddenly gained life before heading back toward the tree. The teen looks up at the giant snake as it stared at him intently.

"I'm glad you like my skill set," Sasuke clicked his chokuto back into its sheath. "Am I ready to face her?"

"No," the snake hissed as it stared at him with its red eyes. "We must wait for the one who bears its soul to emerge."

"When the False Gods came and burned our world as you said, what makes you think that it survived? The Dark One grows more powerful every day, her army increases every single day. If she were to find us here, then all of our planning will be wasted." Sasuke argues as he sat on the ground, "and you still have yet to teach Sage Arts."

"You're not ready," the snake argued. "Sage Arts require a strong physical energy reserve, you lack that."

Sasuke grunts as he looked down at the ground, "why must we hide in the shadows?"

"In the shadows, we are safe, unreachable to even her touch. People would fear our kind, we are those that have come before," The giant snake continued to speak. "You are troubled hatchling."

"I just simply wish to make difference, meanwhile you are all waiting on some miracle. My spirit brother, or whatever…" Sasuke scoffs as he watches as the pool of water near the tree ripples from fallen leaves, "what if The Sun never rises again Lord Doku?"

"Pray that The Sun rises and The Demon sleeps as it does," Lord Doku tells Sasuke as it eyed him. "I can feel the ripples of its presence, two souls vying against each other."

"In me?" Sasuke questioned.

Lord Doku shook its head, "in another."

The full broken moon shines over Beacon Academy. Naruto Namikaze sits on top of the school, overlooking the entirety of it all. Looking up toward the moon, the shattered pieces of lunar rock giving light to the night.

Slowly, but surely Naruto took a deep breath, and his eyes turned red. Kakashi was standing behind him, not announcing his presence as both met eyes. Dropping into a fighting stance, Kakashi smiles as he pulls his face mask up.

"Come at me, full force…" Kakashi orders him.

Without hesitating Naruto charges.