A/N: This is something that came to me after I rewatched the entirety of RWBY Volume 1 in preparation for the premier of Volume 2. I hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or RWBY. Naruto is owned by Masashi Kishimoto and RWBY is owned by RoosterTeeth.

Chapter 1: Strange New World

Suspended in the air in front of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, sixteen-year-old Naruto Uzumaki could do nothing but scream in immense mind-numbing agony as the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox was brutally ripped from his body. Despite the pain, or perhaps because of it, he remained conscious throughout the entire torturous process as his mind repeatedly went over the most recent events in a futile attempt to distract him from the pain.

The previous day, he and Killer Bee, the Jinchuriki of the Eight-Tails, had broken free from the multi-layered self-repairing barrier that kept them confined on the gigantic Island Turtle and the two had immediately made their way to the battlefield to help in the war, neither of them feeling that it was right for them to hide whilst others fought to protect them. Upon their arrival, they had split up, believing that they would be able to do more that way than if they stayed together. After this, the young blond didn't really know what his new comrade had done but, if Jiraiya was to be believed when he had once told him that apparently the Nine-Tails had to be sealed last, it wasn't looking good. Once the two had gone their separate ways, Naruto had used his new Negative Emotions Sensing and a lot of shadow clones to deal with a whole host of impostors that had somehow infiltrated the Allied Shinobi Forces and turned into identical strange white plant people after being defeated.

After that, the orchestrator of the war, the masked Tobi, had appeared in front of him with his own personal version of Nagato's Six Path's Technique, using what he later found out to be the resurrected Jinchuriki of the Two- through Seven-Tailed Beasts, each sporting a Sharingan in their right eye and a Rinnegan in their left and each having had their respective Demons resealed into them. Try as he might, the blond simply couldn't compete with the six revived Shinobi, each apparently fully capable of using their tenants' powers, especially with the coordination provided by their Rinnegan.

Personally, Naruto thought that he'd done quite well against them as he'd lasted an entire hour and forced all of them to fully transform. But that had been what had ultimately beaten him as a single Jinchuriki incapable of completely transforming stood no real chance against six Tailed Beasts. After being immobilised in such a way that even he couldn't think of a way out, the other Tailed Beasts were quickly resealed back into the giant statue that had been summoned and then the extraction had begun.

With a final surge of even more intense agony, the last of the fox was torn from his flesh, the seal on his stomach now nothing more than a slight discolouration of his skin, and locked within the statue. Now that what was presumably the final Tailed Beast was inside, the colossal figure began to distort as its nine eyes melded together, turning a bright crimson eerily reminiscent of the Uchiha clan's prized Kekkei Genkai as numerous tomoe appeared on the concentric circles surrounding the pupil, and a stump formed on the back of its waist before expanding out into ten distinct appendages.

As he lay on the ground, barely clinging to life and surrounded by imperceptibly faint wisps of red chakra, Naruto could do nothing but watch in horror as the statue slowly climbed to its feet and continued to morph into the Ten-Tailed Beast, the creature that had almost destroyed the world. The mammoth creature eventually managed to stand up properly, each movement sending tremors through the ground, and promptly crushed the entire Allied Shinobi Forces platoon that were attempting to stealthily retrieve the blond. Tobi then turned his attention back to the young Konoha ninja, curious as to why the platoon would risk themselves like that for a corpse and was surprised to see him alive, though the mask hid this from view.

"How are you still alive?" the masked terrorist asked in sheer amazement before remembering exactly who he was talking to. "Of course, you're an Uzumaki so you survived the extraction just like your mother did," he muttered, more to himself than Naruto. "You're entire family seems to exist for the sole purpose of causing me trouble and I've had enough." This last sentence was spoken so quietly that the near-dead blond couldn't actually make it out.

It wouldn't have made any difference if he had heard it as he was currently incapable of movement and struggling to stay conscious, so the young Uzumaki could do nothing as the space around him seemed to distort as Tobi activated his space-time technique, empowering it with the Ten-Tails' chakra so that it became capable of punching through the various dimensions. Mere seconds later and the former Jinchuriki was gone, a small shallow crater being the only sign that he had ever been there at all, never to be seen again in the Elemental Nations.

In the middle of a dense forest, two strange-looking and ferocious animals were currently attacking each other. One of the creatures resembled a vaguely bipedal wolf, covered head to toe in shaggy black fur. It had bone-like claws on the ends of each finger and toe along with numerous bone spikes protruding out of its spine and arms, with a couple more adorning its knees and ankles. Despite all of these unusual features, the wolf's most distinguishing characteristic was the bone mask that covered the top half of its head. The mask had small holes for the beast's nostrils and larger ones for its ominously glowing red eyes and it also had several red lines decorating the top surface.

The other creature was similar to the first in that it was covered in shaggy black fur and had similar bone claws, spikes and mask but this one was much larger than the wolf and resembled a bipedal bear instead. Whereas the wolf seemed to be built more for speed the bear was obviously built for physical strength and the current fight demonstrated this perfectly. Every time the bear tried to strike the wolf, the smaller animal would dodge and whatever the bear's paw struck would undoubtedly break.

Just as the two beasts clashed yet again, the air around them began to warp as a vortex formed, ripping their bodies apart, and deposited the barely alive, and by now unconscious, form of Naruto Uzumaki. The vortex disappeared as quickly as it had initially formed, leaving the blond alone in a strange forest surrounded by the carcasses of two abnormal black animals, the blood quickly evaporating into the air.

The faint wisps of red chakra that surrounded the young shinobi, the only remnants of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox that were still present in his body, soon got to work doing what that chakra always did and started to heal him, despite the lack of conscious instruction as healing was by this point ingrained in the chakra. Unfortunately, there was simply not enough energy left to bring the blond firmly back to the land of the living and the demonic energy was dimly aware of this due to carrying miniscule slivers of its originator's intelligence. Fortunately, there were two very recently killed animals lying in pieces around the Uzumaki that were giving off their own faint, not to mention unfamiliar, energy. Not wasting any time, the red chakra quickly harvested this strange power and it proved to be just enough to stabilise its host so that it wouldn't immediately die.

And so, Naruto spent his first night in Remnant unconscious in the middle of the vast forest, the red wisps of power around him now dyed black with its recent augmentation and working hard to keep him alive, and barely a handful of pieces of the two creatures that had been present. Luckily, the mixture of the two different energies proved to be an effective deterrent to keep the forest's other inhabitants away.

It took several days for the former Jinchuriki to finally regain consciousness and when he did, he couldn't help but look around in confusion at his surroundings. All of the trees around him reminded him of the forests surrounding Konoha yet he could tell that he was not there. The trees seemed too different and the cacophony of howls and growling was something that simply wasn't present around the Hidden Leaf Village.

As he stood up, Naruto noticed the black haze surrounding his body that reminded him of the red chakra that would materialise whenever he used the fox's power. Raising an arm, he noted that the fog followed his movements and, unless he was mistaken, was actually being given off by his own body, since it was continuously dispersing in the air yet wasn't getting any thinner. It was at this point that the blond became aware that his chakra, which was still present albeit running low, felt different than it used to, both normally and when mixed with natural energy for Sage Mode. Deciding to experiment, he quickly formed the ram hand seal and channelled as small an amount as he could, not wanting to exhaust what little he had if at all possible. This test had two main results; the first being that his chakra control was shot to hell as he accidentally called forth far more than he wanted and the second was that the strange mist enveloping him immediately became denser.

Not wanting to drain himself, Naruto quickly cut off all chakra and noted that the miasma thinned considerably, thus allowing him to see what else had changed since he had been sent to wherever he was. His fingernails and toenails were noticeably sharper and longer and, when he scratched his ear which was beginning to itch, he found that said ear was covered in a thin layer of hair and the ear itself seemed slightly larger than he remembered.

Before he could contemplate this, the lost young man was interrupted by a loud growl originating from his stomach, notifying him that he hadn't eaten for the best part of a day, not to mention however long he was unconscious. Immediately, Naruto reached for his waist pouch which contained rations that all shinobi carried, even if most avoided eating them whenever possible, but found most of his pouch missing, only the thin loop that connected it to his trousers remained, and also discovered that his clothes were covered in bloody rips; something he put down to Tobi's technique that was responsible for his current predicament.

Unable to eat his emergency rations, the blond turned his attention to his surroundings in the hopes that there was something for him to eat, or kill and then eat if necessary since he, like all shinobi, had basic training on catching wild animals and carving up the body for safe eating. Thankfully, there were several chunks of animal flesh scattered around him that he had somehow not noticed until that point, which meant that he wouldn't have to hunt anything on an empty stomach.

Despite his shinobi training telling him to not eat random meat on the ground without a way to verify that it wasn't poisoned or otherwise inedible, Naruto really didn't want to try and track down an animal in his current starving state. He picked up one of the pieces of meat, absently noting that there was virtually no blood present at all, and sniffed it to check that it hadn't gone off. He was unable to cook the meat, since those supplies were in the pouch with his rations, but even if he had them to hand he would be hesitant since the smell would undoubtedly lure in the local wildlife. Satisfied that the meat was not rotten, the blond took a very small bite, ready to spit it out if needed. To his surprise, the taste wasn't all that bad considering it was raw, although a cooked meal would always be better, and soon finished off the entire chunk bar the bones and fur.

After finishing his meal, Naruto quickly decided that the most important thing for him to do right then was to try and figure out where he was and, if possible, return to the battlefield to continue the fight against Tobi. With this in mind, he climbed the nearest tree with the intent on surveying the area from above. To be more precise, he attempted to climb the nearest tree only to be painfully reminded that his chakra control was practically non-existent at the moment and, as such, tree-walking was beyond him for the time being. Not one to be put off by single failure, the blond instead chose to see if he could use his almost claw-like nails to aid his climbing attempt instead and, after a few false starts and several falls, managed to eventually make it to the top.

Looking over his surroundings from his high vantage point, Naruto couldn't help but be worried. There were trees all around for as far as he could see, bar some gaps that he took to be clearings, and there was no sign of the gigantic form of the recently revived Ten-Tails or anything else even remotely familiar. Even the few birds in the sky above him were different from anything he had seen. At first glance, they could be mistaken as very large ravens but the top halves of their heads were covered by a white mask or helmet and, when one got a bit closer, the claws on their wings were easily visible. Naruto briefly thought that they could be summons but there were more than would typically be summoned at any one time, especially given their size, and they didn't exhibit anywhere near the level of intelligence that all of the other summons he'd met had possessed. So that meant that they were either abnormally stupid summons or really weird wildlife, and neither of those possibilities were particularly reassuring, particularly when one somehow fired a few of its feathers into another area of the forest at high speeds.

After reluctantly accepting that he would be stuck in the forest for at least a little while, Naruto made his way back to solid ground to see if he could find anywhere safe to sleep. He was almost within jumping distance of the grass-filled earth below when he quickly shot up again after seeing a strange pair of large black bears sniffing the area he had woken up in and grunting to each other. The two animals then split up as their circled the area, presumably trying to track the lost shinobi down, and it didn't take long for one of them to pick up his scent on the tree that he was currently hiding in.

A quick growl was all it took for both bears to charge the tree in an attempt to knock him out and, given that he couldn't use his chakra to cling to the branch, they might have succeeded had he not dug his nails into the bark. He quickly jumped out of the tree and into another, wanting to avoid a fight since he wasn't sure of his chances against the two unusual animals with his chakra out of whack. He was already several trees away before the bears even realised he'd moved so he had more than a decent head-start when they barrelled after him in pursuit. A few minutes later and he the blond shot out into a clearing, confident that the bears were too far behind to keep track of him.

Unfortunately for the former Jinchuriki, a loud howl alerted him to the fact that he was not alone in the clearing. Naruto glanced over his shoulder to see a group of four black werewolves feasting on the bodies of some unfortunate animals with a fifth staring at him.

"Oh, come on!" Naruto screamed in frustration as he was, once again, running for his life due to being chased by bone-masked black animals seemingly intent on eating him. He was careful to avoid going back in the direction that he had come from as he would rather not add the pair of bears to his current problem. It would seem, though, that the bears would have been preferable to the pack of wolves chasing him since the latter was actually more or less able to keep up with him as he leapt from branch to branch.

After a ten minute chase, it was becoming clear that he would not be able to lose his newest pursuers so he instead had to kill them, or at least incapacitate them long enough to run off. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem since he could distract them with shadow clones or destroy them with Rasengans. However, neither of those options seemed particularly feasible at the moment with his reserves were running rather low and his chakra control completely shot to hell, not to mention feeling noticeably different as well. He couldn't even fight them with kunai since that pouch had a large cut along the bottom and had long since emptied itself, leaving him with only the single knife that was attached to the mechanism on his right forearm. That left him with nothing but Taijutsu, which he was more than competent with, but he was apprehensive about using his fists on things with sharp claws and long fangs.

Resigning himself to what would most likely be a fairly painful experience, Naruto guided the beasts to a particularly dense area of trees in the hopes that it would somewhat hinder the group. Almost as though they could sense the change, the first two werewolves leapt forwards even faster than before, claws poised to slice their prey to pieces. Before they could strike, however, the blond ducked down under their blatantly obvious attacks and, channelling as little chakra as he could through his arm, punched the nearer of the two in the chest, pleasantly surprised by the sickening cracks of multiple ribs breaking.

A howl reminded the shinobi that he had more than two opponents as he jumped aside in time to avoid another wolf that had pounced at him. Again, he swung a chakra-enhanced fist at the creature only to open the hand out again just before impact without really noticing. What Naruto did notice was the spray of blood that erupted as his fingers somehow sliced through the wolf's torso, taking out a sizable chuck. He looked at his hand in an attempt to understand exactly how he had done that and was more than a little confused at the sight of the alien hand sticking out of his sleeve.

His fingers had been replaced with, or perhaps encased inside, ivory claws that bore more than a passing resemblance to those of his attackers except that they were segmented so that he could bend them like he could his fingers. The rest of his hand had not remained unchanged, however, as it was covered in a coarse layer of black fur, again similar to the wolves around him, which extended at least partway up his arm. The entire hand was also obscured slightly by the black fog that had covered his entire body earlier in the day. Reluctantly, the blond decided to postpone his questions about this change until after he had dealt with the entire pack that was looking to eat him. After a quick flex of his hand to ensure that his mobility was indeed unaffected, he quickly charged the first beast that he had injured in the hopes of killing whilst it was still weak.

The werewolf seemed to be having trouble breathing, presumably due to its broken ribs, and Naruto had no qualms about putting it out of its misery by almost slicing its head off, the thick spine being what prevented him from properly beheading it, whilst easily dodging its clumsy flails. Quickly leaping backwards to avoid another set of claws, he swung his own clawed hand in response and split open the arm of another wolf, eliciting a pained whine. Whilst it was distracted by the pain, he jumped over it and, digging his claws into its shoulder, managed to cut its undamaged arm clean off.

At this point, the young shinobi came to the conclusion that having a single clawed hand would only drag out the fight and so he channelled chakra through his other arm, his current theory being that the chakra flowing through the first was what triggered the change. His efforts were rewarded when the flesh quickly gave way to fur, claws and mist but he did notice that his reserves were now worryingly empty, meaning that he would have to finish off the predators as quickly as possible. With that in mind, he quickly charged at the one-armed wolf and carved out the majority of its chest, ignoring the fountain of blood that erupted from the wound and covered him though he did note that it seemed to evaporate quickly.

The final three beasts seemed to finally realise that their prey was proving to be more dangerous than they had originally anticipated and decided to be a bit more cautious with their assault. They all charged him together to stop him from picking them off one by one and their efforts were rewarded when one of them managed to rake its claws across its target's chest, leaving three long bloody gashes. Unfortunately, the blond had managed to do the same to another wolf, only those wound were much deeper and more numerous since he had used both hands. Just as the three leapt at him again, the injured one tripped on the ground and collapsed in an unmoving heap, its wound too serious for it to continue.

Now with only two combat-capable opponents, the heavily breathing young man seemed to have finally reached his limit as he stood leaning against a tree. Taking this as a good sign, the pair once again charged at him only for the exhausted shinobi to drop to the ground at the last minute so that they both sailed over him. One of the creatures landed several feet away and seemed somewhat disorientated by the unexpected landing, whilst the other painfully collided with the tree Naruto had been leaning against. As soon as it impacted, he leapt up and ripped its throat out before turning his attention onto the other one.

The final werewolf snarled and charged at him yet again. Too exhausted by not to dodge, Naruto had no choice but to take the hit head-on. He grabbed the madly snapping jaws with one hand before they could bite him and reached around with his other claws to get a good enough grip to break its neck, receiving several shallower cuts to both of his arms. A quiet whine drew Naruto's attention back towards the creature he had slashed in the chest and he saw that it was still clinging to life. He pushed the corpse off of him and slowly made his way over to it before putting it out of its misery by breaking its neck like the previous one.

After a quick check revealed that there were no more animals out for his blood, Naruto immediately cut the flow of chakra in both arms before he passed out from chakra exhaustion and watched as they slowly but surely reverted back to their human appearance, the fog dissipating as they did. He soon decided that staying where he was would be bad as the smell of the deceased beasts would likely lure in other animals and he wasn't in any condition to fight again. His chakra reserves were emptier than they had been in a very long time and he was also badly injured.

He quickly left the area and tried to find either some kind of shelter or preferably a way out of the forest. After walking for almost an hour to put as much distance between him and his recent kills as possible, he eventually stumbled upon a cliff with a waterfall flowing over it and into a small stream. He quickly hobbled over to the water, the branch he had been forced to pick up over thirty minutes ago to use as an impromptu crutch thumping on the ground with each step.

It was only when he collapsed onto his knees to drink that Naruto noticed something odd about the rock surrounding the waterfall. After drinking his fill, he made his way over to the cliff face and took note of the large crack that was present behind the falling water. The crack was only slightly shorter than he was and looked barely large enough for him to fit through but, from what little he could tell, it led to a small cave inside the rock that looked just about big enough for him to stay in. It would probably be uncomfortable in the long-term but it was much better than staying out in the open for the wolves and whatever other creatures lived in the forest to find him.

An unhappy grumble resounded throughout the cave as the sun shone in through the entrance, shining on the face of its sole occupant. A little over nine months had passed since Naruto had been sent away from his home by Tobi and had found himself in an insanely large forest full of strange creatures that seemed determined to kill him whenever they saw him, regardless of his actions towards them. He'd tried to get out of the forest in an attempt to find some kind of civilisation but, when he had finally found the edge after over two days travel, there was nothing but grass, a river and a few mountains in the distance. He had wandered around for a few days but, after not seeing any sign of any people, had decided to return to his cave in the forest. Even though the wildlife tried to kill him at every opportunity, there was enough of it for him to comfortably survive; something that wasn't true beyond the forest's edge.

Every now and then, the blond had heard loud noises overhead and had at one point seen a large metal box flying through the air. This had changed his belief that there were no people in whatever world he was now in; he was now certain there were people around, but they were simply too far away for him to get to by himself.

Five minutes later, the grumbling blond finally decided to get up, if for no other reason than to avoid the bright sunlight that was currently blinding him. That was one of the few downsides to living in his hidden cave. The entrance faced east and as such faced the rising sun every morning. Whilst this wouldn't normally be much of a problem, the waterfall that flowed over the entrance acted similar to a lens and intensified the light considerably. He had, at one point, covered the entrance with the pelt of one of the monstrous bears that he had killed but that had completely blocked out the light and made getting up in the morning quite difficult since he couldn't see anything whilst it was hanging up.

Naruto eventually emerged from the cave and, after checking the area for animals, walked straight through the waterfall that kept his home hidden. Somewhat more refreshed from the water, he quickly shook his head to get rid of whatever he could before bringing his hands up to dry his ears.

This was something that had changed over the last nine months since his arrival. Unlike before, his ears were now much longer, extending backwards past the back of his head, and were covered in a thin layer of crimson fur. The ears had steadily grown out to their current size over his first few days in the forest. The second change was the similarly-coloured long fox tail that emerged from the base of his spine. Naruto wasn't sure exactly why the extra features had appeared but, since they were carbon copies of the Nine-Tails ears and tail, he attributed it to something going wrong with the extraction or possibly something similar to the transformation his hands had undergone whilst fighting the wolves.

Naruto had discovered after much experimentation that whenever he channelled chakra, that area of his body would start to radiate a thin black mist that increased in thickness in proportion to the amount of chakra he channelled. Again, he wasn't sure what had caused this strange phenomenon but, since it was similar to how he would be covered in red chakra whenever he used the Nine-Tails' power, he considered it to be another side effect of the extraction. Even now, his body was covered in a very thin, almost imperceptible, layer of fog since his body continuously channelled a very small amount of chakra through itself even if he was unconscious. This small flow had the benefit of speeding up his healing but he wasn't sure if it was on the same level as when he used the Fox's power in the past to regenerate a punctured lung during his fight with Sasuke and wasn't in any particular hurry to test it out.

He had also discovered that if he sent enough chakra through a particular area of his body that that area would undergo a strange transformation. His skin would sprout coarse black fur and his fingers and toes would develop tough claws. In addition to this, whatever area was affected always seemed to be stronger than his untransformed parts. Naruto was aware that he could forcefully prevent the transformation from occurring, even if he was using more than enough chakra, but that was unpleasant so he generally didn't. He hadn't yet tried to see if he could transform his entire body; so far he had only tried it with his limbs for combat purposes.

Once he was happy that he was at least dry enough to avoid dripping everywhere he went, Naruto jumped up into the nearest tree and started looking for something to eat. It didn't matter that he wasn't completely dry since the sun would soon take care of that, especially since the only clothing he had on was the strip of dark orange cloth tied around his waist which was all that remained of his previous outfit. He briefly laughed at the thought that anyone looking at him would be incredibly confused at the sheer weirdness he embodied. He was a teenager with abnormally long elongated fox ears and matching tail jumping from tree branch to tree branch with ease; he was almost naked and his chest was heavily scarred with both the fist-sized mark caused by a Chidori and the three long scars that he had received in his first fight in the forest.

After ten minutes, the blond eventually came across the body of a large armoured black pig with large tusks. As usual, there was no blood at all since the blood of all of the strange bone-armoured black animals in the forest started evaporating within seconds of being spilt. In the past months, he had come across several different varieties, including the bears and werewolves he had encountered on the first day as well as humungous birds, double-ended snakes and giant scorpions. The pig in front of him was one of the harder ones to kill, if only because the only real weak spot he had found was their stomachs and they had the intriguing ability to curl up like hedgehogs and roll around at high speeds, thus protecting their vulnerability. He wasn't sure what had killed this one but whatever it was had managed to slice open its belly, the wound presumably being what killed it, and had also eaten a fair amount of it.

Naruto made a mental note of where the pig's body was in relation to his cave so that he could collect it later for lunch if it was still around by that point. He didn't want to drag it to his cave now because the smell would attract predators and he'd rather not deal with that so close to his home. Just past the pig was what he was actually looking for, a banana tree. He picked several bunches of the fruit, wrapping them up in tree's large leaves, to take back to the cave for storage since his previous stockpile had run out the previous evening.

Just as he entered the small clearing that contained his home, he heard the semi-familiar sound of the strange metal contraption flying overhead although this time it was far louder than he had ever heard before, almost deafening him courtesy of his somewhat enhanced hearing. Naruto was just about to retreat into his cave, which would hopefully block out a good deal of the noise, when the metal flying machine that was making the racket appeared above the top of the cliff. The intense winds that accompanied its movements caused several of the banana packages to fly out of his grip as the contraption soared overhead, barely clearing the foliage, before dropping down behind the trees not too far away where Naruto knew there was a large clearing that should be big enough to contain it.

Immediately realising that the machine had just landed in the forest, Naruto felt himself grin as he understood that this may well be his only chance of meeting actual people as well as a possible way to get out of the forest. He quickly placed the wrapped up bananas inside his cave, including the ones that were blown out of his arms, in case he would not be able to leave the forest with the new visitors; no sense putting all of his hopes on it.

The blond also grabbed a long wooden pole that almost reached his shoulder. The top of the stick had several long bone spikes tied horizontally, resembling a very crude homemade scythe, whilst the base had another bone spike attached, making that end look vaguely like a spear. The weapon had been made after a few close calls too many whilst hunting. All of the spikes had been scavenged from the creatures in the forest and sharpened for maximum damage potential. He may be physically stronger than most people, especially if he transformed, but it never hurt to carry a weapon; he could end up needing it if the arrivals proved hostile.

After grabbing his rather primitive-looking weapon, the animalistic-looking blond leapt into the trees and quickly made his way over to where he believed the strange craft had landed. He made the journey in good time, only taking five minutes at full speed. As he landed on a branch overlooking the clearing, he observed the people that he could see. They all wore the same clothes, likely a uniform, which consisted of black trousers, boots and long-sleeved shirts. They had white armour-like vests on top and wore metal bracers over their forearms. However, the most distinctive feature was the mask that they all wore. It covered the top half of their faces, with a black hood hiding their hair, and had two pairs of slits over the eyes to allow them to see. Finally, he saw a logo on the back of one of them that consisted of a red animal head in front of three slash marks. Each of them was also carrying some kind of weapon, either a sword or a strange small metal thing that vaguely resembled a pipe with a handle attached.

All of the identically dressed individuals, whom Naruto though may have been soldiers given their uniforms and weapons, were keeping watch on the surroundings, possibly for the various man-eating creatures that lived in the forest.

The blond was about to jump down and make his presence known when a new figure stepped out of the vehicle. This one was a man with short rust-coloured hair and was dressed similarly to the others bar the mask, hood and armoured vest, instead wearing a long dark brown leather duster, and didn't seem to be armed. What Naruto found most interesting about him was the pair of large ram-like horns that protruded from his forehead and curled around on either side. The sight made the shinobi wonder if all of the people hear had some kind of animal-like appendage; if they did then his new features wouldn't make him stick out at all.

Unfortunately for him, any further thoughts of being able to fit in with the strange animal people were completely forgotten when the horned man made a single gesture towards the still open aircraft and another soldier came out, one hand holding the same strange weapon as some of the others and the other holding a long rope that was being used to pull a teenage girl, probably around the same age as Naruto, outside. The rope was fastened around the girl's neck in a make-shift collar and her hands were tied behind her back.

The girl herself was wearing a faded blue sleeping gown with short sleeves and a small snowflake on the side of the chest. She had long white hair that reached past her waist and pale skin. She seemed terrified of her current situation and that fear only became even more pronounced when the horned man said something to her that got everyone else laughing. At that Naruto clutched his spear/scythe hybrid even tighter, especially when he noticed the resigned acceptance that was mixed in with the fear. The fact that the girl had apparently accepted what was happening to her, albeit very reluctantly, made Naruto forget any possible thoughts about approaching the group in a friendly manner.

There was a girl in trouble and he'd be damned if he let anything bad happen to her.

A/N: And that's a wrap. I was considering carrying on but this seemed like a good place to stop and I wanted to get this up before Volume 2 comes out which should be sometime later today. Finally, I have no idea how regular updates are going to be for this, since my free time is somewhat limited by job hunting.