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

Chapter 10: Bullies and the Beautiful Red Forest

The first week of school after the Christmas break was over with ended up being fairly unexciting all in all, though there were a couple of things worth mentioning. Velvet was still embarrassed by what happened at the party and thus she kept avoiding Naruto's gaze as her face flushed whenever she actually did look at him due to her mind replaying their kiss; the fact that she hadn't really disliked it just made her embarrassment even worse. She had also apologized several times for kissing him but he had waved it off by pointing out that it wasn't her fault and thus she had nothing to be sorry for. The blond himself was also quite flustered by the incident, even though Coco was to blame for the whole thing, as it had been what he considered to be the first time he had ever actually kissed someone. Technically, it was the second but the blond refused to acknowledge that the first one had happened and did his utmost to erase those particular memories from his mind due to being overwhelming gross.

There had also been a minor incident with the arrogant boy known as Alazor on the second day as the teen had attempted to corner him in an empty corridor after classes were over with and it was quite clear by his expression that he still wasn't fond of the blond. Fortunately, the shinobi had avoided the situation quite easily by simply slipping into a blind spot and clinging to the ceiling with chakra. Unlike Weiss, the pompous student didn't bother checking above him when trying to find the blond so he completely missed his target almost leisurely crawl away right above his head. Naruto had a feeling that he'd probably try something again fairly soon but decided to make a pre-emptive strike by stealthily slipping a long-lasting and rather potent laxative into the boy's breakfast the following day to keep him occupied.

It was a shame really as the dimensionally-displaced ninja had actually decided over the break to not bother him with the stink pellets anymore since the other student hadn't really done anything since their last proper meeting that would warrant it. That said, Naruto had heard that the other boy had tried to approach Velvet shortly after this failed encounter so he felt that that somewhat justified his actions. Unfortunately for Alazor, Coco had been close by at the time and the second-year had sent him packing before he could even say a full sentence.

Currently, it was lunchtime and Teams RWBY and JNPR were sitting in the cafeteria waiting for the last two members of their little group of first-years. Velvet and Naruto had both been delayed leaving their Dust lesson as the former had a couple of questions for the teacher and the latter had been asked to stay behind to try out an idea the short lecturer had come up with. To make the time less boring, Nora had decided to regale her friends with an exciting tale about a large group of Ursai while Ren corrected her at least twice per sentence and ultimately revealed the entire thing to be nothing more than a recurring dream that she had been having. Unfortunately for the bubbly girl, Yang seemed to be the only one paying even the slightest amount of attention as Blake and Weiss were doing their own things and Ruby and Pyrrha were more concerned with figuring out the cause of Jaune's current bout of depression and how to bring him out of it.

Just as Nora finished her impromptu story time, a familiar voice and the sound of mocking laughter drew the attention of the two teams. Turning to the source, they saw that Velvet had arrived in the cafeteria and gotten her lunch at some point while everyone else was occupied but had unfortunately strayed a little too close to where Team CRDL were sitting. The team's leader was holding one of the Faunus' long ears in a rather rough-looking grip while he and his teammates were making various derogatory comments that were clearly upsetting her. Several members of RWBY and JNPR made to get up and help their friend only for Blake to suddenly freeze up for a moment as she quickly glanced around the room.

A flash of something silver flying through the air and a loud girlish shriek of fright stopped everyone in their tracks. Ruby, Yang and Pyrrha all turned to Jaune upon hearing the scream but he seemed just as confused as everyone else. He also looked quite put out when he realised that the three girls had automatically presumed that the unmanly yell originated from him. It only took a moment to discern the source of the noise, especially since they had all been facing that direction beforehand. Cardin was still sitting where he had been previously but his hold on Velvet's ear had slackened enough for her to get free and his face was much paler than usual, likely owing to the knife currently embedded in the surface of the table between the thumb and index finger of his other hand.

The bully only snapped out of his fear-induced state when his brain finally registered the approaching footsteps and the faint but still noticeable growl of anger. Quickly jumping to his feet and turning around, the armoured teen was treated to sight that honestly terrified him. Naruto was slowly but surely making his way towards the table that Team CRDL occupied, faint wisps of black miasma radiating from his body every now and then. His ominous-looking red eyes were locked on to Cardin and the look in them promised a whole world of hurt for the boy once he got closer.

Despite being understandably scared by the blond's menacing appearance, as well as the general feeling of impending doom that it evoked, the brown-haired boy swung a fist at the approaching ninja as soon as he was within range, clearly not wanting to go down without a fight. The vulpine teen merely caught the obvious punch with his left hand, as his right was currently preoccupied with holding the tray with his lunch on it, and applied a small amount of pressure to the fist. It was somewhat impressive that Cardin managed to stop himself from crying out and instead just visibly winced at the pain while trying in vain to pull his limb free.

"I thought you would've learned by now that you really shouldn't pick on people like that," Naruto all but growled out. "I guess you're even dumber than I thought." That last comment was muttered under his breath in annoyance but Cardin still just about managed to hear it due to how quiet the room had gotten and the brown-haired boy's expression made it obvious that it angered him. "Are you alright?" the blond asked, focusing his attention on his partner as his voice took on a much softer tone.

"Yes, thank you," the shy Faunus replied nervously. Her gaze kept anxiously flitting from her teammate to her tormentor and back again. "Maybe you should let him go?"

"Hmm?" The blond raised an eyebrow in mild confusion at the suggestion and appeared somewhat reluctant to consider it. However, he didn't have much time to think on it as Cardin finally managed to get his hand free from the tight hold and immediately decided to take advantage of the ninja's distracted state by punching him.

Unfortunately for the bully, this plan didn't quite work out as intended as Naruto simply caught the incoming fist again just as easily as the first time. Since just trapping the brown-haired boy's fist didn't seem to dissuade him, the former Jinchuriki used his new grip on the other boy's hand to pull him forwards only to smack his forehead with a painful head butt. The disorientation caused by the unorthodox hit resulted in Cardin collapsing back onto his seat while massaging his now very sore cranium. Meanwhile, Naruto was completely unfazed by the blow and simply wrapped his unoccupied arm protectively over Velvet's shoulder before leading the brunette over to where Teams RWBY and JNPR were still watching the ongoing scene with a variety of different expressions.

"Nothing good ever comes from bullying others," the shinobi commented over his shoulder to the slightly dazed bully and his trio of thoroughly intimidated teammates/accomplices. "Think of this as a wake-up call and stop acting like a stupid child." With his parting message delivered, Naruto carried on leading his partner over to their friends, completely unaware of how some of the more romantically-inclined girls in the room were now gushing amongst themselves about what they had just seen. Velvet however caught wind of a few of these comments on her way past and felt her face heat up a little at some of the assumptions being made.

"Um...hi?" Naruto greeted a little unsurely when the pair finally sat down with the rest of their friends and he noticed some of the looks he was getting. Neither of them seemed to notice that Velvet was sitting just that little bit closer to him than usual and the few that did chose not to comment on it given what had just transpired.

"That was awesome!" Nora proclaimed with her usual cheeriness, unknowingly breaking the slight silence that had developed. "Did you see that, Renny? He just caught that guy's fist like it was nothing without losing anything off his tray! Twice! And then he smacked him with his head!" Ren merely gave a long-suffering sigh that somehow spoke volumes of how often his childhood friend felt the need to give him a play-by-play of something that he had witnessed mere moments ago and just nodded politely. The hyperactive girl then started muttering some very unsavoury things about the bully under her breath that quickly devolved into random acts of violence that she would like to inflict.

"Did you really have to hurt him like that?" Blake asked as she, along with everyone else present, chose to completely ignore the hammer-wielder's mumbled comments.

"It was self-defence," the Uzumaki calmly pointed out. Considering the first conversation he had had with the closet Faunus, Naruto could make an educated guess as to why she was asking. "He made two attempts to punch me and would have likely carried on if I hadn't done something to make him rethink his actions like that."

"Even so..." the black-haired girl trailed off as she had to admit that the blond's point was valid. "You didn't have to throw that knife at the start. You made him freeze up just by flaring your Aura or whatever you did so almost impaling his hand was completely unnecessary." Despite the vulpine teen being able to somewhat justify the head butt, Blake still wanted to stress that violence shouldn't be the answer for oppressed Faunus.

"I guess you're right," Naruto reluctantly conceded. "It was a spur of the moment thing when I saw he was picking on Velvet like that. Still, he didn't get hurt so everything's fine." He decided against mentioning that he had actually missed with his throw as he had in fact been aiming at a point a good few inches off to the other side of the boy's hand. That said, the bad shot had done wonders for intimidation so he wasn't really complaining too much, especially since the boy' Aura would have protected him if the knife had actually hit. "Anyway, enough of that. Let's talk about something else," the ninja suggested in a rather obvious attempt to change the topic.

"Alright then, what happened to your arm?" Yang asked, gesturing to his right sleeve which was noticeably charred at the wrist end.

"Dust mishap," the shinobi stated. "Alfar had an idea about how I could set Dust off and, as you can probably tell, it didn't work out too well."

"Did some Fire Dust go out of control?" Weiss wondered. The blond's apparent inability to use the versatile material wasn't something she had ever heard of before so she was understandably curious about it.

"Nope. I blew up a Lightning crystal," Naruto replied nonchalantly. "Tiny little thing, about the size of a fingernail. No idea how that happened and the Doc doesn't know either so it's back to the drawing board."

It was quite clear from her expression that Weiss didn't really know what to make of that and Velvet, the only other person present with a more than basic understanding of Dust, looked just as lost as the heiress. After a few moments trying to wrap their heads around the very odd reaction, both girls decided to just ignore it for now and let the teacher try and figure it out since he was much more knowledgeable than either of them.

"What's up with Jaune?" the Uzumaki asked after finally noticing the other blond boy's depression. "Is he still bothered about the shield thing this morning?" Seeing the looks of confusion being sent his way, he quickly recounted how he had seen Cardin trap Jaune in a doorway by deploying his shield at just the right moment to get it trapped in the frame.

"He was just messing around," the team leader responded as he attempted to wave the incident off as unimportant. "You know, a practical joke."

"Cardin's a bully," Ruby interjected. "He picks on people like you and Velvet because he knows you won't do anything about it."

"Ooh, I have an idea," Nora suddenly spoke up. The orange-haired girl was currently waving her hand around above her head like she was in class and quickly gave her suggestion once she became the centre of attention. "We'll break his legs!" Like last time, the proposal was delivered with a slightly insane grin and she even snapped a bread roll in half for emphasis.

"No leg breaking, Nora," Ren sighed in mild exasperation.

"What is it with her and breaking legs?" Naruto wondered as that was the third or fourth time he had heard her make that particular offer.

"We saw a gangster break somebody's legs to get a point across in a movie a few years ago and she's been eager to try it for herself ever since," the calm gunman replied. "The fact that he used a large hammer to do it probably isn't helping the issue."

"I see," the dimensionally-displaced teen gave a polite nod of understanding despite still not quite comprehending the hyperactive girl's fixation. With the matter somewhat resolved, the trio of teams carried on chatting about various things while they ate until they had to get going to their next lesson, completely unaware of the attention Cardin seemed to be giving Jaune.

Almost an hour after classes finished for the day, Naruto finally made it back to his room after somehow getting stuck in a long conversation about films with Ruby, Yang and Nora. He still didn't quite know how he had been dragged into it in the first place but it had ended up being somewhat informative for him, though all three girls had expressed shock at his glaring lack of knowledge on the topic. Unsurprisingly, Velvet was already there as she had disappeared off to the library for something after their World History lesson ended and she was currently sat on her bed with a very thick book open in front of her and a notebook at her side. The brunette didn't seem to notice her partner's arrival as her attention was completely focused on the tome she was reading, only turning away every now and then to jot something down in her notebook.

"Did we have some homework assignment I wasn't aware of?" the blond asked in concern. That hardback looked way too big to be a bit of light reading and the fact that the girl was taking notes didn't seem like a good sign either. The sound of his voice served to break the Faunus' concentration and alert her to his presence as her body visibly jumped, her head snapped up to look at him and she let out an adorable squeak of surprise all in the space of a couple of seconds. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," the ninja added sheepishly.

"It's OK," Velvet replied once she calmed down from her shock. "This isn't for any assignment, I'm just doing some research," she explained, lifting the book so he could see the cover.

Naruto had to hold back the habitual retorts of 'Liar!' and 'Pervert!' that had almost become a reflex after spending so much time dealing with Jiraiya's antics and instead opted to read the title that was now on show. He probably should have been expecting the book to be Dust-related given the girl's area of expertise and the words 'Dust and Aura: A Guide to Understanding Interactions between Nature's Wrath and the Soul' didn't disappoint. Once he had read the cover, Velvet lowered the book again so she could pick up from where she had been prior to the blond distracting her, not wanting to lose any train of thought that his arrival had unintentionally interrupted. As she did, the blond glanced at the visible pages out of curiosity.

"Looks complicated," the shinobi muttered to himself as his brain tried, and failed, to comprehend what he was reading. There were so many longwinded technical terms and really intricate diagrams that his head started to hurt a little which prompted him to just give up.

"It is a bit more complex than most of the books I've read before," Velvet absently agreed, paying slightly more attention to the page in front of her than her partner. "Doctor Alfar suggested it to me earlier because he thought it might help with my Semblance issue."

"Semblance issue?" Despite having been partnered up with the girl for a couple of months now, Naruto still didn't actually know what her Semblance was. It had come up in conversation once or twice in passing but the brunette had always subtly diverted the topic to something else as she seemed more than a little reluctant to explain her ability. The only details that she had let slip were that it was an unusual skill that wasn't overly suited to fighting when compared to things like Nora's enhanced strength or Weiss' Glyphs. The blond had briefly considered asking Coco about it, or at least about why Velvet was so hesitant about revealing it, since the playful girl probably knew but he quickly decided against it since he really didn't like the idea of going behind her back like that.

Naruto's question made Velvet realise her slip-up and she set aside her book with a faint sigh while thinking about how to reply. As she did, her eyes wandered around the room a little without her paying much attention until they landed on the desk next to her partner's bed. The Faunus then abruptly got up, headed over there and picked up a small makeshift sickle that her roommate had been playing around with the previous evening, much to his visible confusion. She gave the handmade weapon in her hand a quick glance over and, before Naruto could ask what she was doing, started twirling it around at high speed with the same level of dexterity and coordination that had taken the blond years of training to develop.

"Because of my Semblance, I can generally use other people's weapons about as well as they can," Velvet explained as she started casually tossing the crude blade from one hand to the other and back again while still keeping it spinning around. It was fairly apparent from her tone that the brunette wasn't overly enthusiastic about revealing this talent and the awed Naruto was starting to work out why that might be the case. If what she was saying was true, then the Faunus wouldn't need any significant training to wield a weapon effectively and that was bound to make others jealous considering how long it probably took to develop that level of skill the usual way.

"I found out about this by accident back at Signal and one of the teachers commented afterwards that the best weapon for me would be one that belongs to someone else," the Dust mage continued after placing the sickle back on the desk once her little demonstration was done. "I'm not really sure if he was right or not but at least it would make my Semblance useful for something in combat. Even if he was right, people probably wouldn't be very happy if I started taking their weapons whenever I wanted to fight. That's actually why I started learning about Dust instead since I wouldn't need anything special to use it." The last bit was added on more as an afterthought than anything else. "Anyway, since I obviously can't go around pinching other people's weapons, Coco suggested the possibility of somehow replicating them, even if it's just temporarily. I think she got the idea from a video game or something," she shrugged uncertainly.

"And you're having issues with making workable copies?" Naruto commented in realisation as he worked out where things were going. By this point, Velvet had sat down on his bed to continue her explanation and the blond had plopped down next to her as there wasn't much point in either of them staying on their feet.

"Yes, modern weapons can transform because they have mechanisms that shift the various pieces into different preset arrangements. It's just not possible to make something change into a form that isn't a part of its design and the whole issue is made even more complicated because of why my Semblance lets me use weapons in the first place." She sighed at how hopeless her situation seemed to be. "I thought I was starting to figure it out near the end of my last year at Signal when I read about some fancy liquid metal compound that had just been developed in Atlas but it didn't go too well." Velvet unconsciously massaged the left side of her abdomen when she said this, which didn't go unnoticed by the shinobi, but it didn't look like she had any intention of elaborating so he left it alone.

"If you need some assistance then you're more than welcome to ask me," Naruto offered with a friendly grin, snapping the girl out of the melancholy caused by remembering whatever it was that had happened. "I probably wouldn't be much help with the technical stuff like what's in that book but…" he trailed off with a slight shrug. His brain would almost certainly give up on him if he were to try and understand the things that she had been reading earlier but he'd still give it a go if it meant helping his friend.

Velvet let out a quiet giggle at his comment before a smile of happiness settled on her face. "You know, Coco made the exact same offer back at Signal when she made the suggestion in the first place. She even grumbled about the technical bits too since she just couldn't wrap her head around most of the things I was reading."

"Clearly you must be a genius compared to us regular folks," the blond grandly proclaimed before giving a mock sigh. "How will Coco and I prosper in life when we're so overshadowed by your greatness?" His tone made it quite apparent that he was joking and his roommate giggled again. She kept going for another few moments and Naruto made a mental note to try and get her laughing more often as it was quite a nice sound.

"You'll both be fine," Velvet commented after her chuckling had died down. "And thanks," she added on after a moment's thought. It was clear by his confused expression that Naruto wasn't entirely sure what she was thanking him for so she quickly elaborated. "Not many people have positive reactions when they learn about what my Semblance can do and I'm glad it hasn't made you hate me." The shy Faunus's eyes drifted down towards the floor around her feet as she said this and her voice went quiet enough that her partner had to put a bit of effort into hearing her properly.

"Don't be silly," Naruto said as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring gesture, completely missing the blush that appeared on her face due to her averted gaze. "Your Semblance is a part of who you are, so why would I hate you for it? Besides, Coco would probably try to beat me up or something if she thought I disliked you for such a stupid reason." The last part was said in a slightly jokey manner but he couldn't help the faint thought that the second-year might actually do it.

"Anyway, enough about that for now. Why don't you tell me a bit more about that Forever Fall place we're going to in a couple of weeks?" The somewhat abrupt change in topic was blatantly obvious to Velvet but she still appreciated it and started telling the blond about the beautiful forest that Professor Peach was planning on taking all the first years to for a field trip.

Eighteen and a bit days later and Naruto and Velvet were following Professor Goodwitch with the rest of the first year students as they all walked through the ridiculously red forest known as Forever Fall; the red leaves weren't too bad but the red grass really threw the blond for a loop. In addition to her usual combat gear, Velvet also had a brown camera edged with gold, equipped with a retractable flashbulb and bearing her personal emblem hanging on a strap around her neck as such an attractive location would undoubtedly give her some good pictures. After their brief chat about her Semblance, the Faunus seemed to be just that bit more relaxed around her partner, almost like a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. She had also more or less stopped turning red with embarrassment whenever Naruto and she ended up close enough together for her mind to drift back to the intimate kiss they had shared at the party before the Christmas holiday. However, bringing that particular incident up in conversation was still an effective way to make her blush as Coco had proven after popping up in the corridor once classes were done a few days prior to this field trip. The second-year had also quickly picked up on how her friend was suddenly more at ease with the blond and had teased the poor girl mercilessly the entire way back to their respective rooms.

Watching the playful girl in action had also prompted Naruto to contemplate the idea of pulling a minor prank on her at some point, nothing too severe or humiliating but enough to get her noticeably embarrassed. The thought had started with the realisation that Coco managed to get both Velvet and, to a lesser extent, himself quite flustered on a fairly regular basis and yet he had never seen the second-year with anything more than a faint blush of embarrassment that disappeared just as quickly as it showed up. At this point in time, it was still just a thought since the prankster was oddly having some trouble in coming up with something to do; most of his usual prank ideas just weren't suited to some relatively minor embarrassment as evidenced by Team CRDL's streaking incident back near the start of the year. In spite of his lack of inspiration, the ninja had managed to find out that Coco absolutely hated the colour pink for some reason after a few discreet questions to Velvet and he filed that little titbit away for future reference as it could prove useful.

"While the forest of Forever Fall is indeed a beautiful place, please remember that it is also home to numerous Grimm," Glynda spoke up from the front of the group as they all slowed to a halt. Hearing her voice pulled Naruto out of his prank-related thoughts and also distracted Velvet just as she was about to take a photo of a trio of particularly striking birds that were perched in an equally impressive tree. Sadly for the girl, the birds chose to fly away the moment her attention switched to the teacher and the opportunity was lost.

"As Professor Peach explained to you all in your last lesson with him, you are here to collect some samples from deep within the forest for a future class. The reason I'm here instead of him is because he's currently at a botany and entomology conference in Mistral that he forgot about when he was arranging this trip," the blonde teacher explained, grumbling to herself about the stupid oversight. Her displeasure was somewhat justified as her colleague had been excited about the event for well over a month in advance and yet it had somehow slipped his mind regardless.

"Your objective for the day is to collect one jar of this red sap." She held up a jar full of the substance to emphasis her point. "Just to clarify, that means one full jar per person not per team so don't be lazy. I strongly advise you all to stay with your teammates just in case you encounter any Grimm and we'll all meet back here at four o'clock sharp. Other than that, have fun and try not to die!" the blonde finished with a smile as the various teams started breaking away from the main group.

"Is it just me or is Goodwitch a bit more relaxed than she was before the break?" one of the guys in the crowd muttered to his teammates.

"Maybe she got something she really wanted for Christmas?" another suggested.

"Maybe she got laid?" a third added, only for the other two to just stare at him oddly for a moment. All three of them plus their silent teammate were then briefly distracted by various thoughts of the attractive teacher 'relieving stress'. They all snapped out it barely a few seconds later and carried on with their walk further into the forest. "You're right; she's just too strict for that."

"Unless she found someone into that sort of thing?" the fourth boy pointed out. The comment served to conjure up some more thoughts of the woman, this time making good use of her riding crop and other similar things, and three of them winced in phantom pain.

"I don't know whether to envy the guy or pity him," the first teen muttered.

"Lucky bastard," the third one sighed wistfully as his mind was still showing him images of some particularly creative uses for the stern blonde's weapon of choice. His three teammates just stared at him again but decided against commenting.

Since Glynda hadn't said anything about each team having to do things separately or anything, Teams RWBY, VNUS and JNPR, bar Jaune, had all opted to go off together to collect their sap. As they were all splitting off from the main crowd, Pyrrha spared a glance behind them and Naruto followed her gaze to see Cardin half-pull and half-drag the blond swordsman with him. Despite it being blindingly obvious to most that Jaune wasn't exactly happy with the arrangement, the boy didn't make much of an effort to resist and instead seemed reluctantly resigned to his fate. The redhead just sighed in a strange mix of disappointment and sadness at the sight before following after her other two teammates.

Naruto was about to do the same before an idea occurred to him. A day or two after Jaune had started hanging around with Team CRDL's leader, the ninja had stumbled across his fellow blond noticeably depressed and mumbling something to himself under his breath only to sigh miserably when Cardin had contacted him on his Scroll. The chat itself seemed to be about some essay based on what little he overheard of it and it hadn't taken him long to start putting two and two together. He still didn't know exactly why his fellow blond was effectively being treated as Cardin's personal slave but he was fairly sure there was some sort of blackmail involved.

Once the brief conversation was over, Naruto had approached the other teen and casually mentioned how unhappy he seemed to be with his new friendship. Jaune didn't really reply to the Uzumaki's comment and had even turned down his offer to help him deal with the bully, saying that he didn't want anyone else to get involved and that he'd deal with the situation himself somehow. The former Jinchuriki had been a little disappointed with that but he had decided to respect his friend's wishes and left the topic alone, never bringing it up again.

With a mischievous grin on his face, Naruto discreetly brought his hands together into a single seal and sent a sliver of chakra up towards his throat. He didn't really use this particular trick very often as he just wasn't good enough at it to fool anyone except civilians but it was perfect for this situation. Even though he had agreed to let Jaune sort out his Cardin problem on his own, he still felt that it was alright for him to periodically make sure that the mace-wielder didn't get too cocky.

"Soon your soul will be mine," a raspy voice whispered from right behind Cardin and the brown-haired boy let out a yelp of fright before spinning around to frantically look for the source. However, he didn't see anything since Naruto had slipped behind a tree and nobody else seemed to be paying his group even the slightest bit of attention. After a few more seconds of searching, the leader of Team CRDL dismissed it as his imagination as he really didn't want to consider the alternative; after all, nobody wanted to Reaper to hunt them down.

Nodding to himself upon seeing Cardin get so jumpy, Naruto turned to head off in the direction that his friends had gone in and saw Velvet standing a short distance away. Judging by her expression, she had seen that he had done something to the bully but didn't seem to quite know what. The blond just strolled up to her and threw an arm over her shoulder before leading her over to where everyone else had wandered off to.

"Um, what exactly did you do to him?" the Faunus asked in an attempt to distract herself from the arm wrapped around her shoulder. The brunette just wasn't used to that sort of physical contact from people since, before coming to Beacon, her family and Coco were really the only ones close enough to her to do it though she liked to think that Naruto was getting to that point as well. Still, the fact that she wasn't entirely sure how she felt about the blond really didn't help her figure out how to respond.

"Nothing much, just-" Naruto started to reply only to descend into a small coughing fit. He still couldn't throw his voice for more than a few seconds, generally only long enough for a sentence or two, before the discomfort in his throat became too much for him despite having started learning the minor ventriloquism technique shortly after returning from his mission to the Land of Waves. The young Jinchuriki had thought it was kind of cool how Zabuza had managed to make his voice come from every direction at once during their first encounter, even if it was a very unnerving thing to be subjected to as a recently graduated Genin.

Upon hearing her partner start coughing like that, Velvet was understandably worried about him and was about to run off to get Professor Goodwitch when she was stopped by a hand on her arm. The blond quickly quietened down after another few seconds and took a small drink from a water bottle he had pulled from one of his many pockets. After a couple of random mutterings under his breath confirmed that he wouldn't start hacking up a lung anytime soon, the teen gave his teammate a brief smile to show that he was alright before making a second attempt to answer her question.

"It was nothing major; I just threw my voice a little to give him a bit of a scare," Naruto explained. "It hurts my throat a bit to do it, hence the coughing, and the raspy tone I used probably didn't help but I'm completely fine now so there's nothing to worry about. Now let's go find everyone else." With that said, the dimensionally-displaced ninja grabbed his friend's hand and gently pulled her through the forest towards the rest of their friends, oblivious to the blush she was developing.

It took about five minutes for the pair to catch up with everyone else as the other two teams had found a small clearing and concluded that it was as good a place as any to collect their samples. Naruto let go of Velvet's hand as they arrived since he didn't see any reason to carry on holding it now that he wasn't leading her through the trees but he missed the expression of contemplation that briefly appeared on her face due to having a quick glance around. Pyrrha and Ren were standing off to one side quietly discussing their leader's recent association with Cardin while Nora was cheerfully bouncing around and occasionally interjecting with some random comment or another. Blake seemed to be somewhat distracted by something and had been like that since she had set foot inside the forest. Meanwhile, Weiss was simply admiring the scenery and her other two teammates were casually chatting about something or other as well.

After another few minutes of everyone doing their own thing, with Velvet taking some pictures of the forest and Naruto idly thinking about prank ideas again, the group decided that they should probably get on with the task that had been assigned to them. At least, that would have been the case had Ruby not finally noticed the brunette's camera as that had led to a short impromptu photo shoot of sorts that featured increasingly comical poses, with Naruto, Weiss or Pyrrha taking any pictures that had Velvet herself in them. Once the fun was over with, the trio of teams got to work acquiring their sap samples. Most of them did so on their own, each claiming a separate tree, but Nora ended up hovering around Ren which prompted the boy to let her work with him.

All in all, collecting the fluid was fairly simple and it didn't take long for Naruto to fill his jar up and put the lid back on. A brief look around showed that Velvet, who was working at the tree next to his own, was almost done as was pretty much everyone else. The blond did see something a little unexpected when he happened to glance in the direction that Ren and Nora were working in and it prompted him to speak up.

"Is this stuff safe to eat as it is?" he asked, though the question wasn't directed at anyone in particular.

"I don't think there would be anything wrong with doing so but it would probably be better to eat something else if you're hungry," Pyrrha answered from his other side. The redhead had just finished gathering her sample when she spoke and was currently opening one of the spare jars they had brought with them to fill up as well. When asked about why she was sorting out two jars instead of just the required one, she simply replied that the second was for Jaune if he needed it.

"I'm not hungry and, even if I was, I have other things to eat instead," Naruto replied, much to Pyrrha's confusion as it seemed to contradict his earlier question. The taller teen stopped what she was doing for a moment and looked at him, about to question why he had bothered asking in the first place, only for the ninja to simply point off to one side. Following the line of the finger, the redhead immediately understood the situation.

"Nora!" Pyrrha shouted, getting the attention of every person in the clearing. The reason for her raised voice was that her sugar-loving teammate was in the process of devouring an entire jar's worth of sap while Ren was occupied with filling the other. When the boy in question turned to see what his partner was doing, he sighed in exasperation but didn't seem surprised in the slightest. Nora herself just smiled sheepishly at being caught in the act but carried on regardless.

"Nora, don't eat all the sap. We need to keep some for Professor Peach," Ren said wearily. Naruto wasn't sure whether he should pity the other boy or not; after all, keeping an eye on Nora seemed to be a full-time job even if she did make things more interesting.

"But it's tasty!" the bubbly girl whined. She also took two steps back when her childhood friend tried to take the jar from her and made sure to keep it out of his reach while still helping herself to its contents.

Since it didn't look like the situation was going to resolve itself too easily, Pyrrha took advantage of Ren holding their teammate's attention and crept up behind her with the intention of snatching the jar from her while she was distracted. While the idea was sound, things didn't go as expected as Nora noticed the redhead just before she could really do anything and casually twirled around her with a silly grin on her face, staying just far enough away to keep her jar. It was quite impressive that such a simple manoeuvre allowed her to avoid her teammate as well as it did and even Pyrrha silently admitted that.

"Great, the sugar's kicking in," Ren muttered under his breath and everyone that heard him paled slightly as they remembered what happened the last time the orange-haired girl had gone on a sugar high. The teen in green then took a single step towards his friend and couldn't help but sigh when she responded by spinning around and running away.

Fortunately, the hyperactive girl didn't get too far as she tripped over the empty jar Pyrrha had left lying around on the grass and fell to the ground after failing to maintain her balance. The downside to this was that the half-full jar she had been holding had gone flying and ended up hitting Velvet. There hadn't been enough force behind it for the glass to break but the sap inside had spilled out and covered half of the brunette's torso as well as her left shoulder.

Realising what she had done, Nora slowly climbed to her feet and hung her head apologetically. "Sorry Velvet."

"It's fine. Accidents happen," Velvet responded. The Faunus was just glad that her camera had somehow escaped unscathed and she quickly pulled it off from around her neck before it could come into contact with the sticky red substance staining her clothes.

Anything else that may have been said on the matter was interrupted as something very small and buzzing quickly flew across the clearing, making a beeline for the sap-covered girl. Deciding to just deal with the pest himself, Naruto growled at it while focusing some killing intent on the incoming insect. The monstrous aura did its job as the bug immediately stopped in midair and dropped to the ground, its tiny heart simply incapable of coping with the sudden feeling of impending doom.

The clearing went silent after that as everyone was understandably impressed by how the blond had somehow managed to kill an insect by apparently doing nothing more than growl at it. The only one that had even the faintest idea how he could have done it was Blake as she vaguely remembered how he had gotten Cardin and his teammate to stop picking on Velvet way back during their orientation speech. The silence was broken a few seconds later by a squeak of surprise coming from Velvet and everyone immediately refocused on her just in time to see Nora trying to lick some of the sap off of her shoulder.

"Looks like a Rapier Wasp," Blake commented from her current crouching position next to the downed pest as she decided to just ignore Nora's behaviour.

"Those usually come in large groups, don't they?" Naruto asked as he glanced at the dead bug. It was noticeably larger than a regular wasp and the long rapier-like stinger was indicative of its species and also the source of its name.

"Yes, you should probably try and clean that sap off or it'll just keep attracting them," the black-haired girl replied, directing most of her answer at Velvet.

"Come on, that stream we passed on the way here will do and I'll make sure no wasps get you," the ninja offered. Since Velvet was his partner and friend, it only made sense that he'd keep an eye out for her while she cleaned up, especially since Goodwitch told everyone to stay with their teammates.

With that said, the pair left the clearing and headed off towards the narrow stream that was probably no more than a ten or so minute walk away. Neither of them heard Yang's idle comment of 'They seem to be getting quite close' or the conversation that said comment kick-started.

During their walk to the stream, Naruto took a closer look at Velvet's jacket to get a better idea of how badly the sap had stained it. It certainly didn't look like the easiest thing to get out and the way that his partner's hand kept inching closer to her sap-soaked stomach only to pull back at the last moment suggested it probably wasn't the most comfortable thing either.

"Hmm, might be a bit difficult to wash it off completely without letting it soak a little first," the blond absently muttered to himself. The rabbit Faunus heard him though and turned her head to reply but froze when she saw how close he was standing to her. She blushed slightly at the unexpected proximity but quickly composed herself.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to start licking you or anything," Naruto joked upon seeing his partner's momentary flush. He turned his attention back to the stream coming up ahead of them just in time to miss the girl's face turn bright red as her brain started conjuring up images of him doing exactly that, only in a much more erotic manner than what he was referring to.

"I've been hanging around with Coco too much," Velvet mumbled under her breath as she tried to clear her head of such tantalising thoughts. Even though she cared about her deeply, there was just no denying that Coco's frequent teasing was having an effect on her mind. Whether or not this effect was a positive one was still up for debate.

Just as they reached the water's edge, a loud roar echoed through the forest and made Velvet jump slightly as she was still thinking about the possible effects of long-term exposure to Coco but the noise was far enough away to suggest that the creature making it probably wouldn't bother them. She had calmed down again by this point while the blond was keeping an eye out in case another wasp showed up. The brunette quickly passed her camera over to her teammate so it wouldn't get in her way and took her jacket off which let her finally get a proper look at how badly stained it was. She immediately agreed with Naruto's previous assessment about it needing a bit of a soak and then froze as she realised she'd have to do the same with her long-sleeved black top as well since her jacket didn't cover her midriff. The girl blushed at the thought of being almost completely topless in front of her partner and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

The Dust mage saw that Naruto was currently looking around for anything that may have been drawn by the scent of the red sap but, as if he'd somehow felt her eyes on him, his gaze casually swung around in her direction. She was then treated to the sight of him suddenly doing his utmost to look anywhere other than at her as his face reddened slightly. Velvet was understandably confused by this but she quickly figured it out when she noticed exactly what area his eyes kept avoiding. Her blush intensified as she became acutely aware of just how form-fitting her top was; despite covering everything above her waist, it didn't really leave anything to the imagination as it followed every contour of her body. The brunette hadn't really put much thought into how the black garment apparently highlighted certain aspects of her figure back when she had been deciding what sort of thing to wear for combat training at Signal as she had been much more concerned with practicality. In that regard, her current attire was perfect as it didn't impede her movements in the slightest and there were no loose folds of cloth or whatnot that could get caught on something either.

"Here, you can borrow this," the blond spoke up, snapping Velvet out of her thoughts. He had taken his coat off at some point while she wasn't paying attention and was currently holding it out towards her. He must have noticed her confusion at the seemingly random action as he quickly elaborated. "You're probably going to have to take your top off as well to get rid of all of the sap so you can cover yourself up with this."

"Thanks," the Faunus replied as she took the offered garment. The moment it left his hand, Naruto spun around so she could sort herself out without having to worry about him looking at her. The brunette then pulled her top off and grimaced slightly when she realised that some of the sap had soaked through as there were traces of the sticky red substance on her stomach. She was immediately very thankful that none of the fluid had trickled down below her waist as the embarrassment of having to take even more clothes off could well have killed her.

After a quick look to confirm that her partner still had his back to her and wasn't peeking, Velvet crouched down next to the stream, wet the sleeve of her top and used it to wipe down her skin. She was just about to stand up again when she heard Naruto shout and she automatically jumped to her feet.

"Who's there?" the blond called out. He could tell there was someone or something around so he was looking around to find them, doing his best to ignore the momentary glimpse of light brown lace he had gotten just before his partner clutched his coat to her chest to preserve her modesty. The ninja had already armed himself with the first thing he'd pulled from his pocket so all that was left was actually dealing with what was presumably a hostile being.

"Impressive senses," a familiar and completely unwanted voice rang out as its owner came out from the trees. "Then again, I suppose that it's to be expected that an animal knows what's going on around it, especially in its natural habitat." Alazor Rey casually leaned against the trunk of a nearby tree and levelled a condescending glare at Naruto.

"Oh, it's just you. Don't you have anything better to do than stalk me?" The shinobi relaxed his stance and turned his attention back to keeping an eye out for Rapier Wasps and other similar pests in a deliberate move to show that he didn't care about the other boy in the slightest. Meanwhile, Velvet was just glad that the newcomer seemed to be ignoring her completely, especially considering her current state of partial undress, in favour of trying to intimidate her partner.

"How dare you imply such a disgusting thing!" the arrogant boy shouted angrily, clearly unhappy with the insinuation despite the fact that it could technically be considered accurate. "I merely came to-" he carried on only to be abruptly cut off by Naruto.

"Whatever," the blond waved him off dismissively. "If I wanted a stalker, I'd at least prefer a cute girl. That way I'd get something nice to look at whenever they inevitably failed to stay hidden," Naruto idly commented. Obviously, he wasn't actually asking for a stalker but it was the first thing that popped into his head for some unknown reason that he wanted to blame Jiraiya for and he had decided that things would be easier if the other boy didn't have the opportunity to build up steam with his rant. Seeing Alazor about to start up again, the vulpine teen quickly interrupted before he could with the intention of just ending the confrontation as he really couldn't be bothered to deal with this today. "Anyway, that's enough of that. Are you ready to go now, Velvet?"

"Yes, I am," the Faunus replied as she had figured out what he was doing. While the two males were occupied, she had awkwardly pulled her partner's coat on while making sure to not expose herself in the process and had even managed to make a quick attempt to wash the sap off of her clothes. They'd still need either a longer soak or preferably a run in a washing machine to completely clean them but she had made a decent start and what was left hopefully wouldn't attract things too easily. The girl had also heard what they were talking about and she couldn't help but feel that it was a good thing that there was nobody else around to hear the blond's stalker comment. Since she was a bit more aware of how popular her teammate was with the fairer sex than he was, she just knew that somebody would have probably taken his words to heart and started shadowing him just so he'd notice them.

"Then let's go back to the others. I'm sure things are far more interesting over there," Naruto said as the pair headed off back to where they had left their friends, apparently ignoring Alazor completely. The blond dropped the random length of pipe back into his pocket and fished out a carrier bag for Velvet to put her wet clothes in. With that done, he returned his teammate's camera and the two started casually speculating about what Professor Peach could want so many jars of sap for. Neither of them really noticed how Velvet was hugging her borrowed coat against her body or how she seemed more relaxed right then than she had been all day.

Meanwhile, back at the stream, the arrogant swordsman had finally snapped out of his shock-induced stupor at having been ignored to the point that they didn't even seem to recognise his existence anymore. His disbelief was somewhat understandable as nobody had ever treated him like that before and he instantly decided that he didn't like it. With a single glare in the direction that Team VNUS had gone, Alazor went back to rejoin his own teammates; the blond's actions had ruined his mood and he couldn't be bothered to spend time tracking him down again.

A/N: Here's Chapter 10. Sorry about the wait. (I kept getting distracted by things and several chunks of this have been rewritten a few times as well which didn't help. I also ended up with ideas for a couple of scenes later on in the story that I had to write up just to get them out of my head which also added to the delay but also means that I now have a few thousand words of scenes that are more or less ready to be slotted in at the appropriate places.) Hopefully, the fact that this is a significantly longer than normal chapter will help make it up to you all but I won't hold my breath. It probably would have been done last month or possibly the end of March but the Forever Fall part ended up longer than expected and I wanted to get the whole thing done in one chapter along with the bit from Jaundice at the start and the little scene discussing Velvet's Semblance.

I'm hoping it won't take so long to do future chapters but I won't promise anything since I've said this before and the gap between posting this chapter and the last one is the longest yet. Unfortunately, I'm going to be focusing on my other story for the time being since that really needs an update sometime fairly soon (it's been on hiatus for over a year and that's already much longer than I was originally planning).

So to help make up for this, I'm going to give you all a bit of good news (well, good news for some since I know that there'll be others that won't like it). I have decided to have Velvet paired with Naruto in this story, hence the little mentions of them getting a bit closer in this chapter. I'm still not quite sure when exactly they'll get together but it will happen. The only reason I haven't tagged them as a pairing yet in the little info box thingamabob at the top is because I'm still undecided about whether or not to include Coco as well and I don't want to risk accidentally misleading people into thinking this is a single pairing story if it ends up being a threesome. Please note that Coco is the only girl I'm thinking of adding so don't bother asking for Naruto/Velvet/Weiss or something because it won't happen. (Sorry to everyone that was rooting for the heiress but I just cannot imagine Weiss being willing to share her boyfriend with anyone.)