Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY or Harry Potter. RWBY is owned by Roosterteeth and Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling. If I owned either then I would be swimming in cash, which sadly I am not.)

Nothing Left

Chapter 14: The Tournament Begins

The new day found team RWBY strolling down the middle of the street in Vale. They were surrounded on all sides by excited festival goers, local and foreigners alike. The buildings were even more extravagantly decorated for the tournament than they were the previous week. The air was alive with the buzz of happy chatter and vendors yelling out advertisements for their wares. Children were playing in the streets as couples, both young and old, tried their hands at the games that lined the streets, trying to win prizes for their significant other.

This all seemed lost on Yang as she was trudging along beside Blake and Harry. The other couple of their team were walking next to them with their fingers intertwined.

"Why does it have to be so far away?" Yang whined as they made their way down the street. The large stadium which held the tournament loomed over the buildings in the distance.

"Well I would apparate us, but since I have not been there or have any idea what the area looks like, I can't," Harry replied with amusement tinging his voice. "So you're going to have to walk, sorry,"

Yang went silent, but Harry thought nothing of it. That is until he felt something large collide onto his back. He stumbled forward as soft orbs pressed against his back and arms snaked their way over his neck and held on. The wizard's hands automatically stooped down to catch the girl's thighs as to keep her from falling off. The blonde shimmied around on his back to get comfortable before settling down and allowing Harry to carry her. Normally she could not do this because of the rifle that was almost perpetually holstered on his back, but luckily, Harry decided to place it in his magical pouch for the day.

Ruby giggled at her sister's brazen action while the more level headed Weiss and Blake shook their heads at her.

"Yang," Blake sighed, exasperated at her partner. Though she could not deny the little voice in the back of her mind that wished she had done that first. "I thought that we agreed that you weren't going to do something like this,"

Ruby glanced at Weiss out of the corner of her eye. The heiress caught the look and tightened her grip on the younger girl's hand. "No, I will not carry you like your lazy sister. You have legs, so you can use them,"

"What? I'm tired after all that training with Mr. Ozpin," Yang complained as if it justified her unannounced piggyback ride. "I didn't think that the two of you would be such slave drivers,"

"Well we needed to get ready," Harry said defending himself. "And you said that you wanted to test your limits,"

"Test, not shatter," Yang groaned and planted her head into the crook of his neck. "I am still sore after your 'training'," She was not exactly lying about nature of their training, calling it torture was over exaggerating it, but not far from the truth.

Flashback

"So are you ready to begin?" Harry announced, stretching his body in preparation for what promised to be an intense workout. He and Ozpin had decided that it would be better to get the physical training out of the way before they tackled the grimm issue. If Harry could not maintain a firm grasp on himself and he tried to attack them. It would be better if he would be tired from a day of training then not and better able to attack. There was an issue where he would be more susceptible to the rage that came with the grimm if he was already worn out, but Harry wanted to minimize anything that could lead to his friends hurt and decided that the risk was worth it.

Yang and Blake were surprised and quite pleased to find that Ozpin was going to help with their training. After all, how many people get the chance to learn from one of the most famous and accomplished hunters in the world. They learned to regret that sentiment minutes later when their workout began. Ozpin started them out by having them run unaided by aura around the field ten times. This normally would be not be a problem, but the field was a half a mile in one direction. Harry and Ozpin on the other hand decided to forgo the endurance conditioning for the day as they had already done their own routines earlier, so they began lightly sparring to loosen up their muscles.

Three hours later, all four of them were exhausted. After finishing their run, the girls spent an hour experimenting with their powers and trying new things out which was then followed by sparring with each other and Ozpin. When Harry called an end to their workout, the girls immediately flopped down onto the ground, Blake did not even try for a semblance of grace as she laid down. The wizard felt bad about forcing them to practice their powers so much, but he could not deny the results. Yang had been able to refine her control over fire a bit more, allowing her to use her semblance for even longer than before and that was after only a day. If she did this kind of training every other day and continued at such a rate then Harry doubted that anyone could stand up to her fire. Also an added benefit of the day of training was that she could test out some of her ideas on how to use her fire. Blake did the same with her shadows, but it was more refinement than developing moves for her semblance for her though. Harry had little say in the training of their semblance. He was able to offer some critiques on some of their exercises, but for the most part it was the headmaster who decided what they would do because he knew more about how to train semblances properly then any of them. Harry nodded to Ozpin that he was ready to begin the next segment of his training and made his way to the middle of the field and started to set up for his change.

"Don't you want to disarm yourself?" Ozpin asked with a raised eyebrow. "It will make this somewhat easier on me,"

The faunus laughed and rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment. He honestly forgot that he still had his weapons on him. He had worn for so long that they were just there like the clothes on his back.

The first thing that he removed were his obvious primary weapons and his pouch. The pouch contained a good bit of his various weaponry, but not all of it. He handed them to Oz carefully, the next were the daggers that he had tucked away in his boots and under his clothing. That was followed by the multiple pistols kept in his waistband and those strapped to his thighs. Then came the bottles of acid and other various liquids that were sequestered around his body. The three's eye kept getting wider as he continued to pull more weapons out from their homes. They had no idea that he had so many on him, sure they knew he carried hidden weapons on him, he never hidden the fact that he was paranoid, but the amount he was removing was unreal.

"Is that all?" Oz asked, shocked at how many weapons he was holding. His arms were so full of weapons that the girls had to come over to help him carry them all.

"Wait, hold on," Harry contorted his body so that he could reach his lower back and under his shirt with both hands, a second later what could only be called a pair of short swords were withdrawn. They were then added to the pile. He held up a hand to stop them from moving on and reached into his hair and pulled a pair of thick needles that looked like they could do some damage. He had them attached to the black ribbon that kept his hair in check, for he was ever captured. People always looked through clothing for weapons, but rarely ever did they check the hair. "Those are the only weapons that I have on me at the moment. I would have more, but I left some of my more nasty stuff in my pouch. What?" he asked innocently with an amused smirk on his face. He loved seeing people's faces when the true extent of his armory was revealed.

Yang raised up a finger and was about to say something before she dropped it. "Nothing, Harry. Nothing at all," She said and left to put his weapons down. Blake and Ozpin followed behind her in stunned silence.

Harry shook his head and prepared himself for freeing the grimm. When Ozpin got back and nodded his consent, Harry activated the first stage of his mask. So far everything was alright, the feeling of bloodlust that he knew came with the mask was so familiar that he was able to suppress it instantly.

"Prepare yourself, I'm about to begin," Harry stated as he started to delve deeper into the energy. It felt like a cold was creeping along his face as the mask grew into a more complete form, Harry could barely register the feeling of the mask crawling up his face though. The feelings of rage and savagery that came with the mask became exponentially worse as it grew larger and covered more of his face. The hybrid had to pause before he finished so that he could catch himself. After he had suppressed the rage as much as he could, which was not all that much even with his occlumency training, he began again. The bone like material only had a couple more inches until it was complete. Only when it covered that small distance, did he run into his first major issue. If the previous amount of negative emotions he felt when he stopped the first time was a drop of water, compared to the ocean of hate that bombarded him. If this was what grimms felt all the time, then no wonder they were insane and killed people.

He fought against it as much as possible, but after several seconds of struggling, he was swept away. He watched his body let out an ear piercing roar and try to slash the grey haired man with his claws. His grimm self tried to draw on his aura to supplement his speed like Oz was doing to dodge him, but Harry was able to cut the flow before it began. There was not much that he could control, but aura was one of the things that he could. A second later, Harry lost sight of the man and fell unconsciousness moments later.

The next thing that he knew, cold water was being splashed in his face. He woke with a sputter and found that he was surrounded by his worried girlfriends and a smirking hunter carrying a bucket of water.

"Really?" Was the first thing that he said when he got his bearings. "Did you have to dump a bucket of water on me?" he asked the older man, exasperated. Honestly, it was like he was a child sometimes.

Ozpin said nothing, but his smirk increased in size. He was then pushed out of the way by a worried blonde. Harry sat up with a little help from Yang and Blake.

"I'm fine," Harry replied when he saw the worry in their eyes. He took a deep breath. "So are you up for round two?"

"What?" Yang shouted, "You should be resting,"

"No," He stated firmly, "I need to do this, Yang. I need to know that I can fight using everything I have without having to worry about going berserk and hurting everyone. I may need to use this power in the future, and I can't do that the way I am right now. Ozpin get ready for another go," Yang saw the determination in his eyes and knew that nothing she could say would sway the young man into not doing this. She was not even sure if she would try to stop him though. If she lost the ability to manipulate her fire safely, she would do anything to get that back, just like he was doing what it took to gain full

control of his body.

The girls backed away to a safe distance and Harry began again. The mask surged up his face slowly, much more so than last time. He had decided to test if going slower would yield better results than letting the change flow naturally. He was happy to find that it was a bit better, not much better mind you. The rage he was feeling was the same as before, but the slower speed allowed him to adjust to the storm of emotions better than before. This time, he was able to hold back the rage a couple seconds longer before his occlumency failed and he attacked Ozpin, who knocked him out. This cycle was repeated over and over again, sometimes he was able to increase his time in control by several seconds and other times he would break even or even lose time.

The mask training lasted for only an hour after the initial change. During that time, Harry was only successful in control the grimm enough to move for a second before it overwhelmed him and took over. At the moment, he needed all the concentration he had to fight back against the grimm, but that second proved that it was possible for him to eventually have some control over the powers like he had the first stage.

Flashback end

"Well just think of all the 'cool' tricks that you will be able to pull off in the tournament," Harry said, trying to cheer her up. "Maybe you can get a cereal deal like Pyrrha did and have all the cereal you can ever eat," He joked.

A loud intake of breath sounded from Harry's right. Everyone in the group looked over towards the young girl, who made that sound and then each of them took a step away from her. Ruby's eyes were impossibly wide as she stared at Harry.

"Do you mean that?" She asked. "I could get something like that?"

Harry mutely nodded his head at her, even Weiss was freaked out by the manic look in her eye. Ruby lapsed into silence for a couple paces until her behavior shifted more towards the disturbed spectrum of emotions.

Ruby started to giggle under her breath while mutters of an unlimited supply of sugary cereal drifted from the girl. Everyone in the group and even those outside of it, who were walking by, eyed the girl with caution. Weiss gave them a look over top of Ruby's head that said, whatever they did, they had to make sure that she never got a sponsorship that would give her that much sugar. They could deal with a hyperactive Ruby once in a blue moon, it was not easy, but it was doable. However, they shuddered at having to deal with her chock-full of sweets every day, for them that was synonymous with hell. It was then that they decided to fight their best if nothing more than to prevent Ruby from getting access to all that sugar. Their sanity depended on it.

The scene that they came upon at the stadium was one of madness and excitement. Men, women, children, and even the old were racing around, enjoying all the booths and activities that were set up around the arena.

Harry and his friends forced their way through the crowd, trying to get to the sign up booth. They wanted to get the registration over and done with so that they could prepare for the coming matches. They realized that reaching the booth was not going to be easy as they thought as the line for the tournament came into view. It seemed that every hunter and their mother wanted to enter so the line seemed to go on forever.

"You will save me a spot, won't you Harry?" Yang asked as she hopped off his back. "I want to check out that mechanic that we passed back there, Bumblebee's gyroscopes are going out and I need to get a replacement," She was of course talking about her pride and joy, a yellow and black sports bike that she built by hand. Before he could answer she gave him a quick hug with a kiss thrown in and said "Thank you," before bouncing off in the direction of the auto parts store.

Harry turned to face the rest of the group and noticed that Ruby was staring at a candy vendor across the street while hopping from one foot to the next. He sighed and motioned for her to go, "Just go, I'll save you a spot in line," As soon as the words left his mouth, she squealed and grabbed Weiss then disappeared in a blur. The only evidence of her leaving were rose petals gently fluttering to the ground in her wake. The Englishman and his Vytallian companion shook their heads at their leader's excitability and began their long wait in line. Luckily it was not that bad. He had his lovely girlfriend to keep him company and halfway through, Yang showed up, her face had a bit of grease on it and a megawatt grin that could only come from working on her baby. She had been sad at having to leave it in the city because the school did not have the facilities to store it and everyone knew that she was itching to work on it again.

She went up to them with a spring in her step and greeted the two of them with a kiss a piece. "Where is my little sis?" She asked as soon as she finished her prolonged kiss with a blushing Blake. Harry smirked at Blake's glazed eyes before chuckling at the sight just past Yang. She spun and immediately began to laugh with Harry. An obviously frazzled heiress was dragging Ruby back to the group by her hood. The youngest of the couple did not seem to notice as she was too busy eating some cotton candy.

She was able to drag the red cloaked girl into the line with the rest of the team before Ruby snapped out of her sugar induced haze and noticed where she was.

"Where did all the cotton candy go?" Ruby asked Weiss with wide eyes, she kept looking from the mostly gone candy in her hand to her girlfriend as if Weiss had taken it.

"You ate it," Weiss deadpanned over the team's snickering. Yang reached over and snatched a piece of what was left of the spun sugar and popped it in her mouth. Ruby, in turn, gave Yang a look that had her instantly feel guilty, it was worse than her usual puppy dog eyes. She looked like a kicked puppy with how her eyes seemed to shimmer with tears and the way her lower lip quivered pitifully. Harry wanted to help Yang, he really did, but that thought warred against knowing that if he interfered, he would be on the receiving end of the look and he knew that there was no possible way he could last against it.

Yang held up admirably, years of living with the girl had somewhat numbed her to the various looks, but even she could not last forever. "Fine!" Yang gave in, "I'll get you something after the tournament, Okay? Will that make you stop?"

Ruby instantly grinned and hugged her sister, "Thank you!"

Yang grumbled to herself about evil sisters and needing practice resisting their looks. She did not want to get suckered into buying more candy so she pushed the red cloaked girl towards Weiss, where she stood silently and ate the rest of her candy. Harry took a step away from his blonde girlfriend when he started to hear about plans for getting back at Ruby. He did not want to be a part of it, he enjoyed sleeping without have to worry about whatever things the two of them would think up. Living in the same dorm as the twins gave him a healthy amount of respect towards pranks, even if it was only enough that he knew to stay away from them.

The entire process of getting to the front of the line was relatively uneventful and quick so it was not long before they were next in line. From what Harry could observe, all that one needed was to get a physical right before the tournament to make sure that it was safe for the contestant to fight. That and produce a legal hunter licenses, of course. For Harry and every other student at Beacon, their scrolls would be proof enough for the administrators, everyone else were given cards from their schools or had their licenses. The wizard was wary of the physical though, he may have to forfeit if it involved the drawing of blood. He had a problem with letting anyone get any portion of his blood on principle because of what could be done with it by other wizards. Being in a new world negated that fear somewhat, but there was also the fact that his blood had many things in it that no other person would have.

He did not find out this out until late in the war, when he was poisoned with draught of death, one of the wizarding world's most deadly and incurable poisons. Rather than dying instantly, he had gotten deathly ill, but had got better a couple days later. Wanting to find out why he did not die when even he thought that he should have, he had his blood tested. The test found that the basilisk venom injected in his body when he was twelve was never purged, just inert. There was enough basilisk venom flowing through his veins to kill an army of men and the only reason he was still breathing was that Fawkes' tears protected him from its deadly effects.

That being said, he shuddered to think about what would happen if it was found out that his blood contained the most potent poison and the most potent cure all in one. He would be hounded for the rest of his days. While he was being plagued with these thoughts, they had reached the end of the line and the girls were already signing up for the event.

"Harry," Yang called out, interrupting his thoughts in a very Yang way, "Come on. If I miss this because of you, I will kick your ass!"

Harry shook himself free from his thoughts and made his way to the booth. After answering a series of questions, most of which were general questions asked to everyone. What was his gender? Where did he lived? What academy he attended? What class of hunter was he? He answered all of them to the best of his abilities and was eventually sent on his way with an assigned room number to get his physical.

They were really pushing people through the check-ups because it was not long until he was beginning his examination. He did not worried about not being allowed in the tournament all that much like some of the people that left the room in a huff. He was in excellent condition last time he checked, his aura had fixed most of his problems when it was unlocked.

"Please take your shirt off, Mr. Potter," The nurse said absently as she picked up a clipboard, which he assumed had his name on it. Her back was turned to him as she grabbed the necessary implements to administer the physical.

Harry shrugged his shoulders and took off his coat and shirt and all the weapons strapped to his torso, leaving himself bare-chested. He placed his equipment to the side, taking special care to keep his weaponry within arm's reach. He was always weary about doctors and nurses, not because of their treatments, though that factored into it. No, it was because of how dangerous they could be. After all who better to know how to kill or disable a person than the one who stitches them back up? Madam Pomfrey was a wonderful example of this fact, she never directly killed anyone, but she had taught Harry and some of the field medics exactly where to hit an opponent to put them down for good.

"Alrighty then," She said as she turned to face him, "It says here that you are a..." The nurse trailed off as her eyes widened and her hand covered her mouth in horror at the sight of his scarred skin. "Oh dear lord," She breathed out, unable to tear her eyes from the tracks of damaged tissue.

He patiently waited for her to stop and when she did not, he decided to draw her attention "Ahem, My face is up here," Even though he was proud of his scars, it was still awkward to have someone blatantly stare at them.

The nurse looked up from his torso and blushed a bit for staring. "Please sit on the table so I can check your vitals," She said trying to regain her composure.

He nodded his head and hopped up onto the examination table and waited as she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his arm and started to pump air into it. As she did so, she was examining some of the more disturbing scars on his back and side.

"Go on, ask," Harry eventually said after noticing the questions she was dying to ask, dancing in her eyes. Her professionalism was the only thing keeping her in check.

"Sorry, not many people come in with scars. You know, aura healing and all that makes scarring rare," she admitted, "I am always curious about the stories behind the ones I see,"

"It's alright," He said, she blushed as she pointed at one of the scars on his side. It was a thick blotchy wound that he had received in one of his first battles. "What caused this one?"

"A man and I were in disagreement which led to a fight," Harry explained, "The man seemed to take exception to that and decided that burning me alive was a suiting end to our battle so he launched a fireball at me using some dust and this is the result. Needless to say I survived and he ended up in prison" He altered the truth a bit by replacing magic with dust and left out the part where instead of going to prison, the man was no longer part of this or any other world. The only reason that he got that wound was because he was overconfident and blocked when he should have dodged. Needless to say, he learned his lesson that day.

She paled a bit before gathering her courage back up. "What about this one?" She asked carefully, worried that she may offend him. She pointed at the one on his right forearm. The only thing that marked this one more different than the rest was that it was grey rather than pale like the rest.

"I got that when I was bitten by a rather poisonous sixty foot long snake," He said, referring to the basilisk. "Its venom was very deadly and somewhat corrosive, so it took almost a month to heal from it," Yet another half-truth flowed from his mouth. He could not say that a mystical bird had cried tears of healing on him. He would be in an asylum before he could finish. The nurse paled at his answer and her writing on her clipboard halted for a second before she continued writing down her findings from her various testing.

"What about this one," She randomly pointed out as she finished up her diagnostic by taking his heartbeat, seeing if there was anything wrong with it.

Harry frowned when he noticed the scar that she was pointing out. This one was different in its own right, it was the one caused by Wormtail when Voldemort was resurrected and was the only scar he was not proud of having as it represented his helplessness when facing Tom for the first time and being unable to protect Cedric. "I do not like talking about that one," Harry said, hiding his emotions behind his mask of congeniality. "It brings back some bad memories,"

"Sorry, I did not mean to offend you," She quickly apologized.

"Its fine," Harry answered with a small smile, waving off her worry, "You did not know and I didn't say anything besides no harm done,"

She nodded her head and finished his paperwork reverting back to her professional mindset, "You can put your shirt on now. I'm finished." She gave him a slip of paper with a room number on it, "You are cleared to compete, go to that room and wait until they call you out to fight,"

Harry thanked her as he strapped his weapons back on before he threw on his shirt and jacket and made his way out of the room. Spending a moment to reorganize everything and checking to make sure that all his weapons were where he left them, he went to find the room he was assigned and see his competition. He was in the A-rank section so he could not wait to see what kind of challenge he was going to face. Fighting with the girls and Ozpin was fun and all, but he wanted to face some new blood.

The instant that he stepped into the waiting room for A-rank, he was bombarded by the sounds of people carrying on and posturing. The room was nothing special, it was basically a large meeting room with the tables removed and chairs placed around the room. Not that anyone was using them, as they all were gathered in small groups. As one they all turned to see who had entered the room, well those not preoccupied arm wrestling in the corner. The faunus heard a couple of them scoff in derision and mutters about 'little boys' and 'faunus not belonging there'. It reminded him eerily of how the triwizard tournament began. Harry ignored them in favor for finding a seat in the same corner as the two people arm wrestling. A crowd had gathered around them, some where calling out encouragements while others were silently waiting for the outcome. One of people arm wrestling looked like an American lumberjack complete with a scraggly beard and long hair, if that lumberjack was six feet tall and replaced flannel for jeans and a form fitting leather jerkin. The man that he was against was, at least, a head taller, if not more than the other man. Whereas the lumberjack was was packed with muscles, he did not bulge with them. The other guy did to the point that he could put any body builder to shame. The man was wearing what may have been a jacket, but it did not have sleeves and was so small that it could not contain his girth so it left his abdomen and chest open for the world to see.

Harry watched their match for several minutes, no one getting anywhere in that time, until the larger man started to bend his opponent's arm down. The scruffy looking man gave a yell of exertion, but it was futile as seconds later, he lost.

The gathered crowd both cheered and swore at the turnout. Some patted the large man on the back as they swapped money back and forth for those who won their bets while others left to meet up with their acquaintances. The lumberjack look alike shook the man's hand and said in a slightly accented voice, "One day I will beat you, Garr," He said to the winner of their game, "Just you wait,"

"Okay," The large man replied simply. His baritone voice carried across the room. "You is still strong though," He said in simple and broken English.

"Aye, he is, isn't he," A voice with a slight brogue said from the other side of the table. Harry had to adjust his position to see who was speaking. The man was so short that his head barely raised above the table. "But it will be a long while until he is stronger than you, brother," The man said as he moved around the table. The wizard got a clear view of the strange little man that was talking. He was wearing steel armor that clanked as he walked, but the way he moved made it seem as if it was as light as paper. Long blonde hair fell out from under his helmet both from the top of his head and his beard. "A very long while," The man said with a wide grin.

They chatted for a moment before the leather clad man's eyes darted towards Harry for a moment, "Don't look now, but I think we have a watcher," He loudly whispered to the other two and turned to Harry. They looked at each other silently for a moment. Harry was faintly embarrassed at being caught watching them. Not just the fact that he had been staring at them, but also the fact that he had actually gotten caught. The trio were silent as they waited to see what he would do. "Well don't just sit there, come here," The tall man called out while motioning him to the wizard thought about it for a moment then decided that there was no harm in meeting them. Maybe he could learn something about them that would aid him in his fights. If not, then it would give him something to do. The lupine faunus got up and ambled over to the strange group.

The tall bearded man was the first to stick out his hand as he introduced himself, "Alfred Bruin also known as The Fighting Bear in some circles," Harry shook his hand while reinforcing it with a small amount of aura so that the man's strong grip did not hurt his fingers. He turned to the next person, who turned out to be the giant of a man.

"Garr," The man grunted out then fell silent. Harry waited to see if he was getting any more of an introduction.

"Me brother is not much of a talker," The short armored man said, "Corrin Grey,"

"No title?" Harry asked as he shook his hand. He realized he broached on a sensitive topic when his hand was almost crushed in the vertically challenged man's grip. Harry quickly withdrew his hand from the man's grasp.

"He has one, he just doesn't like it," Alfred chuckled, "He gets rather testy about it too,"

"Well what is it then?" Harry asked with a mischievous glint in his eye, "It has to be something quite special,"

"Don't do it," The metal clad man warned his friend, "I'm warning you. I like ya, but that won't stop me from shoving me axe where the sun don't shine,"

The Fighting Bear smirked and staged whispered to Harry, "They call him the Small Headsman, after his 'little' issue," The shorter man gave a bellow of anger and tackled the man's knees.

"Who are you calling short, you scraggly looking son of a wh-," The man yelled as he tried to reach for Alfred's throat. He never made it because Garr reached down and plucked his brother off of the other man as if he weighed no more than a kitten. The man kept kicking and swearing at the man while hanging there. Apparently this was not a new occurrence because past contenders were watching in amusement and passing around money with smirks on their faces. Alfred stood up rubbing his jaw from one of the solid blows Corrin managed to land.

"Really Corrin, I thought that you were over that," He said with a grin stretched over his face. Harry could do nothing, but wonder about such an extreme reaction.

Surprisingly enough Garr was the one that noticed his confusion, "Me brother no likes his nickname,"

"Why?" Harry asked. Alfred opened his mouth to answer and Corrin growled at him. That did not seem to deter him though.

"Well you see, ever since Corrin here was little..." Alfred started, pointedly ignoring the blonde headed man still being held up by his brother. "He didn't like being called..." Corrin growled warningly at him, "short or any other variations of it, so every time someone would call him that, he would attack them. I had hoped that he was over it because he is a grown-ass man. Apparently that is not the case, you damn midget," He directed the last part towards Corrin. Harry had to fight down a laugh as Corrin tried to attack him again while shouting something along the lines of "I'm not little, you freakishly tall giant!"

It took a couple minutes before Corrin finally ceased trying to kill Alfred for the moment and was hanging with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting for his brother to put him down. "Well aren't you gonna tell us who you are laddie?" The short man said, an obvious attempt to steer the conversation away from his height.

"Harry Potter-Black," He did a mock bow as he introduced himself. "At your service,"

"Any nicknames, son?" Alfred asked with a crooked smile, "You have to have been in a couple tournaments if you're an A, and it is an unwritten rule that you get a moniker after you reach A-rank,"

Harry chuckled and scratched the back of his head, "This is actually my first tournament," He did not count the triwizard tournament as he was forcefully put into it and made to compete. "Where I come from, tournaments are few and far in between and only available to certain people," The closest to the tournament he was in now, were dueling competitions, but they were very exclusive. Flitwick had told him that it took him over three years to even be invited to one, after he had proved himself to be a capable duelist.

Their eyes widened, well, two pairs of the three eyes widened. Garr did not seem to care at the moment. He was too busy playing with a loose string on the hem of his jacket to care what was being said around him. "Well then, we are going to have to show you the ropes around here then," Alfred said wrapping his arm around Harry's shoulder. Doing that though, he saw the words etched onto the back of his jacket and could feel the multitude of weapons hidden on his back. "What's this, I thought you said that you did not have one," He said indicating the name on his back, neglecting to inform his friends of the hidden weapons. That would just ruin the surprise when he went out to fight.

"No, remember I said that this is my first tournament," Harry said, "I got this while on the field, it is just one of the names that people used to call me,"

"Soul Thief, eh?" He asked through narrowed eyes, the moment he uttered those words, Corrin began to watch him warily. "You don't really steal souls, do you?" Alfred asked carefully. His body coiled so that he could spring into action or flee at a moment's notice. Corrin was the same way as his hand made its way towards the long box at his feet. Even Garr had noticed the tension and was getting prepared. He may not be intelligent, but it seemed that recognizing when a fight might break out was second nature for him.

Harry looked at them in confusion for a moment, before realizing their dilemma with his moniker. In a society based around the powers of the soul, someone stealing one's soul would be viewed as a heinous act.

"Oh no," Harry quickly said, waving their worries away. "I can't steal someone's soul. People just started to call me that because my semblance can absorb aura so they thought I was actually stealing people's souls," Harry did not feel that bad about relaying part of his semblance to the men. After all he barely used it in the first place and only to transfer aura to his friends so they could replenish their reserves faster. He did keep his ability to mix his energy a secret though. No need to tell that to the public. Thinking about it for a second, he really needed to train the absorption part of his semblance more, but that was low on his priority list. When compared to losing his body to his grimm or having his skin melt when using his powers too much, being able to absorb aura was not that important.

"Oh so you got the healer's aura?" Alfred said relaxing, "No worries then, it is a common misconception. Many people run into similar problems with people who don't know much about aura. Though why would you use that moniker instead of one of your others?"

Harry thought back to what other's used to call him during the war and frowned. Many of them were inspired by the bloody swath that he left in his wake or the terror that he spread on the battlefield. "This is the only one that I want to remember, the rest are better left dead and forgotten,"

"Why is that?" Corrin asked, not getting the hint that he did not want to talk about it,

"Because I hate each and every one of them," Harry said shortly wanting him to drop the subject. Many of the names that the man was unknowingly dredging up came with a lot of memories that he kept buried. Some of the names even came from his allies and those hurt the most to recall.

The duo got the hint and respected his stance on the matter, so they turned the conversation away to a safer subject. "So if this is your first tournament, then you don't know about some of the big named contenders, right?" Corrin asked as he settled down in one of the chairs. The green eyed teen had to keep himself from laughing when he noticed that the short man's legs did not even reach the floor and mutely nodded his head.

"Well there are only a couple of A-ranks like us that you're going to have to worry about, other than me and Garr, of course," Corrin bragged as he clapped his brother on the arm.

"We strong," The large man replied as he fiddled with what had to be his weapons. They were large brass knuckles with what looked to be cartridges of dust on the side. Harry edged away from them slightly, they looked like they could hurt.

"There is Dexos over there," He pointed towards a handsome man sitting in a chair chatting with several people. He wore a blue sailor shirt with black khakis and boots. Leaning on his chair was a great sword that was almost as tall as he was. "Don't let his looks fool you, the man fights dirtier than a back alley working girl with a chip on her shoulder. Last year he won by throwing sand into people's eyes and going for the family jewels. If you fight him, watch it." Corrin explained. Harry could tell that he disapproved of his methods, but he had a grudging respect for the man.

"The next is Hyles Kristoff," Alfred spat out the name as if it was poison. Corrin was right with him with a frown. "As much I am loath to admit it, he is good." He nodded his head across the room towards a man holding up the wall by himself. The man was shorter than Harry, surprisingly enough. Beneath the black cloak he was wearing, Harry saw that he was thin to the point that it looked unhealthy and his arms resembled twigs more than limbs. His beady eyes darted from one person the next. His mouth was twisted into a constant sneer the entire time that Harry watched him. The wizard turned back to Alfred as he began talking, "The man is quick as rabbit with its ass on fire and twice as deadly," He said, his brogue getting thicker at the mere thought of the man. "He is also, by far the most annoying little pissant I have ever met in me life,"

"He called me stupid," Garr inputted sadly.

Corrin growled to himself and patted his brother's knee. "Aye he did, and I showed him what for," he said viciously.

Harry turned a questioning gaze toward Alfred, "He called Garr a retard last year, so Corrin made it a point to embarrass the man in front of everyone on live TV," he said in response to the look.

"I made him sing 'I am a Little Teapot' in soprano or I was going to cut off his precious little bits, not that there were much to begin with. Apparently I was not the only one that hated him because no one tried to stop me," Corrin explained as he and Alfred shared a laugh. That explained the glares that he was receiving from across the room from the man. "Those are really the only ones that you have to really worry about, that does not mean that the rest are weak. They are just not as strong," Alfred warned as Corrin scoffed and fished out a flask from his box and took a long draw from it.

"Half of the brats in this room can't even make me sweat," He exclaimed and received several scornful look from the surrounding crowd, "The other half are good, but they are barely above B-ranks," He handed the flask over to the other man who took a sip of it.

"Come on man, drink it like a man!" Corrin cried out as he watched him take a small sip.

"Shut up Corrin, with the kind of shit that you put in here, I don't know what I'm drinking. I am just saving myself from drinking some of that Vacuo whiskey again," Alfred got a taste of the spirits and immediately spit it out and handed it back. "And I was right, Vacuo again. I don't know how you can stand it,"

"This stuff will put some hair on that chest of yours," He retorted with a smirk.

The bearded man laughed before saying, "That's after it burns all the hair off your head,"

Corrin took off his helmet to reveal his long dark blond hair, "I have been drinking it for years and I still got a full head of hair,"

Corrin drank some then handed the silver flask off to Harry. "Show this girly man how to drink, lad," Corrin said with a laugh. Harry shrugged his shoulders, if it was poisonous the basilisk venom would neutralize it and if it was just alcohol then it would not impair him. His high reserves of magic had made it hard to get drunk in the first place, while his aura just compounded that.

Harry drank a couple gulps of the stuff. It burned as it went down, but it had nothing on Ogden's finest. He handed the flask back to the short man. Upon seeing that Harry was still standing he clapped his hands loudly, "I knew that I liked you for a reason," he grinned, he turned to his wide eyed companion. "See, he knows how to do it. So how did you like it?"

Harry shrugged his shoulders, "It was good, but I've had stronger. I am more of a tea kind of guy though,"

Alfred inhaled a breath and started to cough. "Stronger! How have you had stronger than that swill,"

Harry decided to repay the drink with one of his own and a little extra. He turned and pulled out a bottle of firewhiskey from his pouch and four glasses before spinning back to the three. They looked at him with raised eyebrows as he poured out some into the glasses, wondering what he was pouring and where the bottle came from. "I normally save this stuff because I only have a couple bottles left, but I feel that it is a perfect time to have a drink, especially with people who know their alcohol." He only had six bottles of firewhiskey left. The only reason that he had any at all was because his squad made him carry their supply of the stuff in his pouch so that it did not break in transport. He slid a glass in front of each of them, even Garr. "To winning the tournament," He raised his glass and drank his quickly so that he could watch their reactions with bated breath. Seeing new timers drink it for the first time was one of the best thing about firewhiskey.

Corrin was the first one to drink his and his eyes widened to epic proportions as he felt it slide down his throat. The whiskey may contain the same amount of alcohol as its mundane counterpart, but the magical brewing process gave it a kick that nothing else had. Alfred was next and the moment that he swallowed his, he immediately put his glass down as he ran from the room, presumable for water. Garr was by far the most amusing one to watch. He had finished his glass before smacking his lips and settling down as if he had not drank anything at all.

"Lad," Corrin started before stopping, "Harry, that was by far... the greatest drink I have ever had,"

"Well that is a new reaction," He said with a smile, "Normally people are cursing my name for having them try it or run and get water,"

At that moment, Alfred came back the table with an empty bottle of water, "I hate you," He wheezed, "That had to be the worst thing that I have ever had in my life,"

Harry chuckled, "Or they do both like him,"

They were about to continue chatting, but the speaker came on with a buzz and announced that the tournament was about to start and that everyone had to get into position for the start of the preliminary rounds.

The tournament was broken up into five sections. One for each letter grade starting from the lowest, D-rank, to the highest, S-rank. Then each section was broken up into two parts. The first was the preliminaries, they were used to cut down the number of competitors to a manageable number. Higher ranks went through progressively less preliminaries as they went up until S-ranks were completely untouched by the practice. After all, it was the higher rank battles that drew the crowds. After the preliminaries came the main event that everyone had come to see and participate in.

Harry habitually checked over his gear to see if everything was there while Corrin and Alfred picked up boxes which he assumed held their weapons. Once they were packed up, they followed the crowd led by a guide to their destination. Several minutes of going down twisting and they arrived in a rather unassuming room. The room was about the size of the cafeteria in Beacon, but instead of chairs and tables. The room held four platforms to hold the beginning matches. On one of the walls was a giant television screen that had each of their names on it and what appeared to be the order that they were going to fight in and which stage they got. Harry was going to have to wait for his turn though, but this had the added bonus of being able to watch the others fight and work out their styles. The only people of note that were fighting at the moment was Hyles and Corrin.

Corrin faced off with a rather unassuming man. On his waist looked to be a sword mixed with an axe mixed in. Being a swordsman, Harry just shook his head at the man. Such a weapon would be next to useless for combat against another weapon user who had even a modicum of skill. For one, it would be too unwieldy and heavy to be properly utilized. Another reason was swords were made for precision strikes while axes weren't. Mixing such contrasting weapons would make it so that no sword style would be able to make up for the deficits that it brought. Corrin, on the other hand, had an impressive weapon. He had popped open the box that he had with him and pulled out a monster of an axe. The thing was almost two time his size and was capped off by a double bladed axe head. Veins of what had to be red dust ran through the dark metal of the axe head making it look even more intimidating than it already was. It would have looked ridiculous for anyone else of Corrin's height to wield, but upon seeing the man swing the axe around as if it weighed nothing, he found that the large weapon suited the man perfectly.

Harry noticed that the short man's opponent did not seem as confident as he had a second ago after witnessing the display. The referee looked on emotionlessly at the two of them before swiping his arm down to start their match. Even though the other battles started around them, neither of them moved from their spots. Corrin because he was studying the other man, while the axe/sword wielder was being cautious about attacking such a foe. On an unspoken signal, Corrin's opponent drew his weapon and charged him with a battle cry. The short man snorted at the simple charge and dropped the axe from his shoulder. A quick side step had the armored man out of harm's way and in the perfect position for his attack. With speed that Harry did not know the man possessed, he drew back his axe and jabbed the man in the chest with the tip of his axe. A quick aura shield was the only thing that stopped the man from injury, but he belatedly noticed that Corrin was not done with his assault.

The axe wielding man spun his axe over his head, building up momentum before bringing it down with a resounding bang. His adversary had fortunately been able to roll of the way and then tried to capitalize his position by attacking. The man hefted the unwieldy weapon and swung it at Corrin, attempting the end the match in one strike. That was not to be, as Corrin used the armor around his wrist to divert the blade from its intended path and out wide, leaving the man unguarded and not enough time to bring the weapon back. The armored man used his immense strength to drag his axe out of the hole it was in and up at his vulnerable opponent. The sound of cloth tearing filled the air, as the man's shirt was torn to shreds by the passing axe, but he showed why he was an A-rank hunter when, at the last moment, he maneuvered his torso back and avoided the potentially fatal blow.

"Looks like you aren't here just for show," Corrin praised as he brought his axe back to bared, "Let's see if you are good enough to make me break a sweat though," He taunted before swinging his axe horizontally at him. That was where the man made his first mistake, he tried to block the axe with his blade. There was a problem with that though. Corrin was much stronger and his weapon had plenty of time to gain enough momentum to make it almost unstoppable. The sword held up admirably for a second, but it began to fracture under the pressure. Soon after that, it all went downhill for the man and his weapon shattered into pieces. Fortunately, the axe had lost a good bit of its energy in destroying the sword so when it struck the man, it did not bisect him. Instead it cut into his side and stopped. The man cried out in pain as Corrin carefully removed his axe to limit the amount of damage done. It wasn't like the man was going to die from the wound, but there was no need to cause him any more pain than he already had.

"The winner is Corrin Grey," The referee called out, "Will the medics please take care of Mr. Cage," Corrin walked off the stage as the medics jumped up to take care of the man on the ground. Garr was immediately there and picked up his brother in a literal bone breaking hung. Luckily Corrin's armor was able to resist the tremendous strength and all his bones remained intact.

"That was too easy," He said after his brother put him down. "He barely put up a fight,"

"What do you expect from greenhorns," Alfred said before glancing at Harry, "Sorry about that, Harry,"

"Who said that I was a greenhorn?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well this is your first tournament, isn't it," He said. "Therefore, greenhorn,"

"I said that this was my first tournament as in, my first official match," Harry said, "That does not mean that I don't know how to fight. I am an A-rank after all. Wouldn't be much of one if I did not know the blade from the hilt, now would I?"

"How do I know if its accurate?" He said. "Not everyone rates equally,"

"Well I'm just going to have to show you how good I am when I fight, now won't I?" Harry said, "I am show Goodwitch didn't make a mistake though,"

Alfred was about to reply, but the man on the loudspeaker called out for the next eight people to make their way to their platforms and get ready. This meant that the leather clad man had to go and fight for his position.

They followed the man as he made his way to the platform. His opponent was a scrawny man wearing red robes with baggy sleeves that hid his hands. There was no visible weapon, but that did not fool any of them. The man could use aura or dust to attack, or he just kept his weapon hidden so no one could come up with a strategy against him. Alfred dropped his box on the ground and pulled out what looked to be a metal rectangle. A quick flick of his wrist revealed what his weapon was and it was impressive. Like his smaller counterpart, he chose to have a long reaching weapon to increase his already long reach. In his hands was a glaive. Not just any glaive though, the bottom of the blade held what looked to be barbs that would hook into its victims and common in most weapons that were found around remnant, it looked to also double as a ranged weapon. On the shaft was a place to chamber a round that would presumably fire out of the tip of the polearm. Harry resolved that if he was ever going to have to fight the man, to stay far away from the weapon. His opponent did not look deterred though, he kept his emotionless facade up perfectly. Harry utilized his passive legilimency to get an idea of what was going through his mind at the moment and almost started laughing.

The man was panicking at the sight of the weapon and was running through every single dust spell and glyph that he knew that could protect him from the man. It was his first match with A-ranks and he was far out of his league and knew it. He had hoped to face someone that was just promoted, not a long time contender. The instant that the referee called for the fight to begin the man showed how green he was by not even stopping to analyze his opponent and find a weakness that he could exploit.

The mage activate a glyph with a wave of his hand and moved as far away from Alfred as he could go without falling off the stage. The glyph launched several bolts of aura at Alfred who just stood there. Harry noticed a green glow come from his weapon as he used it to bat them away and back towards the mage. He must have used his aura to keep the aura missiles from blowing up.

Harry shook his head at the display, "Weiss can make better glyphs then that," He muttered to himself. Not to say that Weiss was bad at creating glyphs, just the opposite. He just expected someone who made it to A-rank to be better than that.

Corrin turned away from watching Alfred hit some of the missiles back at their castor and faced Harry, "Weiss? Is she your girlfriend?" He asked, slightly raising his eyebrow.

At the thought of having Weiss as a girlfriend, he shivered in horror. She was a great girl to hang around once the snooty heiress mask was dropped, but he could not imagine dating her, even if she didn't swing for the other team. She was just too... Weiss for it to work. "Oh hell no," He quickly replied, "She's one of my teammates. She excels at dust spells and glyphs. I just expected the man to be better than that given his rank, but I seem to be wrong. Her glyphs go up faster and with more power and she is a C-rank," He said as he watched the man try to cast a firebolt at Alfred, but he dodged around it and slashed at the man.

"You can't be too hard on the man," Corrin said, "Alfred likes to play while he fights. He tends to showboat for the crowd, no matter how much the man denies that he does it,"

It seemed that Alfred got tired of playing tag with the red cloaked man and went on the offensive. He bound up to the man and swung his glaive that would have slashed the man from shoulder to hip. The mage ducked and broke his emotionless mask with a yelp of fear. Alfred halted the progress of the swing and shot the bottom of his polearm up and hit the man in the chin. He went down instantly and the referee called an end to the match while the medics grabbed the unconscious man.

He sighed as he came up to them. "I want to have fun fighting people, not playing grab ass around for ten minutes," He complained as he got up to them. "That was so boring. The guy should never have even entered if all he was going to do was run away,"

Harry was drawn away from the group as he finally got called on stage for his preliminary round. His opponent was a tall man with short cropped hair. On his back was what seemed to be an unholy mixture of a maul and a shotgun. It was almost four feet of pure metal and had to have weighed a ton. He really did not understand how the man could possible think that the weapon would be a good idea, but that was not the problem here. He needed a quick way to beat the man so he started planning out what he was going to do when the match started as he prepared himself to fight.

The wizard resolved that he was not going to show off any of his hidden skills or semblance unless he really needed to. He wanted to keep what he could do secret from the rest of the tournament for as long as he could. He also did not want to kill or cripple the man so that basically threw most of his pre-made plans out the window, but Harry had learned from the best so he had plenty other tactics to call up. The referee dropped his hand and the match started and like most of the other matches, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

Harry ran over what he knew about both the maul and the shotgun. The maul was a close ranged weapon that was used to shatter shields and do as much damage as possible. The downfall was that it was slow for even the strongest people and a miss could be fatal. Then the shotgun factors in. Another potentially powerful weapon, but based on the design, it was pump action which led to the same problem as the maul. It was slow and misses were critical errors, but it would put someone down easily if it connected. Combining the two may have been a good idea, but the amount of energy expended to just aim the thing was not worth it.

While Harry was analyzing his opponent, the man felt that it was a perfect time to attack and charged in a straight line towards the green eyed faunus. Harry jumped to the side as the maul was being brought down towards his head. The man's eyes widened in surprise when his prey seemed to disappear from his sight. Harry drew his sword and slashed it down as the man at a relatively slow speed, at least for him, to gauge just how fast the man was. It turned out the man was fast enough to recognize that the attack was coming, but his body was built for strength more than speed so he could not get out of the way in time. So the sword was able to cut into the man's side.

He grunted in pain as he rolled away hauled his maul to up. He quickly racked a shell and fired at Harry. The wizard watched dispassionately as the red dust activated and burst out of the muzzle on top of the maul's head. Seeing that the spray of fire would hit him if he did not move, he threw his right leg out from under him and rolled to the side. The fire missed him and flew behind him until it dispersed, several feet from the surrounding crowd. The man racked another shell into the chamber, but it would do no good because Harry was already moving closer to nullify the dangers of both parts of the weapon. Once he got close, the shotgun couldn't aim and the maul couldn't gain any momentum to injury him. Using his small stature, he got underneath the man's guard and slashed straight up, if he was aiming to kill, he would have dug the blade into his stomach and shredded all the organ on up, but since it was just a tournament, he stopped the blade before it could penetrate the skin and held it to the man's throat.

When the head of his weapon hit the ground next to him, Harry thought that the man was going to give up there, but it seemed that he still had some fight in him. He kicked foot out onto the shaft of the weapon which brought it towards Harry's legs while at the same time leaning back so that the sword would not cut into his neck. The swordsman jumped over the heavy weapon and surged forward to not lose his advantage and struck the man again. This time on the shoulder instead of the side. The cut was not deep, but it was not shallow either and began to bleed. Though the man seemed to neglect the wound in favor of trying to crush Harry's head with his weapon. However, due to his injuries on both his dominant arm's shoulder and abdomen, his movement were much slower than they were before so Harry flowed around the weapon and to the side of its wielder. There he brought the blunt side of his blade down on the back of his opponent's knees, dropping him to his knees. A kick to the back had him flat on his stomach and another had him weaponless. He drifted his sword over the man and held it there just in case.

"Do you yield?" Harry asked the downed man allowing his sword to prick the man's neck a bit to accent it.

The man tensed up as if he was going to continue, but Harry place a foot on his back and forced it down with more force than was necessary and it met the platform with a resounding thud, knocking the wind out of the man. Using a bit of aura in his leg to keep the man firmly pressed down, he repeated his question.

When the man realized that he could not lift himself up anymore. The man nodded his head. "I yield," he conceded.

Harry removed his foot from the man's back and allowed the medics to take a look at his opponent. The teen hopped off the stage where he met the trio. Garr apparently had finished his match quickly because he was there with them when Harry made his way over.

"Good show," Corrin said while Garr tried to wrap him up in a hug.

Harry dodged under the man's arms, "Sorry big guy," He said, "I want to keep my limbs intact," Garr did not seem offended and nodded his head.

"So you really aren't a newbie, then," Alfred said.

Harry shook his head, "Just new to this,"

Alfred nodded then asked, "How was your first taste of the big leagues?"

Harry thought for a moment, "Rather disappointing actually," He said a bit downtrodden at the easy victory. The match just did not live up to his expectations. He expected to fight someone of Corrin or Alfred's caliber. Hell, a fight with Garr would have been more interesting. If he had gone all out, even with the handicaps he put on himself, the match would have been over in no time. "The guy was alright, but he was not much to write home about. My girlfriends can fight better on their worst days than that,"

Corrin, who was taking a sip of his whiskey, spit out a good portion of it before loudly swallowing the rest while coughing. "Did I hear what I think I just heard," He gasped out, "You have girlfriends, as in plural, meaning more than one?"

"I do know what plural means," Harry said while wiping the alcohol off his face. "And yes I do, it was actually their idea,"

He felt two hands fall onto his shoulder and looked towards the man. Alfred looked straight into his eyes and said, "I don't know if I should call you a luckiest bastard in the world or the poorest bastard," Corrin let out a belly laugh at that and even Harry had to chuckle.

"I consider myself lucky," Harry told the man. "I have two lovely women to share my life with and a pretty interesting job, there isn't anything more I need,"

Corrin slapped him on the back, laughing "No need to go all Casanova on us. Now that the prelims are over, we can go watch the newbies fight and I can always use a good laugh,"

"Is it really that bad?" Harry asked as he allowed them to drag him away.

Alfred shook his head, "No, not all of them are bad, sometimes we get an interesting fight to break up the bad ones, but D-ranks are for the most part boring. It is just new hunters fighting each other. Corrin enjoys making fun of them,"

"Shut up and come on," The short man said as he and Garr pulled away from them. Eager for the show. Harry and Alfred followed behind the excited man, but Harry had to stop when he left the tunnel and noticed just how big the arena for the tournament was. Seeing it from the outside and being in it was too very different things. In short, the arena was massive.

The arena floor alone was about the size of two quidditch pitches put side by side. The only other stadium that Harry had ever been to in his life that even came close to this one was for the quidditch world cup, but that had nothing on the Vale arena. It dwarfed the world cup by a good margin and then some. There had to be at least twenty thousand people milling around the stands, waiting for the matches to begin. He did not get the true scope of the tournament until the moment that he laid eyes on that many people.

"Impressive, isn't it," Alfred said while appraising the crowd. Harry could only nod his head mutely at the crowd. "Normally there are less people, but with all the threats from White Fang going around, people need a little happiness and excitement,"

Harry nodded, he could understand just what was going on. The same thing happened in the wizarding world when Voldemort was on the rise. There was no happiness anymore and everyone lived their lives in fear that they were going to be the next to die and nothing they did would stop it. Harry still thanked the twins for what they did to try to keep the depression at bay. They brought laughter, no matter how little, to people who really needed it. That happiness kept the people from giving up that much longer and Harry could see that the tournament was doing the exact same thing for the people of Vale.

They followed the short man to the box holding the hunters who wanted to watch some of the matches. The instant that he stepped foot into the room, he was tackled by a blonde blur and ended up falling over.

Harry groaned and rubbed the back of his head. He looked up to see that Yang was sitting cross legged on his chest. He looked over and found that Blake was standing there with a smirk on her face and by her side was Ruby and Weiss hand in hand. He heard Corrin and Alfred laughing at the predicament that he found himself in and shot a glare in their direction. That did not seem to help the situation because they just laughed at him harder.

"So Yang," Harry started, looking at the girl on his chest. She seemed pleased that she had been able to knock him over and did not seem to be in a hurry to get up. Harry normally would not mind the position, it gave him a great view for one, but he knew he could not spend his day laying on the floor. "Is there a reason why we find ourselves in this situation,"

"She was bored," Blake said off to the side. "And thought it would be funny,"

"And you did not try to stop her," Harry asked.

Blake shrugged her shoulders and smirked, "I thought it was going to be funny too,"

Harry shook his head and apparated next to his ravenette girlfriend and surprised her when he slung his arm around her shoulder. Yang yelped as her makeshift seat disappeared and fell to the hard floor. Yang grumbled to herself as she got off the floor.

"Now my ass hurts, thanks a lot Harry," Yang complained.

"Do you want me to kiss it better?" Harry asked. His comment got a blush out of the blonde and a slight leer.

"Later," She said as she pecked him on the cheek. Off to the side, Ruby began to over exaggerate her gagging.

"Stop it you two, I do not need to hear my sister flirting especially about that," Ruby said while covering her ears. Weiss sighed at her childish partner.

"Just getting some payback, Ruby," Harry teased, "If I have to listen to you and Weiss all day, you can deal with it for a little bit,"

"So are you going to introduce us to your friends?" Yang asked after she got a hold of her embarrassment.

"Well the big guy there is Garr Grey," Harry began then went down the line, introducing each of them. "The sho-..." He stopped when he heard the growling. "The man in the armor is his brother, Corrin Use-his-nickname-at-your-own-risk Grey, and the last is Alfred 'The Fighting Bear' Bruin," Harry watched as everyone's eyes bulged at the names and Yang's jaw dropped. Ruby even squealed when she heard the names. She pulled out a pen and a picture of what looked to be the three of them out from somewhere and appeared in front of them.

"Can I have your autograph?" She asked with wide eyes. Alfred laughed as he took the pen and signed it. Corrin was next and signed it, but was grumbling all the while. Garr wrote an "X" in the place of his signature.

"Let me introduce you to my team," Harry said. "This lovely lady right here, who is about to catch flies, is my girlfriend, Yang Xiao Long," Yang's mouth snapped shut and she whacked Harry on the shoulder.

"This is Blake Belladonna," Harry said, indicating the girl that he had his arm around, "Also my girlfriend,"

"The moody one over there's Weiss Schnee and your rabid fan is her girlfriend, Ruby Rose,"

"Schnee? As in the Schnee Dust Mining Company?" Alfred asked,

Weiss nodded and put a smile on her face. However, he could tell that she was bothered though and Harry knew why. Weiss had once told the group that she hated being identified just as a member of her father's family. She wanted to be recognized for what she had done, not by who her parents were.

"Then you know a thing or two about dust," Alfred said, "You see I have been having a problem with my weapon for awhile now, and I need some help with it," And like that, Weiss' smile became more genuine. While her like for dust and aura were not obsessive like Ruby was with weapons, she still loved to talk about it and could go on for hours and had done so several times.

As the two delved into a conversation about dust laced in weapons and the damages over channeling aura could do to a weapon, Yang turned to Harry. "You don't do anything halfway, do you Harry? First the aura, then that mess with Junior, and now this," Yang listed and Harry made a sound of confusion.

"These three are the some of the most famous hunters," Yang explained with wide eyes, Harry looked to Blake for confirmation and saw that she was nodding along with Yang. "They have won championship all around the world,"

"Huh? Alright," Harry said nonchalantly, he had met plenty of famous people in his time so he knew that fame did not really matter. "So what? They are famous, I used to be famous. Doesn't really change who they are,"

"That's a first," Corrin elbowed Alfred good naturedly, "It's nice to see someone that doesn't try to kiss my ass after they figure it out,"

Alfred paused his conversation with the heiress for a second and said, "I don't think that they could bend down that low," It took a moment for what he said to sink in, but the moment it did Corrin leapt for Alfred, shouting obscenities at the man. Weiss saw this coming so was able to jump out of the way and cover Ruby's innocent ears in time to keep her from hearing it. Knowing that the conversation was over, she made her way back to the others.

While the two were carrying on, Harry asked his team about their preliminaries and how it went. Weiss was the first to go, saying that it was way too easy. The hunter that she faced nearly blew himself up with some dust and she used the distraction to disarm him and end the fight. She huffed after the story and said that she wanted to be in the B-ranks where she could get someone worth her time to fight,

Yang was the next to go and said that she had fun. There was so many B-ranks that she got to fight twice and won easily both times. The first time, she won because the person she was against had a fear of fire and just quit while the next one allowed her to test out a couple new moves she had been developing. Blake's fight was boring however. She just used the whip on Gambol Shroud and wrapped up her opponent in the segmented metal. Ruby gleefully told about how she was able to someone that matched her speed and they fought for a while until she got a hit in and knocked her opponent unconscious.

Then Harry noticed something, "Where's team JNPR," Harry asked, "Weren't they here today?"

"Yeah, they went off to grab some food," Ruby said, "We stayed behind to meet you when you got here,"

It seemed that they were almost there because at that moment, Juane walked in through the door carrying several bags of food and a big cookie in his other hand. Harry looked back towards Ruby and found that she was gone. He turned back to Juane and found that he was staring at his empty hand in wonder. Ruby had commandeered the cookie so fast that it left Juane's head spinning. Ren and Nora came in at the same time. Nora was leaning on Ren's shoulder so much that if she did anymore, then Ren would be carrying her. Ren's eyebrow was twitching in annoyance, but the small smile he had off put it. Nora was silent for once, as she ate some chocolate chip pancakes, where she found a place that served pancakes at noon, Harry didn't know, but she did. Pyrrha was last in the room carrying the rest of the food.

Another round of introductions was in order for JNPR with the now calmed down trio. Instead of the more rambunctious members of JNPR going up to them in wonder, it was Pyrrha who did, with stars in her eyes. Ren recognized them, but did not feel the need to bother them. Juane did not seem to care one way or another who they were and Nora was too busy eating her pancakes.

"Wait I have seen you before," Corrin suddenly said after signing a picture and he looked closer at Pyrrha. "You're the lass that won the Minstral regional tournament four years in a row, aren't you," He said at last. When she nodded her head, he laughed loudly, "Beat me record, did you?" He laughed. Pyrrha blushed in embarrassment.

"Sorry," She said,

"Ah, no problem, lass," He said, "It's no skin off my nose," He joked as he jumped into a nearby seat. He looked up to everyone standing, "Well are you going to sit down and watch the show or just stand around talking and miss it?"

They quickly piled into their own seats, just in time too. The announcer got on the microphone and began his introduction speech, welcoming everyone to the tournament before he called out the names for the contestants and officially began the tournament.

(A/N: And that is a wrap. Good afternoon or morning everyone. It has been a bit since I have last posted a chapter and that is because of a multitude of reasons. I was sucked into the ME trilogy, much to my consternation. I knew that it would take a while to finish, but I did not remember that games being that long. It did not help that I put it upon myself to explore every single planet in the galaxy and read up on them. On a side note, I would actually recommend doing that. It gives a lot of lore and enjoyable stories. Plus it actually hints at the fact that reapers have appeared before. Many planets mention that there are signs of aerial bombardment on planets that were capable of spaceflight. One ever said that a hundred mile long strip of land seemed to have been removed by a glancing blow from a mass effect round even though no weapon of that size had ever been made. Now that would confound you if you did not also know about the cycles of extinction.

Another thing that got me wrapped up is that I started playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess which is by far my favorite LoT game of all time. It was also one of the last games that I ever played on the GameCube so it is kind of special for me. You may have to expect some fanfic in the future of it, but that won't be for a while because ideas of elder scrolls and mass effect and even fullmetal alchemists have been plaguing me recently. All of which wanting me to write about them. The problem is that all of those ideas have been making it difficult to work on this story because while writing this.

So in short, all of this boils down to my procrastination and the difficulties that I have had writing. Add in my constant headaches, random nosebleeds, jaw problems, and my dysthymia issues that I have been having for the past eight years, and you have a recipe for slow writing. Though I do have to say that that last issue has been getting better now that I have been writing. The crippling apathy that I have been feeling recently is getting better and I'm starting to enjoy my old hobbies again which has lead to me playing games like those above. For the past year or so, I just stopped caring about games even though I use to play them at least twenty hours or more a week for several years straight.

Now onto notes about the story, I added a lot of OC's for this. Mostly because I could not just have it be Beacon students and some random foreigners fighting. The Vale festival and subsequent tournament is meant to celebrate not only Vytal, but all the other kingdoms in Remnant as well and as such, there should be a good amount of hunters from other places around the globe. Some OC's may make a return appearance, others not so much.

P.S. I went to Awesome Con today, 4/19 in Washington D.C and let me tell you something. It was amazing! Sure the beginning was rough because they were not prepared for just how many people showed up. I saw some of the best cosplayers ever there too. The amount of work they put into their costumes was just insane, and it showed. I also saw an old man in a leather loincloth, but let's not talk about that. On a happy note, I saw a person dressed up as Yang and it was done wonderfully and another dressed as Ruby. They did not have their weapons, but that did not take away from how cool it was to see cosplayers of my favorite anime.

Anyways, I wish you a good day and hope to see you around for my next chapter,)