Slash. Thud.

Slash. Thud.

Slash. Thud.

As intangible and unstoppable as the wind which coated it, the blade cuts through flesh and bone like a chainsaw through paper and cardboard. Each swing rains crimson across the floors, a tempest unleashed within the unsuspecting compound.

A man with dressed in light armor swings at the Storm with a short sword. It- He sways around the swing naturally, lazily stabbing the kunai in his left hand at the side of the man's head. There is no power behind the stab. Made with minimal effort, it is almost like a child playfully swinging their arms in the free breeze. For all appearances, there should be nowhere near enough force for even the tip of the sharpened knife to do anything more than leave a slight bruise on the side of the man's head.

Yet-

A sickening squelch, more blood and gore to add to the deluge. The tip of the kunai sinks into the man's head, coming out the other side like a fleeting thought. With a jerk of his wrist, he vindictively snaps the man's neck for good measure, freeing his weapon and flicking the human stain out of his way.

A second man in armor lets out a furious cry. It is not one of anger, or vengeance, or even grief for his fallen comrade.

It is the cry of a cornered animal. A trapped rat. Of prey caged by an overwhelming predator. Faced with the insurmountable, the man swings his sword in a frenzied desperation.

Unmoved by the armored man's fear, The ninjato in His right hand traces an arc of black steel. The man- the rat falls, his upper half landing a few feet away from his lower. Sparse moonlight reflects off the edge of the blade, not a single spec of blood dirtying the length of tempered steel.

Who could sully a soul already galvanized?

Picking his way carefully as not to step in any of the carrion flooding the room, they leave this building and move onto the next.

There he finds a gathering of twenty men and women, all armed and armored. The same number that had been in the previous building- weapons nor protection had helped them, either. Blue eyes refrozen for this task swept across the group of mercenaries from behind a mask as dark as shadows.

"You-!"

His arm blurs. In the darkness of the night, the kunai is as invisible it flies across the room. With a whispered noise, it buries itself deep into the skull of the man who was about to speak. The man collapses, blood pooling beneath him while the rest of the mercenaries look to him in horror.

"P-Please, we'll give you anything you want!" Another mercenary says, this one's fear overwriting his anger. "Why are you doing this?!"

"Mah~," His voice is superficially calm and he tries to be as uncaring as an immanent hurricane. But the undercurrent of anger is all too obvious to hear. This is no natural disaster or angry god to be appeased, he is vengeance incarnate. "You'd probably be in a pretty bad mood if someone you cared about went missing, wouldn't you?"

The mercenary's eyes widen.

Then his head hits the floor, his body following soon after and realization frozen on the decapitated face.

"I only need one mouth to talk," He explains, standing over the headless corpse. The rest of the mercenaries back away with horror and fear clouding their expressions.

"The rest of you? Well, you can help me blow off some steam."

CLARITY

In another room filled with a platoon of guards a girl sits calmly on a heedlessly placed folding chair. There is nothing to indicate her distress or even status as a prisoner except for the shackles on her wrists and the handful of weapons hovering around her head.

"He will come for me, you know," She speaks, breaking the tense silence and looking at the only other person sitting in the room. They turn to look at the young girl with a piercing gaze.

But her silver eyes like blades hold no fear. Only determination and sadness.

"He will come," She repeats. "And he's going kill you." There was no joy with this proclamation, only sadness and dispatched acceptance at what is to come.

"What makes you think you're so important to him?" In spite of the sorrow, with this question come smugness and a wry smirk. She lifts up her hand and pulls away the left shoulder of her kimono.

What he sees shocks him.

A fox sits on her moon-pale skin with its head pointed towards the sky and its mouth open wide. Within that gaping maw is perched a perfect rose, delicate petals caressed by the bared fangs.

CLARITY

"Now…"

They stood no chance. It had been an absolute massacre; the only survivor was a woman whom was now fixed in his gaze.

The boy didn't have so much as a blond strand of hair out of place. The only sign he had even been in a fight was the ripped sleeve of his left arm. He tore the scrap of cloth off revealing a tattoo of a rose opening to a silver moonlight. Nestled in its soft embrace is a fox.

Collapsed on the floor, the woman cowers as if a specter of death itself stands before her. If only she could be so lucky. The teen crouches before her and removes his mask, the spotless blade in his right hand gleaming with a deadly promise.

"Where is my wife?"

The first time they met was in a crowd. In the long run, nothing about it seemed special. Neither of them even remembered it until years later, long after they would meet again.

She had just witnessed her Uncle take down a crook with relative ease.

He had just witnessed his sensei take a man's life with no remorse.

"That was so cool uncle Qwow!" Ruby squealed. She still had trouble with hard sounds. "I'm gonna do stuff like that when I'm oldaw!"

"Oh, really now?" The huntsman wondered looking at his niece.

"Yeah," I'm gonna be like Wah! And Yah!" The child cheered, making fighting noises and doing her best to mime what she had just witnessed. Though his heart was as shriveled as his liver, the huntsman chuckled at the parody of his very serious act. Then he noticed the girl had gone silent. He looked at her, tracing her line of sight to a small ice cream stand and chuckled once again at her manic attention.

"Do you want some?" Qrow asked. The young girl nodded her head vigorously. "Alright, I gotta stay here and talk to the police. So just to the stand and back, understand?" The peppy child chirped in happiness and nodded again with her seemingly limitless energy. "Alright here you go, Kid" Qrow smiled handing the girl Lien to get what she wanted. "No more than two scoops though, or your father will kill me."

She was going to get three. This was a forgone conclusion.

"We don't do this lightly," The man said, looking down at the blond.

"I understand," Naruto responded.

"No, you don't." the man denied airily with his one visible eye. "Not yet anyway, but you will in time,"

"When will that be?" The boy asked with schooled patience.

"Depends on the person," The man continued as he wiped the blood off the blade while the two walked out of the alleyway. As made the blade vanish and they blended back into the crowd, the killer-in-training spotted a small stand. Decorations as cloying as the treat it peddled, the novelty was impossible to resist.

"Would you like some?" Naruto looked up at his current instructor but didn't respond. The man chuckled to himself at the display, having expected it. "Here," He handed the boy a few Lien. "Be quick," He ordered lazily. Naruto hesitated before nodding and heading off towards the stand.

The two ended up in line next to each other. Ruby was vibrating in place as she waited her turn while Naruto stood behind her as still as the sidewalk itself. They were the only two children in line without adult supervision, but they both knew they were safe. Her eagerness taking her in that direction, Ruby turned to find the boy behind her.

"I like yuw tail!" Saying the first thing that came to her mind, she was already entranced by it, watching as it swayed side to side.

Naruto looked at the girl, not expecting to have to hold a conversation with someone he didn't know.

"I wish I had one," She moaned, still immune to her gaucheness. "I could use it as a piwwow and it would be supa soft!"

As if he might turn invisible by holding still without talking, Naruto just kept staring. But that didn't seem to deter the girl at all.

"What ice cweam do you like?" The girl asked, looking for any kind of distraction since she had to wait.

"Ice cweam?" The boy blinked, trying to parse out the nonsensical name.

"That's what you're her for, wight?" Ruby asked with incredulity creeping into her interrogation.

"Dunno. I've never had it." Naruto responded, taking her curiosity in stride.

"What?!" Ruby nearly screamed, looking as if her world had been destroyed. Incredulity giving way to full-blown panic. "This is an emwugency!" She said. "We need to get you some, stat!"

Too perplexed at the colorful child his own age, Naruto had no recourse but to blink again.

"Don't wowwy!" The girl declared. "It'll be the second bestest thing you eva tasted!"

"What's the first?" Naruto asked with the first hint of investment as he was swept up in this strange girl's skewed world.

"Cookies!"

"Cookies?"

"Have you neva had thowse eitha?!" Somehow, she seemed even more devastated than the first time, and Naruto was made to wonder just how it was physically possible to hold such emotion. He got ready to respond but was stopped when he was pushed from behind. Distracted, he fell to the ground and dropped the paper money that was blown away by the wind a moment later.

"Ah you Ok?" Ruby asked in concern, helping the boy up. The boy didn't respond as he watched the cash float away. "That was all yo money?" Ruby asked. Naruto nodded looking somewhat dejected he wouldn't be able to taste the treat after it had been so hyped up.

But that was life sometimes, as the elders would tell him back home. You just moved forward.

"I'm sowwy," Ruby said with as much moroseness as she knew how. Upon realizing it was her turn, she got ready to walk up to the counter but paused and gave Naruto a second look. She seemed to arrive at a decision about something known only to her childish mind and nodded. Without another word, she grabbed Naruto by the hand and pulled him to the stand with her.

"Two ice cweams pwease!" Ruby ordered with a big smile.

"What flavors kid?" The man at the stand asked. Ruby looked over at Naruto.

"Two vaniwwas!" The girl with gradated haired preened. A moment later she was holding two whitecapped cones and handed one to a somewhat surprised Naruto. "Thewe you go!"

"Why?" Staggered, he let go of the blank look he had been giving her the entire time and adopted one of confusion.

"Because, you look sad," Ruby said. "And I don' want you to be sad."

"Thank you," Naruto said earnestly, unsure of what else to say or do. He didn't understand what this was, both what she had done and what he was feeling.

"Ruby come on!"

"Ah, my uncle!" The girl said, not noticing the change she had imparted. "I gotta go now, hope you enjoy yowr ice cweam!" Naruto nodded, realizing with her uncle's voice that he had been gone much longer than he planned. Debating only for a second, he gave a small wave then the two ran off in different directions:

One towards the blue and red lights, the warm multicolor of friends and family. The other, back into the monochrome world, where everything eventually is consumed by darkness.

Further down that road and still basking in the sun and elation, Ruby Rose watched as the headless Nevermore body fell into the foggy abyss with a certain surrealism. She honestly couldn't believe her plan worked. By all accounts it shouldn't have worked. How had it worked?!

Ah, who cared? It worked!

Bonus, she and her partner were on better terms now than when they met.

Oh, today was looking to be a great day. Nothing could throw her off.

Save for the man that she saw come out of the forest with panic stricken across his face.

She had not expected that at all.

"I need help," More than panicked, the man was terrified and didn't care who it was that heard his plea.

"What are you doing here?" Ruby asked, the man's frantic energy rekindling her fight or flight response. "How are you here!?"

"I-I don't know," The man stuttered with disbelief at his own ignorance. "Everything's a blur,"

"We can take you to Beacon and the teachers will know what to do," Ruby reassured, both the man and herself. The man smiled and Ruby was quick to mime it.

A few minutes later the other freshman had joined her and together they all made their way back to campus. The distance was far shorter than before their triumphs over the Grimm. And together with that act, they carried on with ease, despite the man's disconcerting arrival.

All the while, they probed the man with questions, and he answered them as best he could. This proved harder than the short hike back to campus, as he didn't seem reassured by their credentials and kept slowing them down by glancing over his shoulder.

"Well, I suppose first days could be weirder." Yang chuckled, unconcerned for the man's paranoid behavior nor their prior inconveniences.

While the others took solace in this easy statement, Pyrrha and Blake suddenly became more aware of their surroundings. Perhaps there was substance to this man's caginess.

Someone or something was out there. Watching them.

"Thank you for your help, young lady." Coincidentally, by this time, the man had become immured with his fear. Enough to properly thank the people going out of their way to help him.

"It's not a problem," She smiled in all confidence. Today had been a good day after all.

It all went south so quickly.

But to Ruby, everything had been in slow motion. Even then, she nor anyone else was able to react in time as the man's throat split opened. He reached for his neck haphazardly but to no avail, the floodgates already having opened never to be shut. What had been done could not be undone. What had been seen, never to be unseen.

Ruby stood stock still while her eyes traced the wound to the blade, the blade to the hand and to the arm and then the black masked face. It was vulpine and leering, already decorated with crimson streaks. But she didn't see this intricacy. Instead, looking them dead in the eye where blue met silver. One, a cloudy horizon brimming with tumultuous emotions. The other, an icy blue tundra devoid of anything.

-But for a flicker of recognition that met in the middle like lightning.

Then it was gone, and Ruby blinked once as the cold, wet reality set in. One minute she was escorting a man to Beacon after her entrance exam, the next she was watching him bleed out in front of her.

All because of the person she was staring at. Though they didn't stay long under her gaze. Before the scythe-wielding girl could so much as let out a word, they were moving. They bolted into the forest, fleeing the scene of the crime. It was only when he began moving did the others react.

As they were before, Pyrrha and Blake were the first to respond as they thoughtlessly chasing after the killer. While their determination was set on bringing the killer to justice, Yang ran over too Ruby as she was her main priority.

"Ruby, are you ok?!" The blond girl demanded, looking over her sister who remained unresponsive. "Speak to me, sis!"

'He's dead,' Ruby though.

'He's dead,'

Her eyes drifted in the direction that Blake and Pyrrha had run off.

'Why?'

She was gone, leaving only a trail of petals as she sought an answer.

Naruto leapt through the trees at a fast pace, Aura augmenting his already trained body to distance himself from the two who he knew were following him. He hadn't expected this outcome, but he wasn't surprised by it either.

These were huntresses in training after all. And it was also his luck.

He felt the hairs on his tail bristle and quickly moved as a javelin claimed a few, shivering at the close call. They were determined, he'd give them that.

"Wait!"

The faunus turned to see a blur pass the two initial pursuers, leaving a trail of rose petals in their wake.

A Semblance.

For all the training his master had put him through, Naruto wouldn't be caught that easily, however. But he wouldn't be able to keep the distance through the trees. Instead, he landed on the ground and focused. In burst of speed he was off again. The forest became a blur as he cut through the wind at an unnatural pace by normal standards- but not by whomever wielded that Semblance.

The thought was prophetic, as he would find out a moment later. The sound of a gunshot outran him and he found himself overtaken by the red streak who skidded to a stop.

Coalescing into a human- a girl, they spun around while swinging out their weapon, forcing Naruto to jump into the air and dodge. Though his dogged pursuer seemed to have anticipated this, as they ended up rocketing through the air, once again farther away.

Naruto looked up to see the chaser a few yards away, her weapon trained on him should he try to run once again. Figuring she was a distance fighter, he spun his ninjato around and held it in reverse grip prepared for a close-quarters battle.

He wasn't however prepared for the question she would ask him.

"Why?"

In the pause of surprise, Ruby took the chance to analyze the killer that she had lapped in their game of cat and mouse. Crescent Rose stood at the ready should he move.

He- she could process that it was a he now, and not just some nameless, faceless killer- wore a thin black hoodie with the right sleeve missing. Belts wrapped around the bare arm tightly like the locked strap to her diary. Through her scope, Ruby could make out the faintest hints of words- ink, a tattoo- under the leather bindings. Though what secrets these held, she didn't know. More obvious but no less guarding, lacquered plates covered his chest and back. This grew into hammered steel which was secured on the left shoulder and forearm. A bushy orange belt was the only thing to stand out from the drab colors as it wrapped around his waist- though Ruby would swear it actually wrapped itself around his waist. Beneath it was covered by black cargo pants tucked into equally black combat boots that also looked alive, ready to jump into another fight or fast away.

Though these details were mostly glossed over as the hooded girl's attention was consumed by the mask which was like a black hole. Black as night, that if not for the red markings scarring it, Ruby thought she would be sucked in never to escape.

The silver-eyed girl gulped before finding her nerves once again.

"Why?" Repeating the question as much to hear her own voice as the answer, Ruby looked hollowly at the masked assailant who held a blade at the ready. Her own finger was on the trigger, ready to pull it.

"He was the target," Came the unconvincing response at long last.

"Do you realize what you've done?"

"I killed him."

It was out in the open now. The words seemed to only make it worse for the girl. No longer a one-sided reality.

"Don't you feel anything?" Ruby asked, herself feeling indignation, fear, and also the slow squeezing of her trigger finger. Uncaring for this, the masked killer tilted his head slightly. "You took another life."

The assailant didn't speak. The silence seemed to only ager the girl even more. Without a further word, the masked mystery turned to run. But the girl wasn't having it. She flipped the muzzle of Crescent Rose around and fired, blasting herself at the murderer in an attempt to incapacitate him.

However, even with his back turned he was ready and jumped out of the way of the red rocket that was Ruby before going in for an attack of his own. He poised his ninjato for a strike, but the girl with mixed hair was ready and she quickly used her Scythe to blast her away from the slash.

Quick to recover, Ruby flipped her weapon and shot off at him, once again on the attack. In the heat of combat, she swung the large weapon at her opponent without noticing or caring how much strength she had imbued. Similar strikes had bisected beasts several times larger than either of them, so imagine her surprise when he managed to stop the momentum of the swing with a block from his forearm.

Not even her dad had managed such a feat.

The fox masked boy charged at her and cocked his arm. A trench knife had slipped into his open hand while she was busy being stunned. This close, it was a clear danger- one that Ruby wasn't having any of. She fired another shot which propelled her Scythe towards the boy, hitting him in the back with it's not-insignificant mass.

Or at least, that's how it would have gone if he hadn't back flipped at the last second, twisting at an impossible angle to avoid getting reaped. Ruby skidded to a halt while her opponent landed in a crouching position on the balls of his feet. Watching her behind his mask, he placed his ninjato in its sheath and pulled out a second trench knife. Stance cocked and his fist held aloft as he got ready to attack once again.

He wouldn't get the chance though. Forced to abort, he fell backwards into a defensive stance with crossed his arms to block two swords coming at him from both sides.

Blake and Pyrrha had caught up.

Through concerted effort he managed to push the two back and leapt into the air to distance himself from the newest threat to his life, and more importantly, his mission.

"Oh no you don't!"

He barely lifted his unclothed arm to take the brunt of Yang's surprise attack, but was still knocked into a tree by the sheer momentum. Shaking the otherwise debilitating blow off quickly, he looked up, anticipating what was coming next. As his luck would have it, he soon found himself surrounded from four sides by the huntresses, all prepared to take him down.

But not out. The fools.

"You're surrounded," Pyrrha declared with an air of authority that echoed through the woods. "Give up peacefully," The killer would do no such thing, if his reaching for the sword was anything to go by.

"You're alone here, Buddy," Yang scoffed. "There's no way you can take us all on."

The masked man didn't give anything away, but the air around him shifted slightly as if it disagreed with the blonde brawler's statement.

A moment later, nature unfolded to prove her wrong.

"Whoever said he was alone?"

Three shadowy blurs landed next to the masked attacker, his allies revealing themselves at last.

All of them were cut from the same cloth, both in their garb and the way in which they held themselves. Bodies prepared to react, their blank-white masks yet gave away none of their intentions. But if they were supporting their fellow Assassin, their motives must have been as black as the fox whose carved snarl now looked more like a smirk.

Things were about to get a lot more complicated, it seemed.

"The mission has been completed," The black-masked killer spoke in a low voice to his comrades. "We have no more reason to be here," They all nodded in understanding.

One of the newcomers threw something onto the ground, shrouding them in a thick smoke a moment later. Determined not to let this get in their way, the huntresses leapt forward into the haze to take down their designated enemies.

However, it was too late. When the smoke cleared, the mysterious masked fighters were long gone, leaving four huntresses frustrated and livid. Their victorious examination doing nothing to drain the feeling of restiveness nor that of failure.

"Damnit," Yang growled, punching a fist into her hand. Blake sighed in frustration while Pyrrha gripped her sword tighter. In contrast to these active reactions, Ruby had a faraway look in her eyes. The only thing on her mind being the question she had asked earlier.

Why?

Her question however would not be answered. Not today, at any rate.

Ozpin and Glynda along with a few other staff members were in the clearing when Ruby and the others had gotten back. All of their faces were grim and watchful, as if waiting for another attack.

When Weiss's eyes landed on Ruby and the others, she turned towards Ozpin and alerted the headmaster of their presence.

"Are you all okay?" The grey haired man inquired immediately, not trusting his surveillance system which had coincidentally gone out at the same time the masked murderer had show up.

"Yeah," Yang responded garnering nods from the others. "Just upset we weren't able to get the bastard,"

"Language, Ms. Xiao-Long," Goodwitch reprimanded as she continued over the students. Perfunctory reprimand aside, she was no less concerned. "Were any of you able to get a good look at the assailant,"

"Look at him," The brawler spoke up again in partial disbelief. "We fought him,"

"We wouldn't have though, if not for Ruby," Pyrrha added. "She caught up to him before the rest of us and held him off until we arrived,"

"Though we didn't expect him to have accomplices as well," Blake picked up.

"Were you able to get a good look at his face?"

"No," Ruby sighed dejectedly.

"That is unfortunate," Glynda sighed. "But I suppose, given everything, it's not a surprise that you can't remember what he looked like, even if you had seen him,"

"No, we didn't just forget," Ruby corrected. "We didn't see it because of the masks they were all wearing,"

The blond professor frowned at the explanation. "Masks."

"Yeah," Ruby continued. "They were all wearing white masks, kinda like the White Fang, but with strange markings on them. Although, the one that did the…deed," Ruby shuddered before pushing forward. "His was black,"

The explanation had changed something in the air, almost like it had before the other intruders had shown up.

Glynda looked over at Ozpin with a stern gaze. The headmaster in question frowned at the description.

"What?" Blake asked having noticed the teacher's reaction.

"Ruby, these masks," Ozpin spoke looking at the youngest one there. "Did they look anything like this," He opened up his Scroll and showed the screen to Ruby. She looked at the drawn-up image to see masks that each depicted different animals, but the overall design was the same as the one in question.

"Yeah," Ruby nodded. Then one caught her eye. "The one I fought had one that looked like that," She pointed to a mask on the screen. "A fox, but black,"

"Kitsune,"

Ruby blinked before realizing that the headmaster had spoken once again. "Huh?"

"It was a kitsune mask," Ozpin sighed. "This is not good,"

"Ozpin, they haven't been active in Vale for years," Glynda hissed, not liking the allusions her superior was drawing.

"Who hasn't?" Weiss asked, feeling left out. The teachers regarded at the gathered students who were all looking at them with the same question.

"Professors," Pyrrha began tentatively, "Who did we encounter out there?"

Ozpin and Glynda shared a conferring glance one last time before Ozpin nodded, causing Glynda to scowl. The headmaster appraised at his students once again.

'Interesting year indeed,' He mused.

"You all encountered an old enemy of huntsmen and huntresses that I thought we abolished in Vale," Ozpin explained.

Ruby felt a chill run down her spine as she recalled the eyes of the boy as seen through the slits like gaps in time.

"You all encountered Assassins."

And. Here. We. Go. Man it's good to be back!. First off let me say hi to all my readers and that I am indeed alive. Life's been hitting me hard as of late but I've endured and here I am with a brand new story! First of let me reassure all of you that none of my other stories are dead. I'm actually doing a bit of a rewrite on them though nothing too major.

For Rise of Orange I'm going to more than likely do a large post all at once in the near-ish future but no promises because that's my life.

Enigma of Olympus is being rewritten at the moment, no major changes but ones that I feel are necessary.

UMPR might take the longest but that's more because of all the moving factors involved with that story

Just Sing will return within one month I Guarantee it.

Moving on this is my new story. Wait let me correct myself. This is OUR new story for I have Collabed with Kerberos314 to make this story that we are about to grace you with! As you can see the base is around Naruto being from a group of assassins that differ from Huntsmen that Ruby is. The pairing may be obvious but the story most DEFINETLY is not. Romance may play a bigger part in this story than other onnes the two of us have written but it is not the ONLY genre you'll be seeing as you can probably tell already.

Moving on once again I must confess to one thing. One major reason that I have been absent is because I have written a book. An ACTUAL book, it's not published just yet but I plan to reveal it soon. I'll share the official title with you all during the next post which will be in 2 weeks. This story will be posted every two weeks until volume 1 is done and then there will possibly be a break after for obvious reason.

There's a lot more I'd like to say but I'll stop here for now. Just know that its good to be back And I've missed you guys! So now that I'm back say it with me now.

READ! REVIEW! And above AAALLL ELSE! ENJOOOYYY!