Fusion of Forces: Remnant's Maelstrom

The group of four took advantage of the opportunity presented to them and quickly leapt on top of the now thrashing Grimm. Ren was the first to attack, unleashing a hail of bullets straight into the exposed underside of the Grimm's skill and then leaping off. Using the new opening given to her by the long haired male, Pyrrha was able to jab her spear further into the flesh of the Death Stalker. As she leapt off to join Ren, Naruto jammed his own weapon into the exposed flesh, his sword now standing perpendicular to Pyrrha's spear. With a mighty swing Nora smashed her hammer against the bottoms of the two weapons simultaneously, sending both Naruto and Pyrrha's weapons tunneling through the skull of the Grimm like a pair of railroad spikes.

The two sharp weapons pierced straight through the Death Stalker's skull, coming out the other side and ending up in the ground below the now unmoving corpse.

As the body of the Death Stalker began to fade into the wind the four teens began celebrating their victory over the massive Grimm. Nora let out a cheer of excitement, while Ren collapsed to the floor with a sigh and shake of his head. Pyrrha and Naruto shared a simple high five and smile.

Turning his head along with the others, Naruto let a grin stretch across his face as he witnessed Ruby coordinate her own group. The four worked in a surprisingly synchronized fashion for having only worked together for a few minutes, if that. Yang and Blake provided the distraction, with the ravenette also providing her unusually long and elastic ribbon for Ruby, creating a makeshift slingshot. Weiss then created a circle of ruins that he assumed would speed up Ruby even more.

Naruto was proven correct as Ruby soared through the air, the combination of the recoil from her scythe's gun half and Weiss' glyphs pushing her to very impressive speeds. What happened next threw even Naruto for a loop. Ruby hooked her scythe around the throat of the Nevermore, her feet landing solidly against the cliff face. Weiss again created more runes, making a line of them that drove straight up the cliff. Ruby used the runes to stick herself to the sheer cliff wall and began to give gravity the finger by scaling up the rocky wall, dragging the Nevermore behind her.

Firing off shots at a constant rate, Ruby was able to maintain her speed and quickly cover the entirety of the cliff in the matter of a few seconds. Reaching the cliff's plateau, the body of the Nevermore was stuck underneath the lip of said plateau. Another shot and a burst of speed from what he assumed to be her Semblance and Ruby's scythe cleaved straight through the Nevermore's neck, severing the head from the rest of its body.

As the the now headless corpse began to fall down the abyss at the bottom of the cliff, even Naruto had to admit what he had just seen was pretty damn awesome. To tie all together, there Ruby stood at the cliff top, scythe in hand, her cloak fluttering in the wind while rose petals left over from her Semblance fell around her.

Grinning Naruto let out a whistle of appreciation at the sight.

'Impressive...for a ningen (human),' Kurama groused.

'Stubborn old fox,' Naruto retorted.

'Blond haired idiot.'

'Furball!'

'Stupid monkey!'

Everyone sweat dropped when they turned to see Naruto choking his fox while said quadruped was clawing at his face. The sweat drops grew even larger when the duo fell to the floor, Naruto throwing punches while Kurama bit and scratched.

"TAKE THAT BACK YOU BAKA-KITSUNE (Idiot Fox)!"

Naruto stood with his arms behind his head as he listened to Ozpin announce the names of the team that had finished before he and the others had. His suspicion about two pairs being placed together to make teams of four being proven correct. Him and Kurama had only raised an eyebrow at seeing another parallel between the military system of Remnant and the Shinobi villages'. It seemed that the saying of "If it ain't broke, then don't fix it" was a universal truth.

When it came time for him, Pyrrha, Nora, and Ren to step up, he did so with a grin on his face.

Ozpin turned to regard the four teens that stood before him, though his gaze lingered on the blond male of the team for a little bit longer than the others.

"Naruto Uzumaki. Nora Valkyrie. Pyrrha Nikos. Lie Ren. The four of you retrieved the gold rook pieces. From this day forward you will work together as team NNPR (Napier)."

Nora cheered and hugged Ren, who was attempting to hide his own smile. Naruto only grinned as he and Pyrrha exchanged a congratulatory look.

Ozpin coughed to gain their attention again and continued, "The leader of which will be...Naruto Uzumaki."

Cheers and clapping came from the audience while Pyrrha offered Naruto a smile and a pat on the back. Ren nodded at the blond and Nora gave him a goofy salute.

Naruto for his part looked neither shocked nor overly proud at hearing his being selected as the leader of the time. Instead he dropped his arms to his sides and bowed to Ozpin with a blank face, earning a raised brown from the headmaster. His teammates were just as shocked at seeing the usually smiling Uzumaki quickly become so serious. They were however relieved to see Naruto return to normal as he came up from the bow with a foxy grin on his tanned face.

Walking off the stage, the now named team NNPR bumped into Ruby and her own little group. Ruby hugged Naruto and offered her own congratulations. The moment was ruined when Yang grabbed her fellow blond in a headlock and began to give him a noogie.

Escaping from Yang's grip Naruto turned to look at Blake. In return the quiet teen offered Naruto a small nod of respect as her congratulations. Weiss was the odd one out as she scoffed and rolled her eyes. Naruto, already used to Weiss' type, grinned before poking her in her side, getting a surprised yelp from the Schnee heiress and laughs from everyone else.

Before Weiss could do anything to get revenge Ozpin began calling out their names and Weiss stomped off with a still giggling Ruby.

"And finally, Ruby Rose. Weiss Schnee. Blake Belladonna. Yang Xiao Long. You four retrieved the black knight pieces. From this day forward you will work together as team RWBY (Ruby), led by...Ruby Rose."

Once more cheers erupted from the audience. Yang rushed to crush her sister in another of her hugs while Weiss looked oddly offended. Blake meanwhile stood there stoically, taking the news with her usual brand of apathy.

As both teams RWBY and NNPR celebrated their successfully initiation and team assignments Ozpin looked on with a small smile.

"Looks like things are shaping up to be...an...interesting year," Ozpin muttered quietly to himself.

:::

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