28 -Chapter 28-

-Last Time-

"Gotcha." Nora muttered with a vicious grin as one of her grenades managed to hit the plane's side, causing it to spiral out of control. However, she quickly lost said smirk when the jet still made it to the upper city before crashing.

To make things worse, she finally noticed as her other five grenades detonated across the roof of the cavern, which caused several chain reaction explosions that spread across the underground city.

"…cause them to go off." Penny finished weakly as the rest of the group caught up in time to see the entire spectacle go down. In just a few seconds the whole city was lit up like a Christmas tree and entire sections of the city began to descend upon them.

"Whelp, we're boned." Yang stated dully.

-And Now, About Five Minutes Earlier-

Inside a moderately large dimly lit vault-like room, large vault door included, Naruto could be found hanging in the air thanks to the absolutely absurd amount of large blackish-grey chains wrapped around nearly in of his body, his eyes glowing with fear and anger. Each of his tails and limbs were stretched apart a s far as possible, all but incased in the metal links along with multiple pairs of lightly glowing metal cuffs that prevented him from using his aura or dust powers.

A collar with spike pointing inwards was wrapped tightly around his throat that kept him from moving his head, a ring gag in his mouth that had the sides tightened to just behind his teeth so he couldn't bite through it, and to top it all off a rusty dog muzzle.

And as if that wasn't overkill enough, there were no less than three automated minigun turrets trained on him, ready to shoot him or anything that got near him at any second.

*Shnk* *Thud* *Thud* *Thud*

…Correction, there used to be three turrets.

Standing amongst the destroyed machinery was a young man with red hair and bull horns on his head and a sword strapped to his side. The upper half of his face hidden behind a stylized grim mask, but based on the deep, DEEP, frown on his lips, it wouldn't take much to figure out that he was not in a good mood. This was Adam, devoted member of the new white fang cause and avid hater of all humans.

Walking past the now broken automated guns, this man slowly drew his red bladed weapon and held it up to Naruto's throat, earning a distorted mixture of a growl and a whimper from the restrained boy.

"To think, those filthy Schnees would actually go so far as to weaponize a faunus for their own bidding." Adam said in a dark tone as he dragged his blade across the boy's neck, leaving an almost invisible scratch along the way. "But I guess it was only a matter of time before even they had to admit that our kind is far superior to theirs."

Lifting his blade back, the bull-horned man took a single step back as he re-sheathed his weapon, taking a deep breath as his muscles tensed. "The fate as a human slave is burden no faunus will suffer if I can help it. Be grateful for a swift death shall be your release."

With speed faster than most could even perceive, Adam drew his blade once more and sliced at Naruto's neck, intent on giving the boy a quick and mostly painless death.

*Clang*

Fortunately for Naruto, that blow never landed thanks to the timely intervention of a certain black haired red eyed masked bandit.

"Sorry to interrupt but… well actually I'm not sorry." Raven admitted as she easily held back Adam's sword with her own for several moments before shoving the redhead back and swiftly slashing at his chest. To his credit Adam was able to just avoid the swing despite his surprise at the new arrival, but not the pair of large flaming tails that sent him tumbling back several feet.

"You focus on getting the boy free Chickling," Matatabi stated as she got between her companion and the already recovering redhead. "I'll deal with this fool."

"Alright, just don't play around with him too much." Raven said, already working on removing Naruto's bindings, slightly irritated by the spit landing on her face from the whiskered blonde's attempting to speak.

"Heh, no promises." The flaming cat said with a wide grin as she stalked towards Adam, who had fully regained his bearings and was now glaring at her with his sword at the ready.

"What do we have here, another Schnee 'pet'?" Adam asked sarcastically, venom dripping from his voice.

"You know, just because somebody doesn't like what you're doing, doesn't automatically make them allied to those uptight rich-wads," Matatabi said with a scoff, briefly throwing Adam for a loop. "I originally came here just to rescue my otouto, but after dealing with your hypocritical ass for the last two days I decided to add ripping you to shreds to the to-do list."

Adam gained a questioning look on his face at her statement, wondering what she meant by 'dealing with him for two days', cause last he checked this was the first time he had to deal with a literal giant blue cat. However, before he could try and demand and answer, the bull faunus found himself on the defensive as Matatabi pounced.

Screeching filled the air as the cat's steel-like claws clashed with his sword and sheath. Adam blocked most of the attacks before nimbly dodging to the side and attempting to slash her side, only to end up aborting mid-swing in order to avoid the now flaming tails that narrowly missed his head and torso respectively.

"Come on now little calf, show me those horns you're always flaunting." Matatabi taunted with a vicious grin, making the redhead grit his teeth in irritation as he tried to attack once more.

Meanwhile, Raven was having her own fair bit of frustration as she worked at getting Naruto free of his confinement.

'Dammit, these things are much tougher than I thought. Probably meant to hold a maiden if what the Cat told me is true.' She thought with a scowl as she tried hacking through the chains with her sword, only to stop a few seconds later as the repeated blows started to blunt the blade even with her aura and dust infused into it. 'Guess we'll have to see how well they work then.'

Sheathing her sword, Raven peeled off her gloves and grabbed as many of the main metal bindings as she could with her bare hands. The reasoning for this was revealed a few moments later as said chains slowly started to glow red hot in her grasp.

Once they were hot enough, the ravenette twisted her grip and pulled to either side as hard as she could, her masked face turning slightly red from exertion as the heated metal gradually contorted and stretched before finally snapping apart. The moment this happened, the chains holding Naruto loosened enough for him to wiggle his arms and a few of his tails free.

Using his newfound freedom wisely, the whiskered boy immediately ripped the spiked collar off his neck and the muzzle off his face with trembling arms before struggling with the gag in his mouth, eventually managing to pull it forward enough to bite through it with a loud *Crunch*.

"Bleuck, nasty," The small boy muttered as he spat out bits of plastic and metal with a green face. Once he recovered from that though, he immediately turned his attention back to the one currently helping him get free. "I remember you, you were that nice lady who helped me on the boat. What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like I'm doing boy, making a Turducken?" Raven asked sarcastically before shoving one of the chains into his mouth. "Now use that impressive jaw of yours for something useful and start chewing."

Nodding his head, Naruto clamped his teeth down on the chain, causing it to creak loudly under the strain for several moments before giving in and breaking. Seeing as this was much faster than her own method, Raven repeated it with the support chains she could while personally dealing with the rest.

Upon snapping through the last one, Raven couldn't help the teeny humored smirk that crept up on her lips as Naruto fell to the floor in a mix of fur and chains with a comical yelp. Kneeling to help him get untangled and cut off the aura restraining cuffs, which were thankfully much easier to deal with thanks to their normal steel composition, the ravenette paused for a moment when she noticed something odd.

'This metal… it's pitted.' Raven thought as she broke off a set of cuffs from Naruto's wrist, her eyes narrowing at the odd erosion marks that lined the inside of the otherwise brand-new looking cuffs. However, before she could contemplate on this oddity for long, her attention was drawn back to the fight going on by a loud cry of pain.

"Gah! Fuck!" A battered Adam cursed as a completely unharmed Matatabi clamped her jaws tightly around his arm, with his aura being the only thing stopping her from tearing it off completely. Using her grasp on said limb, the fire cat shook the redhead around like a ragdoll before tossing him into the air and smashing him back to the ground with her tails.

After watching him lay there motionless for several moments, she rolled her eyes with a disappointed sigh.

"Bah, that was incredibly boring," Matatabi muttered while she, just to add insult to injury, walked over to the man's downed form and kicking him out the door in the same manner a cat would bury their crap in a litter box. "I was honestly expecting a better fight then that."

"THEN HOW ABOUT YOU GET A TASTE OF THIS!"

Before the shrunken Biju could react, Adam reappeared in the room with his hair and sword glowing a deep crimson red, the latter of which he swung at blinding speed as the whole world seemed to briefly turn red and black.

Once this odd effect began to fade away, Adam stood before Matatabi's unmoving form with an arrogant smirk on his face as he sheathed his weapon.

"Hmph, stupid beast, that's what you get for-"

"Underestimating you?" Matatabi whispered in the faunus's ear from behind him as the fake Nibi faded into a flare of blue flames. "I told you I was watching you for days. What made you think I didn't know about your adorable little finishing move?"

*Sque-crunch*

Adam never got the chance to answer as the fire cat bit his head clean off, her teeth easily piercing through his weakened aura.

Chewing a few times as she watched his headless body fall to the floor, Matatabi spat out the now unidentifiable lump of bone and tissue on top of it with a disdainful expression before igniting it all with her tails.

"Okay, now I need to know, what the hell did he do to piss you off so much?" Raven asked with a raised brow at the burning corpse. The was way too personal to just be a simple grudge.

"He was a hypocrite." Matatabi stated with a growl.

Many faunus and human families had decided to leave Vale to get away from all the insanity and danger that had been happening there recently along with several others but ended up getting captured by a small contingent of the White Fang that were robbing travelers to get supplies.

She had volunteered for the group since she knew Adam would be there, wanting to get intel on one of the heavy hitters holding Naruto hostage, where she'd been thoroughly disgusted with how calmly he'd had all the humans executed. Not only that, but after squeezing the remaining group for as many recruits as he could, he gave the rest a promise to let them leave unharmed, only to give the order to kill them all once the new recruits were out of sight for being 'traitors to the cause', even though many of them were just children.

Now while Matatabi was neutral towards humanity or it's various sub-species in general, the cat biju admittedly had a soft spot for children since they were innocent and despised those who would harm them. That and she absolutely hated hypocrites, and Adam made himself a big one that day.

The only reason she hadn't torn him apart right then and there was because she couldn't risk blowing her cover, thus she took her anger out on his poor underlings once he was gone and blaming the carnage on a surprise Grimm attack.

On the plus side, she'd managed to at least save a few of the innocent Faunus, specifically the children as the adults had been the first to be struck down, since Adam had left almost immediately after giving the order. Said children were currently on their way to Menagerie via Bullhead thanks to Diff's friend Simon, who surprisingly had lots of piloting experience.

"Alright then," Raven said, having already lost interest from that one statement as she finished freeing Naruto. "Come on boy, it's time to leave."

"Okay Nice Lady, I'm… I…" The nine-tailed boy started to say while he got up, only to trail off as his legs wobbled under his weight before suddenly giving out, making him collapse to the floor once more.

…

"…I can't move." He finished weakly as he lay flopped on the floor.

'Dammit, forgot to consider that he'd have muscle fatigue from being hung up so long.' Raven berated herself with grit teeth while carefully scooping Naruto up into her arms.

"Hey, is the Kit alright?" Matatabi asked, padding over and sniffing the boy in mild worry.

"He'll be fine after some rest.

"Yeah, yeah Chickling, I know, hop on." Matatabi said, crouching a bit so that her companion could climb onto her back.

*BOOOOOOM*

However, just as Raven was about to mount up, the pair were nearly knocked off their feet as a massive explosion violently shook through the area.

"Oh don't tell me," Raven growled as she rushed outside with Matatabi in tow just in time to see the upper city beginning to fall. "What the fucking hell Cat?! You said you disabled those explosives!"

"I did! I removed the transmitter from the detonator just like you told me to!" Matatabi stated in disbelief.

"Then maybe you can explain that!" The masked bandit exclaimed as she gestured to the several tons of rock currently on course to crush them.

"Sure! Right after I save your ungrateful ass!" The fire cat yelled back sarcastically while deforming into a mass of aura.

"I hate you so fucking much." Raven grumbled, not even flinching as the dense aura started rapidly swirling around her before being absorbed into her body. Once the little light show was over, the black-haired woman took her mask off to reveal her now heterochromatic golden blue eyes and bland expression.

"The feeling is mutual." She muttered in Matatabi's voice with a frown before looking down at Naruto with a playful smile. "Hey Kit, watch closely now. I'll be teaching you to do this soon enough."

"Okay Koneko-neechan." He mumbled with a nod of his head, making Mata-Raven freeze.

"What did you just…" She started to ask, only to be cut off by a large chunk of rock landing a few feet away, reminding her of the impending doom currently befalling them. Looking back towards the collapsing upper city, Mata-Raven sighed before inhaling as deeply as she could, streams of blue aura, equally blue flames, and a soft golden energy flowing from her body and into her mouth.

-Meanwhile-

"I always figured I'd die because you finally got us into too deep of trouble Nora, I just didn't think it would be so literal." Ren muttered dully as he and the 'rescue team' watch Mtn Glenn's descend upon them.

Gulping nervously, Nora offered her oldest friend a weak grin. "Hehe… whoopsie."

"We gotta get out of here!" Weiss screamed in a panic.

"How?! The only way out is up and as you may have noticed, UP IS CURRENTLY COMING DOWN!" Jaune screamed back in a very unmanly voice.

"Maybe we can blast our way through, fractue it up or something so we can maneuver our way out!" Yang suggested while loading up her highest-powered shells.

"It's possible, but we need to do it now!" Penny agreed, her blades gathering up in a cylindrical shape in front of her and started to spin rapidly and gather a charge of green energy. Seeing no other options, the rest of the group quickly prepped their own weapons. The only exceptions were Glynda, Jaune, Weiss, and Winter, since their weapons had no gun forms for their weapons, so instead the blonde teacher used her semblance to lift up several boulders while the Schnee sisters focused all their energy into a pair of glyphs.

Sadly, all Jaune could do was stand there and try not to crap himself, having absolutely nothing in terms of ranged attacks.

Loading a small pitch-black clip into Crescent Rose, Ruby swallowed nervously while taking aim at the several tons of falling cement, steel, and rock. "Okay! Let's do thi- What's that?"

Literally just before the group could fire, a bright blue glow began emanating from another part of the underground city.

"Maybe there's a flash rave nearby?" Yang suggested joking, getting everyone to look towards her with a dull expression. "What? If I'm gonna die then I'm at least going out with a good lau-"

*FWOOOBOOOOOOM!*

"HOLY SHIT!" Yang, Blake, and Jaune yelled at the top of their lungs as a massive stream of blue fire shot into the air, knocking the group clean off their feet in the process from the shockwave. Like a hot knife through butter, the fire cut straight through the metal and rock it came in direct contact with, vaporizing nearly a third of the city in an instant. Meanwhile, the other two-thirds was blown to pieces from the sheer concussive force and heat of the blast.

Then just as quickly as it appeared, the torrent of sapphire flames dissipated into nothing, leaving nothing in its wake but dust, ash, and rubble.

"What… the fuck… was that?" Yang asked slowly as she got up a bit shakily, staring with almost impossibly wide eyes at the devastation.

"Not what Yang, who." Ruby said as she got up, her gaze focused on the origin of the blast, snapping everyone out of their stupor before bolting towards it as fast as she could.

Eyes widening as she realized what the hooded girl meant, Nora was quick to follow after her. "Naruto! Hold on, mama's coming!"

"Guys! Wait u-Whoa!" Yang yelped as she was cut off by a giant smoldering boulder landing just a few feet in front of her. Looking up, the busty blonde paled as she and the others finally noticed the multiple car and house sized chunks of burning city that had somehow survived the blast and were still headed straight for them. "…Oh crap, incoming!"

Acting instinctually, the group broke apart, scattering in various directions to avoid the half-molten debris. A few of them tried to follow after Ruby and Nora but were barely able to make any progress as they dodged or destroyed the falling rock and steel. The only exception being Penny, who was zipping around between the divided group with her wings, helping where she could.

"Penny! Don't worry about us and go after those two! Make sure that they don't do something stupid again!" Well, that was what she was doing until Winter yelled at her.

"Yes Ma'am!" The gynoid said with a salute before rocketing off.

"…You do know she's no better than they are most of the time, right?" Glynda asked the older Schnee dully, making her sigh in exasperation.

"Yeah, but at this point, I really don't see how they could make this situation any worse."

Oh how wrong she was…

-End Chapter-