One More Chance - Naruto X RWBY

Spread Your Wings

Finally.

It was here.

Ever since he had first begun to read and write for the second time in his life, Itachi had known that The Vytal Festival held a great importance to the political and cultural climate of his new home world. He had grown up watching the tournament on their living room television with his sisters and father, the three of them always being filled with great excitement whenever they'd sit down to observe the four academies send their strongest into battle.

Itachi had never held... quite the same admiration for the event.

Now, don't get him twisted. Itachi firmly believed in everything that the Vytal Festival stood for: Unity, diversity, prosperity, understanding, togetherness. He'd be a fool not to, those were the markings of the will of fire. He was all for peace through love and understanding, standing together against hatred and celebrating our differences. However... he had never been one for commercialized combat. It struck him as quite odd that the kingdom's ultimate celebration of unity was to fight each other, especially as the Treaty of Vytal had specifically been signed to stop the fighting of The Great War.

But perhaps that came from Itachi's own background as a child soldier. As a young boy, war had been made to sound like a glorious fight, where to die for one's village was an honor and was to be respected. Young shinobi were excited to go to war, to participate in the thrill of battle, to gain the respect of their fellow shinobi, to woo the ladies (or men, Kunoichi were especially fearsome) ... but in reality?

War was hell.

Mangles bodied lining the battlefield, the screams of dying soldiers, explosions filling the night. War was hell, and Itachi never wanted anyone to live through it. He could still feel the blood on his hands, the dying breaths caught in his raven hair, the faces of corpses and begging men alike reflected in his Sharingan eyes.

As a result, Itachi hated combat. He was fine to spar, and he would obviously do battle if he had to. But fighting for sport or enjoyment was lost on him. Unfortunately, it's what he spent most of his time doing - mostly because fate really seemed to despise him. There was no honor in war, there was no glory in battle. To fight was to die and to kill, and Itachi wanted no part in that.

And as such, he would not be participating.

Well, that and his broken body. It would be a bit difficult to fight in a wheelchair.

So the young prodigy would be sitting out this year's Vytal festival, which also made things a lot easier anyway. Fitting a five-man team into a tournament meant for groups of four would have been quite the struggle anyhow. At the moment, he was simply a spectator. Itachi didn't mind though. For him, this was a sort of test. To see how far his team had come, to see if he had done his job. They needed to be strong to protect themselves when he was gone.

He had to trust them.

So, here he stood- well, sat. The tournament was about to begin. It had only been about a week since their mini-vacation had ended, and it had actually had quite a nice send off. After his talk with Ruby, they had played on the dark beach throughout most of the night. It was heartwarming to see his sister have a bit of her usual shine again, but he knew that there would be a long road ahead. His sister was maturing, and wasn't the bubbly and cheery girl that he had once known. But perhaps they were lucky, he'd take depression over a heart scorched by vengeance anyday.

He'd failed Sasuke, he couldn't fail Ruby too.

But just being there with the girl seemed to be doing enough for now. Reminding her that they were all behind her, that they'd be there for her, that was what was important.