"That was entertaining." Ruby declared as they left the entrance casually, stretching her arms high up in order to get rid of the kinks in her upper body. Haruto rubbed the bridge of his nose, something he had repeatedly been doing in the few days he had met Ruby, which included sighing.
A lot of sighing.
"Also incredibly unproductive." The time wasted yesterday could have been used to spread his name some more by taking the harder jobs, which would hopefully lead to Akatsuki hiring him or whatever it was they did to recruit members.
"Oh poo," waving off his dismissal to the time spent during the whole of yesterday trying to kill her neighbours. "It was funny as hell when that guy saw you in the Santa outfit, he was like 'Ah, I'm an old man and I have claustrophobia!' Hilarious!"
"Again, claustrophobia isn't a fear of Santa Claus."
"Yeah, and I'm a fucking idiot." She snorted, causing Haruto to pause in his step for a second. He opened his mouth before closing it as he silently debated on whether to comment on her statement or not. He didn't want to get chased by her scythe-wielding ass again when he said the wrong thing like agreeing to her question of "Do I look fat in these robes?". Deciding to ignore her sentence, he felt like he had to tell her about her current fighting style and what he wanted to do.
"Alright. We have to begin training."
"Wait-What? When the hell did I agree to this?"
"When you decided you would follow me around after I—" He stopped and corrected himself. "We killed your neighbours." She was about to protest when he cut her off, "Besides," he gave her a slightly snide look, "Your fighting style is atrocious. You swing your scythe wildly and pray to your demon god for luck on hitting things."
"Hey, you go with what you got." She shrugged uncaringly, her lazy side coming out. "And I didn't learn how to use this baby." Ruby shook the scythe as they trotted along the gravel road leading out of Yugakure, enjoying the crunching texture and sound beneath her wooden sandals.
"What's there to learn? You take it, and you cut bitches up. Simple." Stepping particularly hard on the gravel, the sound of rocks roughly rubbing against rocks met their ears and Ruby smiled. The sound reminded her much like the time she had stepped on her father's knees, caving them inwards, him screaming and swearing loudly before she shoved her fist into his—
"This is a good place to train." Turning her head left, she found herself surprisingly enthralled by the scenery. Untouched by the hands of Mankind, the nature of the place brought a strange, yet welcoming, feeling to her and made her feel calm. Despite the loud gushing of water from the large waterfall, she could still hear her blonde friend muttering about what he needed to camp out here. They would have lived in an inn, but it was already too late as they had gone off road from Yugakure's exit. Making her way carefully down the rocky outcrop to the rock filled lake where the waterfall was spilling into, she followed Haruto slowly, still entranced by the beauty and stillness of the area. The masked blonde gestured for her to come over, and she splashed through the ankle high water, nearly tripping on a few large pebbles.
"Alright." Haruto huffed as he hung their backpack on a tree branch, "We'll begin here." Haruto rolled his shoulders forwards and backwards, loosening his tight back muscles. "No chakra. Give me all you've got." He made his way to the other side of the river, all the while stretching as he did so. Ruby's confidence, or rather arrogance, made Haruto smile slightly. He watched her behind the spider mask, stifling a chuckle the girl began spouting obscenities and vulgar words he hadn't even heard of in a miserable attempt at demoralising him. If there was one thing Ruby had not yet learned in the weeks they had been travelling together, it certainly would have to be the fact that he was not affected by any kind of snide remarks. He was, however, very, very sensitive when it came to comments about his family, so Ruby used all the wisdom she had in her body—not very much to begin with—and avoided that topic after he had given her the cold shoulder for the entire day.
"I hope you're ready Haruto, cause I'm gonna—" He took off his mask and tossed it to the side of the riverbank. "Whoa… Shit, is that how you look like? I'm digging those mouth stitches. The whisker marks are pretty cute too. Fuck, I really want some."
"You're not creeped out by my appearance?" He was slightly surprised at her positive reaction to his scarred face and the whisker marks that came with having a Jinchuuriki as a mother.
"Fuck no, that shit's cool as fuck. Not to mention you're already pretty good-looking." Haruto was actually really touched by her sincere words but the moment was quickly lost when she spoke again, "Hey, you wanna fuck after this?" She joked in an attempt to distract him. Tensing her muscles up, she prepared to launch right at him.
"Thank you for your words and… the answer's still a no."
"Eh, I gave it a shot." She shrugged before taking off straight at him, intending on pummelling him to the ground and showing him who was superior.
"I'm so going to—!"
"Lose. You lost again." Haruto sat down next to a downed Ruby, lying in the water. Judging by her expression, she was exhausted as hell. And he could relate, he had pushed her past her limits and out of her comfort zone in order to make her do better.
"Oh har-dee-fuckin'-har… Urgh… Fuck you." Ruby said slowly as she groaned, her short wet white hair splayed all over her face. Feeling the giant hole inside her body where her stomach used to be, now turned to mush, she stayed still for a moment and began to feel the muscles stitching back together. It had been a daily occurrence to damage something internally or externally so much so that the strange feeling didn't feel so foreign anymore. Instead of being horrified by the touch of what she could only describe as "fingertips gently and slowly creeping over her flesh", it now felt natural after years of re-growing missing limbs.
"I've always wanted to know, just what happens when a part of your body vanishes?"
"Imagine cutting your hair. Now imagine that hair as a limb. It's the reason why I stitch my body parts back."
"How'd you find out?" Ruby grunted, pulling herself up into a sitting position.
"For fun, I cut off my arm and tossed it into an active volcano."
"Huh... Can you die?"
"Whoa, hold up Scarface. What am I playing, Twenty Question?" And as if forgetting what she had just said, she answered his question. "And I don't think so. That volcano didn't seem to like me and erupted right into my face. Blasted me clean off the side of the mountain." She grimaced. "Took me weeks to regrow everything, you don't even want to know. Or at least I think I did. Things tend to get fuzzy when a volcano blows up right in your face." She shook her hand negatively at Haruto, who chuckled as he inattentively toyed with his mask.
"I wonder what Naruko-chan's doing right now…"
"Who's that? Your girlfriend?" Ruby snorted, feeling a strange and unwanted bump in her chest at the close suffix he gave the girl. Not even she got a suffix like that. Well, then again she didn't really think that a feminine suffix would go well with her masculine name.
"No," Haruto chuckled, remembering the last time he saw her, sleeping in her underwear holding his boxers in her hands. Ruby gave a sigh of relief, "But I think she wants me to be." Eh, at least she wasn't his girlfriend.
Ruby got back up to her feet slowly, done with relaxing and ready to go on with her training. Picking up her scythe, she began twirling it around in different manners, something she had learnt after a few hours of training with Haruto. Apparently, Haruto was quite the master at the bo-staff, and a scythe was like swords on a bo-staff, so it wasn't all that different, if not heavier. They took breaks between spars in order to hone Ruby's scythe skills as much as they could in one day. Haruto recalled a particularly funny moment when she tried spinning the scythe in a figure-8 movement, failed horribly and got the scythe jammed into her forearm.
As Ruby went through the motions, she began flushing slightly at the memory of Haruto hugging her from behind and holding her arms gently to direct her hands after her failed attempt at doing tricks with the scythe.
Hey, in her defence she didn't know he gave such good cuddles?
"Whatever, let's go again. I'm not down for the count yet. What's the score?" Haruto paused, recalling the tally.
"50-nil. I'll let you figure out who's nil." He grinned at her, tossing his mask back into the water. Ruby scoffed, slamming the butt of her scythe into the water.
"Shut the fuck up, now get up and let me finally kick your ass!" Ruby rushed through the water, her scythe spinning wildly to hit Haruto.
"What's that? You want to get to a 100–nil? I think I'll oblige your request." Haruto rushed forwards to meet her in hand to hand combat, kunai in one hand while the other was prepared to act on a moment's notice.
"WELL JOKES ON YOU, I'LL NEVER LOSE 'CAUSE I'M A FUCKIN' SURVIVOR!"