Gato's men, the two mercenaries, kicked the door open, revealing the scene of an injured Zabuza lying on a bed, Haku tending his wounds and an emotionless Raiga standing near the doorway.
"Tsk, I pay you half of the money upfront and now you've gone and gotten yourself beaten up." The man sneered, his eyes glinting unhappily behind his glasses, "What the hell am I paying you for if you can't do your job."
Zori and Waraji rushed forwards to attack the injured Zabuza, Raiga doing nothing to stop them, but Gato snapped his fingers, halting their actions, wanting to question Zabuza first. Making a move towards Zabuza, the man reached out, about to grab the injured man, not noticing that Haku's fist had clenched up.
"I wanna know, just what the hell you plan to do—" His wrist was dislocated instantly, a thumb brutally pushing the bone out of the socket in one single press.
"Do not touch Zabuza-sama." Haku muttered coldly, his feminine appearance in a fury.
The man screamed, backing up and clutching at his limp arm, his two bodyguards went again, this time attacking the younger androgynous male, swinging their fists.
They blinked and found their blades at their throats.
"I think you should leave." Raiga suggested and Gato growled before stomping out of the house, pride ruined. His two loyal men scampered after him when Haku dropped their swords to the ground, allowing them to retrieve it while he went back to tend to his master.
"Fuck!" Gato cursed as Waraji popped his wrist back into his socket, "Gah! That fucking little shit! When they're done fighting the shinobi, get the boys and kill them, they'll be too tired to fight back and will be easy pickings."
The two nodded eagerly, wanting to add the head of Zabuza and Raiga to their name, as well as take their swords as their own.
"Boss, we should head back, should probably get a doctor to check on your hand."
The trio walked away, not noticing the man that slowly strutted out from behind the house, blue eye gleaming with interest from underneath his spider mask, one taken from a Kumo BOLT member Ruby had killed on the way to Wave. Kumo must have sent scouts to search for him, perhaps capture him in order to get a bargaining chip over Konoha and his father, but the man hadn't expected Ruby to appear behind him, or her scythe, which entered his back and exited from his chest, leaving the man to crawl away pathetically, unable to escape a blood-gurgling death.
A faint smile grew underneath his mask, recalling the memory of his little sister training with Sasuke nearly two days ago. Then he slowly walked down the dirt path, heading back towards where he and Ruby had set up camp at, speaking to himself as he did so, "Let's see how much you've improved while I've been gone, Naruko-chan… You're going to be put in situations no Genin should get into, just how will you fair?" The dream of becoming the next Hokage was no joke to the girl, and Haruto wanted to see if she truly had the values and virtues to be worthy of the seat held by the greatest of Shinobi-kind.
Would she put family or country first?
Hah! Knowing his little sister, the growing girl would definitely find a way to save both her big brother and her country.
At their temporary hideout consisting of a small room drilled out in the side of a hill using a Rasengan, Haruto leaned out of the way as Ruby's pike buried itself hilt deep into the wall where his head once was.
"No! A-Absolutely not! I will not be stripping for you! Hentai!" Ruby protested, covering her clothed chest. Haruto had recently come up with the idea of testing a new seal out, one that had never been tried before and he wanted to use it on Ruby due to the fact that the seal was created specifically for her in mind.
It was to paint sealing scrolls onto a person in order to keep items on their body. It wasn't used for many reasons. One: Important items could be taken off a killed body. Two: Important items could be lost if the body was completely obliterated. Three: No one wanted to test something—that sucked items into some unknown place where time was frozen indefinitely—onto their limbs, where said limbs could have side effects.
The reasoning he wanted to put it on Ruby was because that she could keep her weapons with her at all times without carrying around her bulky and easily identifiable scythe on her back as well as pikes inside her robes. He aimed to create two seals on her palms to easily summon her pikes while use the one on her chest to seal her scythe in. Something that they had figured out was that during a spar, Haruto had accidentally chopped her arm off and disintegrated it with his unique Katon jutsu. After a little panic attack on his part, Ruby told him that it was no big deal, waving his concerns off telling him that it would regrow. Soon, whole arm, scars and all grew back, a rather crazy sight to see muscle slowly forming, bones rapidly growing before skin enveloped the whole thing, making it look good as new.
It was at that point that Haruto began thinking. He asked her if he could test something and Ruby allowed him to do so. Using the permanent ink used in Fuuinjutsu, Haruto paint a tiny dot on the tip of her finger, on that was easily visible to the naked eye. And then he destroyed her arm again, like he had done so before. As soon as her arm regrew, the dot was still there. It was at that point Ruby informed him that Jashin had forgotten to tell her that she could allow anything to stay on her body as long as she wanted it to be there, which meant that Ruby could get rid of the scars her father and the Jashinist—she had killed—had left her as a child and teen, before she had become immortal.
Back to the situation at hand…
As much as she loved the fact that he had thought about her, specially developing a seal just for her, she was NOT going to do what he asked of her.
Which was to take off her clothes.
She wasn't going to lie. Ruby already had multiple mental talks with Jashin-sama on how to make herself more confident when she wanted to make her move on the stupid blonde, to bolden herself up in order to take their relationship—whatever "their relationship" consisted of, including Ruby's many delusions of marriage—to the next level. While alone, taking off all of her clothes was no big deal, but now, in front of the real Haruto, not an imagination in her head, was making her nervous as hell.
Why could she flash him but not strip for him? She concluded that it was one of those in "the heat of the moment" kind of things.
Mask cast to the side of the floor, his eyebrow rose at the insinuation that he was a pervert, "Hentai? You're the one who flashes—Okay, never mind." He relented, nodding, "Then let me rephrase my question: Will you allow me to paint seals on your palms and in the centre of your chest?" Haruto asked, walking over to the wall and ripping her pike out.
"I still don't understand why you need it on my chest." Ruby scowled, pointing her pike at him. Haruto sighed.
"I would be fine with putting it just on your palms, but the seals on your palms can only hold so much." He pointed to the scythe lying on the ground, "That will take a bigger seal, and since your chest is usually uncovered, you can summon your scythe from there easily."
I suggest you go for it Ruby, Jashin whispered tenderly in her mind, It will certainly help you cross that bridge you fear so much now rather than later. Not to mention that those seals could prove useful in battle...
"Fine." Her red cheeks inflated, still rather reluctant to take her robes off. Grabbing the knees of her robes she pulled it upwards, showing Haruto her pale and slender legs and then her black lacy underwear. Heat was emanating from her face as she slowly removed her cloak, showing Haruto her underwear clad body.
"You're really red." Haruto commented as he picked up his brush, dipping it into the bottle of ink he placed at the side. Ruby huffed, "I'm sitting her barely clothed with a pervert about to paint my boobs, of course I'm embarrassed."
He scoffed, rolling his eyes, two habits he had picked up from Ruby appearing, "If it's any consolation, I think you look…" It was painfully clear to Ruby that his observant blues eyes made themselves known that he was taking in her body entirely, this being the first time having seen her lower half. Ruby waited for the awkward compliment to come out of his mouth, but instead of uncertainty, he said confidently, "Beautiful."
Ruby, still looking away, bit her lip painfully to hide the smile that wanted to slide onto her face. Compliments from Haruto made her heart begin tap-dancing in her chest, her blood rushing to her head, making her feel giddy.
While distracted by his compliment, Ruby didn't notice that Haruto had already brought an ink filled brush to her chest.
"Ah! Cold!" Ruby cried, but dare not move, seriously wanting this thing on her chest. She had to admit that carrying her scythe and pikes around was rather tiring or detrimental while doing Shinobi tasks. Escaping or chasing after people meant that running through thick and dense forests was a strict no-no, having been knocked down to the ground while jumping from tree to tree from branches that jutted out, pulling on her scythe.
The brush seemed to rove around in the valley between her breasts, starting and stopping at random intervals. Each time the brush left her skin was to be re-dipped into the ink or to move on to the next kanji. Ruby's eyes flirted down to Haruto's, realising that his eyes were solely concentrated on his brushwork, ensuring that nothing went wrong when they tested it out. Ruby was both happy that he cared so much about her safety, yet slightly offended that he wasn't paying any form attention to her globes.
"There." Haruto slid the brush into the jar of ink, standing up. He had finished it in about ten minutes, and was hard pressed to say that doing so was incredibly difficult. Not because the seal was hard to make, but because Ruby's breasts were taking up nearly three quarters of his vision. His eyes did take a few peeks at her cleavage, but it wasn't his fault, honest. How could he possibly fault himself for being attracted to Ruby's chest? He might've been considered cold back in Konoha and even now, but he was still a man.
"Well, let's see if it works." Bending down, Haruto grabbed Ruby's scythe, twirling it in his hands easily, spinning the large weapon behind his back before clutching it tightly, and stopping it in its tracks.
Haruto poked the hilt of the scythe against the dried seal before instructing Ruby, "Okay, now get some blood on the seal and do what you'd do for a sealing scroll."
Biting the skin of her thumb, Ruby dripped but a drop of it onto her chest, where it met skin, ink and steel, before forming the hand sign that she had used countless times. With a poof, a cloud of smoke later, her scythe was gone, sealed into her chest.
"Fuck, that's some cool shit." She nodded, looking downwards and admiring the tattoo she had gotten, completely forgetting that Haruto was still in front of her. Realising that she was going to be late when meeting Naruko if she didn't leave now, Ruby quickly grabbed her cloak and made a break for the exit.
"Where are you going?" A perplexed Haruto asked, "You still haven't gotten your palm seals!"
"Can I get those when I—Ugh!" She grunted as she began wearing her cloak, stumbling around the cave comically, not even slowing down for a second, "Get back? Trust me, I'll be fine! I'll return at night!"
Haruto watched as Ruby left the cave, a smile tugging at his lips. Shrugging, the amused blonde packed up his kit into his backpack and went to practise a new technique he was busy crafting. Just like she said, he trusted Ruby to stay safe on her own, unconsciously wishing for time to speed up.