Disclaimer: The following is a fan-based parody. Naruto, Naruto Shippuden, and Boruto are all owned by Masashi Kishimoto. RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth. Please support the official release.
Chapter 12: Bigger World
When a sword slashes through the air, it makes the wind whistle. Any faster and the blade will simply make the air whistle at a higher pitch like the fall of an arrow. That was not the case in the forest where Ruby Uchiha and her best friend (and crush) Shirou Arashi made their camp for the three months in Iron Country. Amongst the ever-expanding plain of cut down trees that now reached half an acre, there no was whistle in the wind of flying steel.
Rather filling the air was the sound of what can only be described as the screech of a blade. These sharp tolls followed a flash of thin pale light in a crescent shape serving as the only indication of whatever was passing through the air. The space itself so cleanly cut by the slash it was almost separated into different spaces like chopped glass and the wind stilled from the speed and precision.
This amazing grace unimaginable by human standards was being practiced and honed by Ruby Rose. It had now been almost two months since she had discovered her own Breath of the Moon sword art. Iron Country's winter was already showing signs of thawing as green began to return to the flora and the climate was becoming less crisp from the cold. Snow still lingered on the ground and would occasionally lightly fall. The twilight of winter was not even a relief to Ruby; the worst of the cold season never even bothered her in the first place.
Looking at the woman known as Ruby she was obviously changed. Her hair that she had chopped just to her neck length had now reached the middle of her back. This cascade of hair gave the silver-eyes Uchiha a messy mane of black and crimson locks. With her paler than average skin tone, Ruby looked like a feminine reincarnation of her great-grandfather, Madara Uchiha. One a more up close perspective, the girl had gained a new addition to her height at just two centimeters. So meager but still a win to Ruby against being short.
Besides her physical appearance, Ruby had a new wardrobe change. The smiths within the capital of Iron Country had completed in fashioning Ruby's most wanted armor for herself. She no longer looked deceptively vulnerable from her former black kimono, which was discarded entirely for a black snug shirt. Over the casual apparel was braces of armor replacing the meager use of ANBU-like gear, such as protective guards over her chest colored a rose red. Similar armor placements came in braces on her shoulders, black plates on her forearms that look like sleeves, and her legs were given knee caps while the legs themselves were protected by steel-covered boots almost reaching her knees. Shin guards at the waist made what can be considered a metal skirt tied by a belt for the sheaths of her swords. It was almost a replication of armor worn by the Uchiha during the Warring Clans era, but there were minor yet important differences. First off was that the armor was much slimmer and 'tighter' to her body for better mobility and sneaking. Her pants were much more baggy for the addition of pockets for whatever fuinjutsu equipment or weaponry she needed. On her back was a buckle holding a placement for the naginate polearm given to her as a birthday present by Madara.
And the best thing about it was adjustable for sizes all the way into her adult years, even if she potentially grew to be over six feet tall. However, the order for her and Shirou's weapons would take at most a week to complete. Iron Country's way of forging blades compared to armor was more delicate in folding and tempering the steel so the swords would not break under any sort of stress despite their slim sizes. It was necessary when in a world where shinobi can manipulate the elements to a frightening degree.
The young Uchiha was settled in a low stance of iaido having already drawn her blade from the sheath in a slash faster than the regular eye could ever perceive. Her blade was held at the end of the drawn swing settled in front of her parallel to the ground. It result was more than just a simple slash as now the snowy ground held multiple cuts through the layer and even digging into the earth below. All these slices occurred in a simultaneous manner from the sword brimming with a blue layer of Ki.
To Ruby's misfortune, the steel showed visible cracks to that of fragile glass. As much as Ruby tended to her weapon, it was beyond her ways to preserve its make. The katana simply could not handle the flow of Ki she used from the breathing styles, and it became worse when she created more forms for her Breath of the Moon sword art. It simply was not the same quality and only the blades she had ordered within the capital of Iron Country had the necessary tempered steel to withstand the flow of power Ruby had.
"Good progress." Ruby commented, ending her exercise.
Ruby stood straight now that her daily exercise was finished. In a traditional iaido, Ruby swiped her blade to the side as if removing blood, slowly slid the sword up the scabbard, and returned it to rest within the sheath. There was a certain calm she felt resheathing a katana as the samurai do. It is quirks like such that Ruby knew to her heart that having a career as a shinobi would never be possible for her. Her morals simply could not stomach surrendering her free will to people who more than usual have ill intentions. The horrors she heard from the Shinobi Wars to the eradication of the Uzumaki and Uzushio to the killing of her Uchiha relatives to the infant solidified her standing against them. There was too much corruption and greed within the shinobi system, and the people just soak it up in their ignorance.
Ruby took a deep breath before her thoughts turned more... violently revolutionary as Madara would put it. It was the same feeling her great-grandfather had when he saw the corruption of the shinobi system within Konoha. That was what led to Madara openly rebelling against the village where history would claim had gone mad and wanted to be Hokage in place of Hashirama. In truth, Madara sought to end the corruption by its roots, but his methods could have been less volatile.
Taming the Kyuubi may have sent the wrong message.
The snap of twigs got Ruby out of her inner thoughts. Instincts trained into by Madara wanted her to jump at the potential intruder, but she held it down with an iron grip. The only technical intruder really was Isshin, and he believed his claim that he could have killed her before Ruby noticed. That left only one person that Ruby was all too happy to see. Turning around with a smile on her face, Ruby's silver eyes landed upon Shirou entering their camp having returned from hunting.
"Finished with your exercise, Ruby?" Shirou said. "Just in time for lunch."
Hefted onto his back was the freshly killed carcass of a deer just returning to the land from their migration at the twilight of winter. It was full grown buck weighing at almost 130 kilograms from the size, making it twice as big as Shirou who was on the cusp of turning twelve years old. Despite the size difference, Shirou showed no strain or bother carrying the weight of the full buck on him. Ruby's gaze looked at the fresh kill that would soon be lunch and could not stop licking her lips imagining the heavenly food Shirou was going to cook it into.
Her eyes focused back on Shirou taking in his new appearance after getting his new set of armor and clothes. Covered his torso and shoulder was body armor that hugged his figure with a grey shirt underneath. If Ruby didn't know the material itself she wouldn't even tell that it was genuine metal on. There were intricate azure accents that lined out pectorals and abs on the armor. Blue tights for pants covered his legs scaled with metal plates for protection against projectiles while not sacrificing crucial mobility. His feet were given black metal covered shoes, and he wore red sleeves over his arms that held an azure shroud over his shoulders and upper back where it was connected to two metals plates protecting his chest cavity from the back. The sleeve also served as a holster for braces on his forearms predominately colored black from the unique steel alloy and etched in designs of azure that looked like circuitry. Ruby personally added Shirou's look to have an azure skirt that parted only at the front where behind the cloth were sealing arrays for storage and held by a buckle at his waist holding his scabbard for his swords or other weaponry. Like her own armor, Shirou's was also adjustable to the point it can fit him into his adult years if he potentially grows to over six feet tall.
Only these thoughts went through Ruby's head as she stared at Shirou's new look. 'He looks so awesome! Shiwou has to stay like for as long as possible.'
"Thank you, Shirou-kun." Ruby chirped, skipping over to their campsite.
Shirou gave Ruby a kind smile and went to a secluded spot to skin the deer. Meanwhile, Ruby went over to their fire pit that held a large black iron pot upon four branches woven together in twine to serve as supports. The flames burned a bright orange, but blew out a flame to make them burn hotter while adding more fuel from wood gathered from the trees they cut down for practice. Suffice to say from their creation of more forms for Ruby's Breath of the Moon and Shirou's Breath of Steel they had a lot of excess, even when they would sell a few logs in Iron Country's market for some money.
"Shirou-kun, what do you want to cook with the deer?" Ruby called out her question.
A moment of silence followed Shirou's reply. "I think I will do a spit today. I don't have enough ingredients for a stew."
"Alright." Ruby said and set out to work.
It was an efficient system Shirou created when making a fire to also have it adjustable for different ways of cooking. First, Ruby removed the iron pot from the fire and realigned the woven branches into a fire spit complete with a rack to hold two skewers of deer meat for each of them. However, there was enough room for Ruby to hang and use a small pan, which was enough for the Uchiha for her own idea of a side dish. Ruby retrieved a storage scroll from their food supply bag and unrolled it to reveal ten storage seals. She slammed her hands down on the first and second one and pulsed her chakra into them. From two poofs of smoke came a small cooking pan and a bag of assorted ingredients.
After setting the pan over the fire for cooking, Ruby looked to the bag that had labeled spots for different ingredients with their own storage seals. She went for the one labeled 'Animal Fat' in Japanese and out came preserved animal fat. From what she learned from Shirou, animal fat served as replacement for cooking oil and is excellent provider of flavor so she plopped it into the now hot pan and watched the fat simmer and melt with a heavenly smell.
Until it covered the surface of the pan, Ruby went for more of her desired ingredients. This time she reached into the bag itself where Shirou stored more fresh ingredients usually gathered on the road or bought from the market. First, Ruby pulled out a few handfuls of onion bought by the market and diced into pieces by Shirou. Before she would thrown them in the pan, Ruby pulled out a clove of mushrooms foraged from this very forest. Iron Country's climate called for a unique adaptation in the local fungi to grow off the fallen leaves of the trees. The ones Shirou gathered were white in color and even when cooked held a 'breath' of flavor to them, and the mushrooms were the only ones in the forest that were not poisonous. As they were only picked the mushrooms needed to be cut, and this was done by Ruby using her tanto blade to expertly slice them into diced pieces. Skills to cut down her foes can also go along in properly cutting food.
Once the mushrooms were cut, Ruby tossed them and the onions into the awaiting pan. The smell of cooking mushroom and onion in animal fat wafted in her nose before the sizzle reached her ears, serving as signs her side dish was working out well. She watched as a sauce formed from the juices of both the melted fat, onion, and mushroom while thinking this was going to go great. So enthralled Ruby was in her own take on making a meal with Shirou that she had let her awareness around her to dim due one thought.
'I hope Shiwou-kun likes what I can make.' Ruby thought, studying how more sauce was building up as the onions and mushrooms cooked. 'Yeah that stuff is going to need some rice.'
"Ruby, the meat's almost ready." Shirou called, getting Ruby to turn back to the redhead's general direction. "Is everything set up?"
"Yep!" Ruby answered back, turning to the bag.
She touched another label for 'rice' and from the poof cloud appeared two orange balls of jade rice wrapped in leaves. It was just enough for as a side dish for two people. As she set the rice down for future use, Ruby turned back to her pan... only to freeze at the sight of a 'man' crouching over the pan of mushrooms and onion, wearing only a pelt tied around the waist and blue pants thus leaving his top exposed. Ruby used the term 'man' loosely because of the boar mask that almost looked like the man had an actual boar head. It was the sight of the man reaching for the pan's contents that Ruby acted - that being delivering a kick to the face filled with all of her righteous fury.
"Oi, you stay away from that!" Ruby exclaimed, sending the intruder flying away.
To her surprise after the intruder had a few tumbles off the ground righted himself clawing his fingers into the ground, poised like a wild animal on all fours. Ruby noticed how his body visibly shook and even steam was visibly shooting out of the boar mask's ears.
"That's my food!" The boar man proclaimed in surprisingly young tone, pointing at the pan that Ruby took away from the fire.
A normal reaction to those words would be a quirk of a brow in confusion. Perhaps even a spike in irritation, but not something so drastic as what Ruby did. Ruby had a more outrageous expression as her face strained in shaking anger and her brows twitching erratically. It was times like this that Ruby's personality may respond more to her hot blood of an Uzumaki than the cool calm of an Uchiha.
"What do you mean it's mine, you pig-headed dumbo!?" Argued Ruby, clenching her fists.
This food was meant for her and, more importantly, her Shiwou!
"It's the law of the jungle!" The boar man shouted. "If my eyes land on food, then it's mine. So you were looking away when I did, so you have no claim!"
"You..." Ruby snarled, feeling a vein on her head throb and the corner of her lip's twitched. "You absolute lunatic! Who actually thinks of a rule like that!? There's no damn way I am giving you my food, thief!"
"Thief!?" The boar man roared as if offended. "I ain't no thief! I'm a fighter of the wild, and I am gonaa to get that food even if I have to rip your bo-"
Whatever the boar man was going to say was caught off as another intruder snuck up behind him holding him back with one hand over the boar man's mouth, or whatever was the mouthpiece for the mask. The other hand of the second person clamped over the first's bare chest and forced him back. Ruby could see the new arrival behind the thief's shoulder showing the face of teenaged boy with quite young features. He had messy black hair with burgundy tips, the left side of his forehead had a grazing scar on it, and black-red eyes that, along with his face, expressed no small amount of apology towards Ruby.
"Sumimasen! Sumimasen! Sumimasen, Okami-san!" The teenager cried. "Inosuke's just really, erhm, eccentric with new people. He's honestly a nice guy! Please forgive him!"
Like a switch, all the built up anger was replaced was sheer confusion. Ruby watched with a blank expression of the comical scene of the young man wrestling the boar man known as Inosuke. Her ears picked the rustle of incoming footsteps and out came a third newcomer in a yellow blur.
For a civilian, he was incredibly fast just short of chunin speeds, and the fact she sensed no use of Ki or chakra to enhance that speed left her in wonder. It was a teenager the same young age as the one who apologized to Ruby, and had a mop of bright blonde hair and kind brown eyes that carried a timid expression to them. That timind nature was overset by the comical, yet intimidating expression of rage contorting his face as the teenaged boy tackled the other two.
"You utter lowlife scumbag!" The blonde shouted in outrage, sending all three of them on the floor. "What the hell were you thinking doing something like that? Taking someone's food so blatantly, especially from a beautiful girl!? Have you no shame, you beast!?"
"Zenitsu, calm down!" The second teenager with the scar said, trying to calm his the apparently blonde named Zenitsu.
"I will have none of it, Tanjiro!" Zenitsu exclaimed, his eyes going wide and his face building red from anger while pointing a finger at the scarred teen. "I will not accept a slight of stealing from a pretty lady! You never steal food from a pretty lady when she's cooking. I demand Inosuke to be met with divine punishment!"
"Bring it, you big chicken!" Inosuke cried, somehow blowing steam through the pig mask's nostrils. "I'll tear your legs off!"
'What the hell is with these people?' Ruby thought in bewilderment, a complicated look stuck on her face.
That bewilderment grew as she watched the three wrestle on the ground like a pack of animals competing for a piece of meat they refuse to share. Zenitsu had his arms around Inosuke's neck to try and choke him out while the boar man used impressive flexibility to grab the blonde's legs to wrestle him down into a submission hold. It remained a stalemate as the scarred teen now identified as Tanjiro trying to keep them apart and dispell the violence between his friends without much success.
"Face righteous fury, you savage!" Zenitsu roared, getting a hand on Inosuke's mask as if to tear it off.
"You won't win, weakling." Inosuke claimed, trying to push Zenitsu away by his head.
"Oi, that's enough you two!" Tanjiro said, getting in between the tussle. "Just please calm down."
The crunch of snow on the ground near Ruby redirected the Uchiha's attention to the side. She found Shirou coming to the fire pit holding a whole hunk of deer meat cleaned and skewered on a stick in each of his hands. To her delight, the meats were slathered in herbs and spices Shirou meticulously gathered from the local area or bought from the shop, and she could smell their potent stinging scent. He stopped in his steps looking at the fighting trio on the ground clear surprise in his green and purple eyes.
"Ruby, what am I looking at?" Shirou asked.
"I have no idea." Ruby answered.
"That's enough!" Roared the all-too familiar voice of Isshin from the forest.
Before Ruby or Shirou could turn in the direction, a vacuum of air sliced right through the area of the forest trembling the earth. This almost invisible wave of blade-thin air tore a gorge into the ground, just missing Ruby's camping sit, and continued on to cut tens of trees cleanly in half. The wrestling trio of Tanjiro, Inosuke, and Zenitsu instantly separated and got to their feet at attention to the dangerous Sword Saint, but the blonde one looked like he was about to burst into tears with a runny nose. Ruby never thought she would meet anyone so easily frightened in this world.
"What do you have to say for yourselves?" Isshin admonished, coming into the campsite.
Tanjiro immediately bowed at a nearly ninety degree angle. "Samimasen, Ashina-dono!"
"Please accept our apologies, Ashina-dono!" Weeped Zenitsu.
Inosuke merely grunted, but made no move to oppose the aged Sword Saint and relented. Ruby switched her gaze from the trio to Isshin himself coming into the clearing.
The months since Ruby had seen Isshin have hardly changed the man. He still stood as imposing and unwavering in the cold in his kimono despite his extremely old age. Scars decorating his stretched skin served to make the Sword Saint more grim. However, Ruby noticed behind Isshin was a following of people. Each of them wore a gakuran jacket and hakama pants with a haori over it, but they all had their unique aesthetics and aura that made each one of them stand out. They stepped out till they were just one pace behind Isshin standing shoulder to shoulder. While alarming that Isshin brought more people with him, Ruby could not shake this sudden awe as she looked to this gathering of people.
"Ashina-dono, what is going on?" Ruby asked.
Isshin chuckled. "There was a reason for my long absence, little Okami. I have traveled deep into the lands of Iron Country and those of which shinobi have no influence in. It has been quite some time since they have come so far out of their homeland. Ruby, may I present to you the pillars that have preserved ancient knowledge and art of Ki before the age of Ninshu. I give you the chosen masters of the Breathing Styles to have an audience with you."
Ruby's mind blanked for a moment. This... This was stupendous! Absolutely groundbreaking. This was more than just some obscure knowledge of the mystical art. Before her stood a legacy older than Ninshu still alive to this day having escaped shinobi notice for so long as well. She now understood the gravity of how she, an outsider to this mystical secret, is being met with the incarnations of the Breathing Arts' living history.
I had more planned to be written, but I wanted to save that for the next chapter. And so Ruby and Shirou are now face-to-face to an ancient legacy not so extinct as they thought. You can guess it they are the Pillars from Kimetsu no Yaiba, and she is going to go fangirl pretty soon.
Up next is Chapter 13: Honored Hashira
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