Interlude Part One
Aren
Aren panted. Blood ran down his face in thin lines, cutting across his nose and down his chin to drip-drip-drip to the floor from several different points. His whole body throbbed from repeated poundings against the cave walls and floor—even ceiling a few times—and he'd probably broken every bone in his body at least once.
He loved every damn second of it.
When was the last time he threw down like this? Now, forget that, when was the last time he'd found someone worth throwing down?
Bracing one hand on his knee, Aren looked up and grinned, smudging the blood from his chin with the back of his hand. Kuwabara didn't look half so bad as Aren, but he had a nice shiner forming beneath his left eye—Aren was damned proud of that one—and a discolored lower lip where he'd bled a bit from a lucky punch. Otherwise, though, the guy was undamaged as a new bike right from the dealership.
It was fucking awesome.
"Take a break, kid," Kuwabara said, grabbing a towel from the stack of clean shit at the back corner of their cave. Aren caught it and frowned, staring at the plain white cloth. Could caves have corners? Weren't they, like, round or some shit? This cave was pretty round. Well, except for the craters and whatever, but that was kind of his own fault. And Kuwabara's.
Mostly Kuwabara's. After all, it wasn't Aren throwing himself around.
Aren mopped his face, pleased to find fewer bruises this time around. He'd spent the last week getting pummeled like a punching bag; it was nice to see the training was doing something besides pissing him off and setting his blood on fire.
"You still haven't made a weapon," Kuwabara said, frowning as Aren wiped the last smears of blood from his face. "Not even with the piece of that sacred sword I gave you."
"Eh." Aren shrugged and tossed the bloody towel into the corner they'd been using for their dirty shit. Not a corner? Whatever. "I've never really been one for weapons. Ain't nothin' more manly than two guys going at it with nothin' but their fists and guts."
A nostalgic, almost giddy grin settled on Kuwabara's face, making him look even more vacant than usual.
"It's a hell of a thing," he said, looking so far into the past, Aren wondered if he'd travel through time. Although, technically, weren't they time-traveling already? Except into the future, or some shit. Or maybe Aren just didn't get the whole "time dilation" thing. All he knew was he'd been in this damn cave for fucking weeks, maybe months, but every time Aren brought it up, Kuwabara told him to stop being such a damn girl because "you haven't even been here a full week yet."
Fuck that shit. It had been months, damn it. Months.
But whatever, it was worth it. Days or months or years, who even cared? Looking down at his hands, now coated in a thin layer of dark purple light, Aren grinned. When he covered his whole body in spirit energy, he could take ten or twenty or even thirty times the normal beatings and come out with nothing worse than a busted nose. Sure, it bled like hell, but what's a busted nose compared to going through a wall with barely a bruise?
"Well, whatever, I guess." Kuwabara shrugged, dragging a hand through his hair as he turned his back on Aren without a care. "Not everyone needs a weapon, and your body is enough of one at this point that I doubt it would make much difference either way."
"Heh." Aren smirked. His whole body was his weapon, huh? Then the old man really shouldn't be so stupid as to turn his back on him. Aren lunged, his whole body coated in purple spirit energy as he reached out to grab the back of Kuwabara's head to bury his face in the granite floor.
Let's see how you like it, you jackass!
Kuwabara tilted his head to the left at the same moment Aren swung. He flew past the older man, unable to stop his heavy-fisted swing, and folded in half on Kuwabara's raised knee. Eyes wide, mouth gaping, spittle flecked with blood flew from the back of his throat as everything seemed to hang in time before Kuwabara's follow-through flung Aren across the cave and into the damn wall.
Again.
"Get something to eat, kid," Kuwabara said, his tone not the least bit concerned as he resumed his lazy meander back to the section of cave they'd turned into a camp. "There's plenty of time to kick your ass before this trip is through."
Rising to one knee, Aren wiped bloody spit from his lips with the back of his fist and grinned.
Yeah, this whole training thing was the shit.
Kaliea: Hi guys! Can you believe I'm back so soon? ;P In all seriousness, though, I have been stupid busy. Tonight is the first "me" time I've had in months, but I'm glad I spent it writing this tidbit. It isn't much, but it was super fun to write. Aren is a hoot XD
Just to keep track of what's going to happen for the next few posts (which hopefully won't be so few and far between), I have a three-part interlude that will include both the boys' and girls' training sessions followed by "Well, shit." You have been warned! I'm plotting out the final two arcs now, and they should go quickly once I'm able to actually dive back into them. Here's hoping that I won't leave this going for another year. My goal is definitely to have it finished before summer, but I offer no promises. I don't want to be "that person."
Thanks for reading, and don't forget to review!
-Kaliea
