Eventually the days turned into weeks. While Clove and Cato still often experienced difficulty working with each other, their tolerance of one another had improved immensely. Clove found that she no longer dreaded going to training, and Cato found that he no longer despised Clove as much. The two were capable of being pleasant towards each other, and had been for the majority of their encounters, over recent weeks. This was thanks to a system that they had introduced and established one Thursday;
"Fuck." She hissed through her teeth, pulling herself up into a sitting position. Clove clutched her side tightly, as she rode out the stinging waves of pain she felt in her ribs. As of recent, torso and ligament pain was something she often felt, as Cato had a particular proclivity for tackling his sparring partners onto the ground. Clove desperately wanted to hate him for it, but she kew she couldn't. She knew that he couldn't hate him for using a good and effective tactic, such as tackling. She hadn't used it much in past, as she'd underestimated it for the majority of her training career, but later learned about its usefulness and its effectiveness, from Cato himself. To say the least, she was surprised to discover that Leon had in fact been right, there was a thing or two she could learn from him; and she had. "You tackle hard." She breathed out.
"Thank you Clover." He said with a toothy, smirk.
"It wasn't a compliment." She said with a roll of her eyes, "You're going to end up killing me before we've even gotten into the arena."
"Don't be so dramatic." He said with a small smile, extending an arm for her. Using Cato's help, Clove pulled herself back onto her feet and brushed herself off, for what felt like the hundredth time that night. All the students of the training Academy had gone home early, Leon and Safiya happened to be in a good mood that Thursday, and sent everyone home as a special treat. Clove and Cato figured that an empty Academy would be a good time to get extra training done, and requested permission to stay behind. "Let's go again." He said, putting himself into his fighting stance.
"Cato." Clove said with an agitated sigh, "We've been at combat for almost three hours, now." She continued, "Can we move onto something else?"
"No way." He scoffed, with a small chuckle.
"Your form could still use some work." He added, motoring towards her feet.
"It's only August," She said frustratedly, "we have until July to work on it."
"By which point, it'll be perfect." He retorted, "Let's go." He said more sternly. It was at times like those where they were reminded of why they disliked each other. Cato and Clove were too similar in personality and as a result clashed quite often.
"No." She stated simply.
"No?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.
"No." She confirmed, walking towards him. "Listen here." She said sternly, "I don't want to work with you, and you don't want to work with me. Unfortunately for us, we don't have a choice but to work with each other." She said with a pause, "And to work with each other effectively we need a system." She suggested.
Cato appeared to ponder her suggestion for a minute or so, before folding his arms over his chest. "Alright, i'll bite. What do you suggest?" He asked.
"How about, everyday we train together. We take it in turns to decide what we do for that day?" She asked with a shrug.
"Okay." Cato said with an apprehensive pause, "That sounds fair."
"Look Cato," Clove began, "There's still a lot of time until the games roll around, which means you and I will be spending a lot of time together, so we may as well make this as tolerable as possible. So let's not argue," She said with another pause, "even better, let's try make this partnership a pleasant one." She reasoned.
