Knitting Fate
Second installment in Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren series
Fourteenth Thread
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This chapter has been beta'd for you by hestia8639. Thanks a lot!
Official beta'd version posted 04.08.2017
"If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's what people remember."
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies
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It's either just her sheer, pure-black luck, or Shibi is a very sophisticated troll of the shinobi world. Or both. It has to be something, for certain. Or life just randomly decided it hates a girl named Uchiha Ren very, very much. Like that would be anything new, given her record in her past life. Or maybe it's karma. For all the bad Renee Archer ever did.
Long story short, their first mission, predictably, is: 'Retrieve Tora'.
Before Ren even manages to reach the battlefield – she's been looking through possible apartments to rent through the better half of the night, she is so not living off of Gramps Hokage for much longer, she technically became an adult by law when she graduated (which is a laughable concept, really), so she might have slightly overslept, but she did send Shibi a note beforehand – it is already turned into a crime scene. Hibiki is lying face-down on the ground, curled up in an almost fetal position, his perfect hair in absolute disarray, and he is very openly whimpering about some evil, abhorrent spawn of the devil. Said spawn is currently hissing loudly on top of one of Hana's dogs, while smacking the other dog with a clawed paw – efficiently so. The dog whimpers in answer and runs off with its tail between its legs.
Tora is… very Tora-ish indeed, if smaller than what was shown in the first episodes of the show. It is quite obvious that this is pretty much still a kitten. Almost grown, but still a kitten, with all that kitten fluff all around – but still huge. It looked like a miniature brown tiger, honestly. And it's a spiteful little fucker, from what she can see.
"Not going to run and help your teammates?" comes Shibi's slightly bored voice, and Ren looks up with a sigh. Sure enough, her sensei-since-yesterday is up and is reading some sort of book with levelled interest. Judging by the cover, it's about bugs. What a surprise.
"I'd rather not be met head-on with… that monstrosity," she sighs heavily, allowing Awai to crawl out of her jacket, onto her face, and through it, to sit on top of her head. "Honestly, all the cats I've met before definitely weren't so rabid-"
"They hardly were pets of posh aristocrats," Shibi mentions off-handedly, and Ren can't help but agree. The strays she's seen here and there and shared some of her meals with during the Academy days when she was done leading her mini-army of minions were much more pleasant. Some even sat by her when she feed them, and one was bold enough to let her pet it!
(Of course, no hissing, yowling, scratching and biting included.)
"Yup," Ren nods and starts walking forward slowly just as Hana growls louder than usual, startling the cat. It bristles, but this time it's more frightened than angry, because, apparently, it's finally realized just who is the real dangerous one out in the field. And that's what she's been waiting for. "I have chicken," Ren promptly announces, startling Hana. Even Hibiki shuts up for once to look at her. But Ren doesn't look at either of them; her gaze is focused on the cat instead. "I made it today, it's even still warm," Ren kneels down, and then sits on her heels, and produces a mini-bento box from a pouch she has attached to her belt.
"Ren, seriously, I don't think-" Hana starts.
"Shut it, Inuzuka!" Hibiki hisses. "The monster is actually listening to her!"
And it is, indeed. The big, brown, fluffy, hissy monstrosity sits down for once, stops yowling, and eyes Ren with suspicion in those unnerving, dark eyes, and the Uchiha stares right back, steadily unwrapping cooked meat. The cat visibly perks up at the scent, and then eyes Hibiki and Hana very cautiously and without an ounce of trust.
"I'm going to have to ask the two of you to move your presence from between me and the target to behind me," Ren muses as she's dividing meat into rather small pieces. She throws first one, and Tora jumps high, effortlessly catching the piece with a snap of its jaws. Jaws that gave the small, yet pretty ugly gash on Hibiki's forearm that Hana is currently in the process of healing. It is slow and quite sloppy, but she needs practice, and that's better than anything for her, really.
Ren, with a grunt, switches her sitting position to cross-legged and looks at the cat again. Tora is licking its mouth and eyeing her with curiosity right now. Success – as this is not a feral stray, but a feral, spoiled pet of a fat aristocrat. She throws another piece of chicken, and another, and then stops. Tora actually has the cheek to look betrayed.
"Sorry, kitty, but you gotta' move your fat, furry ass over here if you want more," Ren says with a smile, reaching with her hand – chicken between her fingers. Tora seems to contemplate it for a while, but then slowly and cautiously stalks forward, sniffling, glancing at Hibiki and Hana in passing. The duo, however, seemingly having just given up, sits behind Ren and watches. Tora snaps at the meat, and only her ninja-trained reflexes keeps Ren's fingers intact. The Uchiha glares at the cat, the cat glares right back, its fur bristling-
And Ren growls. Actually growls – a throaty, deep sound effectively stupefying the cat. Apparently, it's beyond Tora that someone might just strike back.
"You can expect my being nice only if you are nice," the Uchiha addresses the cat sternly, eyes narrowed. "You bite me, and you're going to regret it."
Tora seems to consider the words, before it (seriously, is it a girl or a boy?) slowly approaches again. Curious, as Ren has nothing in her hands and the box laid securely locked next to her. But then, Tora sits right before her and yowls. Loudly.
"What?" Ren asks, quirking her eyebrow, and Tora yowls again. "Come on, we'll take you to your mommy, okay?" she says, opening her arms. Much to Hana's startled gasp and Hibiki's astonishment (god damn Uchiha, the only one unscratched!), Tora jumps onto Ren's lap.
Maybe, just maybe, this mission won't end in disaster.
It does.
Because Hana's dogs decides it would be fun to try and commit a vengeful act when Tora is not a raging hellcat atrocious monstrosity from the depths of hell anymore. And that, in short words, is how Hana's dogs are grounded by a very angry Uchiha, sporting three ugly, if shallow, gashes on her cheek. They wouldn't even think to scar, yes, but currently they bleed quite hard and sting painfully.
Not to mention it takes a bleeding, hurting and very, very angry Ren about an hour to calm down and restrain herself from roaring her lungs out at the ninken, and another two hours to coax a frightened Tora off the tree. And that is how they greet the daimyo's wife: confused Hibiki, embarrassed Hana still sending glares at her dogs, and Ren, with a giant albino spider on top of her head, leaves in her hair, a bloodied left cheek, and an armful of content cat.
"Tora is a big, growing cat," she says, narrowing her eyes, as she hands the cat to the woman. Aristocrat or not, she is fucking supposed to know how to care for her 'beloved' pet. "And, under any circumstance, cannot be kept idle, or forced to do so."
"And who are you to teach me that?" the plump woman scoffs with a disdain.
"The only person this cat seems to tolerate," Ren shrugs, as Tora yowls, loudly, and bites the woman's finger. "Cats are not toys. You have one, do everyone a favor and take some damn responsibility. Cya'!"
And she waltzes out.
"That was idiotic," Shibi admits later, as he supervises the trio as they sweep the park clean from all the rubbish and fallen branches. "But true. However, you shouldn't speak that way to people better than yo-"
"Sensei," Ren cuts in from where she is throwing yet another branch into the bio-trash container. "Just what makes her better than me? Is she smarter or more powerful?"
"No," Shibi says, narrowing his eyes.
"Does she have more money? I'm not certain, as the entirety of the Uchiha inheritance falls to Sasuke and me, but she is the wife of the daimyo-"
"They are royalty," Shibi explains.
"Oh," she stops for a moment, then shrugs, cuts on her cheek already only a memory. "Well then, she's absolutely no one. A nobody I have to pretend to respect. Well, I'm technically the head of the clan now, so I couldn't care less," she shrugs again, collecting some more branches and a stray paper, and throws them into their respective bins.
(Not to mention that all the 'better' people reminds her of her grandmother – so full of themselves, always right and can do no wrong because they are married or born into a family that should, in fact, mean nothing. Oh well.)
"You shouldn't speak that way about the nobility," Shibi says off-handedly, but there's no real reprimand in his voice.
"They need us. They have money, but that's all that they have – and they think they can do anything with it, well," Ren giggles. As in, actually giggles. "I'll play along, sensei. For now. Right now I'm nobody too, but if things work out as they should, I should end up one of the most wanted child-soldier killing machines this village can offer."
"It frightens me a bit," Shibi admits, his gaze focused on her, "that your thinking goes beyond what an eleven-year-old should be thinking."
"I was nearly murdered by my dear cousin," she smiles. "He only failed because my heart is on the wrong side. And I was absolutely defenseless then – and, well. Such experiences change people. Responsibility and stuff, you know. I'm technically a clan head now."
"Okay, okay, quit plotting," the Aburame sighs. "Go to the others, help them, and we'll be off to our next assignment-"
"Ha! You're not even calling this a mission! I know everybody thinks it's just a glorified chore."
Shibi only rolls his eyes, "-and tomorrow we'll actually train a bit. I want to see your taijutsu, what you lack and what you need to work on."
"Sweet!"
"Sasuke, why is onee-chan muttering about evil hellcat at-atro-atrosh-"
"Atrocious abominations straight from the deepest, lowest circle of hell, along with three dumb dogs and one bratty Hyūga?" Sasuke finishes for Naruto, and the blonde nods eagerly, because honestly, the words Ren and Sasuke sometimes speak are so difficult, but they sound so smart! "Well, I think that nee-san's first assignment was to catch some important lady's cat. It went well, until Hana's dogs started to try to eat the cat, and the Hyūga most likely was no help at all," he shrugs with a sigh, looking at the puzzle he's holding.
Recently, as in about two or so weeks ago, he'd noticed that Naruto was spending more and more time at Hokage's Estate. At first, Sasuke had been quite jealous, because, of course, he assumed that the blond was following his adopted sister – but he soon realized that Naruto didn't spend as much time with Ren as he thought he would. Naruto apparently decided that Sasuke was just as good company.
That had taken the younger Uchiha by surprise. When Ren first said he needed friends, he just complied because, well, it was she who said so. Ren is the only family he has left, after all, and the only one who, upon seeing him after the massacre, did not look at him with even ounce of pity. Surprise, annoyance, confusion, a bit. But no pity at all.
Before, the only friends he had were those his father chose for him. He never liked his father. Then, there was the forever-kind and cheerful Shisui, and… and He-Who-Must-Be-Punched. Hard. Preferably in the groin, too, just to make it nastier.
(Ren is adamant when it comes to his plotting of revenge. It is his brother, yes, but her parents are just as dead, so are the people she once called friends, and that kind, grandmotherly woman who grew herbs in pots on her window. Sasuke suspects that Ren is actually sneaking out to water those, every once in a while, but he doesn't really have anything to confirm this theory – but every three or four days, Ren, along with one of 'their' ANBU would vanish for half an hour, to take a 'walk' without saying a word to him. And Ren always says where she is going – except for when she goes to the compound.)
"I don't want to catch cats when I'm a ninja," Naruto huffs, puffing his cheeks and crossing his hands on his chest. "I'm too awesome for that, dattebayo!"
"And I tell you, that the very first mission you'll have, will be to retrieve a big, fat and very nasty cat," Sasuke counters with a sly smile. "Bet?"
"Bet!" Naruto agrees, because he simply cannot comprehend that he, Great Uzumaki Naruto, could ever be tasked to retrieve a fat lady's cat.
(If Sasuke only knew that he basically already won.)
He could live with that, Sasuke decides. With the blond idiot invading his personal space with his yelling and cheerfulness. With how he never seems to be out of energy and how he infects everyone around with his idiocy.
Maybe, just maybe, it isn't that bad to actually have a friend. Especially one Ren basically pushed at him – and Sasuke trusts her. She is, after all, all he has.
She, and Naruto, and maybe Kiba, and Sakura, and Shikamaru, Choji, Hinata-
Well.