Knitting Fate

Second installment in Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren series

Twenty-Seventh Thread

•••

I was planning to post this on Monday, but by all means I'm still on hiatus, so, yeah. specially since I still have one test, which is oral English, but I think I'll manage there.

Also, do you like how I answer readers on the end of the chapter, or would you like me answering you via the PM as long as possible (aka you're not a Guest)?

This chapter has been beta'd for you by hestia8639. Thanks a lot!

My tumblr name is KillerGirlFuria, in case any of you wants to spam by askbox. I'm pretty open person, and if anyone would like to discuss CPwUR, or anything else, really, you're very welcome.

"If you can't go back to your mother's womb, you'd better learn to be a good fighter."
― Anchee Min, Red Azalea

0

It's the last five minutes before the first match, and Ren's thinking so hard that she's pretty sure there's steam coming out of her ears. Given that Uchiha body temperatures are higher than the person's to further their clan affinity for burning things and setting the world on fire, Ren wouldn't be surprised if that is actually true. The thing is, the more she thinks about it, the more her 'do not do' list grows. First off, she needs to hold back as much as possible if she wants to have any chance at all in the last round, if she gets there – and the Kiri Bitchface she will go against first is actually the only one she really doesn't know anything about, except the obvious: he's most likely a suiton user, probably good with blades (he carries an actual katana, for crying out loud) and definitely hates her. So Ren can rule out using her own tantō on him. She might try scorching him a bit with Gōkakyū, try to read him with her Sharingan, and maybe, just maybe, get him with taijutsu.

What she, under any circumstances must not do, however, is use Mangekyō Sharingan. It's a technique that's not even known around Konoha, let alone the world. Outside of the Uchiha, actually, only Kakashi knows, because he has it himself and, even if it really, really pissed off the clan, the Hokage pressed them to lend him some scrolls. Or that's what Ren heard, anyway. Other than that, Ren doesn't know who else might know. Her team doesn't – Hana would be mad at her for having such an irresponsible power, whether it makes sense or not, so Ren would rather not tell her too much about it, preferably at all.

Ren also can't use any flashy jutsu, not until the last round anyway. She does have a lot of chakra for a kid her age, and that might also be because she's mentally much older – her spiritual chakra is her main source, actually – but she can't go very far on B-Rank jutsu. Actually, she knows only one, which Shibi most likely regrets teaching her, but still. She doesn't have that much chakra. She's not a bloody Uzumaki, alright, and for her current reserves B-Ranks can be really taxing.

"First match!" the proctor suddenly yells. Just another nameless Iwa nin, honestly, in the red and brown uniform. "Uchiha Ren versus Shimizu Hyosuke!"

Ah, so that's what Generic Kiri Bitchface's name is. Not that Ren cares, the chances of the two of them meeting ever again are zilch. It doesn't matter, she shouldn't underestimate him, no. He is from Kiri, and that alone makes him dangerous – Ren honestly has no idea how the hell the timeline actually works in Narutoverse now that she is here and world is supposed to make actual sense, at least in terms of placement of events in time. Zabuza has long since graduated, though, so maybe they have already slightly mellowed out.

With a sigh, Ren heaves herself over the railing around the balcony and allows herself to fall freely a good fifty feet down, only to coat her legs with chakra, easily landing in a crouch without any danger of breaking or straining them. There's a spring to her step as she makes it over to the proctor with an almost serene smile to match her opponent's sneer. She knows what she needs to do; for once, she has to not be the hothead that Ren is. She must go back to being the cold, calculative Renee, pushing people's buttons like it's her life's calling, causing them to trip and fall. And then, only then, she will strike. Or, if something happens and he pisses her off. That's a possibility, too – but Bitchface is the only opponent she actually doesn't know much about, and that makes him perhaps the most difficult one.

"Stop smiling, bitch," he sneers, and Ren scoffs before she can stop herself.

"Wow, rude," she says right back at him, but otherwise appears unaffected.

"The rules are simple," the proctor cuts in, complete disregard of the genin's bickering so blatant in his voice that it makes Ren wonder if maybe he's an Academy instructor. Not to mention Kiri Bitchface apparently takes offense at the proctor's tone, and Ren almost facepalms at him. "You fight until your opponent either surrenders or are unable to fight any further. After the fight the winner will receive basic medical attention and after the first four matches are done, face against the winner of the second match. Understood?"

"Yessir," Ren says clearly while Bitchface growls something under his breath.

"Good," the proctor glares at the boy. "Now turn away, take ten steps back and start when I say. Go now."

Ren sighs, rakes a few moderately long strides back and turns around again. As she goes, she stops forcing her body to relax, and allows her muscles to tense in anticipation. She lowers her point of balance, bending forward on half-crouched legs and feels Awai crawl from under her kimono and latch to the back of her neck where he's relatively save and easy to reach. And like a mantra, Ren repeats a litany of names.

Sasuke, Hana, Naruto, Shibi, Kakashi, Kisame. To name a few, that is, among those she intends to do proud.

She feels more than she hears the proctor's loud "GO!" as she leaps across the distance towards her opponent. They clash halfway through, followed by churned up dust and an exchange of hits that Ren has to avoid thinking about in order to keep up. She naturally pulls out the best of all the katas she knows, but she wouldn't be Ren if that's all she does. So, when her opponent – clearly older than her, she'd never paid any attention before but he must be at least fifteen – manages to overpower her with his sheer size rather than speed and strength, she, of course, switches. He shouts out in surprise when Ren's shin suddenly connects with his ribs in a textbook roundhouse kick, then falls back under the rain of jabs, crosses and hooks with few additional roundhouses, all executed with merciless strength, speed and precision.

Because taijutsu being taijutsu, Ren learned kick-boxing first and has always been fond of the style that tended to save her ass when shit went down, be it at work or through some bad luck.

(It didn't, of course, work when being stabbed from behind with a katana, but she finds it hard to mind that one slip, especially when it led her to where she is now.)

Ren doesn't notice the shine of metal until it's right by her face, and even then she's too focused on raining her fists down at her opponent to wonder how he had managed it. She slips under the blade – an ordinary kunai, really – and it only scores some of her hair and a scratch on her cheek that doesn't even bleed. Before he can make another swipe at her, Ren jumps up and spins in the air, using the momentum to try to give him a good kick to the face. He manages to duck under it, but Ren lands on her palms, pushes herself up while bringing both her knees to her chest and then kicks, as hard as she can. Her opponent flies back with a grunt, but doesn't land on his back as she had hoped. Instead he rolls in the air and still manages to land in a crouch from which he instantly springs at her, kunai in hands.

Ren dodges all those thrown at her except for one, which she manages to catch and hurl back at him, but he can apparently dodge, too, and quite well at that. He still has two kunai in his hands, so Ren falls back when he reaches her and slashes nothing but the air where her neck had been moments ago. Bloodthirsty motherfucker, this one.

Ren tries a roundhouse kick once again, which connects- with her opponent's palm as, much to her horror, he catches her leg and slashes again at her head, while she can't run. She can feel her spine screaming as she bends so that he slashes her face, not her carotid artery, and for a second all she sees is red, and all she feels is scorching pain. Thinking is not easy that moment, because he had slashed her nose, and even if he only scratched the bone, there will be blood in her respiratory system if she breathes again through her nose. A cut from the second kunai hits the right side of her nose and it hurts even more than the other one.

Ren cries out in pain, rather involuntarily, before grabbing her opponents hand before he can strike again.

"What now, Konoha softie?" he taunts. "Your village is pathe–"

He doesn't finish, because Ren headbutts him square in the nose, black eyes bleeding into red before she even makes the decision to use the Sharingan, and she really, sincerely hopes he bites his tongue off. She manages to free her leg out of his grip and decides, well, fuck it, as she digs her heel, with all the force she can muster, right into his crotch. Her opponent bends with an outcry as he loses his hold on his kunai. Ren doesn't waste any time as she kicks him in the face. She's pretty sure she sends some teeth flying among the blood splatters.

"Let me show you," she growls, pinching her nose for a second, blood running from it all over her lips and chin and onto her clothes, as her Sharingan spins wildly, "just how soft Konoha is, you pathetic excuse for a shinobi." She executes another roundhouse kick, connecting her shin with his ear. He screams, the sound turning into a growl halfway through as he gets his hands on his dropped kunai, but Ren is quicker in unravelling ninja wire and wrapping it around his wrist and tugging, hard. He cries out again, when the wire cuts into his flesh and veins with how strong she pulls, and involuntarily lets go of the kunai when his hands stop working as they should have.

It's not the end, however. Even with his dominant hand out of commission, he is still angry and not in the mood to be defeated by someone like Ren – younger and from a hated village. He fights through the pain, springs to his feet and kicks Ren in the stomach, and then in the ribs before she can tug the wire and throw him away with it. It's probably bit to the bone already, but she doesn't care, falling to her knees and wheezing. Her ribs are throbbing, overshadowing the pain from the hit to her stomach, and she's willing to bet at least one of them is broken. All that's left is praying they don't puncture a lung as she finishes this piece of shit.

She growls, springing to her feet as her opponent cuts off the wire connecting them but doesn't touch what's cut into his flesh. He reaches down to his pouch and unsheathes a tantō with his left hand. Ren takes a steadying breath before reaching for Sumire herself, as she locks her vision on her opponent, still making sure to remain wary of her surroundings. She's pretty confident that, with the Sharingan, she can take him on. After all, she has both hands, and his right is out of the equation. Ren takes another deep breath and charges.

Blades clash with sparks, but for Ren this is only a distraction; during the exchange she aims and stomps down on her opponent's foot with all the strength she can muster, then, using this momentary distraction, slashes across his inner forearm, making him gasp in surprise and let go of his blade. That's the opening Ren has been waiting for, with him disarmed and within immediate reach. She goes for the wire again as she puts Sumire's hilt between her teeth, and wraps the wire around his neck as she twirls under a rather pathetic excuse of a punch.

"Yield," she says, as she takes Sumire and sheathes it back. She growls, spits blood and remembers to breathe through her mouth. "Yield or I'll take your head off."

"As if I–"

He stops with a gasp when the wire around his neck tightens until it starts biting into the flesh.

"You have your larynx, two major arteries and spine in here. Even if I don't behead you, I can still kill you, or make you mute, or invalid. Your choice," and, as if to back her words, Ren tightens the wire a bit more. Her opponent knows better than to move, and for a while he glares at the girl standing behind him at an angle, as if waiting for his glare to kill her. It doesn't work, of course.

"I yield!" he spats as if the word is the worst curse in the world. Ren just walks back to the balcony, glad she didn't waste any chakra. She needs ninja wire. And Hana. But more Hana, actually, since she would like to breathe through her nose sometime soon. And have her ribs looked at. She doesn't want to go into another fight only to realize that her lungs are flooding with blood instead of air.

Hibiki looks at her contemplatively as she heaves herself over the railing again.

"If you chicken out and yield, I know where you live," she growls at him.

"I like myself not mauled by a crazy Uchiha, thank you very much," he scoffs at her. "You're a goddamn animal, you know that?"

"I'm a shinobi," she bites back. "If you wanted honor and fair fights, you should've become a samurai, because this – mauling each other in the name of practically nothing – is our reality. We kill, because that's what we have been taught to do. And only that. Except for kunoichi classes, that teaches girls how to be proper wives and mothers. That's why I ditched them."

Hibiki looks at her, then bites his lower lip and looks down at the arena again. There's wisdom in these words, wisdom that comes from life, not books, and so he repeats in his mind like a mantra: 'shinobi don't play fair.'

"Hana?"

"What? I'm busy patching up this idiot!"

"Can I borrow your weapon pouch?"

"I thought Hyūga don't do weapons?"

"Forgive the moron, Hana, he's just made a very important realization. One that might save his life one day."

•

Firstly, thank you all who wished me good luck on exams! I did my best, even if math essentially killed me (it was so tiring like what the fuck), but I'm pretty sure I did well on English, which I was focusing on for obvious reasons of me wanting to pursue it further. Once again, thanks!

DannyPhantom619 – you sing the paper with your blood and then summon something that straight out refuses to work with you? Better yet, that actively tries to kill you? It's a possibility – a very high one, actually. You can only hope that the summon will deign to go along with your hopeful wishes.

DarkDust27 – they're going to keep in contact. Ren is not the type of person to allow herself to drift apart with friends she made, mainly because she doesn't have many.

cancerous cactus – oh but Ren can sew. She was a 30-year-old living alone, of course she can sew, cook and clean, who do you take her for? ._. As for the flowers, it's a well-known fact – nobody cares, even (especially, actually) the florists working in shops.

Someone – well, you saw. Happy? xD And yes, Sasuke is going to be so very OOC by the time she's done with him. All for the better, actually.

Aka-chansama – Hibiki still doesn't know what the fuck is going on. I believe Awai is magical, too, but nobody aside from him can ever confirm that. Also I love the 'spider mail express'. It's. Just. Oh my god. And Ren was drunk with the idea of being brat again, she's slowly realizing that she's not invincible, tho, and even having a medic friend doesn't make you so. She will still run headlong into danger without thinking occasionally, but hopefully the number will go down by the time we actually reach Naruto.

Also, you don't want me throwing omakes. PlunnyBreeder will disagree, but- Oh god. What the hell was I thinking. Just- Lord.

Nightbat – I've never seen anyone complain about that so much before, and to be honest – my grammar is better than half, or more, people posting at , not to mention English is not my first language and I have beta, the earliest chapters however weren't beta'd because I can't re-upload them without deleting author's notes. On top of that, it's rather insulting, and you just saying that my grammar is bad, and not how, makes me thoroughly ignore that piece of information.

kamkong – there's no standard MS powers? Literally EVERYONE has different powers? Itachi and Sasuke share Amaterasu because genetics, Susano'o is unlocked after unlocking the other two, but Ren is not related to them closely enough to have any of the two user/family-specific abilities.

Paprika6 – well, actually I'm graduated since 28th of April. No I only hope I can get to the college.

nizu96 – rozbieżności u nich są naprawdę spore xD I dzięki, też mam nadzieję, że mi dobrze pójdzie.

Rei-Nao – thanks! And trust me, I pull off Hibiki and go 'what the actual fuck' at this fic myself. Rather often, at that. I just don't even know what my brain is. And I never really thought of the Bingo Book – but as you mention it now… It would be awesome with having her main technique listed as 'flinging giant spiders at people'. That is going to be awesome.

Guest (chapter 33 . May 9) – I ship them, too. Ren brings a bit of optimism into his life, he brings a little bit of maturity and the long-needed calmness that allows Hana to sleep better at night. Them getting together is one of the main plot points, actually, aside from Ren's minions, how she got into Naruto and what is she supposed to do, so, yeah. We're steadily going in that direction, but it's going to be rather slow burn and very un-romantic, really.

Lirynn – they do get physically close if that helps? They just don't have anything really romantic between them. Like, they're together as a couple, but there's nothing romantic between them and they're so unconventional but like two pieces of one puzzle and so complicated howdoIevewritethem ohmygod. And yes, SakuOro. I love it. As for Ren's original, no idea? Another Uchiha, most likely. Given that all Uchihas are technically related, she wouldn't be very amused.