Knitting Fate
Second installment in Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren series
Thirty-Fifth Thread
•••
This chapter has been beta'd for you by hestia8693.
CPwUR official Discord chat; discord. gg/WQ7mNwk
CPwUR official Tumblr blog; cpwur. tumblr. com
"Our perfect companions never have fewer than four feet."
― Colette
0
She has no idea if it's like this for everyone, or maybe only for those truly attuned with it, but when Ren finally manages to put her foot down and take a day off- like, a day off of everything – missions, brats, social interactions – and grab the rather massive, purple scroll with a silvery spider web design, it starts singing to her. Well, not literally singing, but- she doesn't know how to explain it, except for that most basic and very strong idea of 'want' and 'mine' she feels towards the scroll's contents.
It's not like she was going to say no to them, though. It's what she is here for now, in the secluded Fourteenth Training Ground that Ren can't remember ever being even mentioned in the show. It's a nice place, honestly, and visibly unused – it's a clearing, cut in half with a rather narrow and shallow river stream. The grass is lush and bears little to no signs of human passage - there's not even one article of discarded weaponry, no training dummies, nothing at all. If it wasn't on the list of training grounds, Ren would have been convinced it was just a clearing. To be frank, she still has no idea how it's possible for Konoha to fit not only its populace and buildings, but also training grounds – at least forty-four, if the Forest of Death's number is any indication – all within its walls. It only firmly reassures Ren that the bloody village is a small country all on its own.
Ren sighs, sitting on the lush grass, setting aside her backpack filled with weapons, food, and spare clothes, and sets the scroll in front of her, unfurling it from right to left like Japanese writing goes.
Huh.
Apparently summoning scrolls do have some sort of author's note – a bit of trivia, what it is keyed to, and a rather butchered manual.
This scroll, the note said, allows one to sign a contract in soul and blood with the inhabitants of Jōren Falls and, on the basis of said contract, call upon them for aid. Once signed, the contract cannot be broken, but a new one can be taken. The author takes no responsibility over the contracted beings' reaction to that.
Jōren Falls is native to a massive amount of different species of ninkumo, esteemed and very dangerous shinobi spiders.
To sign the contract, one must be capable of molding chakra. Signature and the fingerprints of dominant hand must both be done in either the blood of the contractor or ink mixed in equal or lesser ratio with the blood of the contractor. The technique signs are as follows: Boar, Dog, Bird, Monkey, Ram. It is best, especially for beginners, to slam their palm onto the ground at first. The drainage of chakra increases with power and/or size of the summon.
An explosion of smoke is to be expected. Increases with the size of the summon.
Ren blinks, and then huffs. Nothing she didn't already know but, she has to admit, it is rather useful for those who have absolutely no idea what the Summoning Technique is. But she does know – she'd seen it in the show and read about it when she had time, too. And, to be frank, Ren is very excited for the idea of her own summons. Especially since they are spiders. And, unlike a great many people, Ren likes spiders.
Also, they're useful. And dangerous. And creep people out. Just pros!
Ren only shrugs and pushes the roll of paper – is it even paper? It's so durable – to unfurl on the grass. There are spaces for names, divided in rectangular boxes just like the Toad Summoning Scroll in the anime, and- Only two names. That seem very old. Which is sad. Neither of them are anyone she knows or even remotely recognizes, so she just shrugs. She shrugs off her purple kimono overcoat, allowing it to fall onto the ground as she sits cross-legged, revealing a black tank top underneath. She's going with the smart approach, so she takes out a kunai and makes a small scratch on her left shoulder, just enough for it to sting and draw blood – the kind of injury that will be gone without a trace within the week.
She takes out a small calligraphy brush – because, seriously, with the Japanese alphabet it's either a brush or a pen, there's no in-between – dabs it in the blood from her shoulder and begins the tedious process of drawing proper kanji into the second box from the right. First come U-CHI-HA syllables - うちは - written in hiragana, and then her own name, Ren, with the kanji, 蓮 which stands for 'lotus'. To be frank, 'lotus' is preferable to 'love' it could also be written as.
It doesn't help that Ren finds it rather ridiculous, to have her surname written in a different alphabet than her first name but, well-
Nevermind. Spiders await.
Finishing her name, Ren smears some blood over the fingertips of her right hand and, with a sigh, presses them onto the paper. The second she does, there's that… feeling. It's odd. There's a hum, like a cat's purr except it courses through Ren's entire body with this overwhelming idea of acceptance soaking into her very bones with the force of a hurricane.
She takes a deep breath because- wow. Just. Wow. Is it supposed to happen like this? For some reason she isn't entirely certain. Nevertheless, she turns around, wobbly, so that the scroll is behind her, and sighs. There's no point in waiting.
She uses the almost-closed cut on her shoulder, gathering what blood is left that had seeped out and bends her fingers in seals in rapid succession. Then, she slams her palm onto the grass with a nearly-whispered 'Kuchiyose no Jutsu'. Seals that transcend space and time, that she has no hopes of reading, bloom under her fingers and slither onto the grass, and there's a feeling like an electrical current coursing underneath her fingers. And then, all of a sudden, a cloud of smoke explodes out of nowhere.
It's not much, really, the explosion is small but enough to have Ren reeling back, fanning in front of her with her hands in a coughing fit.
"Fuck," she groans between coughs, looking at the center of the smoke suspiciously. Did it work? Because if it didn't, she will-
There's suddenly a very childish and overjoyed squeal of "Summoner!" and Ren suddenly finds herself with an armful of blue fluff, eight legs, clicking mandibles, and sparkling, excited beady eyes.
Ren does a double take when the creature launches itself at her chest, because-
It kind of feels like fate has come to bite her in the ass.
Renee had always liked spiders, if only because her mother was deathly afraid of them. And, once upon a time, Renee had a pet spider – and doesn't it say much about her social life, that said spider was perhaps her only friend for a period of time? Said spider was a female, a Gooty Ornamental Tarantula, a Poecilotheria metallica, named Cobalt. Cobalt died, and it wasn't even that long before Renee herself did.
Then, would anybody care to explain to her why the first creature she ever summons is big and fluffy, dusted with white on top and yellow around joints, but otherwise so blue, so cobalt blue it looks like a picture?
So forgive Ren if "Cobalt?" whispered in a shaky, surprised tone is the first thing her summon hears from her. And it hears her, of course.
"Cobalt?" the ball of fluff – a spider, of course, what else – asks from where it's currently latched onto Ren's chest. "Is that my name?"
Ren can't deny it, her first summon sounds childish. Almost like a baby. Ren blinks at it – him? her? them? no idea – and wonders just how old it is. Given that it's the size of her ribcage and then some.
"Maybe?" she tries. "Do you have a name of your own?"
"No," the spider says instantly. "I'm too small. Mom says I can choose when I'm big enough. But you're a summoner! You can name me! Can I be Cobalt? Please? Pretty please?"
It's not easy to say no to an overjoyed bundle of fluff and legs and eyes, to be honest. And it helps even less that Ren finds the spider – baby spider, now that it's determined, a baby spider that's the biggest spider Ren has seen yet – rather adorable. The kind of adorable normal people find kittens and puppies to be.
And even though it's a name that Renee's beloved pet once wore- Well. She doesn't particularly believe in fate, but this time? This time she can indulge it, she thinks.
"Yeah," Ren says with a smile. "You can be Cobalt."
"Yay!" the spider – Cobalt now, it seems – cheers, and then stills, and blinks. Honest-to-god blinks. Which Ren finds ridiculous, because spiders have no goddamn eyelids, but then, this is a summon. "What is a Cobalt?"
Ren snorts, and then runs her hand over the back of the spider, gently scratching the hard chitin hidden underneath all that ridiculous fluff spiders normally don't have, evicting a deep, rumbling purr a spider should not be capable of producing.
"It's the name of the paler shade of blue of your coat," Ren explains, and Cobalt purrs a bit louder. "By the way, how old are you?"
"Uhh…" Cobalt hums. "I dunno. Three moons or something?"
Ren stops.
Three months. This blue tarantula the size of her ribcage and then some is three months old.
Okay.
This is going to be interesting.
(At least Cobalt doesn't mind Awai in the slightest. She happily waves at him with one of her legs, he waves back and it's pretty much that.)
You want an easy and nearly effortless way to scare civilians shitless and make them go running and screaming at the very sight of you? It's simple. Childishly simple, even.
Just walk around with an armful of giant spider.
It is also, as it turns out, a perfect way to make an eighteen-year-old, excitable, and bloodthirsty Mitarashi Anko notice you without even trying.
"Well, well, what do we have here?~" a vaguely familiar voice drawls when, somewhere around noon, Ren and Cobalt seat themselves on one of the roofs in the civilian district and Ren proceeds to introduce her spider to the wonders of Japanese deep-fried chicken that she made this morning. It's only mildly spicy and Cobalt loves it.
"A brat socializing with her summon," Ren answers the voice offhandedly, and then sighs and looks up, and blinks. Mitarashi Anko, looming over her, blinks back, and then grins in a way that shows too many teeth to be nice. Ren only quirks her eyebrow in return and looks skeptically at the woman. "Who are you?"
"Me?" Anko grins. "I'm Mitarashi Anko, Interrogator extraordinaire!"
"So you just hurt people for fun and they pay you for it?" Ren asks, blinking, and Anko seems to actually be taken aback. "Cool. I should probably consider working for the Torture and Interrogation when I'm older huh. I'm Uchiha Ren, and this ball of fluff is Cobalt."
"Ren, what is Torture and Interrogation?" Cobalt asks from where she's munching on the crispy slice of fried chicken.
"It's when you hurt or scare people into telling you what they know," Ren answers, and Cobalt's mandibles make a clicking sound.
"It sounds fun," the tarantula decides after a while, and Ren shrugs.
"I guess," she says, and then holds the box with chicken up to the unusually silent Anko. "Want some?"
And if Anko reaches in a bit stiffly, Ren doesn't comment.
It's a start.
If Ren had said that listening to Anko gush about intimidation techniques while chewing on a dango is boring, she would be lying. And Ren, blunt and honest person that she is, dislikes lying. Thus, she says nothing, but listens to Anko who's animatedly gesturing around, explaining one of her cases (long dead, most likely, no names or characteristics given), eyes wide and gleaming, and Ren, with her elbows on the table and chin supported in her palms, listens. Cobalt, half-perched on her lap and half dangling off the table, looking at Anko from between its arms, also listens rather intently.
The shop's clientele, at least those who are visibly civilian, send them very alarmed looks. Some ninja dude who sits in the corner, that Ren doesn't recognize, is doing is best to muffle his chuckling with his sleeve.
"I kinda envy you, you know," Anko sighs finally, drawing circles in the sweet soy sauce with one of her empty dango sticks.
"Why?" Ren asks, before biting into a chewy, gooey ball of dough that kind of seems uncooked but also kind of doesn't. Japanese sweets are weird.
"Because spiders freak most people out!" Anko whines. "Imagine it! Using spiders! Having them around, and then slowly creep onto the subject, more and more of them-"
"That's actually an interesting idea," Ren hums and sits back, rubbing Cobalt behind his eyes. The spider lets out a happy, rumbling purr and Ren only barely chokes down a snort. Purring spiders, goddamnit.
"I guess," Anko smiles widely, and there's a glint to her eye that Ren doesn't particularly like.
"What?" she huffs at the older girl, and her smile widens.
"I like you," Anko grins, and there's a shiver that runs down Ren's spine that's not exactly like fear, even if she knows that, by all means, it should be.
After all-
Hana is and forever will be Ren's best friend, and Ren would never trade the Inuzuka for anything in the world, and she knows that Hana's hissy fits over her injuries are how her friends cares.
But having only one friend is a sad existence.
"Yeah, feeling's mutual," Ren says with a smile that's not exactly soft but also not exactly showing teeth. "After all us bloodthirsty nutjobs should stick together in the village of nutjobs, yes?"
"Well said!" Anko laughs, and Cobalt purrs again.
Yeah. Ren could use some more (female) friends. And Anko is good.
They're not that different anyway.
Ren returns home late, with little to no light left in the sky, the scroll attached to her belt, backpack on her shoulders, Awai on the top of her head, and an armful of content Cobalt.
She is moving past a dark, shady alley when she hears it. Soft, and maybe pleading.
Ren stops and turns her head to the side, to the alley, and drops down, onto the pavement right next to the big, melt trash bin. There, covered in dirt and dried blood, and nearly colorless because of it, sits the saddest kitten Ren has ever seen, looking at her with huge, fearful, and yet hopeful eyes the color of vibrant, alluring amber.
It meows at her again, pitifully, and Ren sighs.
She's a weak person.