Knitting Fate

Second installment in Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren series

Forty-SixthThread

•••

This chapter has been beta'd for you by hestia8693, who, just like me, is currently braving university exams, therefore if there are still mistakes present - blame the education.

Look at my pathetic attempt at consistent weekly updates. Only 3 days off! I'll probably be able to get back on track sometime this year.

Except it's back to school starting this week. Fuck.

"Lies and secrets, Tessa, they are like a cancer in the soul. They eat away what is good and leave only destruction behind."
― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince

0

The aftermath of poisoning is never fun, that much is obvious. Therefore, when Ren wakes up in the wee hours of the morning, after what can be classified as a nap and not really sleep, she feels like death warmed over. Repeatedly. Rather obviously, it's not a nice feeling at the very least. It's mostly due to the paralyzer that is slowly wearing off, but it still leaves a disgusting aftertaste in Ren's mouth, and an unpleasant tingling in her muscles. Well, at least she can breathe now.

"Will you be able to walk before nightfall, or do we need to stay here for another day, un?" Deidara asks in the morning, as he rummages through Ren's pack, which he retrieved at some point, to get to the scroll containing the venison. He was out for roughly the same time as Ren did, but he slept infinitely better and it shows. He looks almost fresh and well-rested, where Ren is grumpier than usual, completely disheveled with bleary eyes and bigger eyebags than she's ever had.

"No," she answers honestly, dragging her still mostly paralyzed, injured leg closer to her, so that she can finally rip the herbal paste intermixed with blood out of the gash. The antidote, while preventing any kind of infection, did impede healing instead of boost it, leaving Ren with a raw, untended wound. "Spiders don't really have medics, so we're on our own."

"What do you mean, un?" Deidara asks, nibbling on some meat he'd taken out of the seal.

"I mean they don't have spiders that specialize in healing. They're very offensive summons, basically all hit-and-run unless they have really hard chitin," she explains, finding a scroll with medical equipment in her pack and removing the contents. She grabs the high-grade herbal-infused liquid that Hana had forced onto her and flushes the wound with it, wincing at the biting pain. "But their assassins are very well-versed in anatomy, both in and out and can operate in a pinch, and their poison-makers know their herbs enough to make medicinal concoctions."

"Oh, that's pretty neat, un," the blond answers, wiping his hands on one of the discarded pieces of clothes of the tent's former resident, and hands Ren a medical, curved needle that he threaded.

"What I wouldn't give for an industrial stapler right now," she grumbles, forcing the edges of the wound together and beginning the painstaking process of stitching it closed. Thankfully, her leg is still paralyzed and therefore she hardly feels a thing, but she wouldn't have been able to do it if it weren't. "Bloody Jashin, put some metal staples, wrap it up, and call it a day. But no, got to play at a fucking seamstress, yeah? Bloody fucking asshole had to go and stab me."

"Less bitching, more stitching, un."

"You little smartass, you could help."

"Nope. You got yourself into this mess, you deal with the consequences," Deidara shrugs. "I already packed the bodies. I mean, heads... You only had two body scrolls, and you can only cram two bodies into one scroll. More just won't fit, un."

"So you improvised," Ren hisses without looking up from where she viciously stabs the edges of her gash with the curved needle.

"Yeah, un. The jōnin were both wanted whole, so I crammed them in. We'll cash them in at some bounty point. The others were just wanted dead, so I cut off their heads and crammed them into the other scroll, un. I wanted to burn what's left of the bodies but, meh, you're way better at that so I'm just waiting for you, un."

Ren briefly looks up. "And that ice-release woman?"

"Set to be burned whole, head and all. Nobody needs to know she existed, un," Deidara says, and then shivers. "God knows what would happen if somebody got a whiff of someone with her abilities. Bad thing, un. Bad things. Bloodline limits are as much of a blessing as they are a curse."

"No need to tell me about that, buddy," Ren looks up again, glowing-red gaze, as creepy as it only got, meeting his own sky-blue one. "Owner of creepy over-powered eyes here, remember? From a completely and utterly massacred clan with, like, three living members as of today?"

"Ugh," Deidara shivers again. "Yeah, no- No offense, un, but those really put a big target on your head. Actually, why are you even out here, alone, un?"

"Because Danzō wants Sasuke and won't mind getting rid of me to get to him, therefore hopes I'll suffer an accident on a mission and won't come back," Ren blurts out before she can bite her tongue, and the blond sends her a questioning look. "At least he's not sending me with partners to off me after that one time I lost my arm because of one and Hana punched them through some trees. He didn't survive."

"What the fuck. Who the hell is this Danzō, un?"

"A plague, Dei. A fucking menace, and a very dangerous one at that. Don't tell anybody, though, we're not supposed to know – he's a village elder, after all. But he does some... highly questionable shit."

"And nobody knows, un?" Deidara sounds scandalized. "Nobody does anything?! What the fuck is wrong with Konoha's management?!"

"A lot of things, Danzō keeping council members under his thumb and the Hokage unwilling to turn against his oldest friend, for example," Ren says, finally putting the needle away, and proceeds to wrap the wound. "But you didn't hear that from me. Actually, you didn't hear that at all, okay? It's not worth it, with how big target it would paint on our backs."

"What, don't tell me that this Danzo guy has some secret organization at his beck and call or something, un?"

"..."

"Are you for real."

"...um."

"Oh, no fucking way in hell, un!"

"It wasn't illegal before, but the Hokage wanted it disbanded, but Danzō did not, so... Yeah. It is illegal now. And secret. Secret ANBU, basically."

Deidara just looks her dead in the eye, and says, "What the actual fuck is wrong with your village, un. What the actual fuck. That's the place I want to settle in now that I've told Iwa to fuck themselves? What the fuck have I done, un. What is my life even?"

"In the village's defense, the people are fun. Weird as hell, most of them, but fun," she says, tapping her chin. "Frankly, the weirdest people are usually the most interesting ones. But I don't want to spoil the surprise."

"Also what did you mean by losing your arm, un?"

"It doesn't matter anymore, Hana put it back on, as you can see."

"Are you for fucking real," Deidara deadpans in the flattest voice, with the flattest expression Ren has ever seen in her life. She just laughs.

Ren covers as much of her face as she can with the thick sleeve of her jacket, shielding herself from the disgusting, acrid smell that comes from the pile of burning bodies of the nukenin. It's, to put it simply, highly unpleasant. She sighs, leaning her weight on Deidara's shoulder as they watch, from not far away, as the bodies burn. Deidara had made a hole in the ground with his earth release, into which they threw the remains that Ren then set aflame, a good two kilometers from the camp.

She is so not spending the night with that odor around.

But also because of that she has to suffer through it again – to make sure the remains are properly disintegrated so that Deidara can cover them with earth. With enough jutsu, she could burn them all in under an hour, and she is fairly certain she has enough chakra.

"Can you please give it another round of fireballs, un," the blond grimaces. Ren coughs into her sleeve, but nonetheless braves the stabbing pain in her leg to walk towards the hole, and does exactly as asked. That, of course, sparks another wave of the acrid, disgusting smell, but it's not as strong as it was before. Ren, in all her viciousness, tops it off with her favorite jutsu ever, the Karyu Endan. The flaming, chakra-charged dragon roared, setting the dimming world ablaze for a moment, before heeding Ren's command and slamming into the pile of burned flesh with particular viciousness, rendering it even less recognizable from cinders.

"Okay," Ren says. "Once the fire dies down, it should be about it. I'm almost out of chakra again, anyway," she informs Deidara, grumbling the last part out unhappily.

"Don't worry, un," he says. "I found some high-calorie food in the nukenin camp. They'll get you right up and running tomorrow, un."

Aside from them cashing in the nukenin except for the mission's target and Ren's constant bitching at her injury and how Hana will probably get mad at her for it (and Deidara getting annoyed a few times), nothing worth mentioning really happens on their way to Konoha. It takes longer than it should, too, because Ren is not a fan of running on an injured leg unless it is paramount to the mission – making it to the warmer region takes them about four days, and even that only thanks to Deidara using his clay-made mounts. However, the longer they remain and the faster they move, the more volatile they become. That, and they are true chakra vacuums, so they end up being able to use them for only four hours per day.

But the second they reach snowless lands with temperatures above zero, Ren instantly slams her hands on the ground, only to be greeted with Cobalt's super-creepy but also oddly adorable mandibled face. From then on the way to Konoha takes about three days of zooming through the increasingly thick foliage on the back of the gigantic blue spider, giving anyone with the misfortune of stumbling upon them a massive scare, much to Ren's and Deidara's amusement.

Hiruzen sets down his pipe in favor of massaging his temples with both hands. Before him, Ren stands with the most dishonestly innocent face he's ever seen, bracing herself on the arm of a young nukenin from Iwa. A young nukenin with golden hair and blue eyes that bear an uncanny resemblance to the Yondaime.

Trust Uchiha Ren to pull off something like that.

Hiruzen presses on his temples harder, fighting against the impressively stubborn migraine. He is decidedly too old for this. Not to mention Naruto – the boy has no idea who his father was, so if suddenly a relative on said father's side appears...

Hiruzen knows how against all the secrecy Ren is, and he can see the great improvement in Naruto ever since he 'accidentally' stumbled upon the Kyuubi in his mindscape upon Ren's insistence. He is certain she would find a way to have Naruto learn of his parentage now, as she had brought this former Iwa ninja with her.

He couldn't be older than twelve, but somehow Hiruzen doesn't doubt that the boy is capable of running from the village. People's hatred is a powerful thing, and the Iwa population at large hates Minato with a fiery passion. Sick of their hatred, the boy had-

Oh.

Oh no.

Hiruzen is really, really lucky that Ren has taken Naruto in, isn't he? That she protects him so fiercely from the people of his own village.

He looks at the fifteen-year-old girl, startled by his own realization, and Ren-

Ren looks smug. Like she knows exactly what he's thinking about.

"Drawing parallels between Naruto and Deidara, are we?" she asks, confirming his suspicion, and Hiruzen sighs tiredly. Deidara just glances at her questioningly, but the brunette shakes her head, mouthing 'later'.

"I realized I have made a mistake," the old Hokage starts, then rubs his temples once more. The headache hits him viciously. "I suppose I owe you thanks in the name of the Country of Fire for taking Naruto in."

"Mhm," Ren pulls out a body scroll. "The target, Hokage-sama. Only the head, because he wasn't alone and I took the liberty of cashing in the remaining bounties. There weren't problems aside from the typical risks."

"None of them had special abilities?" Hiruzen asks, and Ren's eye twitches.

"None," she confirms without a hitch, and Deidara nods in agreement. Hiruzen smiles at them, knowing full well they're lying, but says nothing. Ever since the attack on the Aburame (one Ren got herself into as well) he has been even more suspicious of Danzō, despite his desperate attempts to believe in his friend.

"Any remnants of the bodies?"

"Spent an hour treating them with fire techniques. They're nothing but ash buried in earth and snow," the girl explains with a nod, and Hiruzen sighs in relief. Yes, better safe than sorry. "Now, if you don't mind me, I'd like to drop Deidara off at Torture and Interrogation and then leave myself to Hana's tender mercies."

"Yeah, leave me alone to convince Konoha's local crazies that I want to be one of them, thanks," the boy grumbles, and Ren chuckles, ruffling his hair fondly. Hiruzen sighs again, because he once more sees the parallel between this boy and their very own blond, three years younger than him.

That situation had ended in formal adoption. Of course it won't here, since Deidara is an emancipated minor himself, but Hiruzen has lived long enough to be certain that Ren could and would name him an Honorary Uchiha, even if just to spite others.

Ah, he really is getting too old for this.