Knitting Fate

Second installment in Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren series

Fifty-Second Thread

•••

This chapter has been beta'd for you by hestia8693, who deserves sainthood for the sole fact that she didn't run away screaming yet.

Excuses, excuses, but I'm literally into the middle of my second semester examinations and so far I've only failed one not really consequential subject, so I can't really be bothered to feel bad about the month-long delay if I pass most my course with little difficulty. When's the next one? Maybe next week. I sure fucking hope so, but exams.

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"The backbone of surprise is fusing speed with secrecy."
― Carl von Clausewitz

0

If this is some sort of skewed apology from Hiruzen, Ren isn't sure, but she does know for a fact that it doesn't even come close to making up for nine years of neglect and secrets. Although, to be honest, it is kind of nice that he's trying, if only for Naruto's sake. It at least shows that he might have a shred of care for, quite possibly, the village's most powerful weapon and doesn't want him to fully turn away from him.

(Too late, really, if Ren had a say, and she does.)

Still doesn't make Ren like him. Hiruzen might've been a compelling character, but that was from the other side of the screen, back Then. As a person, he leaves a whole lot to be desired. Like, really, a lot. Ren isn't going to beat around the bush in admitting her dislike of the man – not openly, of course, most of the time, but it's kind of an open secret. Also because he's old and not nearly as sneaky as he thinks.

So when she finds Deidara on her doorstep, not even two days after the incident, green vest on his chest and Konoha forehead protector holding his ridiculous bangs up, she can only sigh in exasperation. Who else has the power and reason to push Deidara's evaluations forward, when they should've taken at least a week? They don't even know the results of the DNA tests – or whatever the shinobi equivalent is – and the measly three days sure as hell can't be enough to thoroughly test Deidara's mental and physical capability. Or his knowledge about the village to decide what he would need to catch up on (everything, probably) since he's decided to be a Konoha shinobi now.

And yet, here he is.

"I wonder why they rushed your evaluation," Ren drawls in a way that would make Snape proud, probably. "It's definitely not because of the higher-ups most recent fuck-up and you seem like the most convenient way to start fixing it, is it."

"Whatever do you mean! They did a full, very thorough evaluation of my skills and mental health, nothing was rushed and nothing skipped," Deidara snarks right back at her, and Ren snorts. There is a reason why she likes this kid, and it's neither because he reminds her of Naruto nor because he likes explosions. Well, not fully, but the biggest part is that she loves how snarky and deadpan the brat can be.

"Alright, brat, come in," she huffs, allowing Deidara to enter. "I know you're supposed to be living with Genma, but he left on a mission and probably won't be back before the end of the week, so I'm guessing they want you bunking with us?"

"Obviously," Deidara sniffs. "They didn't even give me a futon, cheap assholes."

"So, they dump you on us and expect us to cover the costs, cool," Ren sighs heavily. While the household never had monetary problems due to the amassed Uchiha fortune as a whole, Ren hardly ever actually uses that, leaving it to ferment in the bank and gain as much investment as possible, while living and providing for herself, Sasuke, and Naruto with only her paycheck and various society funds, for orphans, single 'parents', et cetera, et cetera. And yes, she can host Deidara and it wouldn't make that big difference, but it still irritates the Scrooge-y part of Renee that Ren never really bothered to rid herself of in this life.

"They demoted me to chunin!" Deidara whines then, with all the petulance of a thirteen-year-old, as he steps through the threshold. "They're going to keep me on desk missions for half a year before they even test me for higher rank! That's so unfair! They even assigned me a babysitter. Well, not really, since technically we're partners, but come on, he's younger than me!"

Ren half-listens to Deidara's babbling, catching the more important bits as they walk into the kitchen. It's a useful skill she learned after taking Naruto in – she loves this boy, really, from the bottom of her black, rusted heart, but the boy could talk a corpse awake, or her ears off. It is self-preservation to tune out some of it, especially the parts that just consists of yelling.

"Who's the unlucky bastard they assigned to babysit you?" Ren asks finally, and Deidara snorts at her.

"Very funny. His name is Aburame Torune. There was an accident on his last mission so they're taking him off the rooster for a bit. He's actually a year younger than me-"

Ren clenches her fists in anger and in shock. Torune was there just two days ago during the now-infamous outbreak with Naruto's true parentage, and he seemed perfectly fine and everything, and now she learns he's being taken off the village mission rooster? Shibi's decision, no doubt, but why?

Unless...

Unless Danzo, that bastard, hasn't let go of the idea of putting his sticky paws on an Aburame, a plan that Ren foiled pretty permanently. The Aburame are now hypersensitive of their fellow family members. She made a mistake in having her spiders focus only on what concerned her – one she would have to rectify. She also could understand why nobody bothered to tell her, despite her being not only Shibi's former student, but also an honorary Aburame. Danzo is bad news all around, and nobody wants to run across the village name-calling, especially not a high-standing council member.

Not even Ren, who knows for a fact and with an evidence that she is right.

Oh, how she would love to dig her fingers in his eye-sockets, rip out the stolen sharingans in plain sight of the village, and expose the old bastard for the villain he is. He's the worst. Orochimaru? Akatsuki? Kaguya? Madara? Zetsu? Well, maybe save for that last one, but small fries, the lot of them are. Danzo is the real root of evil in the world.

...and she probably should control her ridiculous puns.

"Torune is one of... um, you could call them 'my kids', really," Ren says, and Deidara cranes his head up to look at her. "And so are you, honestly. So, don't give each other trouble okay?"

"I guess I can do that," he shrugs, but his cheeks turn suspiciously pinkish.

"Cool. Have you had breakfast?"

"No."

"Ugh, figures. Fucking useless bureaucrats," Ren sighs, ruffling her already messy hair, and looks at Deidara once again. "You okay with roasted shiitake mushrooms? I'm asking because I know people allergic to it."

Namely, and oddly enough, Sakura. She can eat it, but not much and it could really upset her stomach if she overdid it.

"Nah, I'm okay with it."

"Good, I have some leftovers."

"You? Leftovers? Miracle, with how much you eat."

"Did you know that fat acts as a shock absorber to your muscles and organs when you get hit? Also, are you going to tell me what the DNA test said?"

Deidara smirks, the smug little shit, and says nothing.

Awai drops from wherever on the ceiling he'd been, right on top of Deidara's head.

When she goes to get the kids back from the Academy, she takes Deidara with her. She's not going to leave him at home, alone, and not because she doesn't trust him – she does. But she wasn't lying when she said Deidara was one of 'her kids' – and boy, doesn't that sound weird as fuck – and that means including him in all the shenanigans they get up to. She can only hope that he and Naruto don't cause a scene.

(Probably in vain, if she knows any of her kids, and she does.)

Hana, barely off-shift and still in her white medic coat half-heartedly thrown around her shoulders, joins them somewhere along the third quarter of the way, easily picking up a conversation with both Deidara and Ren.

Deidara seems surprised that they want to include him in their talk at all, and that breaks Ren's heart a little. If she gets a tad more vicious towards Iwa ninja from now on, well. She's always had anger issues, why not take it out on enemy super-powered killers-for-hire?

"I'm kind of surprised they rushed the testing, though," Hana says when they reach the street just before the Academy. "That's unprofessional."

"Well, you remember the... ahem, 'incident, from two days ago?"

"Obviously, the first thing you did after things calmed down was to barge into my room, half a village across from your own, with Kiba on your back and relay everything in great detail, twice, with a lot of insulting the government included," Hana sends her friend a look, and Ren grins sheepishly. "Why?"

"They're trying to soothe us," Ren shrugs. "Me and Naruto, mostly."

"Oh?"

"I'm related to him," Deidara interjects. "They seem to think that 'giving back' Naruto's blood relative will tip him back to them."

"And the little shit won't even tell me how related they are!"

"Wow, how rude indeed," Hana deadpans with a completely straight face. Ren blinks at her, once, twice, and then, in a very mature move of a very mature adult, sticks her tongue out at the Inuzuka.

They make it to the front of the Academy a few minutes before classes end, but there are plenty of parents loitering around already. Younger years are usually taken by their parents, and only older ones go back home on their own. Some of the mothers start whispering among themselves, pointing at them, at Ren – regular-grade fabric clothes, soft limbs, wide doe-eyes, civilians no doubt – and she glares at them right back, because excuse them, she can hear, while not everything, then definitely phrases like 'the one who cares for the monster'.

Ren can easily deal with insults, they're no novelty. Renee dealt with a bigger-than-fair share of them, hurled mostly by her own family, and Ren is fond of making questionable choices and generally doing whatever the fuck she wants, which civilians generally don't appreciate, always with their own opinions but crying for help whenever something bad happens. And most of them are useless anyway, at least to the shinobi.

But people insulting those Ren cared for?

Yeah, no, excuse her for the extra-venomous sharingan glares that are one-hundred-and-ten percent meant to leave the hags with nightmares. The civilians hate Naruto, but since Naruto is simply too kind to hate them back, that duty falls to Ren, and she aims to fulfill it with a single-minded determination.

It's not long before children flow out of the school with screeches, yells, and overall chatter, and a moment after that Ren has to brace herself for impact, because of course Naruto and Sasuke are racing towards her, and of course they body slam her with full force because why the hell not. She slides backwards a bit, breath knocked out of her when one of them head-butts her in the chest, but she catches them nonetheless, and, in retaliation, locks both boys in a crushing hug.

"Hey brats, how was school?" she asks after regaining her breath, and they both grumble something. "What was that?"

"Mizuki-sensei was being a little bitch again," Sakura supplies helpfully, skipping to where they are with Kiba and Ino hot on her heels. Kiba bounds to his sister and starts chattering a hundred words per minute, and the rest of the Rookie Nine slowly gather around Ren. Jashin, she's more of a mother hen than Genma at this point, isn't she?

"What do you mean he was being a little bitch again," Ren grumbles unhappily, letting go of the two brats to rub her eyes. Mizuki, the class's new teacher, is becoming increasingly annoying. Ren knows exactly why, but she doesn't have anything on him yet; so far it's only the rude quips and cold shoulder he gives Naruto, but the second Naruto comes back with a lower mark than Ren knows he deserves, all bets are off. She would come after Mizuki like hell on earth and won't stop until there is nothing of him left.

"Can I punch him if he gets too annoying?" Sakura asks innocently, and Ren snorts.

"Punching things doesn't solve all of life's problems, kid," Hana admonishes, but the pinkette shrugs.

"But it works for onee-chan, right?" she asks innocently, and Ren feels like cackling. "She punches problems until they go away."

"Uh, yes-" Hana sighs, giving her friend a stink eye, "but that doesn't mean you should follow her bad example!"

"Hey!"

"Who are you?" Sasuke asks then, black eyes settling their gaze on Deidara and the blond smiles, wide and a tad insane.

"Me?" he says with a shrug. "I'm Deidara. Namikaze Deidara, Uzumaki Naruto's cousin."