Knitting Fate

Second installment in Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren series

Fifty-Third 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.

Between people's asking for next chapter like, two hours after newest one was posted and my first real hater-flaming, last chapter reviews were fun. And maybe if the hate-anon was a bit more civilized about it, I would take their words into consideration, because they raised some interesting points. However, flames are flames, and hate shall fall on deaf ears. Either you say it like a person, or you don't get listened to. Simple. I'll admit that it annoyed me, but we all have our faults, no? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Mine is that I bring you Yet ANOTHER cliffhanger after almost two months of inactivity for better part of which my only excuse is my laziness. Enjoy, and also sorry. For the pause, not for cliffhanger. For that I'm wholly unrepentant.

It turned into character study. Oooops. I swear action is coming due next chapter! But before that I'll probably finally write some canon-patching YoT chapters, especially about Kisame. I only now realized I apparently hadn't mentioned that he's in Akatsuki before? I was sure I had, gotta fix that. Dunno which'll come first, another chapter or Yarn of Time. We'll see.

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"When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity."
― John F. Kennedy

0

Ren should've expected Deidara would drop a bombshell like that in the middle of the fucking street, really, because that kind of subtlety apparently runs in the family, even if Naruto's seems to come from his mother. Fortunately, there are very few people in hearing distance, and Naruto doesn't start screaming like Ren had feared he might, so that adds to the relative secrecy. She doesn't refrain from pinching the bridge of her nose, though.

The revelation is taken with a variety of reactions. From Hana's surprised blinking, to Shikamaru and Sasuke's suspicious gazes, Sakura and Choji's open mouths and Kiba's yowled 'WHAT?!' to Naruto's wordless tackle on his cousin that Deidara takes with some disgruntlement and a little grace. Ren knows that Naruto needs it still, after the revelation from a few days ago, and while it might be the Hokage's half-assed apology disguising a blatant attempt at regaining some authority in the boy's eyes (which won't work as long as Ren has a say in it, and she does). What she only half-realized until now is the fact that Deidara, too, has been almost entirely alone before this. No family, no true friends, to the point that it pushed him to befriend a person from another – almost-enemy to that – village just because he was lonely. But now he isn't, not alone anymore, and definitely not lonely, and Ren can clearly see just how hard he clings to the smaller blond, as if he is just now realizing he has people to depend on.

Which, frankly, is the truth. Even Ren wasn't someone he could fully trust when he was an Iwa ninja, and then even on the run, because she was Konoha's ninja first and foremost, even if she couldn't have truly been bothered to follow the village's doctrines. Even though she has her own brain and knows how to use it to make logical decisions rather than follow out of blind loyalty. Deidara doesn't know that.

Oh well, he would soon enough. Ren is blindly loyal only to those who deserve it, and while she liked Hiruzen the character, Hiruzen the actual person she does not, and therefore isn't particularly loyal to him. Of course, she would never endanger the village, but that's because she can't be bothered to find a new place to live, and the kids are here. She likes the kids.

She likes the kids. What a weird phrase that would've made her nothing but repulsed in the times Before. But, maybe- Maybe that was because she hated her mother and grandmother, genuinely loathed them, and yet found their traits in herself. Maybe she was just afraid that any kid she'd come into contact with she would treat like they'd treated her. With distain, where stellar performance was the minimum and anything less was a failure. But here- Yeah, here she could deal, be the elder sister, the surrogate kinda-parent. Real parent, never on her life; infants were simply disgusting. But a caretaker, temporary and in-between, yes. That is fine.

This is fine.

"Did onee-chan really meet a guy who was thiiiiiis tall," Naruto stretches excitedly in childish manner as far up as he can reach, "an' was blue an' looked like a shark?!"

Of course this is the first thing the brats want to confirm when they get home, when they realize that Deidara is THE Deidara that Ren had met during her chūnin exams. Of course they want to know that she wasn't joking when she told them about Kisame. On his behalf, she's a bit offended. Bloody brats.

"He was taller," Deidara answers honestly. "And his skin was more gray than blue, but yeah, he really looked like a shark."

"That's so cool!" Kiba gushes.

"I'm offended you didn't believe me," Ren sniffs, crossing her arms on her chest.

"Will we get to meet him?" the small Inuzuka asks excitedly, and Ren sighs. They don't talk about this, in their letters which they still exchange, and which Ren keeps sealed in a small scroll stashed in Jōren Falls along with her... 'organic waste', but Kisame is an Akatsuki member. It's a vital position that he has for her plans, and she sure hopes that their friendship will be enough for him to listen to her and help her when she needs him, but-

For obvious reasons, they can't meet, he and kids. And also, fuck, she is only just now realizing she misses him. Like, physically misses. She wants to meet him again, spar with him, laugh with him. She got that feeling Before too, sometimes, when she wrote with people from across the globe, her internet friends. It's similar and amazing, how a friendship could not only be preserved, but bloom further just through words. Or, Ren hopes it could and that her feelings are reciprocated, because honestly Kisame is one of the best people in the ninjaverse and that would be sad. She likes him kinda like she likes Genma, that older brother slash friend slash mentor.

An actual honest-to-god positive role model she only now realizes she's been lacking for the first thirty-two years of her life. Thanks mom. Also, what the fuck mom.

After that, life once more became uneventfully normal, because it apparently follows the 'one big thing at a time' rule, at least until Naruto's class's graduation. Worst Generation of the Narutoverse is what they are, really, frightening little monsters. Sasuke breathes fire with the conviction of a man on a mission, Naruto often spaces out and gives the impression of talking to himself, but Ren knows better because he has a monster in his belly, and Sakura- Sakura is just plain frightening, any day of the week, any waking second, period. But then she swallows any and all medical knowledge thrown her way, and any and all knowledge of poisons, even if only theoretical for now. So at the very least Ren knows she would be leaving her two greatest troublemakers, who are apparently hell-bent on giving her premature gray hairs (at fucking fifteen years old, at least physically, gods, children, chill-), in good hands after their graduation. They'd probably die without Sakura.

And that's without mentioning the other brats, which makes Ren realize that she has a full peanut gallery. Or, almost full, if she were to count by the Konoha Twelve, not the Rookie Nine. Shikamaru is, as always, frighteningly smart, Chōji is the nicest person ever but his passion for food translates into heated debates with Ren that are very insightful on both sides, Hinata is starting to show a bit of backbone, continuously dragged around by the forever-boisterous Kiba and the ever-present Akamaru, growing at an alarming rate. Sakura is rarely seen without Ino these days, their supposedly legendary friendship rekindled when they let go of their idiotic rivalry, and now Ren can actually believe they are great friends. Also, Ino is quite frightening, too. Ren blames Genma for giving the girl a packet of senbon for her birthday when she got interested in them. Evil enabler, that guy. Lastly, there's Shino who, since Torune's graduation and subsequent promotion to chūnin – who is saddled with Deidara now, good luck pal – has been a subject of Ren's worry, whether he would mesh into one or the other friend circle or remain a loner. She was worried for naught, thankfully, because first he was accosted by Sakura, hungry for any and all medical and poison knowledge, and then Ren would often see him with Shikamaru. They are both silent and intelligent, so she can see how that friendship came to be.

And then February bled into March and the brats threw her a birthday party, and then Sakura's three weeks later, and then April passed and they had Chōji's birthday party in the beginning of May, an amazing dinner where his dad finally managed to squeeze some British recipes out of Ren, and suddenly they were making Deidara cry by throwing him a birthday party. Ren almost ran to Iwa to slaughter them all upon seeing the blond's genuine, happy tears – somewhat a mirror of Naruto's first birthday party, the one during which she told him he'd be living with them from then on.

Deidara and Genma got along great, truth be told, same for Deidara and Genma's other hatchlings he managed to hen before, Izumo and Kotetsu, the (in)famous gate Chūnin. It was fun, having them around, although Ren didn't really interact with the two much – they are acquaintances, but their jobs take them someplace entirely different; they are stationed on various posts within the village while she is sent out solo or in groups, usually to kill people, sometimes to sabotage or gather intel. What surprised her was the friendship Deidara somehow formed with Torune, one she started to draw parallels with between hers and Hana's. On the outside, it might've seemed like the more responsible ones (Hana and Torune) were only tolerating their suicidal, airhead idiots (Ren and Deidara, respectively), but she knew. That fond exasperated look of 'oh my god why are we friends' Torune would send Deidara when he would be triggered into yet another artistic tirade said it all. They had each-other's back, and Ren was sure that as much as she'd risk life and limb for Hana (which she did before, actually got her hand cut off to protect Hana, it fucking hurt) and how much Hana looks out for her (she glued the hand back on, yay!) that Deidara and Torune also had each other.

She was proud of both brats, even more so when she started hearing whispers among other shinobi that it would be beneficial for the two to be put in a unit together for sheer efficiency. Ren and Hana couldn't have that for daily duty, their specializations too different, but both boys were mid-range fighters. They would work together well. Deidara isn't creeped out by Torune's bugs, Torune isn't creeped out by Deidara's hands, which are still a cause of his anxiety at times. Likewise, where Deidara is the flamboyant, explosive, expressive artist, Torune is the calm, grounding presence occasionally throwing a really sharp comment.

In canon, it would never have happened. Ren has never been happier with her meddling, truth to be told.

And so life went, as did birthdays and tests and missions, and life was good.

It is about a year after the mission with Deidara – a bit more, that was during winter and spring was already peeking around the corner, not to mention her birthday was coming up again – when Ren is assigned another assassination mission that, despite being just a normal, regular assignment like every other before in nearly every aspect, gave her an odd feeling in the pit of her stomach.

First, Ojo came by, chattering about how Danzō is planning something but she doesn't know what because, for all her usefulness as a spy, she is just a spider and can't read, Danzō is a paranoid little bitch, and even spiders have their limits.

Then, Ren is assigned a partner out of the blue, for no real reason, since she could complete the mission herself without much issue – she is a Tokujō, now, and the target is some Chūnin. That was enough to set off alarms in her head.

But, as she stands by the gates on the third of March, the day after her sixteenth birthday and the party the brats and Gemma threw for her, the weird feeling in her stomach shifts abruptly and mercilessly into that of dread, a cold ice shard in her gut, so out of place among all the fire. And yet, she doesn't move a muscle, doesn't allow her face to shift into a grimace of any sort, and she forcefully keeps her muscles loose and relaxed.

"Let's work together well, shall we?" the ROOT agent tells her with a fake, awkward smile, as unused to emotion as all of the other puppets, and Ren doesn't allow herself to bite into her tongue, no matter how much she wanted to at that moment.

So, the old bastard is finally making his move. An ugly, ugly move, sending a ROOT agent with her. There's only one reason he could have possibly done this for, and-

One of them wouldn't be returning to the village.

A/N: This is NOT Sai. It's random ROOT puppet.