Knitting Fate
Omake Series of Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren series
(worth more than) A Thousand Words
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This piece has been beta'd for you by hestia8693, who deserves sainthood for the sole fact that she didn't run away screaming yet.
Not a chapter, because I'm leaving to a lakeside holiday with my cousins. Also I'll more likely than chapters be writing and posting the 'canon patchworking' (kek) Yarn of Time pieces. Like, y'know, that infamous mission where Ren got her arm cut off and glued back on that was mentioned few times already. Or what are brats up to when Ren's not home.
Alternatively titled 'Hoshigaki Kisame's walkthrough to friendship with Uchiha Ren via ye olden times version of Discord'
In which we finally look into the mysterious letters Ren mentions having been exchanging with Kisame for a while that are never really tackled, from Kisame's point of view.
!This omake is part of CPwUR Canon!, patching up some plot holes I've inadvertently created. (As a matter of clarification, the second segment happens somewhere in the middle of the first one? It's not chronological.)
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It starts like this: he meets a brat when attending the chūnin exams in Iwa. She singles him out, because he's easy to single out, and he's readying for yet another round of remarks, but of all the things she could possibly do, she asks to hug him.
What the actual hell.
The brat's name is Uchiha Ren, and in hindsight, Kisame probably should've known that people like her latch onto you with a single-minded dedication and are unlikely to actually let go if they do, ever. But what seems obvious now didn't seem so at the time, when he was still the same (insecure) Monster of the Mist, but not an acquaintance of one Uchiha Ren yet.
Funny, how just one relationship might change a person's viewpoint a little. But then, it's not really as if he could've expected to forge any sort of a bond with a brat, wielder of Bloodline Limit, from a village his own only had uneasy truce with, who hadn't even been born yet when he himself graduated Kiri's murderous exam. Or was she? Kisame wasn't sure how much older he was than her, but if she was thirteen, then it was eleven years. Which was- a lot, looking back, especially then, when she barely reached to his elbows.
(She wasn't hostile. She wasn't scared. She wasn't there to gawk at him. She was there because she genuinely wanted to know him as a person, and she gave her affection freely, and some part of Kisame, a childish, hidden, affection-starved part of him relished and bloomed in her light.)
It goes like this: the brat doesn't go away. She insists on spending time with him whenever she can, much to the chagrin of her teammates and sensei and to Momochi's amusement. She seeks him out, talks to him, and doesn't care about village attachments. She comes to him for swordsmanship, and-
He gives it to her. Just like that, because she's also the type of person who wears her heart on their sleeve for all to see and couldn't be bothered with all that secrecy. So she comes, she asks, and he gives her what she asks for because she explicitly tells him why she wants that, and who is he to refuse the luxury of honest truth?
Because, you know, Kisame hates lies. And Ren, he learned, might omit some things, skip some more, as she is bound to do like a good little killing machine from a half-enemy village with her own set of ghosts and blood under her nails, but other than that she's disarmingly honest with her intentions and thoughts.
And then the exams came to end, and they return to their respective homes (is Kiri even a home at this point, full of lies, lies, lies-), and he thought, that's it. He'll probably never see her again, never interact with her again. Soon she'll forget and he'll be overwhelmingly alone in the liar's world again.
And then Ren, the bright, aggressive child who has the potential of unpolished gem and her heart on her sleeves, sends a scroll-carrying spider his way.
It's the first. It's not the last.
(Kisame hates to admit it, but he gets to know Atsuo much better than some of his own summons over the years, as a testament of the sheer time the snappy white-kneed tarantula with a temperament of a moody, edgy preteen spends with him. Atsuo sometimes stays for days before departing, and despite what he says, Kisame knows that the summon is fond of him, lest he would have made good on the countless threats of bodily harm, mainly through biting.
He remembers Ren and her pet, the albino huntsman, and how it crawled all over her face. He found it weird then, and can't help but chuckle at it now, allowing Atsuo to do the exact same thing with him.)
It doesn't end like that: Kisame kills his master, takes his sword, and leaves the village to join the organization that the puppeteer behind Yagura directs him to, an organization which has a way to make the lying man's world a world of truth.
(The puppeteer lies, too, Kisame knows subconsciously, but he's familiar, something in him screams and yearns, because he knows this, the unruly black hair, and the fire underneath his skin, and the spinning red eye, Uchiha, Uchiha, Uchiha-
The man is not Ren, and yet Ren knows, of him, of his defection, of the man.
Ren knows many things, he learns over time. She doesn't speak of it unprompted, but doesn't shy away from answering when he asks her directly. She never tells him how she knows. Kisame doesn't ask, because he knows that she would tell him. Some things are better left unknown.)
(One day he will ask. Today is not that day.)
He joins Akatsuki, dons the black cloaks with white-rimmed red clouds, and his stack of letters grows and grows and grows. The sharks on the West Coast keep them safe for him, away from prying eyes and fingers, and he re-reads some of them when he feels low. Like the one that was half-written by Inuzuka Hana, Ren's best friend, in which the medic does nothing but complain about Ren, and then Ren's indignant reply both to him and at her friend. That one never fails to put a smile on his face.
Of course, Ren tells him about the infamous Uchiha Itachi. Nothing really important, just... unflattering. Very unflattering. So Kisame knows things about Itachi, like how he's an idiot with no ability to critically think for himself or others, and will endanger everything. He's an edgy, angsty teen with a stick up his ass who thinks he's important because he could do things others his age couldn't, but there Ren admits that his father was even worse and put a lot of unfair pressure on Itachi when he was a child. Kisame gets the feeling that she dislikes them both rather equally.
"[...]Will probably jump off the bridge if told since, y'know, he was told to slaughter his entire family, and DID, by a man who attacked and stole the eye of his best friend who was trying to prevent a tragedy, and didn't bother to double-check the info. I bet he didn't even think about asking the Hokage for confirmation, that dipshit." (Ren's words, not his, but he understands. He likes that rant-y letter, it's entertaining. Is that even a word?)
Ren calls Itachi out on his faux-pacifism as well. The boy is supposedly pacifistic, yet went on multiple assassination missions. Kisame can see where she's coming from; either Itachi's ideals are feeble, and therefore so is his character (if Kisame was a pacifist, he'd die before laying a hand on another, he knows), or he's just a liar throwing himself a pity-party – oh, woe is me, they make me kill! (Again, Ren's words, not his. Fitting.)
And, you know, Kisame hates liars.
It's easy to conclude that Kisame has never met Uchiha Itachi before, yet he dislikes him already. And then, he meets him.
Better yet, he gets partnered with him. Joy.
Itachi looks vaguely like a constipated cat when he's trying to retain this cool and composed "mysterious man with a troubled past" thing that, according to shounen how-to's, should have hundreds swooning at his feet. His entire being screams 'I'm so tragic, pity me please'. The aura of someone who thoroughly fucked up and refused to acknowledge it, ever. Opting instead to blame others, or the world, for their own idiocy and lack of analytical skills. Or ability to think logically in general.
Ren might've colored her descriptions a lot. Kisame had figured as much reading them before. Her very obvious dislike – if not loathing – towards her cousin bleeds through in every sentence, causing her to have nothing good and all the bad things in the world to write about him. But seeing the real deal in person? His new partner is, simply put, an insufferable brat with an Edgy McTragic Complex. (Once more, Ren's words, but they fit. He is using this description now.)
Kisame, of course, isn't impressed. His Uchiha is much more fun, with a range of emotions way wider than a creepy doll with constipated face, and definitely doesn't need, or want, pity, instead opting to own her fuckups, bulldozing her way through life with a smile and fire in her eyes.
...
Wait, since when had Ren become 'his Uchiha' compared to all the others? Or his person in general? Huh. Well, she is, sort of, his first friend. The first one that actually, genuinely stuck, who didn't leave, who wasn't in it just to use him. Just, because Kisame honestly wouldn't mind doing her a favor or two, just as she expressed she wouldn't have minded doing the same, and through her, her spiders. Sage knows they part-time enough as errand runners as-is. Poor Atsuo, curled in the high neck of his coat, against the nape of his neck, come hell or high water.
Kisame wonders if their leader – going by the name of 'Pain', very endearing – is secretly a sadist, always sending them on missions to gather funds from... places... that aren't friendly, even for a seasoned, supernatural killers. He asks Ren, and she laughs at him. Predictably.
He writes about Itachi, too, and she asks him to tell the teen to walk off a cliff. He's almost tempted to.
"I've noticed you get letters sometimes," Itachi tells him once. They'd stopped at some ratty inn midway to where they're supposed to go and kill someone because the organization lacks funds again. They are such a hot mess, at times. "That spider of yours, vanishes sometimes and then reappears with a letter. It's a summon, isn't it? Someone else's."
"Atsuo is a he," Kisame points out absent-mindedly, gently pressing the spider to the mattress before he can pounce at the teen. Ren's spiders share her feelings towards her cousin, and Atsuo exists in a constant state of wanting to bite Itachi. Kisame would let him, honestly, if it wouldn't end up so problematic later. "And I fail to see how my private correspondence would concern you."
Deidara, the blond brat from Iwa that followed them, apparently got bored of his village and hightailed from it. He was ninja of Konoha now, Ren wrote, and Kisame chuckles. He could see why he would be.
"If it impedes the-"
"For the love of Jashin, be quiet," Kisame huffs. "Go back to sulking."
He swears he heard Itachi sniff at his flippant tone, but he doesn't exactly care. Since they're not traveling at the moment, he might as well use the momentary rest to quickly write his reply.
He's taken to carrying writing supplies with him, sealed in a little scroll, wherever he goes. It certainly proves useful.
"It is certainly suspicious," Itachi says finally, and Kisame sighs, looking at him at last.
"You know what, I don't care," he answers truthfully. "I'm a missing-nin, I have no more ties to Kiri. But this- this is important to me. This friendship, you know? Because it's the only one who stayed, no matter what. You seem to mistake a criminal organization for a village, Itachi. Don't. Yeah, we work in a semblance of order under a leader, but- ugh, why am I explaining this. Whatever. I have a friend from the outside. Had, since before I defected. She's not from Kiri, but it matters now about as much as it did before."
"Which is not a whole lot," Atsuo supplies helpfully, climbing onto Kisame's knee. "Are you gonna answer now?"
"Sure, just give me a moment."
He ignores Itachi for the rest of their stay at the inn. Thankfully, the teen gets the memo and doesn't bitch about the letters again.
Small mercies.
(This time it's him who sends a rant about Itachi to Ren, instead of the other way around.)