Knitting Fate

Second installment in Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren series

Fifty-Fourth 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.

Once again sorry for my tardiness, but I have two exam retakes of whole semester worth of material in September. I'm past the first one, which I passed, but I'm only now studying for the second one - I have a week to learn whole history of British Isles from prehistory to now - so I don't think you'll see much of me until it's past the 18th. University is busy man, and I'm still on my holiday.

(Also wow this chapter is actually over 3k words of content. Story content. Wow.)

Okay now, important question time, because I've seen this topic roll through the reviews few Times already. Do you want me to split CPwUR stories into separate threads? Now the thing is, I didn't do it before on this site before, unlike AO3, it does not have series function, and nobody cares about Shit- ahem, Wattpad. Ergo, CPwUR is being published on this site in just one singular thread, but would you like for me to split it? That would mean that I would delete Knitting Fate and Yarn of Time chapters from this thread, instead posting them separately (respectively named for both series and the part) and would rename this story from its original title to (CPwUR) Knitting Fate. Would you like that? I haven't done that before because of inability to link stories, but would you prefer if I had?

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"Things never go the way you expect them to. That's both the joy and frustration in life. I'm finding as I get older that I don't mind, though. It's the surprises that tickle me the most, the things you don't see coming."
― Michael Stuhlbarg

0

Ren would never call herself paranoid. Hell, some people would argue vehemently against her calling herself even just moderately careful, let alone paranoid, but-

Is it really paranoia when they're really out to get you, and the person sent to kill you is walking right beside you? Ren knows, she just knows that she's fucked because there is no way in hell Danzō would send someone weaker than her, and more likely than not someone a fair bit stronger, to off her. A surprise punch to the gut, if you would, the one you're definitely not expecting even if you should.

And Ren really should've expected something like this, and yet here she was, and has been for the past four years, convinced of her own untouchability. It would appear that she is not as untouchable as she'd thought after all. Accidents happen on missions. On assassinations especially, and Ren is known for her goal to beat Genma's kill count. She hadn't even realized that, in doing 'commissions' that are both enjoyable for her and gets her a sizable paycheck, she's been making herself open and prone to attacks such as this. Danzō has probably been waiting until she had made herself a reputation as a person who acts recklessly and prefers solo assassinations. She honestly got herself into this mess, at least partly.

She doesn't have as many issues recognizing her flaws and mistakes as regular people, so bite her. She knows she fucked up. Real bad.

If only she didn't have to pay for it by having to leave on a mission, alone, with her only companion being her would-be murderer sent by the character and person she hates the most in the whole world. Honestly, Danzō tops her grandmother's spot, and that is an achievement.

Fuck.

Renee Archer didn't mind dying, because her life was meh at best, and downright sucked most of the time. But Uchiha Ren is not Renee Archer, not anymore, and she likes her life, her home, the people she has – that she has them in the first place – and, well. She doesn't want to die. She'd be very fucking pissed if she does, to be honest. And on top of that, she is fairly certain she would not be getting a third chance.

So forgive her for being a bit jumpy while traveling, alone, with a very obvious ROOT agent. The worst part is that she can't really do anything about it, because she has no proof that this is really Danzō's puppet, even if her getting sent with company is certainly odd – she is perfectly capable of going alone even while still a chūnin, and this mission is by no means above her competency level. But Danzō is on the council, a War Hawk, a renowned hero, and the person for whom Hiruzen still has that idiotic blind spot, even after repeated assassination attempts, and he is in a position to pull a lot of strings.

He didn't have to do it in such a way that reminds Ren that she is a real person, living a real life, not a character in a story or some chosen one. That she isn't untouchable or unkillable. She realizes, now, that she's always known, but it hasn't really... sank in. She died once already, and she should've been aware she could die again, but despite all her distancing from anything that spewed the 'life after life' ideology, some of it... stuck, in some subconscious way. Maybe.

She can't even send a letter, because that would most likely cause the ROOT agent to attack earlier than planned, and then go after her summon, too, and Ren hates endangering her spiders. Honestly, she hates seeing anyone she cares for get hurt.

(Does she care for herself and is just an idiot, or is this a maladapted coping mechanism that isn't really a coping mechanism because Renee Archer hated herself, and Uchiha Ren is Renee Archer, after all and despite everything?

She can't die. For the people she cares about, for the people who would mourn her death. Death – her death – is not a concept that she ever even bothered to acknowledge as a possibility. But sometimes she still wakes to the memory-nightmare of her grandmother's hissed you're worthless, you'll never amount to anything, you're nothing-)

She shakes her head and presses on, as if refusing to acknowledge the problem, forgetting about it even, will make it magically disappear.

She does admit that the number of spiders she now keeps on her person may be a tad ridiculous, but, well, she's feeling really threatened right now, so bite her. All three assassins are here, Anri, Atsushi, and Akihiro, as well as Takuya-sensei. Ren has half a mind to summon Niji, Kagami, and Cobalt, but the first two might still be training, and Cobalt is still resting after she decided it'd be a good idea to test her taijutsu against Gai the day before. Ren has never seen a more ridiculous match. Hell, she didn't even realize that spiders actually used taijutsu, which, actually, kinda makes sense what with all the limbs they have. Huh. Cobalt did give Gai a run for his money, but ultimately ended up a whining heap on the floor and requested some leave – Ren knows she would answer if she was really needed, and she was considering it.

Also, she needs someone chattering to drown the silence, and the three assassins did that just fine. Normally, Ren wouldn't mind spending hours upon hours in silence, but this? The ROOT agent creeps her out, to the point she has chills running down her spine that are not due to the knowledge that he is here to kill her. He is genuinely just that unsettling as a person.

Ren can't decide if his silence is a blessing or a curse. On the one hand, it is driving her up the proverbial wall, and she would like to see if she could probe him for intel somehow, but on the other, the chance of slipping and making him attack earlier is rather high, not to mention going back to Danzō with information he should not, under any circumstance, get. She opts instead to listen to Takuya-sensei going on another spiel about natural toxins – that, at least, is interesting.

The real issue comes at night, one that Ren so conveniently choose to push aside until it was time to think about it, and now it's here to bite her in the ass. Should she sleep, and put herself in direct danger, or should she keep going and risk falling on her face and being even more defenseless later? Would she even be able to fall asleep in this situation?

...who is she kidding. Needs must, and she is in control of her body enough to force it to shut down and rest, so that isn't a problem. Does she want to? Hell no. But that doesn't matter, because she needs the energy and the focus, and for that, she'll just have to risk it.

"Let's stop and rest for a few hours," she finally said to her companion, stopping on a branch. They are almost to the Taki border, the trees becoming smaller and smaller; soon they would have to travel on the ground. "We'll be at the border soon. Let's slip through at dawn."

The agent stops and looks at her with those blank eyes. Is this how Sai would feel? Will? Will she ever even meet Sai? No matter.

"Agreed," he says finally. He told her to call him Taro, but Ren doesn't care, not really. She supposes she should feel bad for him, but this is not the right circumstance, or even the right world, to do it. They stop at a small clearing that's more an area with fewer trees rather than an actual clearing, and Ren wastes no time slamming her hand on the ground. With a small puff of smoke, she suddenly has an armful of dog-sized Garden Orb Weavers – three black and yellow Argiopes with sharp legs and elongated abdomens.

"Hello, you three," she greets as she sets them down. Aki, Jun, and Kyo are their names, and they're always eager to help. "If you could make two hammocks, that'd be nice."

"That won't be necessary," the ROOT agent says calmly, and Ren looks at him. "One of us has to keep watch after all."

"My spiders will keep watch," Ren says, keeping the guise of a slightly confused shinobi with no clue of who she's on a mission with, or why. "We both need rest to function properly, and they have better spatial and situational awareness than us."

"...fair enough," he answers her with a bland smile and Ren tries to ignore the pang of guilt that blooms in her chest when she remembers that if she doesn't kill him, he'll kill her and go to Danzō. She doesn't have nearly enough time, nor does she know how, to break his conditioning.

This world has little place for sympathy, she tells herself. Not everyone can be saved. It's me or him, now, and I already chose me. I will always choose me when it comes to survival. There are people I will help, more than I ever thought there would be, but ultimately, it's still me against the world. It always has been.

She pointedly doesn't think of bright, blue eyes, so full of love, of pale hands gripping her for dear life, of pink hair adorned with clips she chose. Of the clatter of senbon between teeth among the laughter, of blue hands guiding her through kenjutsu stances, of countless letters, of running laps around the village, of sticks of dango and mad cackling.

If she does, she might break. The knowledge that she isn't alone, after three decades of loneliness, is a staggering thing she can't afford to acknowledge now.

The only reason she sees the attack coming is because she's been anticipating it for the last two days, her metaphorical hackles raised and senses going haywire. It's also the only reason she survives the initial attack, gleaming tanto aimed at her lower back, meant to sever her spine, grazing against her hipbone instead. It cuts through the reinforced fabric of her outfit, through skin and muscle, as if they were butter. She bites down a hiss of pain because fuck, that hurts like hell, and uses the millisecond during which Atsushi distracts the agent to parry another, much less well-aimed strike before grabbing the weapon between two kunai and twisting.

The blade breaks; she mentally apologizes to Kisame for the transgression, but a tanto with barely any blade is much less dangerous than a whole one. She kicks the broken blade hard and it clatters away, and then she's putting as much distance between her and the ROOT agent as possible. Takuya-sensei all but latches onto her wound, limbs wrapped around her torso, hanging upside-down. He quickly applies some cold adhesive that does absolutely nothing for pain, but stops the blood loss, for which she's grateful. It smells strongly of aloe vera and yarrow.

She deflects a barrage of projectiles, half-evading and half-swatting, without a word. She's focused like she doubts she's ever been before, eyes on her opponent and the surrounding area, mindful of traps, clones, body flicker, tunnel techniques, and anything else that he might use to finish her off. She doesn't know when the world bled into whole new level of sharpness and detail, maybe before the fight, maybe when she jumped away, but she doesn't care. She feels Atsushi un-summon himself, and she hopes the Atrax is okay, but there's no time because the agent summons up a mass of earth to hurl at her, and she breathes a dragon to parry it, but he jumps through the flames, and suddenly they're engaged in a merciless taijutsu spar, thank you Gai I will never think a bad word of you ever again. Akihiro tries to go for a bite only to be off-handedly swatted and un-summoned with a furious hiss, and Ren tramples down the anger that rises in answer because she can't afford the distraction.

The agent manages to drive a kunai into her gut nonetheless, though she manages to deflect it off-course so it buries safely into her side, into muscle and flesh and not her organs (her idea of 'safely' may be skewed, she will realize later). She grabs his hand and headbutts him as hard as she can, and she sees stars but doesn't stop even though her forehead hurts from hitting the metal plate with the engraved spiral leaf – this traitor should not have it, he shouldn't, Danzō should just die – and leaps back but not before he manages to slash upwards. Ren hisses as pain erupts in the right side of her face, tastes blood flowing into her mouth through her teeth, from the gash running through her lip and chin.

Anri manages to jump onto the agent's back, but he's covered from head to toe, so she has no option other than to bite though his clothes. She does, and has to un-summon before he can halve her with his freshly unsealed katana and Ren curses, reaching for Sumire because gods, she doesn't want to die-

He rushes at her and she ignores the pain, sucking at the blood from her cut lip despite the hot-cold sting, meeting him halfway. Ren is physically stronger, she realizes, and manages to push him back, and with the Sharingan she can match him in speed. That matters little, however, because he's still superior in skill and she's soon pushed to desperate defense. Takuya-sensei slips something into her mouth that tastes like bitter and burning, and then she feels the prickle of his fangs right below her ear so it must've been a poison and he must've realized what she's been doing all this time.

They clash again with flying sparks and Ren knows that custom-made, handpicked Sumire is a better weapon than whatever he has, or else his tanto wouldn't have broken so easily because that one was just a desperate bet – there's a lot of those in this fight, she realizes – but his katana almost gives in, the weapon longer than a tanto and he has to push with both hands to stand his ground, preventing him from reaching for anything else. Small mercies.

Then she spits the mouthful of blood and saliva and whatever Takuya-sensei slipped her, and it's a dark, ugly, bitter liquid and she feels like gagging but she won't, she can't. It hits the mark and the agent splutters, jumping back in surprise.

Ren might just survive this, thanks to her unconventional methods.

The wound on her hip hurts, the stab wound in her side hurts, the many smaller cuts from where she didn't fully evade shuriken hail hurt, the cut on her lip hurts. She is at once furious and worried for her assassins, and she hopes they're all okay because they're not suited for open fights, but she really should worry about herself right now. She absent-mindedly notices Takuya-sensei rummaging by the stab wound in her abdomen, feeling the same minty-cold sensation of the adhesive from before. She mentally thanks the spider once more, since he's probably the only reasons she hasn't bled out yet.

The agent jumps at her once more, this time in a somewhat more desperate way. He must have realized by now that Anri had bit him, and that whatever Ren spit at him had poison in it. It won't kill him. Anri couldn't have pierced the skin and whatever Takuya-sensei slipped her, most likely a paralytic, was diluted so if he didn't swallow any then it will only be partially effective anyway-

He goes for Takuya-sensei, and time slows as Ren's Mangekyō launches itself unprompted, or perhaps it was prompted by her fury and fear, collected just in time for her to block the katana. It slices through the fan on her right sleeve and through the skin as well but she doesn't mind, or maybe doesn't care. She pushes chakra into her mouth, coating her teeth with it more on instinct than anything else, lurches forward, and bites down hard. Her teeth, morphed by her chakra into something far more sharp and wicked and still coated with the bitter-metallic taste of whatever it was that Takuya-sensei slipped her, sink into the man's shoulder through the armor and fabric, tearing at skin and drawing blood and she feels something that's almost like his heart skipping a beat-

He kicks her hard, almost in a panic, towards a stone formation. She hits it hard enough that she loses her breath and she hopes her spine is okay, and that Takuya-sensei dispelled before she hit the wall because he was on her back. Her vision swims black and kaleidoscope and her eyes bleed when she calls upon her chakra, and calls upon the black lightning like she did before, and-he evades it. The lightning strikes with a deafening crack, and the gods-damned agent avoids it, by a hair! It fries the left-back side of his uniform, maybe causing some damage, but that's all, and he was meant to burn into a crisp and Ren wants to scream because that is not fair-!

There's another presence at her side, she realizes belatedly, just standing there and she realizes that she passed by someone when she was sent flying, but she doesn't care because she's going to die, and there are still so many things she wants to do, so many people she wants to see, this is so unfair-

The ROOT agent jumps at her and swipes his katana in a wide arc that is sure to catch the unknown third party, but she doesn't care because it will reach her, too, right at her neck, not far enough to decapitate but enough to cut through her arteries and tendons and throat-

Black threads shoot forward, wrapping around the agent, around his hands and torso and legs, immobilizing him. Ren chokes on something, maybe air, maybe relief, and looks at the person – man – next to her, and almost cries in relief. She doesn't know why, she honestly shouldn't, but she does anyway.

Kakuzu – in a dark and unassuming outfit that absolutely is not adorned with red clouds edged in white, not yet, thank you – looks down at her and narrows his eyes as the ROOT agent stops moving after a very satisfying crunch of shattered bones.