Knitting Fate

Second installment in Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren series

Fifty-Ninth Thread

•••

This chapter has been beta'd for you by hestia8693. She forgot I sent it to her, but I tend to send a reminder every 2 days or so. I should probably write more often.

I have literally wrote this thing in class, one hand on my notes, another writing CPwUR. It wouldn't have been possible if I didn't have a habit of dragging my laptop with me on Mondays.

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"Though miles may lie between us, we are never far apart, for friendship doesn't count miles, it's measured by the heart."
― unknown

0

They travel in companionable silence at Kakuzu's direction towards the nearest Bounty Station. Ren doesn't know, she is aware of her general environment, of directions and how to get home in the shortest time, but she has no clue where the Stations are, exactly, or how to get to them, not without consulting a map, anyway.

(She is fairly sure Kakuzu would have to consult a map to go literally anywhere else, but his innate knowledge of all the Stations everywhere is, nonetheless, quite amazing.)

"You didn't call me to fight," Cobalt pouts, still salty that Ren didn't summon her for some good, old-fashioned murder. The giant spider had been relegated to a pack mule with cocooned corpses, all wrapped and ready to be cashed in, stacked on her back.

"There was no need to," Ren shrugs. "They were weak, and Kakuzu took care of the big fish."

"But you called in Takuya-sensei!"

"But Takuya-sensei can do poisons. Can you do poisons, Cobalt?"

Cobalt harrumphs and falls a few steps back to sulk for a while, unable to come up with any sort of counterargument.

"You seem more chipper than before," Kakuzu notices, because of course he does. It's nothing bad, but the old man definitely has sharp eyes and social awareness, regardless of whether he chooses to act on it. "You've seemed down for a while this past week."

"Awww, you do care," Ren coos, and he harrumphs at her in much the same manner as Cobalt not even a minute ago. "Now, now, Kakuzu, emotions are not a lethal disease, and caring for others won't kill you."

"Must you?" he asks, glaring at her. Ren grins.

"Yes, because you act as if showing that you care will burn you," she sighs in exasperation, kind of like you would at a child pretending to be a grown-up. Kakuzu obviously notices, but chooses not to comment on it. Ren continues to talk. "You know, for the past week I kinda had a mild crisis. I felt weak, inadequate, compared to that ROOT agent that almost killed me, and compared to you. And then I fought Honebami, and you know what? I realized that I'm not, in fact, a pathetically weak child. I mean, comparing myself to a brainwashed puppet with no regard for their own life, and a guy who fought our ridiculously overpowered clown of a First Hokage, and lived? Yeah, I'm going to feel fucking inadequate alright."

"He let me go, if that makes you feel better," Kakuzu says quietly. "Your First Hokage, I mean. He was strong, but he was soft-hearted. Kind, I suppose, and he pitied me—this scrawny teenager sent on a suicide mission."

Ren isn't quite sure just what on earth had sparked this heartfelt confession, but she doesn't want to ruin the moment. It's very flattering that Kakuzu is willing to open up to her even that much—or maybe this much.

She pats his shoulder in friendly gesture, and he lets her, and doesn't even flinch.

It feels like a milestone. It probably is.

They don't run, just walk at a brisk pace, which eventually forces them to camp out in the open, in a swampy meadow up in the trees by the road they've been following. If Ren didn't know any better, she would think Kakuzu just isn't in much of a hurry to rid himself of her presence.

They don't make a campfire because they don't particularly need it. They still have food Ren made on her semi-depression cooking-baking spree at the hideout, and the weather is fairly warm despite it being March and not in the Country of Fire. Ren calls forth her Orb Weavers easily enough, and in an hour both she and Kakuzu have their own spider web hammocks up in the trees, safe from excess moisture above he swamps. They throw in bug-nets too, because Ren doesn't fancy sleeping with various swampland monstrosities called bugs, and judging by Kakuzu's appreciative look, neither does he.

"Thanks," Ren says, a bit randomly, when they're about to settle in to sleep. She says it quietly, as if hoping that he won't hear her for some reason. She doesn't know how he's going to react, after all, or if he's even going to know what she is thanking him for.

Especially since she doesn't know herself.

But he answers nevertheless, in a somewhat sleepy, disgruntled voice, "You're welcome. And... thank you, as well."

Ren blinks in confusion. Why would he be thanking her? Unless it's for the emotional bombardment and her tiring friendliness, and unyielding wish to show him that not all people are assholes and it's okay to show a softer side to some people, sometimes?

"You're earnest," he clarifies, as if reading her thoughts, and Ren is pretty sure that she's briefly entered a Twilight Zone of some sort. "Thank you for that."

"You're welcome," she whispers, to keep her voice steady. "We're friends, after all."

And they are, maybe. Tentative, still somewhat wary, but friends, maybe. Or so she wants to think. A stupid young girl who lives a second life far from the world that hated her and she hated right back, and a bitter old man who only ever lived once, and loathes the world that made him a monster.

And she made him comfortable enough with her to honestly admit to some of his feelings.

How? Why? She doesn't know, but her throat contorts uncomfortably and her eyes prickle with heat because she had somehow managed to chip at one of his many barriers, and most importantly, get to know Kakuzu the person over Kakuzu the fictional character, and she only realizes now but she thinks she's known since that week in the base.

Kakuzu was hers now. Is that how one acquires family members?

(You sure do, an annoying voice in her head supplied. Isn't that the exact same thing that happened with Kisame and Deidara? And look where you are now.)

And they would wake in the morning, and pack their camp and load Cobalt with corpses to carry again, and act as if nothing happened, but Ren would know, and Kakuzu would know, too, that he had a friend in her.

After they wake, gather the spiderwebs and depart, they walk in silence, but it's not an awkward one. They're both pretending that they don't remember last night's heartfelt words and they both know the other is a liar for it, though neither mentions it. But it's good. It's as if something's cleared, and Kakuzu no longer looks at Ren as if she were just another bounty as she bounces next to him, whistling a tune of a song that this world doesn't have from a movie that will never be made here.

She glances at Kakuzu, and he gives her a half-hearted, sideways glare, as if he knows exactly what she wants to do but wants to disagree just for the sake of it. Instead, he just rolls his eyes with a sigh, and Ren grins, taking it as a full-on 'go ahead'.

"Tell everybody I'm on my way,

New friends and new places to see,

With blue skies ahead, yes, I'm on my way,

And there's nowhere else that I'd rather be~!"

She hasn't sang in a while, not outside of the shower or to lull the brats that insist very hotly that they're not babies anymore and don't need to be coddled and then come crying for a lullaby five minutes later, so she grasps the occasion and sings, every single travel song she remembers until her throat is sore and she can only make sounds like a dying chicken.

Kakuzu suffers through it diligently and not once threatens to kill her.

She can swear she sees him tapping his hand to the rhythm of some of the songs, when he thinks she isn't looking.

They cash in nicely, Doku Romi and Honebami Eiji both, as well as the rest of the goons that were with them. They were petty thieves in comparison, but still had bounties on them from the disgruntled civilians that made up for the afterthoughts they were, even if those were just spare change.

Kakuzu himself appears to be in a decently good mood, especially ever since the morning and despite Ren's sudden bout of singing. On top of that, Ren gets to see Kakuzu positively surprised—Doku Romi turns out to have been a menace who had her bounty raised to a whooping, whole ten million ryo between now and the time Kakuzu last checked the price on her head that was seven million at the time. Probably pissed off someone high-standing.

When they walk out, a few corpses lighter and over eleven million ryo heaver, Kakuzu promptly throws a packet at Ren's head. She yelps and sputters, having not expected anything of the sort at all, and she flops about before finally managing to grab the darn envelope.

It's thick with banknotes.

Ren looks at the packet, then at Kakuzu, then at the packet again, and then asks, "Yo, what the fuck?"

"That's something over one million Ryo," he answers matter-of-factly.

"I can see that!" Ren bristles. "Doesn't answer my question, though!"

"It's Honebami's bounty, and the spare change for the others. You killed them, so it's yours," Kakuzu explains, patiently, as if to a naïve child asking why they can't stick their hand into the fire, and Ren just keeps on blinking at him, uncomprehending.

"Yeah, but why are you giving this to me?" she asks. "I mean-"

"You killed them, so the money is yours, don't make me repeat myself. If you're worried about our deal, Doku Romi's head more than paid for it," he says, gesturing at a small case in his hand, the one packed with the equivalent of ten million Ryō.

"You sure?"

"If it weren't for your information, I would not have caught her, possibly ever, seeing as she was a decent escape artist. So yes, I'm sure."

"Awww, you do care!"

"Don't make me change my mind, brat!"

Ren laughs, shoving her envelope into one of her flak jacket's pockets, and draws a circle on her right palm with her left index finger. A puff of smoke later, there's a relatively small spider on her palm.

"This is Emi," Ren says, presenting the spider to Kakuzu. "She used to help me exchange letters with another associate of mine, but shit happened and now he lives next door. She's got nothing to do, and she's bored because her brother is still running errands, soooo... I hope you'll write?"

Kakuzu looks at her, as if contemplating her idiocy, but she manages to catch a glint in his eyes that looks as if he's touched. He sighs, but nevertheless extends his hand for the spider with a disgruntled 'fine'.

Ren laughs, says her goodbyes, dismisses Cobalt and turns southward.

Having foiled Danzō's plans, of both killing her and using Doku Romi for something decidedly nefarious, meeting and getting on Kakuzu's good side, Ren is decidedly ready to go back home and sleep for a week. While she was physically mostly fine, with nothing more than an insistent itch from the wounds she'd sustained the week before, she's mentally exhausted, to the point it feels like it's seeping into her bones.

Yeah, she could have used Cobalt to get home much faster, but she didn't exactly feel like company right now. Maybe later today, or tomorrow, she would call her again and ride the giant spider home, but for now she just wanted to relish in the solitude.

She senses it only because it's massive and dense, otherwise melding perfectly with the chakra affinities of the swampland. A massive pool of chakra, a literal beacon, moving towards her at high speed. And maybe she should react, but she doesn't sense any killing intent, so she does nothing. Maybe whoever it is will just pass her by and nothing will happen.

Except, something does happen.

Suddenly, there's water rushing about out of nowhere, rich in chakra yet lacking in ill intent. Ren jumps onto its surface from the small, mossy rock she had been on to avoid falling in before the stone gets swept in as well.

The water is alive; that's the only way she can describe it. She can feel the thrum of chakra, localized in just one place and somewhat... friendly?

She stumbles, because she's pretty tired at this point and running on water—especially jutsu-spawned water, chakra-rich and clashing with her own fire nature so much it almost hurt—had never been a strong suit of hers. It's instinctual, because while she's tired and dirty and the little lake is knee-deep at best, she's also a stubborn asshole who refuses to fall into the water, thank you very much.

She takes a few wobbly steps backward, until she feels her back hit something rather firm and vaguely human-shaped. She blinks, taking a step forward again and turning around to face that something, and for a second she thinks she might be seeing things.

"...Hi?" it comes out more like a question than a greeting. "The fuck are you doing here? Not that I mind. Also, please don't be a hallucination. That would be rude, after all the shit that just went down. Also, I'm tired."

Kisame just laughs, shaking his head, and ruffles her hair. He's dressed casually, black and red cloak forsaken in favor of loose cargo pants and a simple shirt, Samehada hanging languidly on his back, secured with a thick leather belt cutting diagonally through his chest. All things considered, he looks perfectly normal. He could easily pass for just another random shinobi, if his skin wasn't blue and a dead giveaway of his identity.

"Nah, I'm definitely real. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Ren just crashes into his chest without a word, hugging him tightly. He smells like salt and the sea and wind even this far inland, but he is a walking shark so she doesn't comment. He laughs, embracing her too, and Ren kind-of melts. They met exactly once in person, but have been writing ever since, and she really, really missed him, she just hadn't realized it until now.

"Fuck, Blue, I missed you."

"Yeah, I missed you, too," he says, patting her back. "Ditching your cousin was a pain, you know."

"I can imagine. I hate that bitch, he stabbed me in the chest. With a sword."

"Yikes. Come on, you look like you're about to fall over. Let's camp somewhere and talk, how about it?"

"Yeah. I'm about to fall asleep on you."

"Please don't, I just found you."

"'mkay."