Knitting Fate

Second installment in Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren series

Sixtieth 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.

Hello, it's me again, and again I have no excuse for lateness. But I have actual plot progression here this time?

Lol, you thought it's going to be a heartwarming, fluffy reunion.

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"You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world's problems at once but don't ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take a life of its own."
― Michelle Obama

0

Ren does fall asleep on Kisame in the end, but he doesn't seem to mind. She's blearily aware of being carried somewhere that is not the main road and not quite the swamp. He taps her awake after they had relocated to somewhere relatively dry, at least as far as swamplands go, with a fire cackling before them.

A typical camping setting—they're even sitting on a log. How nostalgic, just give her a guitar and a stick with some marshmallows. Actually, no, don't give her a guitar, just because she has a decent voice now to go along with the few singing lessons she'd had in the past doesn't mean she got any better than tragic in skill with instruments, especially having not played in years.

Come to think of it, she should try making some marshmallows, once she gets back, and send Kisame a batch. Kakuzu, too.

"Hey, Blue," she says, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "You won't believe the week I've had. I don't believe it, and I fucking lived it."

"You wrote me about most of it, remember?" Kisame laughs. "Did you get Doku Romi in the end?"

"Not me, Kakuzu. Also, we're friends now. I think."

"You made friends with Kakuzu," Kisame says flatly. "As in, 'you're only worth anything as a corpse to cash in' Kakuzu. That guy?"

"Mhm!"

"I honestly wish I could say I'm surprised," Kisame says, looking her dead in the eyes. "But that would be lying. You're weird enough to pull shit like that."

"I know I'm weird, it would be weird if I wasn't. If I'm the type of person who's dumb enough to give the Hokage a dressing down every once in a while, then I'm capable of a great many things!"

"I don't know if it's okay to call you dumb for that, more like reckless."

"Possessing a great deal of idiotic bravado?"

"Or that."

"I'm largely self-aware, thanks."

Because she is, self-aware that is, and aware in general. Aware that this man, who probably isn't even entirely human, yet she is so comfortable around, is perfectly capable of killing her, and likely would if he had to. She isn't looking forward to two years in the future, when he and her damned cousin would come and try to get Naruto.

They would fail, and she would be one of those who would see to it, of that she's sure—given how uncomfortable she is with even the thought of Sasuke being anywhere near Itachi, unchaperoned, but that really doesn't change the fact that she would probably clash with Kisame, and they would laugh, and banter, and genuinely try to kill one another.

And it doesn't scare her, because that's what respect is for them.

"Why the long face?" Kisame asks and she sighs. Why is the world so hard? Why is one of her best friends a man on the other side of wrong?

"We're going to fight each other in the future," she says flatly, and it takes her a few seconds to realize just how eerie it sounded in that moment. She blinks, turning to face Kisame. Predictably, he's looking at her oddly. "Sorry, that was creepy."

"Obviously," he huffs. "What do you mean? Because that sure as hell didn't sound like 'we might meet on battlefield somewhere', it sounded like 'I know exactly when we will fight'. What did you mean?"

She purses her lips.

"A secret, is it?" he asks.

"Yes. The same as always. The same thing. I-That- I've never told anyone, but you're the closest to a person in-the-know, with how many hints I've dropped in all my complaining," she explains, because it's the truth and maybe should be shared. She knows things she's not supposed to, about people and about the future, and sometimes, she says or writes creepy, almost-prophetic things, and other times she sits in her room, alone and cursing having retained her memories, while blessing it in the same breath.

It's hard, but she braves through it. With how paranoid, distrustful, and power-hungry most powerful people in this world are, she doesn't dare tell them anything more than dropping subtle hints that this is bigger than their narrow point of view is capable of seeing.

If she did anything more, she would surely be locked up on the spot, and that's the best outcome she can envision that doesn't end up in immediate death.

She shouldn't be trusting Kisame, either, with how uncomfortably close he is to two other sets of Sharingan, but if she wants to achieve the outcome she's been striving for, then she will have to tell him, two years into the future, post-chūnin-exams at the latest, assuming it wouldn't already be too late by then.

"I don't need to know," Kisame assures her, and she almost grimaces, because he kind of does.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," she says. "I need you to do some things for me, things you would be able to do only after I tell you everything, and they would sound ridiculous without explaining how I know them."

"Do you want to, then?" he asks. "To tell me?"

"I don't know? Maybe? Nobody knows, only me, and- It's hard, sometimes. And you probably won't believe me, anyways."

Kisame hums, and then promptly changes the topic to something mundane, asks about the brats, about Sumire, and Ren's blade training, about the spiders, and Ren is grateful that she doesn't have to tell him about Renee Archer just yet, even if she knows she would eventually.

Instead, she tells him about the brats and their approaching graduation, and how instead of getting Gekkō Hayate to help her with swordsmanship, she had strong-armed him into the hospital to get his lungs and immune system looked at. He, in turn, tells her about Itachi and his reactions to the world, sour, constipated, and sulking, the mighty teenager who knew everything about anything, and how Kisame once almost threw him off a cliff and into the valley below. He tells her about the things he saw and places he visited, from the northern coasts of Lightning to the unforgiving sands of Wind. He tells her about all the people he killed, and she recounts her own targets in turn.

She tells him about the ROOT agent, about the rot in Konoha, the fundamentally flawed system, and he tells her that Kiri wasn't much better, when he was there. That there was a reason the Bloody Mist became known as the Bloody Mist, and he expresses hope that, with Konoha's infamous maxim of bonding and teamwork, it won't happen there.

"Not when a madman has an army of emotionless, brainwashed child-soldiers at his beck and call," she tells him then and doesn't elaborate. He doesn't ask about it—it doesn't concern him.

"Just don't die, because I know you're going to pick a fight with him," he says.

"I'm not going to. I already did. I survived the Massacre, and he didn't like that."

"Wow, what an asshole."

"Right? Besides, it's Itachi's incompetence and not my luck anyway!"

Kisame laughs.

"What I'm afraid of is him finding out I survived last week's attempt."

"Don't be," Kisame says, standing up. He pulls a scroll from his jacket, and a puff of smoke later, he's holding a katana. Samehada is off to the side, gulping the chakra from its surroundings like a dry sponge would water. "Now, you've rested enough. At least half the solution to your problem is to get stronger, isn't it?"

Ren grins and grabs Ryuuzakura.

There's pain in her muscles. The good kind, a dull ache that lingers for a bit after a proper workout. Her lungs burn a bit, not with chakra-fire, but with the cold of too-fast breaths. She's happy to note that Kisame, too, is breathing a bit heavier. Not quite like the gasping she is doing right now, but the spar did make him break a sweat. Just a bit.

"Well, you're definitely better than three years ago," he says appreciatively. "But that might very well be because you got bigger and stronger."

He isn't wrong—she'd grown quite a bit in height and muscle mass, both in Japanese standards and as a woman. Not that being a woman had ever stopped her before, she just took things at a pace a bit faster than her body was intent on tolerating.

"I also have a longer reach now. Not as long at you, because who asked you to grow so fucking tall, but it's decent. I also use katas as more guidelines than anything."

"Smart. No plan ever survives contact with the enemy, same goes with practiced stances," Kisame tells her. "They're there only to show you what you can do, really. Many fresh swordsmen don't understand that, and get killed in a fight against a person who does."

"Well, I'm nothing if not violently creative. See my teeth now?" she asks, tugging her upper lip to reveal her newly-changed teeth. They're still a novelty, and she's cut her tongue on them a few times, but if she can't revert them to their original shape, she might as well get used to them. "I had to bite a guy, I wrote you. But I'm a dumbass so the teeth stayed. Not that I mind- Or, well, not that I will mind, once I stop cutting my tongue on them."

Kisame laughs, showing his own shark grin. "Well, we match now."

Ren smiles, stands up, and unsheathes Ryuuzakura. They had sparred with their swords sheathed, but now she feels like live steel.

Kisame quirks an eyebrow up in an unasked question.

"As long as you don't kill me, there's no harm in it, is there?"

"Well," he says in consideration, "you could use the dodging practice."

He makes her lungs burn again when she's forced to dodge precise, fast strikes that wouldn't kill her but would hurt instead, and she laughs.

"Random question, but what would you say if I considered a polearm weapon?"

"Oh?"

"I found a naginata in the bandit hideout. Old and tattered, but I like it. I was thinking about getting one, you know, with proper quality that wouldn't fall apart mid-fight."

"A naginata- Hm. Kind of, but not really? I remember, once, there was a guy who came to Kiri, and he had this glaive. It kind-of looked like a naginata, but the blade was much wider, and wickedly curved. I think you would benefit from that kind of weapon more than a simple naginata, especially with your body build. Long reach, more attack power, but it's heavier—not that it would matter much with you, or, rather, I think you'd benefit even from the additional weight. But then, I only ever saw the thing, never actually used it."

"Ooooh! That sounds good! But if he was from faraway lands, where could I get a weapon like that?"

"How should I know? I'll ask around if you want, but you should, too. Go to a blacksmith, maybe they make customs. Or raid your Uchiha treasury, there's bound to be something good there, with a clan that used to be so big and influential."

"Fair. I often forget about that."

"Even if you can't find it, naginata is okay too."

Night soon arrives. It's late, and dark, the only source of light the campfire burning before them. Ren isn't cold because of her chakra though, and Kisame is comfortable in even lower temperatures.

There are crayfish sitting in a pot of boiling water and some fish impaled on sticks angled above the fire, roasting to a crisp in the flames.

It's comfortably quiet, nothing but the sounds of the swampland around them.

Soon they will eat, Ren will have her spiders make hammocks like they had for her and Kakuzu the night before, and in the morning they will part ways, Kisame going back to whatever he was doing with Itachi, and Ren back to the village, and they probably won't see each other for two years.

Knowing this, Ren opens her mouth, and just starts speaking.

"I died," she tells him. "Before the Massacre. I was someone else, in another world. I was murdered, there. And then I woke up here, wearing the corpse of Uchiha Ren."

Kisame looks at her for a moment, processing. She returns his gaze steadily, praying that he won't suddenly consider her mad.

"And that matters how?" he asks eventually.

"Because in that world, there was a story of a boy named Uzumaki Naruto, and in it, hundreds of other characters with their own pasts, motives, and futures."

For a moment, they're both silent as she gives Kisame time to ponder on that idea and come to the conclusion of what, exactly, that means for them. For him. After only a moment, realization and horror dawns on his face, and she continues.

"You died five years from now, for loyalty. For the world you believed in," Ren continues. She pointedly doesn't say whether or not she thinks it was worth it. "You were one of the bad guys."

"Why me then?" he asks, his reaction concealed behind a calm facade. "Why did you befriend me? If I'm one of the bad guys, then-"

"Because I loved Kisame the character, and then I met Kisame the person, and you were everything and more, and I'm honored to be able to call you my friend," she cuts in before he can continue that line of thought. "Because, even if you were one of the antagonists of that story, you still had a point. All of you, what the Akatsuki is doing. Everything. You have a point. You just have the shittiest approach to it, that's all."

"Really?"

"Really. The shinobi world is flawed— it is fucked up beyond imagination, the systems, the government, all of it is inherently broken and you all are right to try to change it, you are! And yes, this calls for a revolution, but there's someone leeching off of your idea, your dream, and using it as a stepping stone to resurrect a monster, a god, that would destroy the world, should he succeed."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I need you, Kisame. I need your help." She stops then, having said her piece, and searches his expression for any indication of what he's thinking.

After a few agonizing moments: "What do you need me to do?"

Something changes in that instant. A shift. It's a simple question. He doesn't ask for an explanation, he doesn't look at her as if she's insane, and it's then that she realizes that he believes her. Just like that. And maybe there's something in her eyes that makes it so, but he believes her.

He wants to help her, she thinks faintly, and tries not to fall down with relief at the realization.

One drop of water can cause a great wave, and one flap of a butterfly's wings can create a hurricane. One tiny step at a time.

And maybe this is it. This is what she's here for. This is why she is alive, here, now.

Ren raises her head to meet Kisame's gaze, and speaks:

"I need you to help me save Uchiha Obito, from that very power that's using you to resurrect a monster and wipe out the world."

It will take years, and they're likely to fail, but she won't give up. Not in the face of these characters-turned-precious people, and those who could join them.

"Why?" Kisame asks. Because she's asking him to save a man who had helped slaughter most of her clan, who had unleashed the Kyuubi on her village and was directly responsible for the deaths of her foster brother's parents, the madman who's trying to destroy the world.

"Because I'm selfish, and it's time someone laughed at fate right in its ugly face. But I need you to be sure, Kisame. I'm going up against a god," she says softly, as if only now realizing the true weight of what her life might mean.

"I'm sure," he tells her. "If what you say is true, then, I—I would have worked for a lie. I don't want this. I can't have this. I can't live a lie."

"I know. The world that 'Madara' is trying to create is a world where everyone is trapped in an illusion: Eternal Tsukiyomi."

"That's even worse. What would you have me do?" he asks, determination glinting in his eyes.

"This 'Madara' of yours. He's really Uchiha Obito, he's been brainwashed, and he desperately needs a friend."

"A friend?" Kisame asks, eyebrow raised, momentarily surprised.

"Baby steps, Kisame," she tells him. "One tiny step at a time. Obito is broken, and he needs someone, anyone, he can rely on. And you're honest, he'll trust you."

"You're asking me to lie to him?"

"No. I want you to save him."

"Does he die, too, in this story?"

"Yes. Having rekindled the bonds he once had and breaking free of the evil that had him. He dies saving the world. He can save the world this time, too, for all I care. I just want him to live. Can you do it? Will you?"

Kisame looks at her, serious.

"I don't know if I can," he tells her earnestly, "but I'll try. I've learned, over time, that Uchiha make great friends."

"Unless their name is Itachi," Ren snorts before she can stop herself, and Kisame chuckles, too.

"Alright. So tell me. About this story, and the world you're from. I want to know."

"Well, the story starts around two years from now, with the graduation of one Uzumaki Naruto from Konoha's Shinobi Academy…"