Knitting Fate (Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren Part II)

Fourteenth Thread

"If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are. Style. That's what people remember." 
― Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

It was either just her sheer, pure-black luck, or Shibi was a very sophisticated troll of shinobi world. Or both. It had to be something, for certain. Or life just randomly decided it hated a girl named Uchiha Ren very, very much. Like that would be anything new, given her record in past life. Or maybe it was karma. For all the bad Renee Archer ever did.

Long story short, their first mission, predictably, was: 'Retrieve Tora'.

Before Ren even managed to reach the battlefield – she's been looking through possible flats to rent through better half of the night, she was so not living off of Gramps Hokage for much longer, she technically was adult by law by the time she graduated (which was laughable concept, really), so she might have slightly overslept, but she did send Shibi note beforehand – it was already turned into crime scene. Hibiki was lying face-flat on the ground, curled up to semi-embryonal position, his perfect hair in absolute disarray, and he was very openly whimpering about some evil, abhorrent spawn of the devil. Said spawn was currently hissing loudly on top of one of Hana's dogs, while smacking the other dog with clawed paw – efficiently so. The dog whimpered in answer and ran with tail between its legs.

Tora was... Very Tora-ish indeed, if smaller than what was shown I first episodes of the show. It was quite obvious that this was pretty much still a kitten. Almost grown, but still a kitten, with all that kitten fluff all around – but still huge. It looked like miniature brown tiger, honestly. And it was spiteful little fucker, from what she saw.

"Not going to run and help your teammates?" comes Shibi's slightly bored voice, and Ren looks up with a sigh. Sure enough, her sensei-since-yesterday is up and is reading some sort of book with levelled interest. Judging by the cover, it's about bugs. Such a surprise.

"I'd rather not be meet head-on with... That monstrosity," she sighs heavily, allowing Awai to crawl out of her jacket, onto her face, and through it, to sit on top of her head. "Honestly, all the cats I've meet before definitely weren't so rabid-"

"They hardly were pets of posh aristocrats," Shibi mentions off-handedly, and Ren can't do anything but agree. The strays she seen here and there and shared some of her meal of during Academy days when she was done leading her mini-army of minions were much more pleasant. Some even sat by her when she feed them, and one was bold enough to let her pet it!

(Of course, no hissing, yowling, scratching and biting included.)

"Yup," Ren nods and starts walking forward slowly just as Hana growls louder than usual, startling the cat. It bristles, but this time it's more frightened than angry, because, apparently, it finally realized just who is the real dangerous one out in the field. And that's what she's been waiting for. "I have chicken," Ren promptly announces, startling Hana. Even Hibiki shuts up for once to look at her. But Ren doesn't look at either of them; her gaze is focused at the cat instead. "I made it today, it's still even warm," Ren kneels down, and then sits on her heels, and produces a mini-bento box from a pouch she had attached to her belt.

"Ren, seriously, I don't think-" Hana starts.

"Shut it, Inuzuka!" Hibiki hisses. "The monster is actually listening to her!"

And it was, indeed, the said monstrosity. Bug, brown, fluffy, hissy monstrosity sat down for once, and stopped yowling, and eyed Ren with suspicion in those unnerving, dark eyes, and the Uchiha stared right back, steadily unwrapping cooked meat. The cat visibly perked up at the scent, and then eyed Hibiki and Hana very cautiously and without an ounce of trust.