Knitting Fate (Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren Part II)

Eighteenth Thread

"I came from a real tough neighborhood. Once a guy pulled a knife on me. I knew he wasn't a professional, the knife had butter on it."
― Rodney Dangerfield

The journey to the land of Earth was rather swift and majorly uneventful, save for accidental run-in with bandit group. It's not even worth mentioning that the bandits were even less of an obstacle than a small river. But, there were nine genin teams with their nine sensei and additional four chūnin as an escort, why would anyone be surprised by the ending? And then, they had two possible ways to go; they could reach Land of Earth by crossing either Land of Waterfalls of Land of Grass. The one leading, whoever that was, choose waterfall, because they decided to go straight to Iwa. As in, straight line drawn from the ruler.

Nice vision, Ren had to admit. Idiotic, but nice.

Long story short, the voyage took four days of jumping and running, and three nights, half of each for sleeping and half for jumping and running. Not many wanted to go to Iwa, not really, but Ren couldn't help but note that almost every team had a Hyūga in it. Hell, some teams had two Hyūga in them. Which meant that Knohoa was sending out majorly their Bloodline Limit users to Iwa, because prickly bitch as it was along with its people, Iwa was neither bloodline-hating Kiri, nor byakugan-thirsting Kumo. Ren was willing to bet that next two exams would be spammed with countless Konoha genin, but no Hyūga whatsoever.

And Iwa itself was... Rocky. And barren. Being used to everything being so very, vibrantly green, Ren was confused, because Iwa was all brown and gray, with little to no plant life, and how the fuck was this country supplied with air? Or maybe it wasn't, because she was already having troubles with breathing. Not only she, many other genin, in fact, paled and tried to even out their breaths. Not to mention all the dust that was in the air, sweet merciful Jashin. Ren, however, was still willing to bet that Suna was even worse, because, well, it was a goddamn desert.

"It's so... Not-green," Hibiki huffs, covering his lower face with his Hyūga-purple sleeve and squinting his trademark pale eyes. "It's awful."

"For once you're not talking like a total idiot," Hana chuckles. "But yeah. I was expecting... More green. A tree here and there, a bit of grass. And here we have... Bigger rocks, smaller rocks, weird-shaped rocks, pale rocks, dark rocks, and- Oh! Did I mention rocks?"

"Sarcasm at its finest," Ren snorts, clapping her hands slowly. "I'm so proud of you."

Hana grins widely, showing off her canines, Hibiki actually laughs and Shibi, walking next to them, pretends to not to notice the show. Few other genin eye them with mixed reactions. Some are annoyed, some amused, others plain ignore them, some are too stuck-up to care. Majorly Hyūga who think they're better than them only because they have few years of experience more. Maybe they're better, yes, but Ren is not the type of person to get discouraged by just that. She went against people better than her many times, and sometimes came out on top, actually.

"Now, I want you two to be careful," Shibi says suddenly, putting his palms on heads of Hibiki and Ren each. "There will be teams from Mist. Try to not to engage them, if you will. Ren can be easily mistaken as non-bloodline user, but Hyūga eyes are unmistakable. Oh, and stay away from ninja from Cloud, Hibiki."

"Okay," Ren says with a smile. "I'll try waiting a day or two before getting in trouble. Can't promise, though."

"It's not-" Shibi huffs, his eyebrow twitching above his shades, and he sighs. "Just, no collateral damage, please. If anything burns, I'm going straight to you."

"Sensei!" Ren makes a hurt expression, and the Aburame clan head just groans. He really, really should've found a replacement sensei instead of replacement clan head. Let someone else suffer Team Four, maybe. He would have most likely asked Tsume, hadn't she bbeen the head of her own clan, but on the other hand, that... That was not a good idea. Tsume was Hana's mother and seemed to be fond of Ren. That would perhaps end up even worse. He at least tried to contain the destructive force that was - so very un-Uchiha – Uchiha Ren. Tsume would probably have just triggered her further instead.