Knitting Fate (Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren Part II)

Fifty-Third 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.  

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***

"When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity."
― John F. Kennedy

0

Ren should've expected Deidara would drop a bombshell like that in the middle of the fucking street, really, because that kind of subtlety apparently runs in the family, even if Naruto's seems to come from his mother. Fortunately, there are very few people in hearing distance, and Naruto doesn't start screaming like Ren had feared he might, so that adds to the relative secrecy. She doesn't refrain from pinching the bridge of her nose, though.

The revelation is taken with a variety of reactions. From Hana's surprised blinking, to Shikamaru and Sasuke's suspicious gazes, Sakura and Choji's open mouths and Kiba's yowled 'WHAT?!' to Naruto's wordless tackle on his cousin that Deidara takes with some disgruntlement and a little grace. Ren knows that Naruto needs it still, after the revelation from a few days ago, and while it might be the Hokage's half-assed apology disguising a blatant attempt at regaining some authority in the boy's eyes (which won't work as long as Ren has a say in it, and she does). What she only half-realized until now is the fact that Deidara, too, has been almost entirely alone before this. No family, no true friends, to the point that it pushed him to befriend a person from another – almost-enemy to that – village just because he was lonely. But now he isn't, not alone anymore, and definitely not lonely, and Ren can clearly see just how hard he clings to the smaller blond, as if he is just now realizing he has people to depend on.

Which, frankly, is the truth. Even Ren wasn't someone he could fully trust when he was an Iwa ninja, and then even on the run, because she was Konoha's ninja first and foremost, even if she couldn't have truly been bothered to follow the village's doctrines. Even though she has her own brain and knows how to use it to make logical decisions rather than follow out of blind loyalty. Deidara doesn't know that.

Oh well, he would soon enough. Ren is blindly loyal only to those who deserve it, and while she liked Hiruzen the character, Hiruzen the actual person she does not, and therefore isn't particularly loyal to him. Of course, she would never endanger the village, but that's because she can't be bothered to find a new place to live, and the kids are here. She likes the kids.

She likes the kids. What a weird phrase that would've made her nothing but repulsed in the times Before. But, maybe- Maybe that was because she hated her mother and grandmother, genuinely loathed them, and yet found their traits in herself. Maybe she was just afraid that any kid she'd come into contact with she would treat like they'd treated her. With distain, where stellar performance was the minimum and anything less was a failure. But here- Yeah, here she could deal, be the elder sister, the surrogate kinda-parent. Real parent, never on her life; infants were simply disgusting. But a caretaker, temporary and in-between, yes. That is fine.

This is fine.

***

"Did onee-chan really meet a guy who was thiiiiiis tall," Naruto stretches excitedly in childish manner as far up as he can reach, "an' was blue an' looked like a shark?!"