Knitting Fate (Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren Part II)

Fifty-Seventh Thread

This chapter has been beta'd for you by hestia8693.

I have nothing to say for myself. I'm more disappointed in my work ethic than you are, trust me.

All the best in New Year and Merry Late Christmas. Mine sucked, but that's what you get when you're an atheist in near-fanatic Christian family.

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"A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money."
― John Ruskin

0

They stay in the encampment for an extended break, for which Ren is very thankful. She applies various experimental herbal mixtures made by Takuya-sensei, along with some that Hana had made her pack, onto her stitched wounds, bandages them, and just rests for the rest of the time there. She manages to sharpen both her katana and her tantō, using the traditional water-and-whetstone technique she'd picked up from a scroll, and stalking some smiths around the village during some stealth training disguised as a game with the brats. The technique was efficient, looked badass, and required precision.

Everyone learned something in the end, and Naruto won the game, of course. Even at her current level, Ren had little hope of victory against a ten-year-old who notoriously evaded ANBU – though he hasn't pranked them.

Yet.

If someone could put the fear of god in those smug, animal-masked bastards, it was definitely Naruto. Jounin HQ already suffered his wrath once, after he heard some nobody that canon hadn't even been bothered to mention make a snide remark about Genma, when he had one of his downer episodes. The Hokage is a fuck and likes sending Genma on delicate but mentally taxing missions.

The extra even apologized the next day, so swift was Naruto's retribution. Ren was so proud that she made him ramen, which was deemed to be almost as good as Ichiraku's, which meant she did a damn good job. And then she had the kids trap Genma in a cuddle pile as she made him some pumpkin soup.

And speaking of kitchen work, Ren only recently felt brave enough to give baking Red Velvet Cake a try – with ingredients she never used before and had no way of knowing would turn out well. It came out... acceptable. Neither good, nor bad, but Ren was proud of it.

Proud enough, in fact, to offer Kakuzu a piece. That, and she knows that tempting anything with food is one of surest ways to get on its good side – although the fact that she even has some with her is because of her massive sweet tooth. It should be a nice respite after how disastrous the mission had turned out before even really beginning.

"Here," she tells Kakuzu, handing him a slice of the cake. He eyes it suspiciously for a moment, but Ren pays him little mind, too busy inhaling her own piece. By the time she's done, he's cautiously eating it, so Ren counts it as a win.

And so they stay at the camp, and they talk. Well, Ren talks, Kakuzu largely just grumbles in response and occasionally sends her a withering look. It's only after she asks him about handling her clan's finances – which are mostly frozen ever since the Massacre, because Ren has absolutely no fucking clue how to manage such a large amount of assets complete with investments and real estates and they were meant to wait for Sasuke anyway, but the smug little fucker all but legally abdicated in her face and only waited to become thirteen to fully sign all rights over to her – that an active debate starts between her and Kakuzu. Ren racks her brain as best as she can about everything she read about the Uchiha finances and assets, dutifully jotting down notes about everything Kakuzu tells her. In a way, it reminds her of university, back when she'd been trying to pursue literature instead of just throwing it all away to go fully into the police force. Kakuzu has some ideas she probably could have reached on her own, eventually, after long evenings spent stressing over the papers, and some ideas she would honestly never have thought about that now seemed perfectly obvious. He has a talent for these kinds of things – as much as he is a frightening shinobi, he'd make an even more frightening bureaucrat. Not anyone Ren would like to cross in either life, or ever.