Knitting Fate (Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren Part II)

Fifty-Ninth 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.

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I have literally wrote this thing in class, one hand on my notes, another writing CPwUR. It wouldn't have been possible if I didn't have a habit of dragging my laptop with me on Mondays.

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"Though miles may lie between us, we are never far apart, for friendship doesn't count miles, it's measured by the heart."
― unknown

0

They travel in companionable silence at Kakuzu's direction towards the nearest Bounty Station. Ren doesn't know, she is aware of her general environment, of directions and how to get home in the shortest time, but she has no clue where the Stations are, exactly, or how to get to them, not without consulting a map, anyway.

(She is fairly sure Kakuzu would have to consult a map to go literally anywhere else, but his innate knowledge of all the Stations everywhere is, nonetheless, quite amazing.)

"You didn't call me to fight," Cobalt pouts, still salty that Ren didn't summon her for some good, old-fashioned murder. The giant spider had been relegated to a pack mule with cocooned corpses, all wrapped and ready to be cashed in, stacked on her back.

"There was no need to," Ren shrugs. "They were weak, and Kakuzu took care of the big fish."

"But you called in Takuya-sensei!"

"But Takuya-sensei can do poisons. Can you do poisons, Cobalt?"

Cobalt harrumphs and falls a few steps back to sulk for a while, unable to come up with any sort of counterargument.

"You seem more chipper than before," Kakuzu notices, because of course he does. It's nothing bad, but the old man definitely has sharp eyes and social awareness, regardless of whether he chooses to act on it. "You've seemed down for a while this past week."

"Awww, you do care," Ren coos, and he harrumphs at her in much the same manner as Cobalt not even a minute ago. "Now, now, Kakuzu, emotions are not a lethal disease, and caring for others won't kill you."

"Must you?" he asks, glaring at her. Ren grins.

"Yes, because you act as if showing that you care will burn you," she sighs in exasperation, kind of like you would at a child pretending to be a grown-up. Kakuzu obviously notices, but chooses not to comment on it. Ren continues to talk. "You know, for the past week I kinda had a mild crisis. I felt weak, inadequate, compared to that ROOT agent that almost killed me, and compared to you. And then I fought Honebami, and you know what? I realized that I'm not, in fact, a pathetically weak child. I mean, comparing myself to a brainwashed puppet with no regard for their own life, and a guy who fought our ridiculously overpowered clown of a First Hokage, and lived? Yeah, I'm going to feel fucking inadequate alright."

"He let me go, if that makes you feel better," Kakuzu says quietly. "Your First Hokage, I mean. He was strong, but he was soft-hearted. Kind, I suppose, and he pitied me—this scrawny teenager sent on a suicide mission."

Ren isn't quite sure just what on earth had sparked this heartfelt confession, but she doesn't want to ruin the moment. It's very flattering that Kakuzu is willing to open up to her even that much—or maybe this much.