"I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me."
― Noël Coward
One day after Ren's temporary leave has ended, her team is trying playing Jesuses by waterwalking. And promptly failing, honestly. Well, maybe except for Hana, who has damn good charka control (she is shaping up to be a medic-nin) and does it after few tries. Hibiki and Ren? Not so much. Hibiki is an airhead who can't put enough attention into doing so, and is currently shrieking as he falls into the water. It's only knee-deep, but fucking freezing.
And Ren? Ren is not a person who pulls their punches. Never was. She is not subtle, she is not gentle, she is hardly precise. Standing on water isn't all that hard. But when she tries to walk? The water promptly explodes underneath her feet, because she might be natural at drawing her white-hot, so very Uchiha-y fire chakra, but it does not mix with water at all. Trees were easy. Trees were steady, and hard, and had uneven surface to which she could just glue herself to stick, but water? Water is a bitch and Ren hates her. Water is cold and slimy and constantly moving, and Ren feels like a cockroach trying to imitate water pond skater. And, which is easy to conclude, she is failing. In quite epic manner.
The worst thing is she knows what she does wrong. She pushes too much of too hot chakra into her feet. But the water is cold, and she doesn't control it – also, the only solution she ever faced before was 'if it doesn't work, do more', not 'do less' or 'be precise'. Precision was for surgeons, and she was a detective. She chased people, punched people and shoot people. No need for precision there, just stamina and semi-accuracy.
Want to know a super secretive secret? Water and fire did not mix well. Or at all. Surprising, isn't it?
It wasn't helping that Hibiki was having as much – if not more – problems than her. He, for instance, was putting too little charka into his feet. So, instead of exploding underneath his feet, he was walking as if on gelatin or pudding. He was sinking slowly until he broke the little the focus he had once cold water reached above his ankle-high ninja shoes. And went down with a quite pathetic shriek.
Ren wasn't all that better, only instead of shrieking she took to cursing. At the top of her lungs.
"Why is it so hard to tone my chakra down?!" she whines eventually, just as pathetic as she feels, which is very, as she falls onto her ass next to Hana. "I never thought that my inability to pull my punches would be such a disadvantage."
"Oh come on, don't do that," Hana pats her shoulder. "I managed only because chakra control is something natural for me. Otherwise I wouldn't even dream of going medic."
"I'm not going medic," Ren huffs. "I'm going to be the reason other villages will need more of them!" she bellows, much to her friends' amusement.
"Hardly, if their patients will just run onto the liquid surface where you can't reach them," a new voice chirps in, and Ren bends her head backwards and grins.
"Hi, Hound," she says. "You look weird without the ANBU attire."
"I'm not even going to ask," Shibi says from above the scroll he is reading, and Kakashi actually pouts at her.
"Maa, Ren-chan, ANBU identities are supposed to be top-secret!"
"You've been my babysitter since when? Like, January, I guess, yeah?" she states the obvious. "It's your voice. And the hair. Actually, it's more the hair. Any birds nesting there this year yet?"
"Cocky," Kakashi says, but there's a bit of amusement in his eyes. "And do refer to me as Hatake-sensei, or at least –senpai for the time being, okay?"
"Sure thing, Kacchan!" if possible, Ren's grin grows even wider. Kakashi stiffens for a bit, and Ren can't even feel bad for using Izuku's nickname for his best-friend-turned-nemesis from Boku no Hero over all the giddy, warm, fuzzy feeling blossoming in her chest over the sole fact that she did. Shibi just stares between both of them, curious of where will that take either of them. Kakashi is mildly annoyed but also somehow resigned.
He does, after all, know Ren. The first thing she asked him was if he would cook for them wearing a pink apron, for crying out loud! If he expected timid, shy kid, he was very, very wrong. Because Uchiha Ren was exuberant, hotheaded badmouth, wo made her opinions known. Loudly. Often spiced up with a foul word or three, if opinion was negative.
"Right," Kakashi sighs heavily, "I have forgotten about your... Qualities."
"Oh quiet you, unless you want to actually take up the task of cooking in that pink apron I saw in the shop. I can even buy it for you-" the jonin eyes her, eyebrow twitching "-or you can give me some sharingan pointers and call it a day. Me, personally, I'd actually prefer the former idea of spending time, but, well."
Shibi openly stared at them as if Ren just dyed her hair hot pink and dressed up in a very girly, equally pink, even more frilly dress and started dancing Macarena, Hibiki had the dumbest face on and Hana was choking down on her laughter in very futile attempt to stop it. Kakashi shoot Shibi a look of 'are you fucking kidding me'.
"I hate you, kid," he says finally, and Ren laughs at the statement.
"With the same fierce hatred you felt when you bought us food few months back?" she asks, quirking her eyebrow, and Hana grins in acknowledgement, because she does remember. "Yeah, I think I'll manage that kind of hate just fine, yeah?"
"Oh, seriously, Ren," Hana chimes in. "How could you possibly doubt Ryōken-san here?"
Hibiki is very much stupefied, but this time even Shibi looks curious.
"I hate both of you," Kakashi answers blandly, and then turns to Shibi. "Remind me what pushed me onto agreeing to help this Uchiha brat?"
"Free food, Hatake-san," Shibi says politely, and Hatake Kakashi, one of the strongest brainwashed killing machines this village has, lets out a heavy, pained sigh.
He hates his life so much. It just loves stranding him with overly-emotional Uchiha who are pain in the ass by the sheer default of existing. But unlike Obito, Ren actually does what she can to get stronger. That, he appreciates.
(But, also unlike Obito, she's downright mean. She has every intention of insulting people with her actions and words, and she makes the fact known. It was only yesterday that she made a civilian girl cry. Sure, the wench dared to insult Naruto, but Ren's retaliation was immediate and painful, mentally.
Kakashi found himself silently appreciating the fact. This should be his role – if only he was allowed to interact with Naruto before he graduated! But Ren... Ren should be enough for next five/six or so years. She had to be.)
If he only knew to what extend she planned to become involved in blonde's life. If only.
(If only his hair could get any grayer than it already was.)
...ooo~(x)~ooo...
Training her sharingan was draining as fuck, period. Also, prolonged usage of the creepy eyes™ made her eyes hurt to the very sockets, and her head was spinning. Sure, her vision was the purest HD ever, but the sheer amount of details made her sick. She could count leaves on the tree that was fifty meters away from her, and it was ridiculous. But did it do wonders for her fighting style. She never actually trained fighting with sharingan – she didn't know where to start even, let alone what to do, and fighting in HD, nearly in slow-motion? It was awesome. And holy shit, it helped quite a bit.
"You're better at this than I expected," Kakashi says finally, and Ren looks at him, eyes red and three tomoe spinning. (Three? Weird, Kakashi thought, for someone her age and experience to have fully matured base sharingan, but okay, what gives.) She sat down and took a hold of her head, eyes hazed before red faded to the dullest, most boring black he's ever seen. "Quite admirable that someone like you is actually able of following orders and directions."
"If they're useful, Kachhan, I see nothing wrong with doing what I'm told," she huffs, curling fists and pressing them to her temples. "Shit, I feel like I'm gonna throw up."
"You've never used sharingan much before?" he asks, quirking his eyebrow.
"Actually, only to find things in the morning when it was dark," she shrugs, and this time Kakashi gawks at her. For her to use it for something so trivial- "I actually gave Sasuke quite a scare, honestly, when I forgot to turn it off as I woke him. He tried to strangle me with a pillow!" she barks out a laughter. "I think he'll do well as one of your precious brainwashed child soldiers."
"Did you seriously..." Kakashi hides his face in his hands. "And you just managed two hours of nonstop sharingan training? You have stamina as ridiculous as Guy!"
And, of course, this was the moment that mighty Beast of Konoha heard the call of its sworn rival, and somehow teleported to quite near to where they were with the loudest 'my eternal rival recognizes my youthfulness' and waterworks. Seriously, so much waterworks.
"What the actual fuck," Ren instantly voices what she suspects to be the thoughts of both her and Kakashi. One look into his mismatched eyes is enough of a confirmation. And then, just to keep up appearances, because seriously; "who the fuck are you."
"Me?" Guy asks, pointing his thumb at his chest – clad, of course, in green spandex – and, completely unfazed by her language, beams, and says; "I am Might Guy, the Youthful Beast of Konoha! And who might you be, young lady?"
"Uchiha Ren, yo, and you kinda interrupted quite important training me and-" Kakashi's eyes widened and he shook his head in horror, "-Kacchan here are going through some sharingan basis so I don't die on my chūnin exams in Iwa."
Guy looks at her, then at Kakashi, and Kakashi is looking at her that if looks could kill- Wait, no, this is Ninja Land, if you have proper eyes looks can kill, fuck. So, Kakashi was looking at her as if he wished he had set of killer eyes, that's for sure. And then, Guy bursts out.
"Ah, that's most youthful that you allow yourself to be acquainted with the prime of youth of out flourishing village!"
And then, just like that, Ren gets the most devilish, deliciously evil idea she could possible get where life concerns Kakashi.
"Hey, Guy," she calls to the man, and very much ignores the waterworks that start immediately, and pretends no not to see Kakashi's expression, suddenly horrified again, and asks; "you're a ninja, yeah? What you're good at?"
The mighty Beast of Konoha, the guy to take her beloved monster of a top third character that is Kisame down, is wailing like a child and waterworking so hard it's ridiculous.
"Taijutsu," Kakashi answers for him. "His chakra work is mediocre at its best, so her works physically," he says, hoping that mentioning mediocre chakra work will be enough to scare chakra-oriented Uchiha off. Ho boy, he's up for a nasty surprise, that one. Because instead of shrugging the man off like Kakashi expects her to, Ren's eyes suddenly light up and he knows he's fucked. Like, very much.
"If you focus on nothing but taijutsu, you must be good, aren't you?" she asks, and Guy, for once, shuts up. He looks at her, then beams (it's blinding – like, literally, his teeth fucking shine) and then nods. "Well then, how about you give me a pointer or two after I'm back from the exams? In about two months, so, yeah, but still. Currently I'm relying on taijutsu quite a lot, so an advice or two from someone who essentially specializes in it would do me some good."
Guy's reassumed waterworks are enough to flood Ren's sandals. Thank fuck she always had them custom made so they would have covered toes, otherwise she would really feel like Jesus. Her grandmother was fanatic Christian, so she did know a thing or two about bible – and there was that woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears. And Ren walked on water only earlier today, however sloppily and failing that wasn't.
...ooo~(x)~ooo...
"You're spawn of the devil, I tell you," Kakashi groans once they manage to rid themselves of overly-excited, green menace that is Guy. He looks at her, unimpressed and unamused, but she knows he's annoyed and currently regrets his life decisions hard. "And I hate you."
"Sure, sure, Kacchan. By the way, why are you here? Aren't you an ANBU? When I asked Shibi yesterday, I really didn't expect him to get you the very next day!" she exclaims, because that's something that was bothering her entire day as Kakashi was trying to pound some sharingan knowledge into her. It was working, honestly – the only things she had to remember was to not to overuse it, really.
"I'm on a leave, week long," he says, and Ren nods. True, she did not see him much for last weeks, if at all. She looks at him, expecting the man to elucidate. He looks at her and sighs. "A mission. Got hit. Hokage-sama hooked me off to heal up. I hate hospitals."
Ren laughs and adjusts her hands under her head. They're currently on a hill, watching clouds. Kakashi told her to do that, after sun dimmed a bit, with sharingan, and she would tell him the colors she saw in the clouds. At first she was skeptic, but when she looked up, into a very HD sky, she was rendered breathless for a bit. Because who knew that clouds were fucking fluffy rainbows?!
"Hey, Kachhan, wanna know a secret?" she asks suddenly, and she herself doesn't know why she does so. She feels him shift and look at her as she sits up. "Yes or no? Of course, you can't tell anyone or I'll find you, find out where you live and then plant catnip all over your place. Okay? And that's going to be the least of your troubles."
Kakashi eyes her, because he not only dislikes cats, he's actually allergic to their fur, and knowing Ren she was actually more than capable of turning her threat into reality. But I she threatens him with more, in such childish, innocent, yet somehow serious manner... Kakashi sits up, looks at her and stills. He finds himself unable to breathe, actually.
"Startling, eh?" Ren asks with a smile, and Kakashi just can't stop staring at the shuriken-shaped black lines, swirling lazily on startling, eerie red.
Why nobody told him Ren had fucking Mangekyo Sharingan?!