“The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.”
― Abigail Van Buren
It only takes her five minutes to deeply regret jumping at the kid who’s almost a decade younger than she is. Five minutes of her being angry and Sasuke latching onto her for dear life, and she’s already cursing her stupidity and inability to control her emotions better. Five minutes, and she so desperately wishes she retained her former ability to dull her emotions and listen to reason alone.
But she can’t, apparently. She either lost the ability, or has to re-learn it. Or, most likely, both.
And… Renee was never like her grandmother – and Ren is even further from that, she decides. She is a person capable of admitting her mistakes and acting to fix them, not the one to claim she did nothing wrong. So, after brief consideration, she sets Sasuke on the couch, pats him on the head, and walks back outside, into the garden. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a kid or not, she really should not have jumped on him like that, and is it even fair to blame Uchiha blood? No matter.
“Hey, squirt,” she calls when she sees the boy, sulking by the koi pond. He flinches and looks up at her, arms around his knees. She just sighs and swallows a curse, because this is a small kid and she hates kids, but she sits beside him anyway. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t have gotten mad at you. You couldn’t have known what happened.”
“But evelybody knowsh,” he sniffs, “I heald mama talk about it yeshtelday. That youl clan wash… Uh, what did they call it?”
“Massacred, kid,” Ren sighs, rubbing her temples. Maybe it was just her, but children Renee could get in contact with were at least two times dumber than kids in this world. Konohamaru was three for crying out loud, and perfectly capable of constructing sentences that made actual sense.
“Yesh, mash… Masha- I don’t know how to shay it,” he admits solemnly, and she can’t help a chuckle.
“You’re only three, you’ll learn to pronounce them soon enough.”
“Yay! And… And I’m sholly, too,” he says. “I should know thingsh like thish.”
“Maybe you should,” Ren agrees, “But I shouldn’t have gotten all defensive. Now, how about we go and you say sorry to Sasuke and show us around the house then?”
“Okay!”
Kakashi sighed from his place on the roof. Crisis, thankfully, seemed to diminish itself, and thank gods for that, because if it hadn’t, he would have to go down and consolidate Hokage’s grandson. That wasn’t something he was all too eager to do, really, but then – every child was a nightmare to him.
He could even stand Tenzo and Shisui’s bickering, but then, Shisui was dead, yet another casualty of Uchiha Massacre even before it happened – maybe its catalyst of a sort, and nobody was happy with the outcome. The ANBU was pretty much shaken to the ground, if he was to be honest; because Itachi was a former ANBU, and Shisui was still active one, and there were other Uchiha in it, so they lost quite a bit manpower. And morale.
“What are you thinking about so hard?” Tenzo asks, crouching on the tiles next to him. Kakashi just sighs, and shakes his head.
“Sasuke doesn’t really look like Itachi at all,” he settles for saying instead of any other nonsense he might’ve blurted out. “I hope he doesn’t turn out like him.”
“Yeah, me too,” Tenzo agrees. “But he’s got Ren, and she’s unlikely to let go of him. And I’ve heard that Genma took interest in them.”
“Genma?” Kakashi cocks his brow. “I thought he stopped taking strays after Iruka, honestly. But then, it is Genma, so I shouldn’t be so surprised.”
Tenzo just hums in agreement and leans back on the tiles, relaxing a bit. They’re Leaf’s very best, and they have been assigned to watch over two kids, and that’s less than ideal scenario for them. But then, there’s no guarantee Itachi won’t come back – and even if he doesn’t, there are other things to be wary of.
Third had warned them about Danzo especially, but he really had no need to do so. They both, Tenzo especially, experienced firsthand as to what the war hawk is capable of, and to what to be aware of.
Kakashi was out there, behind the window. Don’t ask her how she knew, she just… Sensed him, somehow. But then, she figured, he wasn’t particularly trying to hide his presence. He was supposed to be there for them, after all, no matter how much (and she could bet it was very much) he disliked his current situation.
But on the other hand, it did make sense. He and Yamato – well, Tenzo, still – were the most capable of stopping Itachi this village had. Partly because they worked with him before, partly because of Kakashi’s sharingan and Yamato’s wood release. But then, Itachi shouldn’t exactly come back; he wasn’t to resurface up until Team 7’s Chunnin Exams, which were about six years or so away.
Currently, she sat in the living room with Sasuke in her lap and Konohamaru on her shoulders, reading them a book, aloud. She knew Sasuke was perfectly capable of reading himself, as he traced the text with his finger as she kept reading any only Knohamaru was actually to be read to, but she found herself surprisingly not minding the fact. She realize that, partly, it was because two kids were giving her their attention and perhaps even affection without wanting anything in return.
It was… Odd. Off. Weird. Nice? Kind of.
Renee was used to people being nice to her only when wanting something, and even then not always, and maybe, somewhere deep down, she was slightly missing the attention she once received freely. Even if it was from two kids.
For whom she was either the only remaining relative or cool older almost-ninja.
Well.
The book she got he hands on was, obviously, The Tale of Gutsy Shinobi. She wasn’t even surprised that Hiruzen had the very first book his student ever wrote in his stash. And honestly, she was absolutely certain he had collection of Icha Icha as well. But Icha Icha wasn’t exactly a thing to read to two kids, had she ever found it.
“There’s a kid named like the protagonist in my class,” Sasuke says just as she turns the page to start the third chapter.
“Oh?” Ren asks with interest even if she knows exactly who is he talking about.
“Yeah,” Sasuke agrees, “he’s loud, and obnoxious, and hopeless, and an idiot.”
“Now, Sasuke that’s not nice,” she scolds him, ruffling his hair slightly with her chin. He just puffs his cheeks in answer, but says nothing, bending his body and burying his face in the crook of her neck.
“Can you keep leading?” Konoahamaru asks from where he’s perched on her shoulder. “I wanna know what’sh neksht! And mama won’t lead it to me becaushe she shaysh I’m too young.”
“Okay, okay, squirt,” Ren sighs theatrically. “Just move to my other shoulder, would you. It’s getting stiff.”
“Okay!”
Honestly, what has she gotten herself into?
First night in Hokae’s Estate is a bit weird. It’s not like Ren has problems adapting r something, especially given they actually have normal bed, but rather that it finally dawns on her and settles in, that she most likely will never be Renee again.
And that… That makes her happy. She perhaps should mourn for who she used to be, but she can’t bring herself to. Renee was a failure, a part of her story that is already written and unchangeable, a part she’d preferably just forget about. She believes that… That she’s been given a chance, no matter how stupid doesn’t it sound or even feel. That she awoke here to start again for a reason, even if just as trivial as to live her life unhindered by people who just knew better.
This world she knows enough to fit in, and will learn enough to adapt to it. For the first time she actually has a chance to forge her own path through nothing, instead of choosing one of (few) options someone else presented to her. She feels free, even if she was responsible for much more than just herself now. She feels as free as she never had, being Renee and living only for herself. Now, there is Sasuke, and what he does in the future will change the world, but she doesn’t feel that it’s dragging her down, or hindering her.
It’s more of a motivation, really. And a dare; what would happen had she actually successfully managed to keep Sasuke’s mind away from Itachi and revenge? If she managed to become the anchor keeping him in the Leaf?
She had no idea, obviously. And every intention to find out.
It helps, too, the fact that she seems completely okay with a child clinging to her side, that is. Even if said child is one of characters she (thinks, she isn’t so sure anymore) dislikes, but he’s warm and that compensates it, maybe. But he clings to her like a monkey, save for the fact that monkeys creep her out and no, this is not a good comparison, but they even share a blanket! It’s not that difficult with how Sasuke latched onto her and refused to let go, instantly falling asleep yet retaining his iron grip on her, and she finds herself slowly lulled to sleep by his steady breathing and warmth.
She wonders, is the way that he act around her some post-traumatic disorder? Or a trauma itself, or a way of coping with it? Is he clinging to her only because she’s the only remnant of his ruined world? She isn’t sure about it, nor about how she exactly feels about that.
Renee Archer was always alone, and never allowed herself to depend on others nor others depend on her. This… This escalated quickly.
Fuck that, she promptly decides as her consciousness slips away into warm nothing. We’ll see what gives, won’t we?
Ren – the original one – used to have a dairy. Used to, because Renee believes diaries are utterly useless, ridiculous waste of time. It doesn’t matter, though, before with it, she can re-learn this world through the eyes of someone who lived in it since the beginning. Through the eyes of former inhabitant of her body, no less.
She sees the diary through Ren’s (original’s) eyes as she dreams, as her body feels lighter than it should. But it’s dreaming; or, revising memories of this body, more like, and she has no use for a body to do that.
(She still marvels at how is this even possible, to have both her and original’s memories, but she figures that, well, ninja magic and other reality-bending anomalies.)
Ren kept her diary hidden away neatly under the floor. She found a mobile plank few years ago, and found it useful ever since. She always kept a small table over it, atop of a woven carpet and nobody ever suspected she had a dairy where she wrote down each and every secret and thought of her. Or did she? That Renee can get into only distinctly. But even if they got into the diary, nobody would really be able to access it; it was chakra-locked, and the paper itself was blank for those without sharingan.
End even for those with it, who didn’t know how to look.
Chakra, though, that was an odd feeling, to be honest. It sparked under her skin, both hot and cold, but not unnerving. Something natural, really, even if she never ever had it before. But, thanks to Ren’s experience, she had it now, packed up with knowledge on how to use it – how to cumulate it to jump on trees, walk up on them and hell, she was pretty damn sure she could even water-walk.
And she had head start of knowing Gōkakyū and Hōsenka. And, she was very pleasant to find in her dreams that her chakra reserves weren’t as pathetic as she would expect a girl to have, no. In fact, her reserves were easily one of the biggest in her class. She could, perhaps, write it off to Uchiha standard training. Can’t have an useless clansmen among the ranks, now could they?
(Distantly, she wonders whether Uchiha didn’t manage to mingle an Uzumaki into their family tree, and said Uzumaki somehow ended up her ancestor. That would very neatly explain her reserves without dwelling onto how body and spirit development affects one’s chakra coils.
And Renee was, first and foremost, person of simplicity and blunt statements.)
When the very next day she states she’s going to Uchiha Compound and they can fucking try to stop her if they will, Sasuke looks pretty much exasperated, somehow hurt and slightly betrayed even. But the bodies should be gone after a week, and they start Academy again this Monday, which is in three days, and she needs the goddamn diary now or else she’ll fall too much behind.
Muscle memory and glimpses are one thing, but solid facts and remarks about the work, she has a gut feeling about it, can save her ass in this world. Unless she wants to have it handed to her on a silver tray, which she doesn’t.
“Hey, squirt, I won’t be there for long,” she informs the boy, trying to pry him off her. “I need my diary, okay?”
“I’m fairly certain it was found by now,” Hound inquires, hands crossed on his chest, and Ren just rolls her eyes. She really adores the guy, but right now she just wants to punch his face in.
(Note to self; train hard enough so one day you actually can.)
“It was in the floor, under singing panel,” she informs him helpfully, and the man looks puzzled. “Every other one creaked. Only the one who could be moved was singing when you stepped on it.”
“What if I just go and get if for you?” Kakashi asks, and it’s almost funny that one of Leaf’s very best, ANBU’s captain no less, is absolutely clueless in how to address a child. If he only knew.
“What if you just give me a piggyback ride there?” she inquires, cocking her eyebrow and crossing her arms on her chest. And he actually gives in, much to her surprise, with a weary, heavy sigh, turning his back to her and dropping onto one knee. Sasuke isn’t very pleased, but for now he has to settle for a blanket. Ren, smug like a cat and very happy, climbs onto the future sensei of her brother (since fucking when?!) and his two misfit friends. She grips his shoulders and gives him an okay, and suddenly the world is a blur and its fucking amazing.
She can’t really jump around like that yet, because damn healing ninja magic was spared on her only to cover the greatest damage and now you’re on your own, thank you very much, so she has one or two more weeks’ worth of lazing around, but jumping around is so cool already.
They reach the compound soon enough, and she knows Kakashi is in a haste because oh god small children let it be over with already why me or however train of his thoughts might be going right now, so she just pinpoints a house she remembers living in for almost twelve years, while he doesn’t remember it at all.
But it’s there, and it’s grim and dull, and, to be frank, she hardly bothers with feeling anything. Instead, she effortlessly navigates straight to Ren’s room, with ANBU in a mask of a hound trailing behind her like a loyal pooch. The room is pretty much like in Ren’s memories, and she knows exactly where to look.
Kakashi moves the table for her, and she rolls the carpet and sets it aside, before gently putting pressure at desks.
Creak, creak, chirp, creak.
She falls down to her knees and gently pries the plank that chirped, ripping it out nearly effortlessly, reaches into dark, cold hole and retrieves something that actually looks very much like a normal book, if rolled and kept together with a ribbon. But that’s it, where secrets of her former life are kept in greater detail.
She puts the plank back in, but that’s all.
“Let’s get out of here,” she tells Kakashi. “I hope I’ll never return here again.”
And if Kakashi sees something flicker through her coals of eyes, he doesn’t say. He knows she just survived the massacre, but that’s… That’s something else. Something he cannot name but maybe, in time, he will know.
(He won’t, never will. In the end, how could he possibly understand how it is to be misplaced, in a body that never wasn’t, nor will truly be, yours? A body that was once somebody else’s?)
This is really good so far 👍
Tftc 🥛🍪