"I love coming home."
― Freddie Freeman
0
They finally reach Konoha in the late morning, just before noon. Kotetsu and Izumo are at the gate, where they have almost always been since advancing to chūnin. They take one look at Ren—riding a giant blue spider and looking suspiciously not maimed enough for them to go screaming for Hana—and just wave them through, writing something in their papers. Deidara, who up to this point always had to document himself, just blinks at Ren in confusion. She just ruffles his hair in response; both Izumo and Kotetsu had been Genma's kids—he took care of them after the Kyuubi Attack, much like he helped Ren and Sasuke after Itachi's escapades in listening to Danzo without double-checking it with Hiruzen.
(Fun times, that. She hopes Kisame will punch Itachi for her sometime.)
"I wish I could just walk in and out," Deidara muses as Ren jumps off of Cobalt, pats the spider in gratitude, and unsummons her.
"One day, maybe you will," Ren tells him. "But for now you're some random kid-terrorist from an enemy village who had a sudden change of allegiance. Give them a few years, they'll get used to you."
The truth is, Izumo and Kotetsu are rather fond of Deidara, since he is staying with Genma and all that, and often makes the whole crossing the gate process easier for him than it would be for any other person of interest.
It's blatant favoritism, really. And Ren, like the opportunistic asshole she is, soaks it all up.
"Now, can I deal with all of this bureaucracy before school's out?" Ren wonders idly, moving towards the Hokage Tower. The Academy is a kunai's throw away, so getting there quickly won't be a problem, and the mission was a simple assassination that got, uh, 'delayed'. Ren could probably twist the truth well enough anyway.
She just needs to divert Danzō's attention with the summons and Sage Mode, and, after a few days of preparation, send him the documents and the corpse and vanish for a month or something. It's not like he could go after the kids anyway; there are too many people that would start hounding him if he tried anything with any of them.
"I mean, probably," Torune answers her. All they need to do is report their safe (alive, anyway) return, confirm mission completion, grab their pay, and hand in a written report later, and that doesn't take long.
They go together, partly because somewhere along the way Deidara pounced on Ren and clung to her back demanding a ride.
She hears them before she sees them, and even before that, she senses them. It's not hard, since Naruto's aura is a bright beacon and all you need to know where he is, is find the source. And that also isn't hard—it's simply where the densest concentration of chakra is. Naruto can't tone down the energy he releases to save his life, and the Kyuubi doesn't help with that at all.
Naruto collides with her with a wild scream, Sasuke hot on his heels and an exasperated Sakura a bit farther behind them.
"Hey brats," she says as she ruffles their heads.
"When did you get back?" Sasuke asks, grabbing her sleeve. He's grown rather uncomfortable showing affection in public as he got older, but the second they get home she probably wouldn't be able to get him off.
"Literally just now," she tells them. "I only reported back, got my money, and came here."
With company, too—Torune is now talking to Shino and some Aburame kid who looks old enough to have only started the Academy this year. Deidara, on the other hand, looks more than ready to start a spree killing, but that was due to the pack of young girls currently ogling him. Sasuke sends him an apologetic glance, fully understanding and sharing the feeling.
"Sis isn't with you?" Kiba asks once he caught up with them.
"No, I didn't get hurt this time around," Ren tells him. He makes a very sarcastic, prolonged 'mmmhmmmm' sound, very pointedly looking at her chin, where the fresh not-yet-scar is, from the corner of her lip and down, almost reaching her neck. "I didn't get seriously hurt this time around."
It is at this moment that Naruto, still clinging to her, accidentally elbows the healing gash on her hip, and she yelps, moving to clutch at it with a pained expression, barely aware of the babbling apologies coming from her side. Most of the time, it's just sore, and she's gotten used to it, but when hit, it came alive with a pain of a thousand senbon and it is not fun.
"Yeah," Kiba said, the words dripping with sarcasm that his canonical counterpart could only dream of, "you're in really good condition."
Ren shoots him a stink eye, the brat.
"I think maybe you should go visit Senpai in the hospital after all," Sakura, the voice of reason everywhere always in recent times, says.
"I'm fine-" Ren says, or tries to, but Sasuke and Naruto have already grabbed her by a hand each and started dragging her in the general direction of the hospital. Groaning, more for the theatrics than anything, she lets them. She's been doing a good job helping the wound to heal with all the suspicious pastes Takuya-sense gave her, and Hana's medication. Ren didn't think she would ever be let on a mission without a fully stocked medical kit anymore.
Hana, almost done with her shift, just takes one look at Ren and lets out a deep, longsuffering sigh.
"Well, at least this time you've come to me on your own two feet and not keeling over," she says, disappointed but not the least bit surprised. Ren takes off her vest and shirt to reveal a crudely sewn slash starting a bit off her spine and outwards, the first strike of the ROOT agent that would've killed her if she hadn't known it was going to happen. "Okay, how did you get that one. What-"
"How likely are we to be overheard here?" Ren asks, a smooth whisper. Hana stills and looks at her with black eyes so full of emotion. She doesn't bother to hide them in front of Ren, never did.
"What did you get yourself into?" Hana hisses.
"Nothing," Ren shoots back. "It- well, it kinda is my fault. Because I made an oopsie and survived Itachi, and the person who had him murder us all doesn't like the fact that Sasuke isn't the sole survivor—so, really, nothing that I do. Well, giving Naruto a home? Making Sasuke a functional person not susceptible to control and corruption? A big bad no-no for the guy."
"Then, I- What-?"
"I was sent on a mission with one of his brainwashed goons, and he nearly killed me."
"Why are you telling me this?" Hana says, still as softly as before, but now she comes to stand so close they're almost touching.
"Because I will be doing something drastic very soon," Ren tells her quietly. "I will request leave to go to Joren Falls and give Hiruzen all that I've found on the guy. And even if the kids are too big to be touched, even by that guy-"
"You still need someone to keep an eye on them," Hana concludes. "Just in case."
"I'll be asking Genma and Shibi-sensei, too. And Kakashi, if I can get a hold of him through Genma or Gai," Ren runs a hand through her hair. "I just hope nobody dies, but- that fucker actually sent someone with me to try and off me, Hana."
"Who was it?" the medic asks, voice deceptively level and eyes burning with hatred.
Ren sighs, closes her eyes for a moment, and when she opens them again she grabs Hana by the shoulder and leans forward, whisper hidden by her hand. Hana grips Ren's wrist hard, definitely hard enough to bruise, and Ren lets her. It's better than if she were to start screaming and attract unwanted attention.
"The worst part is, I don't think Hiruzen will do much about it. Or rather, I know Hiruzen won't do much about it. He's done worse, in the past. Much, much worse, and all he got was a half-hearted slap on the wrist," Ren says grimly. "And I'm not strong enough to kill him yet."
"Yet?"
"His very existence puts a lot of the people I care about, and myself, in danger. Not to mention the village. He absolutely must die. And I'm not strong enough to kill him."
"He has over fifty years of experience on you," Hana takes note, before pitching her voice lower. "Just- Be careful. I'll do what I can to keep the kids in line, and you- You don't die, you hear me?"
Ren just gives her a cocky and sharp-toothed grin.
"What the fuck happened to your teeth," Hana asks, this time loud and incredulous. Ren laughs, loud and boisterous.
"I panicked, a bit, and my chakra, ah, got out of control. I can't turn them back."
"You're the worst," Hana bemoans, and Ren laughs again. "Oh whatever, show me that gash and stop grinning like an idiot, you'll rip the scab on your chin."
Ren does.
There are many people she knows she can trust in Konoha despite all of its numerous, numerous misgivings, and she loves that. She loves Hana, and Genma, and Shibi-sensei, even Gai, with his constant exuberance, and Kakashi, who's an asshole she doesn't interact with that much (yet). There are problems, of course—Hiruzen and Danzō are two of them, old men with far too much power, one weak-willed and growing senile and the other getting greedier and crueler with each passing day.
She'll deal with him, someday. Or she'll die trying and Sasuke will do him in anyway.
(She'd rather not. She's become the emotional support and trusted adult to one too many kids that could become very, very volatile if she were to be removed from the picture. She doubts Konoha would stand another day if Danzō kills her.
It still hasn't fully recovered after the first Kyuubi attack, and it would not survive a second—especially if this time around the only thing capable of stopping the fox is his host, and coincidentally, the reason he is rampaging in the first place.)
"When does your shift end?" Ren asks as Hana probes at the gash, still held together by Kakuzu's oily-black threads. Hana hums, apparently satisfied with the stitching and the healing progress, and looks back up at her friend.
"You caught me when I was a few minutes from leaving, so, pretty much now," she says. "I've been here since six, and eight hours of healing patients is starting to wear on my muscles, chakra reserves, and nerves."
"Aw hey, didn't the training I put you through make it better?" Ren pouts.
"No," Hana glares at her. "It just makes me better at strong-arming morons into their beds and making them stay there."
"Oh, come on! I'm not that bad!"
"No, you're worse! Though at least you rest when required," Hana says, and then mutters something that sounds suspiciously like 'unlike Kakashi'. He's pretty infamous in the hospital—most high-ranked shinobi are, especially former and current ANBU.
Hana closes everything and drags Ren out into the corridor, where the brats—a whole herd of them, Torune and Deidara included—stood waiting, not really making as much of a ruckus as they probably should. But then, it's only Sasuke, Naruto, Sakura, Kiba, Shino, and the two older kids, and Sakura has been getting more proficient in herding them. At the moment, Deidara is half-telling them what they did during their mission and half-complaining that Torune doesn't let him blow stuff up anymore.
"Brats, are we going home or eating out?" Ren asks, interrupting what would have definitely become yet another rant on why Deidara should be allowed to blow shit up. He squawks indignantly, because he knows exactly what she's doing, as she ruffles his long hair. He's currently wearing them in a braid, with the bangs still hung over one eye. He'd tried with the half-ponytail once, but he saw Ino and backed away from the idea.
The girl is coming along, adapting to the shinobi life, but she is still just a young girl in the end, who giggles at boys, likes pretty dresses, and doesn't think of all the people she'd have to kill and rip their minds out in the future or what uniform would give her a greater chance of surviving a torrent of blades. She'd squealed really high when she saw Deidara in a ponytail like hers, so he quickly abandoned the idea.
"Ramen!" Naruto yells instantly, and everybody groans, because it's exactly what they expected but could he please dial down the decibels?
"You bullied Iruka-sensei into getting you ramen yesterday, you dolt," Sasuke grumbles.
Despite the fact that Naruto isn't all alone this time around, he still gets along with Iruka pretty much in accordance to canon. He often puppy-eyes his teacher into treating him to ramen at Ichiraku's when Ren is out of the village, even though they have a fully stocked fridge and Sasuke doesn't do all that bad in the kitchen.
"Naruto, you shouldn't bully Iruka into buying you food, there's food at home," Ren tells the blond, and he pouts, but it's true. Ren has at least three different people keep an eye on the flat and the fridge when she's away and yes, she's counting Sakura.
"But please?" the blond blinks up at her, eyes wide and glassy.
They go to Ichiraku's, in the end.
When they finally get home, hours later and having blown enough money to make a normal person grab their head in despair, but not enough to actually make Ren concerned about her finances, it's to a yappy, rude, red-eyed fox.
Ren looks at Naruto, and Naruto looks at Ren. The fox looks at them both.
"Ah," Naruto says sheepishly. "I forgot to tell you."
Ren looks back at the fox-sized, fox-shaped, and very much corporeal manifestation of the Kyuubi, and the construct stares back. And then:
"I want Abura-age. Make me some."
"Make some yourself, you flea-ridden menace!"
"I don't have thumbs! And I'm not flea-ridden, you-!"
Sasuke looks at Naruto, unamused, and Naruto looks back ruefully. Meanwhile, Ren grabs the Kyuubi by the scruff and continues to lecture the chakra construct without batting an eye, or an ounce of care that she's holding the mightiest of the Tailed Beasts.
"Um, it… went better than expected?"
Sasuke hides his face in his hands with a groan.
