"A person's readiness to date is largely a matter of maturity and environment."
― Dr. Myles Munroe

 

Ren honestly should have expected something like this. Or, at least, accept that it's her own fault for telling Naruto to go and investigate the growling in his head.

As it stands, though, Kurama is a menace, gekkers constantly, and isn't afraid of anything under the moon. Or so Ren had thought, but then Kurama gekkers a tad too loud, making Potato yowl right back with a furious hiss and a flick of an orange-ringed tail. The other two cats also growl in warning, and suddenly Kurama relocates, suspiciously quickly, onto Naruto's shoulders.

Interesting.

She sends the fox a smug look, and he just narrows his eyes at her.

He stops being too annoying, and after a few failed theatrical attempts, he also stops trying to assert his dominance, when Ren fully made him understand that he is here as Naruto's pet, which means he answers to the boy, and the boy answers to her.

And all of this in the span of less than twenty-four hours!

Ren takes her time to finish her report while the brats are at school and then goes to turn it in personally, because she has things to discuss with Hiruzen. Exclusively the summons training and not a peep about the ROOT agent's corpse she would be leaving on his desk in a few days, as a very nasty 'fuck you' present for all the years of his incompetence.

Don't get her wrong, he is a… decent, military leader. But as a totalitarian, authoritarian one, who should be technically overlooking everything, not just the militia… well, he sucks. A lot. As in, he has no fucking clue what he is doing and it shows.

Is that an old people thing? They think they know what's best for everyone and do what they decide without consulting anyone, thus fucking up everyone's lives, then deigning to be surprised at the shit they get back from it? Because Hiruzen does it, and so does Danzō.

(As did Renee Archer's grandmother, and look at her, she successfully alienated half her children and all her grandchildren, even if none were as open about their distaste towards her as Renee. But Renee knew, whenever she visited for Christmas.

Nobody actually wanted to be there, and it was her fault and hers alone.

She deserved that, Ren thought viciously, for ruining everybody's lives.)

It made Ren angry, thinking about all the shit that would've been so much better if someone other than Hiruzen were the Hokage. If Minato lived, or if they'd managed to strongarm Tsunade into returning and taking on the hat.

Hell, throw it at Orochimaru, at this point even he would be better, and Ren is fully aware of all the shit he's done. That's how bad Hiruzen's rule, as experienced firsthand by a citizen who knows that things can be better, is.

Her mental rant is interrupted when she crashes into someone

Ren blinks, rearing back, as the other person curses and moves away, much more gracefully than any civilian would. And the voice is familiar. Ren looks at the unfortunate person she nearly ran into, and sure enough—dark, straight hair, pale skin, feminine face, and those creepy, pale, pupil-less eyes outcreeped only by an activated sharingan.

"What the fuck," she says with a surprised snort. "Haven't seen you in a while, Hibiki."

Hibiki blinks in surprise, and then looks at her and raises an eyebrow.

"Took the words right out of my mouth," he says, much more friendly and definitely less angry than few years back when they were in a genin team together. "Hello, Ren."

Normally, a stuck-up Hyūga would die before addressing her with something other than a distant, polite 'Uchiha-san', so it's good to see that Hibiki didn't necessarily revert to their ways once their team got split when they advanced. He is wearing normal casual clothes, Ren noticed, and no obvious Hyūga emblem in sight. His hair is still long, and in a high ponytail now.

"So, what have you been up to recently?" she asks conversationally, and he smiles and shakes his head. He moves forward, and motions for her to follow, and she does, matching his step. It's kind of nice to talk now, when they're older and that idiotic hostility on Hibiki's part is no more. Hibiki hums and sways to the side a bit before answering.

"I moved out," he says differently. "Out of the compound. Honestly, the farther away from the clan I stay, the better."

"Really?" Ren snaps her head to look at him with something between surprise and pride. "You told the clan to fuck off?"

It is a secret, but a very open one that everyone and their dog is aware of, that Hyūga branch members are treated like shit. Yet another red mark in Hiruzen's report card for not dealing with that blatant disregard of the laws of the Leaf.

Fuck him, and fuck them. Ren should really start investing time in getting Naruto to learn fūinjutsu—the sooner he could rid the world of the Caged Bird Seal, the better. The Clans did not deserve autonomy if they use it to blatantly abuse their members, and Ren is saying that as the current Uchiha Clan Head, however much that was worth nowadays with only two members in the village.

"No, more like… I slunk off and away. I'm just an insignificant branch member, after all, not much talent or anything, so nobody really batted an eye."

"But I heard you've been doing good, actually?" Ren asks.

"Yes—as a weapon specialist. I just don't feel the clan's taijutsu anymore, and I'm not really utilizing the Byakugan the traditional way, so, for the Elders I'm pretty much a waste," Hibiki shrugs. "Fuck the fact that I'm actually doing well as a shinobi, right?"

Hibiki had taken Ren's advice during their chūnin exams to heart, she knows that much. They don't meet much because he, too, has been taking out-of-village missions— though his are mostly deliveries and guard missions, contrary to Ren's obvious preference to search-and-destroy missions, but she's heard, through Hana, the occasional tea-time with Shibi-sensei, and sometimes even Hinata, an odd word or three about Hibiki.

"Not to be hateful or anything, but the Hyūga suck," Ren tells him quietly, and he snorts, and then laughs. She smiles, too. It's good to see that he's much less stuck up and more free in his expressions than before.

"Gods, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually missed you," Hibiki says. "You know—I think I was antagonistic because I envied you."

"For what? The Massacre?"

"Yes. Does that make me sound like an asshole? You were alone, free to do whatever you wanted, no Elders, and no clan rules to follow unless you felt like it-"

"Honestly?" Ren says. "It's tragic what happened, but if I lived in a timeline they didn't die in, I'd probably have left the clan a long time ago," she tells him honestly, because it's the truth. Uchiha powers are a nice starter pack in the Naruto world, and Ren is certainly grateful to have been born with the ability to awaken the Sharingan and a slightly better skillset than most, but the family it came with?

Yeah, no, she'd rather be a civilian-born nobody than interact with them, honestly.

"I kind of suspected," he hums.

"Fun fact: I awakened my Sharingan because I got really mad at our late clan head," Ren tells him, and Hibiki blinks at her in shock. It's not common information: neither how to activate the Sharingan, nor how an individual got it, and frankly, Ren is glad she awakened hers through anger rather than anguish. "Yes, really. His death, and those of the Elders? About those, I'm unrepentantly glad. Fuck them, and not in a fun way."

"I can relate so much to that," Hibiki sighs, and then says, so quiet that Ren has to strain to hear it: "how many times have I wished death on those old farts and Hiashi-sama, I can't even count anymore. They know nothing about the outside world, or really life even! Reality, what art thou? An old fart's greatest fear."

Ren laughs, because fuck, this is so relatable. Had Itachi not gone on his stupid-induced murder spree, she would be in much the same situation and probably gone crazy for it. Frankly, she might have ended up committing the Uchiha Massacre herself. So in a way, Itachi did her a favor, no matter how much she hates him.

"You drink?" she asks him as they're idly walking through Konoha. Ren might have put off writing her report, but she used to be a police officer before, and she's written them for her previous missions, too, so it really doesn't take her long to write. Honestly, it isn't even ten in the morning yet.

"It's too early to drink," Hibiki mutters.

"Then how about lunch?" she tries again, and Hibiki looks at her.

"Are you, like, asking me out or something?"

Ren shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe? Do you want to be asked out, or just have a nice platonic meal with a former teammate? I can do either one."

"Huh. You know what? I'd like to be asked out."

"It's a date, then," Ren says, and then stops for a moment as realization hits her like a runaway shopping cart. "I… have never been on a date before."

"W-wait, really? You? Never dated before? With your face? What the fuck?"

"Yeah," she agrees. "It's weird. I guess I never had time, between rearing all the kids I didn't know I adopted and all the murders I committed for money and glory for this mess of a country."

And wow, isn't her work just wrong when she puts it like that?

"Do you want me to pay? I have been on date before," Hibiki proposes, but Ren just shakes her head.

"Nah, I asked you out so I'll be the one paying. Besides, I'm just back from a mission, I have money to spare."

(Renee Archer used to date. Sometimes a lot, sometimes sporadically, depending what was happening in her life. Sometimes her relationships lasted for months, sometimes they didn't make it through the first date, and she was pretty sure she dated as many women as she dated men, in the end.)

Uchiha Ren has not been on a date before, ever. It had just slipped her mind, because with memories of both lives, she kind of forgets she hadn't. Forgets that it was during a past life, in a world that wasn't anymore, not for her. Uchiha Ren has no experience dating. (But that was only if one discounted her past life, and she didn't.)

And Hibiki is cute enough, being a Hyūga and all. Not someone she'd choose for a long-term relationship, and he understands as much, but that's okay. They are both sixteen, and Hibiki is only now really trying out this dating thing, and Ren knows she could live a full, fulfilling life without a long-term significant other. She's done so before.

Doesn't mean she would turn a person down on principle if she somehow stumbled upon 'the one', but she isn't actively looking for, or hoping to find them.

---

She and Hibiki don't have all that much in common, but talking to him is nice enough. They both have entertaining life stories to tell, and listen to each other, although Ren's interest in blades, cooking, and general bloodshed does not align with Hibiki's bookworm tendencies (and wasn't that a surprise to learn), or his newly-discovered love for tea of all kinds. Ren is much more of a coffee person herself. But regardless, they spend the next few hours in pleasant company, with an agreement to meet again.

"This isn't going to work out," Hibiki tells her just as they're about to part, and Ren shrugs.

"I know. So why not have fun before we have to inevitably get back to just being friends again?" she asks, and he looks like he's genuinely considering it.

"I mean, why not?" he asks with a shrug.

"I'm going to my summons' dimension to train in a week," she tells him. "Is that enough?"

"Yeah, a week works. Thanks, Ren," Hibiki smiles, and seriously, why are all Hyūga so pretty? How is that fair? "To be honest, I had a pretty nasty break-up a few days ago, so, uh. Yeah."

"Oh? Why?"

"She's a civilian who doesn't understand shinobi or clan politics," he tells her. "It went about as well as you'd expect."

"Ah. Sometimes it works out, you know," Ren tells him sagely. "Sometimes it doesn't. In the end, it all boils down to whether you're compatible or not."

"You're sure you've never dated before?"

"Not in this life, no."

"Not in- The fuck?"

"Look, maybe I lived before and dated then, who the fuck knows, ninja magic and all," Ren shrugs at him, and Hibiki laughs, blissfully unaware that she's only half-joking.

"To be honest, I was convinced you've at least dated Hana," he tells her.

"What? No! Eewwww, that's like dating my own sister!" Ren shivers. "Perish the thought. I love Hana, I'm not denying that, but I would never see her as a romantic partner, and she would never see me that way, either!"

Hibiki laughs, and she punches him in the shoulder. The young, bitter boy antagonizing her every step of the way is gone, and, really, this Hibiki she can be friends with.