I don't know when I'll update this series. It will be when I have time, energy, and time, all off which are spread pretty thin these days. I'm trying to clear out my schedule, free up some more time for random things I want to try, and some of that time is definitely going towards "creating" things. Whether those things are a replica of Tony Stark's arc reactor to light up my desk with, a video game that has been brewing in my head for the past year, or chapters in this story, depends on my mood. But I will say this: right now, I am interested in continuing this story a little longer. I'm trying to keep the narrative les convoluted than last time, which shouldn't be too hard as I had trouble figuring out where the story was going after I reread it myself -_-
Anyways, here is the long overdue next chapter of Konoha's Blazing Eyes (Although you may have read it before. Kinda. But now it's not written like a dumpsterfire).Chapter 1: Branches
They hadn't noticed that the rock ninja was still alive. They hadn't bothered to check his pulse when Rin was tied down right in front of them. This one, stupid mistake almost cost them their lives as he used the his jutsu to bring the ceiling down on them, before making his escape. The trio ran as fast as they could, trying to reach the exit. However, still weak from the battle and losing his eye, Kakashi momentarily blacked out just when they were about to leave the cave, which was all that was needed for the young jonin to stumble and fall to the ground.
"Kakashi!" Obito yelled as loud as he could, but his friend was not getting up quick enough. Obito instantly turned around to go grab his friend. He pulled him up by the arm and pushed him outside of the cave right as an enormous boulder broke off above him.
Now, usually, fate is not kind to people. We all know how the story was supposed to play out. But, what if history took a left turn? What if that boulder had dislodged just one meter to the side?
Obito let out a shriek as the enormous boulder came crashing down right behind him, sealing of the rest of the cave. Sweat was dripping of his forehead as he slowly turned around, realizing how lucky he had just been. If he had been just a teeny bit slower, he would have died on the spot. He dropped himself on the ground, finally taking a break after all that had happened.
"Please never make me do that again, Kakashi" Obito said as a faint smile appeared on his face. Kakashi tried to respond, but the pain in his eye returned in full force. He winced as he put his hand over the bandages that were slowly being seeped in blood.
"Let me see" said Rin as she took off the bandages. The wound was deep, but hadn't blistered yet. "I'll fix you up a bit, hold still for a moment".
Kakashi could feel the pain lessen, and managed to calm himself down. Regaining his composure he turned to Obito. "How long are you gonna take a nap there? The enemy won't wait on us forever". Obito turned towards him and scowled "Really? After all that, you're just back to bossing me around?" he grunted as he stood up. Kakashi also pulled himself up. "Keep it for when we're home. For now, we don't know if the guy that tried to bury us is still there".
Obito nodded, and jumped up the wall until he reached the top. From there, he carefully peered over the rocks. The rock ninja was sitting on the edge of the clearing, probably recovering from the battle as well. Obito turned towards his teammates. "He's sitting a little further away. I think he believes we died in the collapse, because he isn't keeping watch".
"Good" said Kakashi. "That makes this all the easier. Get down here, I have a plan".
Obito burst out of the rubble, landing safely on top. The rock ninja, startled by the surviving chunin, turned around in shock and instantly pulled his kunai. Obito quickly closed the distance between the two of them despite the rock ninja hurling pillars of earth at him. With his sharingan in full force, he nimbly dodged between them without slowing down. Obito also pulled his kunai, and the two ninja were now locked in a swift battle of razor-sharp precision.
Despite being less experienced, thanks in no small part to the sharingan, Obito managed to keep up with his enemy. The rock ninja, after having regained his composure, thought he would have no problem taking on one crazed chunin that had just watched his friends die. What he didn't expect however, was a small barrage of fireballs coming out of the forest as Rin laid down suppressive fire. The rock ninja turned so that he faced the both of them, and considered attempting to flee as he knew he couldn't win against two, possibly three assailants at the same time. Before he made his decision, however, he suddenly heard a chirping sound coming from behind him. He glanced from Rin to Obito, then turned around to see Kakashi running at him, kunai in hand. He raised his own weapon to protect him, when suddenly…
In the blink of an eye, the image of Kakashi warped, revealing that he wasn't holding a kunai. Rather, Kakashi's hand was coated in concentrated lightning. As a last "shit!" ran through his head, the rock ninja felt the kunai being forced out of his hand as Kakashi pierced his chest. Kakashi pulled out his hand, and the man dropped flat on the ground, for good this time.
Obito let out a sigh of relief. "So I did it? It actually worked?" he exclaimed with excitement. "Yeah, you did. Good work, Obito" Kakashi replied.
"It's good Kakashi remembered that the sharingan can perform simple genjutsu. We really didn't want any more of his friends showing up" Rin said as she gave both of the boys a proud smile. Kakashi gave a silent nod, while Obito grinned in agreement.
"Yeah, wouldn't want to fight any ninja worth their salt, that's for sure" the low, grumpy voice came from behind them. The three of them turned around, gazing at the 7 rock ninja that had surrounded them. It was the middle one, a big man with a black beard, that spoke up. "Damn that Kakko, couldn't hold down the camp for half an hour. You three will pay for this!" he said, pulling his weapon from behind his back.
"Bring it on!" said Kakashi as he pulled out his kunai.
"You really think you can win, kid? We've got you outnumbered 7 to 3!" the big guy said gleefully.
"Count again. There's 6 of you and 4 of us" Kakashi replied.
"What are you talking ab-" the man started before he was quickly silenced by a hit to the neck. In a burst of yellow light, Minato had appeared behind him, catching the remaining 6 ninja by surprise.
"So. Are we doing this the hard way? Or the easy way?" Minato said. The rock ninja answered by dropping their weapons and raising their hands. For none of them were foolish enough to mess with the yellow flash.
"Try to hold still for a moment, I need to properly clean the wound" Rin said as Kakashi winced in pain. They were at the hospital where Kakashi had checked in. After they had returned to the village, the team had been put on hold for a while so Kakashi could recover. It was busy, as hospitals tend to be during times of war. The lady at the front had pointed them to a room, and said that they would send a doctor. Rin asked her if she could help out, as she was a medical ninja in training. The lady said that the best she could do was treat her friend herself and free the room, as they already didn't have enough space to go around, and they would have to leave by evening. So Rin took it upon herself to fix up Kakashi. As she pressed the wet cloth onto Kakashi's eye again, he could feel a burning pain worse that any fire jutsu he had ever been hit with. "Alright, that looks a lot better. I could only give you first aid treatment before, so I'm sorry to make you go through that again".
"Nevermind that" said Kakashi. "This is not the first time I'm hurt. And I still have my good eye, so I'll be fine".
"You really shouldn't rush this" the girl snapped back "wait until you've completely recovered!"
"We have a war to win, Rin" Kakashi retorted.
"You can't fight in a war when you're dead, which is what you're going to be if you're not paying attention to your surroundings. You'll have to get used to living with one eye. You have no depth perception, and you're basically blind on the left".
Kakashi scowled at her words. He knew this wasn't going to be easy, but he didn't like sitting around here while his comrades might be dying either. He had to get back as soon as possible.
"Just make sure you take care of yourself first, okay? If you can't do that, you definitely can' take care of the rest of the world" Rin said as she removed the cloth of his face. She placed her hand over the wound. Green light started emanating from it, and Kakashi's wound slowly started to close, turning from red to a darker shade of pink. "How's this?" she asked.
"A lot better, thank you"
Rin sighed as she got up and cleaned up her stuff. "I'm going to check on Obito to see if he wasn't hurt anywhere. See you later, okay?"
"Yeah, see you later" Kakashi said. After a brief pause, he added "Rin?"
She looked up. "Yeah? What is it?".
"You worry too much. I'm gonna be just fine".
"If you say so" she replied. She picked up her bags, turned around, and gave him a final goodbye as she went looking for the others. Kakashi sat silently in the room for a while, thinking over the past few days. He thought he was so far ahead, but it was him lagging behind that almost got his friend killed. Something he had never considered before.
"Just fine" he muttered.
Obito had feared it would be like this. After meeting with the Hokage, Rin immediately forced Kakashi to check into the hospital. Desperately, he had told her he would go with them, but Rin said that she could handle it and that he should handle things with sensei. Which of course meant writing a mission report. And Obito. Hated. Mission reports. They were boring, dull, and completely useless if you asked him. And, largely due to his own writing capabilities, most of his reports indeed were pretty useless if you read through them (which nobody actually did, ever).
But here he was, writing a stupid document in his room. Something he hadn't done since his academy days. Usually because Rin or Kakashi would take care of mission reports, well aware of the quality Obito usually turned in. Today was an exception, and hopefully it would stay an exception.
"Alright, halfway done. Describe any complications that arose during the mission" Obito read aloud. He thought back at it all. How Rin got captured. How Kakashi lost his eye. How he awakened the sharingan, and how he and Kakashi rescued Rin together. How he almost died. A lot had happened when he thought back on it, but it all seemed to go by in a flash. For the first time, he thought the world wouldn't be the same when the war was over. Things were more complicated. He was more complicated. He looked at his paper, surprised at how well the report had come along. He decided he would take a little break, jumped out of his chair, and grabbed a book from the back of his shelf. It was one of his deepest secrets. Nobody would ever know that this idiot who never paid attention and always failed his tests… Actually liked reading. A lot.
"What are you reading? Definitely not our status report, I see!" Rin said as she peeked over the cover. Obito threw the book across the room, which threw a vase off the table in the living room, breaking it on the wooden floor. Obito turned to Rin, flustered. "Why? How? When did you get here?" he blurted out, trying to regain his composure. Rin was still looking in the direction in which he threw the book. She turned to Obito, who's face was red with embarrassment. "To see if you needed any help. Which you probably do, seeing as you weren't doing much of anything". Rin looked around the room. She noted how it was funny how clean it all was, seeing as how chaotic Obito tended to be. "You take surprisingly good care of this place" she said.
Obito looked around slowly. Of course he did. He didn't want to leave to much out of place. This place was the only thing he had that his parents left him. He wanted to know what if felt like to grow up in their house, at the very least, since he never knew them growing up.
"Hey, even I try my best sometimes!" he replied snarkily.
"Let's see if you tried your best with the report. Is this it?"
"Yeah. It's about halfway done, I guess" Obito said. Rin quickly skimmed through it as Obito watched her silently. He suddenly noticed he was staring when she started speaking again.
"Hey, this isn't half bad. Good job, Obito!" Rin said with a smile on her face. Obito had always hated writing reports. But this time, it hadn't been so bad. If things hadn't gone the way they did, she might have been kidnapped. Or worse, killed. And he almost died too.
But she was still here. And so was he.