Rin: A Whim of Fate

~3~3~3~3~

I'm dying. At least I think I am, it's hard to tell when my body's gone so numb. I can barely feel anything, not from the rain pouring down on me, not from the ground as I harshly tumble down onto it, and thankfully not from the hole Kakashi's Chidori made in my chest. Oh god Kakashi, is he okay? I hope reinforcements get there on time, there is no way he could stand a chance against all those Kiri-nin.

Is this how Obito felt? Trapped in his own mind as he hoped against hope that we could make it out of there without him? If so I can only pray that his death was as painless as mine.

Even with his sacrifice, I still ended up useless in the end, at the very least my death will help prevent more deaths down the line.

Obito, I guess I'm going to meet you again, sooner than I wanted to but-

Do You Want to Live?

…What the hell?

Another voice, there's another voice in my head. Oh kami, there's another voice in my head. Am I hallucinating?

A Hallucination? Use Whatever Scrap of Intellect You Possess Fleshling, Surely You Can Do Better Than That.

Okay so apparently hallucinations are out of the question now. Deep guttural voice, definitely not human, appears as I'm about to die, with what feels like demonic chakra. Excluding a Shinigami…

As If I Would Stoop So Low As To Become The Reaper Of Fleshlings.

Then that could only leave one other option.

The Sanbi I assume?

Congratulations Fleshling, You Managed To Put Your Brain Cells to Proper Use.

You know, I didn't think the tailed beasts were capable of speech.

Leave It To You Humans To Have The Arrogance To Presume That Beings So Much Greater Than Yourselves Are Incapable Of Something As Simple As The Formation Of Words.

To be fair when we are taught about your kind our teachers emphasized the "beast" part of your existence.

I Would Say That Is Unexpected, However That Would Be Lying. The Ignorance of Your Species Aside, Are You Going To Answer My Query Or Not Tiny One?

Forgive me if your presence alone was distracting me too much from paying attention to that question.

I Asked Whether Or Not You Wished To Live.

Well of course I do, I don't want to, well, I won't leave Kakashi alone. But why do you care? Don't the Biju reform on their own when their hosts die? You are made of pure, if extremely demonic, chakra after all.

Oh Believe Me Fleshling, I Would Be More Than Delighted To Not Be Trapped In A Horrid Bag of Meat Like You. However The Process Of Reforming Myself After Having My Entire Being Dispersed Should You Die Is Not The Most Pleasant Experience. Nor Is It One I Am Eager To Have Mind You.

I guess I can see how that might be more trouble than it'll be worth. But this does seem a bit too good to be true, what's the catch?

Child, Surely You Know The Life Of A Jinchuuriki Is A Harsh One. If This The Road You Wish To Walk Upon I Cannot Stop You. But I Warn You It Is An Unkind One, Many Of Your Predecessors Have Gone Mad From It.

That doesn't matter, all that matters is that I come back home, back to Kakashi, back to Sensei, to my family… Back to Obito.

Is This Courage Or Is This Mere Human Stupidity? Perhaps Time Will Tell Me. Regardless It Seems You Are Not As Dull Of A Host As I First Assumed.

So how are we going to do this? It's not like I can just waltz around with a hand sized hole in my heart.

Girl Of The Leaves, Just Who Do You Presume You Are Speaking To? I Am Isobu, I Am The Three-Tailed Great Turtle, I Am The Grand Beast That The Oceans Bow Beneath and the Tides Cower From. Healing The Meager Flesh of My Vessel Is Child's Play.

... Well at least we aren't going to be suffering from a lack of confidence here. So what am I supposed to do?

Nothing. Well, Nothing Except Prepare Yourself.

Prepare myself? Why should I-

Because This Will Hurt. A Lot.

And with those unsympathetic words, my painless death suddenly shifted to burning, excruciating life.

Obito: A Destiny Unbroken

~4~4~4~4~

Rin.

I charge at them, the ground cracks beneath my feet, strength I never would have imagined having months before flowing in my legs. I ignore it.

Rin.

"Do not mock the Bloody Mist!"

The first Kiri-nin draws his sword, the rain blasts against me as the wind howls in my ears. I reach out my hand, palm touching the ninja before he could blink underneath his mask. Tendrils of wood bursts out of him, impaling the two who stood next to him. The blood splatters across my covered face. I ignore it.

Rin.

I snap the wood off my hand and continue my charge, two of the ninja's corpses fall lifelessly. I pushed forward, the third one stumbles onto the ground, and a branch grows from the inside of my sleeve. I break it off as I stand over him, pointing it down towards the shocked ninja.

"Die!"

I hear the cry from above me, I can sense the three ninja soaring downwards, blades drawn. I ignore them.

Rin.

My eye rumbles, a feeling I can't describe courses through it. The Kiri-nin's blades stab into me, but there is no pain, there is no feeling. All there is, is the cry of agony from the ninja I was going to stab, their swords passing through me and into him. I ignore them.

Rin.

"I can't hit him!" I hear one of them say. I dismiss it, I leap into the air, spinning and kicking them as I do so. I can feel the bones break apart as my feet crashes into their bodies. Their necks snap, and the ground crumbles at the impact of their corpses. Once again, I ignore them.

Rin.

They talk amongst themselves, the words jumble together as they reach my ears.

"At least grab the girl!"

"Don't hand her corpse over to the enemy!"

The sentence catches my attention, the way they refer to her as if they were talking about an object rather than a person rekindles my rage, and once again I find myself running forwards before I know it. They swing their swords at me, each blow aimed at a vital point of my body. But once again I feel nothing, and the weapons merely pass through me as I run pass them.

"There's no mistake!" I hear one yell out to his comrades. "This guy passes right through you!"

I ignore him.

RIN.

Two of them run to her body, the first is merely a few feet away. I launch the spike of wood in my hand at him, it twirls through the air, plowing into him. My hands move automatically, making a hand seal and channeling chakra by no conscious effort on my part. The spike I threw at him bursts, four tendrils spewing out of his torso, blood spilling from his corpse. I ignore him.

RIN.

The second one barely has a chance to turn his head before my fist collides with his head. A roar rings through the air the force of his body crashing into the ground makes a crater.

Is that really me?

I drive my knee up, breaking his ribs as he is tossed into the air. It takes a second for me to realize that my hand reached up to clutch him by his hair.

Am I really the one doing this?

I swing my knee forward, driving it into his face, shattering the mask he wore. Shards of teeth and speckles of saliva fly into the air as his gasping mouth and broken nose weep blood.

Another roar, this time I feel it leaving my own throat as I drop him, once again a body breaks into the earth.

This one I don't ignore.

RIN. RIN. RIN. RIN.

My fists move on their own. Swinging, pounding, crushing, I feel his body giving way, blood spills like a river as my empowered limbs gouge out what is left of him. By the time I finish, a few seconds at most, what laid underneath me could not be recognized as human anymore. I could feel the eyes of the Kiri-nin upon me, too struck with fear to try and attack me.

"What is he?"

The question makes me stir from my position over the bloody pulp I made. I turn my head towards them. They step back. I stand up, my body swaying as I straighten. They recoil again.

I don't ignore them.

A torrent of wood bursts from my right side, I feel the tendrils coursing, piecing, impaling, defiling every single last one of them. Torsos, legs, arms, skulls, wrists, spines, lungs, feet, spleens. The wooden instruments that feel like an extension of myself tear into them, bisecting them, dissecting them, killing them with brutality I never knew lingered inside me.

Their screams are a horrid cacophony that is sickeningly pleasant to my ears. The red rain falling on me disturbs me just as much as I am comforted by its presence. The tendrils come together, twirling in a twisted yet somehow beautiful spiral around me, the moon reflecting red in my eye as the blood seeps into the hole of my mask.

"I get it…"

The words leave my mouth, I feel numb as they pass through my lips. All I can do is stare down at her.

"I'm…"

I feel a wetness slide down my face. It takes a moment to realize what it is; tears.

"I'm…"

I could feel Guruguru unfolding himself from my head, the bloody raindrops drenching my hair. The stench of my harvest filling my being, and I can't even bring myself to feel revolted by it.

"I'm in Hell."

I drop the body of the Kiri-nin I didn't realize I held, and break myself off of the twisted tree I created. And I slowly walk, making ripples in the pool of blood as I do so, towards her body.

The words Madara spoke to me echo within my mind. They seemed like utter nonsense when I first heard them. But now- Now I couldn't help but feel like they rang true.

I pause, briefly looking down at the small figure laying below me.

Kakashi…

I ignore him. And continue to walk to her, I notice my feet phasing through him as I walk, but I ignore that as well.

Zetsu's annoying voice comes forth, echoing in my mind. A world of dreams? Ridiculous. But with this… With this can it not be said that reality is just as ridiculous?

I stop, my body crouching as I look upon her corpse.

Rin.

I reach down to touch her. I draw back as my fingers go through her neck. The emptiness fills me as I am once again reminded that her warmth was forever gone, that her hands would never wrap around mines ever again.

I try again, this time concentrating on the power I now know came from the depths of the eye within my right socket. This time my hand doesn't go pass her, and all it does is confirm what I dreaded. No warmth. No pulse. No life.

I move to grab her, to hold her in my arms like I always wanted to, my limbs began to wrap around her and I-

"Hell? You believe that this is hell boy. How amusing."

I stumble backwards as a voice that is definitely not Rin's spills from her lips. I feel Guruguru suddenly wrapping back around my head protectively, his connection to my body making me feel the sudden anxiety coursing through him. My nerves flare as the harsh, burning chakra flowed through me, as if just the words from whatever inhabited her body now poisoned the world just by being spoken.

She... it, stands up, moving around shakily as if it was not used to moving in such a small body. Rin's right eye was closed, as it stared at me, the left eye burning a bright red, moving back in forth wildly as if unused to the small field of view, until it stopped suddenly. The eye slowly moving to focus on me, staring with such indifference that it was almost as if it was staring right through me.

The gaping hole in Rin's body stopped bleeding, the same monstrous red glowing along the circumference of the wound.

"What, no, who are you?" I asked, not quite sure why I changed the question mid-sentence.

The thing widened Rin's left eye, as though it was somehow surprised by the simple question.

"Who am I? How interesting, normally when I make my chakra known the first thing you fleshlings do is treat me as a monstrosity. No one has ever asked my name before…"

The thing smiles mockingly with Rin's mouth. My eye narrows at the condescending body gesture, one so alien to her appearance that my body shook from irritation.

"Well I suppose I can indulge you boy. I am Isobu, though you may know me better as the third "Tailed Beast" as you humans like to refer to us."

"The Sanbi…" I mumble out the words as the thing treating her corpse like a puppet tilted her head around, surveying the background as if admiring my handiwork.

"I must say even Shukaku would be impressed by this little slaughter you did. While I am not particularly fond of such a grotesque way of killing; I admit it is artful in a way. And watching it done was quite something, I suppose being able to see from such a lower viewpoint does have some appeal."

"I don't care about that!" I yelled out, my arm swinging outward to emphasize my point. "What happened to Rin?!"

"Rin?" It raised her eyebrow, as though the name was completely foreign to it. Its open eye widened as it made an "aha!" gesture. "Oh, you refer to my vessel. It is doing fine. Somewhat dead, but well nonetheless."

"Your… vessel?" My mind was whirling, my head hurt as I looked at Rin and yet not Rin at the same time.

"Yes my vessel. It is damaged but it is nothing I cannot fix." The thing smirked again. "So don't worry about your friend, I am sure she will be exactly how she was before. I guarantee it."

The twisted, mocking laughter that followed echoed in my ears, and I clenched my fist as my mind was no longer able to see the thing before me as Rin any longer.

Madara lifted his head, an expectant gleam in his eye as I walked forward back into the cave I had just broken out of mere hours before hand.

"So have you seen the truth of this so called reality?" He asks, as Guruguru unfolds himself, saying the word reality as if it were a curse.

"Yes…" I whisper, and I look him in the eyes, my Sharingan blazing. "This world has nothing left for me."

He smiles.

"Well then, shall we begin…" The old man smiles twists into one of unmistakable malice. "Madara?"

And with those words, spoken from the decaying lips of the ancient Uchiha, Obito died his second death. And I, Uchiha Madara, was all that was left.

This was the only road left for me to choose, and I will follow it.

I will follow it until the end I wish for begins.

Kakashi: A Hope Still Burning

~7~7~7~7~

I'm alive. My chest aches, my eye, no, Obito's eye feels like it's about to pop in its socket, and my hand feels like it's been shoved in a furnace and left to bake. But there's no mistake, I am still alive. I open my eyes.

Blood. Lots and lots of blood.

A massacre, that's the only thing that can describe the scene before me. The corpses of the Kiri ninjas litter the earth, gaping wounds leaving their bodies as a river's worth of the foul liquid seep into the earth. I have no idea what kind of weapon could have left such grievous wounds on them. And I wasn't sure I even wanted to know.

I scan the area, Obito's eye still pounding in my skull forcing me to stare out with only my right eye open, searching for any clue on who might have saved me. Nothing.

No sign of whoever killed all these men, whoever it was must have been as strong as Sensei. Whoever it was…

I stare at one corpse, an entire half of his face is caved, his torso roughly torn diagonally, and his spinal column visibly sticking out of the gory mess.

Whoever it was must have been a monster.

I shake my head. There's no time to speculate on whoever did this. I turn my head, a lone body, practically untouched by the ocean of blood, filled my view. I run towards it.

"Rin!"

The cry leaves my throat unconsciously, the amount of worry in it surprising even me. Was I really that pathetic before? Was I so devoid of empathy for my comrades that even the slightest bit of concern in my own voice seems foreign?

I stop my introspection as I get close to her, my arms move to lift her up, and I feel my eyes start to water at her unmoving form.

I almost began to sob, until I felt something, it was small, and you could barely tell it was there unless you had senses honed like mine. But without a doubt I felt it.

A pulse.

My eyes widen and I lift her up so I can fully examine her. The hole, the horrible wound that Rin forced me to tear into her body. The fatal blow from my Chidori, was gone. If it were not for the circle torn out of her shirt I would have thought I imagined stabbing her. The wound simply vanished as if it were never there in the first place.

She had a pulse. She was breathing. She was alive.

"Rin…" I mumble the name, it was miracle, a miracle I had no way of explaining and one I simply didn't care enough to even try to. All that mattered was that my friend, was still alive.

Her eyes open slightly, her mouth opens and closes, as if she were trying to regain control of her mouth. And in a barely coherent manner she whispers.

"Kakashi?"

I say nothing, I simply hug her, wrapping my arms around her as the tears silently trail down my face.

I kept my promise Obito, I have no idea how, but I managed to keep my promise. Rin is alive, and I will make sure to continue to make sure she stays that way. No more, not a single comrade is going to die on my watch, not after you.

This is the path you helped me choose Obito, and I know if you were here you would have chosen this road too.

Author's Note: So this is my first story in the Naruto universe, I am both extremely excited, and yet also somewhat fearful considering this has a much larger audience pool than the other two stories I have written. The "nail" that is metaphorically placed in this story is that Isobu decided to help Rin survive on what basically amounts to a whim. This is the main divergence point, and what will inevitably cause some chaos later on.

Now before you guys start stabbing me with my own pencil, I am well aware that having Rin survive would seemingly prevent Obito's Start of Darkness, and yet I still have him going down the road to becoming Tobi. There are two reasons for this, as Terry Pratchet said, "The universe doesn't much care if you step on a butterfly. There are plenty more butterflies." Rin's survival doesn't completely guarantee that Obito doesn't go to the dark side. Obito, like many other antagonists in the Naruto verse, was disillusioned with the system, despising the corrupt world he used to admire. While Rin's death was a catalyst, it was pretty much down to his hatred of the world that caused her death that led to him taking up Madara's ideals. Secondly, I think that the Mangekyō Sharingan played a big role in Obito's downfall, the eye evolution seems to inherently make the user loose a lot of logical thinking. Even Itachi, the sanest Uchiha so far, had some iffy logic after he gained the Mangekyō.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I loved writing it, this is my first story written in the first-person (Dramatic irony for the win!), and it will be an interesting experience to say the least. Review if you feel like it, but don't let yourself feel obligated to make one, I appreciate a follow or a favoriite much more than a review. But if you find some mistakes or have an issue with the story in general, have a go at the review and let me know. Constructive criticism is the bitter-fruit a writer must swallow to become better, and I would love it if some of you are willing to force feed me.