Warnings: Underage unexplicit sex, character death, depression
By the time Rin's thirteen and she's exhausted. She's running on fumes and every move is mechanical. This isn't what she wanted, this isn't what she planned.
In her mind's eye she's still nine. Her and Obito are in training fields that the academy used and it's about midnight. The stars twinkle and her hair mixes with the dirt but she doesn't care. She can smell the grass and the dirt, can hear a few squirrels and she just feels Obito by her. She's gushing, and Obito is watching her in awe, she just found her soulmate. Obito's avidly listening to her talk about his eyes and Obito draws them. While she lays spread on her back Obito sits up and his knees are bent with paper between his chest and thighs. His sharingan is activated to remember exactly what her soulmate looks like.
In real life the sun is rising but it doesn't hold the same magical glow it did barely a few months ago. She's fully dressed and her clothes feel heavy on her shoulders. Rin just wants to lay back down but instead she stares at her wall, she hears the hum of electricity and the buzz of early morning Konoha. Her vision blurs from staring at the wall for so long and she tries to blink the dryness out of her eyes but it doesn't help.
It's when the door opens and the blur of white steps in she realizes she's been crying again. Nothing really happened, not really but here she is crying and she hates it. The tears are thick and fall one after another. The tears are ice cold and it makes her want to cry more that she is crying.
She's so tired and when Kakashi winds an arm over her shoulders she feels a burst of energy from pure hate that makes her want to chuck him out of the window. Make him hurt, because how dare he?
How dare the one who spurned Obito turn around now and mourn him? How dare he hate Obito only to now break down for him? Rin's noticed the way Kakashi is ruining himself, throwing himself into mission after mission but Rin can't feel the slightest bit of empathy. She want's to sneer at him, turn her nose up in disgust every time Asuma tries to get him to stay in the village for a while.
He visits Obito's grave every day and Rin hates it. He doesn't have the right to tell Obito about his day, if Obito were ali- if Obito were listening he would exclaim in his bright voice "Bakakashi, who cares?" maybe Obito and her would privately snicker at his woes.
Back then, back with Team seven- the proper Team seven she would have scolded Obito for acting like that towards Kakashi, remind him that he was acting jealous. Now though she thinks she sees everything that Obito did.
Rin waits for Kakashi to leave before she brings him red and orange Asiatic Lilies, she thinks Obito might've liked them. She always buys them fresh from the Yamanaka shop while Kakashi just goes empty handed (and empty hearted, Rin thinks. Kakashi likes the idea of Obito, he didn't really like Obito).
But when she turns her head to him, sees her eyes in his she can't help but soften. Kakashi is a beautiful blend of Obito and her, the destructive clash of a young genius who reflects back everyone's worst traits. That, Rin knows, is probably why the old chunnin hate him. Kakashi is both what they failed to do and also what they are living with now. The genius and the broken, Rin and Obito.
For a moment, she forgives him. Because Obito forgave him in the end and Rin will continue on his legacy.
Kakashi tries to do the same, but in the end he is but a poor imitation, only a bleached version of Obito. If Obito lived on it was in Rin and anyone could tell. It was Rin who visited Obito's grandmother's grave. Rin who brought orange flowers to his grave. Rin who laughs loud (it's fake, just like Obito's).
There is a whisper that breaks her out of her thoughts. "Rin," Kakashi breaths, a stark contrast to Obito's bright grin. "Rin come on, sensei is waiting for us," he nudges her and moves to help her up.
The thought of him touching her makes Rin want to throw up. Normally when she is about to throw up she begins to salivate and her mouth gets this taste. Right now she's not feeling any of that, but there is such an intense passion in her that screams 'don't you dare touch me!' That she knows if his skin even brushes her she will puke. Before he gets too close she pushes up roughly from the bed. Her bed creaks and she shuffles quickly around him on the wooden floors before he can touch her.
Outside the sun begins to burn the sky and she knows they're both late (just like Obito).
Across her wall pictures spread along the wall but the rest of the room holds a minimalist theme that most shinobi hold. She hates looking at her wall of pictures because there is a practically visible line where Obito just stops.
She doesn't want to think about this anymore.
"Come on, we don't want to be late do we? Sensei's probably been waiting for us," Rin reminds them both and begins to usher Kakashi towards the door of her room. They break into the hallway and turn into the sitting room of her house where Rin's mother is and they both acknowledge her with a goodbye. Obito would have asked about Rin's father, Rin would have hugged her. Instead it's Rin gripping Kakashi's hand and trying not to cry and scream.
Neither her mother or Kakashi mention that she skipped breakfast, Rin hardly notices herself.
A week later finds Rin coming back from a mission with most of the kids in her graduating class. Asuma is telling Gai bad puns while Gai sings praise of Asuma's youth. Kurenai both laughs into her hand and pretends she doesn't know them.
Rin walks slowly and looks at all of them and feels frozen. Her legs are weighed down and her stomach cramps like she is shivering.
This all feels so wrong, how they move on. Rin's skin is itching and she feels wrong. There is something but she's not sure what but she feels like she needs to jump around and shake it off.
The dirt scuffles around her sandals and the bright buildings that surround her buzz with life. There are children laughing and Rin realizes that the future is coming. There is talk of the war ending, has been there since Kanabi Bridge (damn that).
Rin is frozen, time isn't. She wants to die.
Rin is fifteen and is so numb.
Obito was a fire, he empathized and felt every emotion on the spectrum.
Rin is ice, she is apathetic and just wants to feel again.
She sees Kakashi's eyes too, how dead he looks and if she feels nothing else, she feels that way too. His grey and black eyes stare at her and she can see herself in every emotion that he hides.
She thinks maybe Kakashi was broken before this, maybe she was too.
When they were young and in Team Seven soulmates was not an easy subject. Obito broke his watch, Kakashi never wore his, neither did sensei and Rin's was an enemy. Basically, no one in the team wore theirs.
The first time it comes up is when Jiraiya-sensei comes by during their monthly ramen. He slides into a seat by them while Obito slurps his loudly.
Sensei had exclaimed joyously clapped him on the back and introduced them all in a loud fashion. It was about Obito's third bowl when Jiraiya mentions to sensei "I see you're not wearing your watch, I bet Kushina-chan isn't too happy about that," then laughed heartily. She could practically feel Obito tense beside her, he didn't choke but he did slowly set down his bowl from where it had hovered in front of his lips. Before he was inhaling the brothy mixture, could probably smell the food but now the bowl lay untouched and his hands clenched together in his lap.
Rin wished she knew what he was thinking, after all Obito had never mentioned exactly how he broke his watch. In fact he avoided ever talking about it beyond his initial plea for Rin to help him fix it. It had been a desperate look in his eyes and it almost scared Rin, especially after getting the impression that he was the type who didn't look too into the watches. It was a good balance because Rin did look too into watches. That day that he finally told Rin about his watch after a week of steady avoidance he had looked so small and Rin had automatically agreed without asking questions.
Now it seemed too late to ask questions, and it was obvious that the wound still hadn't closed. Whatever broke Obito's watch had almost broken Obito.
It was Kakashi that really startled her though. She had taken Kakashi for the same type as Obito- the kind who didn't particularly care about soul timers and soulmates. Behind that mask (and not the physical one) there was a flicker of something and it was in the way that his eyes looked like they might water. The way his fingers clutched his stool and the way that while before he had tried to look interested in their conversation, he looked completely spaced out now.
She wondered, maybe if he too had broken his watch. She was curious- why did he look so, well, heartbroken? Was he born without a watch?
"I hadn't even noticed," Sensei had promised, though to whom Rin couldn't tell. He blushed and fumbled with his words while trying to get them to believe him "it's just a habit from my fieldwork," he locked eyes with Rin and gave her a look that begged for forgiveness. "Minato-sensei," she had giggled at the time, trying to play off her unease at the boys next to her "it's fine, although maybe not to Kushina-san."
It wasn't until she collapsed in her bed that night that Rin herself had cried.
Jiraiya had been in the village because Iwagakure had declared war the week before and all jounin had been on recall. Coincidentally Rin had stopped wearing her watch the week before.
Rin's trying, been trying so hard and for so long.
Trying to pretend she was born without a watch. Trying not to flinch everytime she sees an Iwa-nin. Trying to be fine. Trying, trying, trying.
She hasn't succeeded yet. It's when her, Kakashi and some young gennin Itachi come back from a raid that her emotions decide to rear their heads.
Frustration, fear, it's all just a general feeling of wrongness, and even when it's there it still feels like it's not. Rin is fifteen, the other girls she knows are all over emotional and yet even when she feels like scratching her own skin off there it's only an underlying feeling. Another feeling smothers whatever passion is there and it's apathy. It's all a smile that can't quite reach her eyes even though she knows that she is happy, or a tear that refuses to fall.
When Itachi bids them goodbye with a promise of a report tomorrow and a shaken look ('that child killed somebody,' Rin thinks but really doesn't care enough to be horrified, this is reality) her and Kakashi turn into a small twenty four hour restaurant. They are popular in the shinobi district for all the insomniacs and late night missions such as theirs.
It's when they spend too much money on a dinner that they barely pick at, that Rin gets the overwhelming urge to feel something. It's not until her and Kakashi finish their silent dinner and stumble out into the empty streets that Rin pulls him. Her tug is light and questioning, giving him plenty of room to pull away, but when he doesn't her lips smash his.
Rin's kiss is desperate, turning into what was initially a question into a demand. All the passion that she pours into the kiss just feels like another mask.
Simultaneously they yank apart, they jump back like they're lips have been burned. Both Kakashi and Rin stand along the edge of the building, panting in the shadows from the glow of the restaurant. Rin's fingers ghost over her lips while Kakashi stutters into his hand "Rin, Rin what-" and tries to make sense of the mess that they just made.
Kakashi's eyes bore into her, and waits for an answer to a question he's too stunned to compose. Faintly Kakashi knows that the others in his age group are starting to get feelings for each other. Girls giggle over crushes, hoping and crushing on those they hope are their soulmates. Still, they're teammates and shinobi moreover. Kakashi knows they aren't soulmates, and Kakashi can't fathom why Rin would initiate something between them.
When Rin looks up Kakashi wants to flinch at her eyes. He knows that her fire went out with Obito, but her mask has fallen. Quietly Rin whispers "One night Kakashi," and Kakashi understands.
The girls who giggle on the street have never seen the trouble that soul timers can bring, not like Rin and Kakashi have. Together they are teammates but they are also shinobi, sex is just another form of manipulation.
Kakashi wants to hesitate but can't, he knows Rin's drive for this. She wants a distraction and Kakashi wants it too. So he finds his composure and nods sharply once. The relief in Rin's eyes is startling, he hasn't seen anyone so open about their feelings since Obito. If it were any other time he might even scold her for the display.
They are already going to hell, tonight they'll bathe in their sins.
When Rin wakes up the sheets scratch at her skin. She feels her hair fall around her and makes a note to cut it short again. Its warm behind her eyelids. The sun is poking at her eyes but not burning them so the curtains must be closed.
The bed's too big. And suddenly it all comes crashing back. By the time she's shot up Rin is almost hyperventilating. Almost because her mind is still thinking 'Shinobi rule number twenty-seven: A shinobi must never show weakness'. All of last night already broke that rule.
Rin isn't quite sure where she is, a glance at the wallpaper and she remembers stumbling in with Kakashi at about 2:30 the night before.
Kakashi.
The pillow beside her holds an empty space, Rin is alone but her lack of clothes reminds her of exactly what happened the night before. Even in all this mess the only thing Rin can think of is 'I hope this doesn't get awkward'.
She throw the comforter aside and hugs the sheet to her chest as she slides her legs off the bed. Her feet settle on the ground and Rin has to pull the sheet for it to become completely off the bed. Rin stumbles slightly in the sheet as she approaches the window, almost feeling as though she is beginning a walk of shame.
A quick yank to the flowered curtains and Rin is recoiling, the burst of sunlight leaves her sight white. When she blinks out the black spots swimming in her vision Rin turns back to the window. A glance outside reveals the second story to a hotel only a block away from the restaurant Rin remembers leaving the night before.
She turns on her heel away from the window and begins to search for her clothes.
No one stares, no one notices the bruise hidden behind her sleeves. Her parents don't question her late return.
That room feels like another lifetime. It's memories are frozen in time and Rin wishes to shatter them.
Her and Kakashi had met with sensei a few days later and nothing changed.
Rin is almost sixteen
Her life has been a series of gray emotions for the past three years. The war has ended two years ago.
Rin is almost sixteen.
She thinks she might be almost sixteen forever.
Rin has been here before, seperated from her teammates, hidden in a cave. Rin's been weak like this before. This time Rin isn't sure who is coming to save her. She could always count on Obito to come for her, because he always would. It didn't even matter how late he was, Obito would always come.
Rin remembers being in that cave. She remembers the realization that her soulmate was an enemy, remembers the shattering of her childhood in perfect clarity. She was barely cognizant but Rin can recall sitting in misery when it happened. At the time she hadn't seen Obito at first, she could just feel him. She remembers being saved, and Kakashi rushing in, how her boys had fought that day.
This time she would give anything to feel Obito again. She aches so much.
The cave she has been stuffed in is dark but cavernous, this time there are more than two shinobi. Her skin rubs along the ground and seals hold her down. She is sore and has tried shifting for a more comfortable position but was threatened with a beating. Something feels wrong too. Rin's always been attuned to chakra, it's why she became a medic. Maybe it's why she could always sense Obito.
Right now she feels like she could burst. It feels like she has been in a dark room then shoved into the light. Her mind is tired and there is pressure between her eyes but her body wants to jump around. While her eyes drift shut her legs twitch with movement.
There's a commotion. She wants to snap, yell with her parched throat. These men have done things that Rin can't even remember (And what could be so bad that she would suppress it? Rin can't even consider) now they have the nerve to be yelling? Her migraine is so bad that Rin can't even look for an escape and the grunts are not helping. Oh.
Someone has come for her. It makes her a little sick that she couldn't sense Obito anymore. It has been three years but it feels like a betrayal to him that she had forgotten his presence.
Rin is crying now and she isn't sure why. Maybe it's the pain, it aches and throbs and burns her whole body. But still, while pain courses through her body to the point where she can't even think it is more of a dull pain. To think that she would cry over it doesn't really make sense, while it hurts worse than any torture she's been through thus far- she doesn't really feel like crying.
It doesn't matter too much, once Obito has killed her captors she knows what will happen. She will cling to his chest, whisper "I thought you were dead you baka, I thought you had left me, why did you leave," tears would stain his chest but he would reassure her. Rin could arrive home, and the Konoha she has been living in will be a home again. She can fix Kakashi.
Rin stumbles over branches chasing a shock of white hair.
Kakashi came to save her.
Kakashi came to save her.
Rin knows she was delirious in pain but the thought that she had honestly believed Obito had come, well, it makes her feel like she was doused in cold water. Her stomach contracts at the thought.
Her life has been a kaleidoscope of grays since Obito left and she has been wishing for the taint of orange. She was really just delirious.
Her hand clutches tighter to Kakashi's her hands are clammy but he doesn't seem to mind. They had been on a mission with five others, but it seems like only Kakashi came. Rin wonders at that.
Rin's thoughts prod her, it feels like maybe she had forgotten an important date. Even though she and Kakashi are running from Kirikagure she's still out of it enough to detach herself. Running becomes just holding onto Kakashi while her mind wanders to try and solve the puzzle of what's wrong. Perhaps it's the missing memory? Rin begins to try and solve that.
Rin's finally fully cognizant again. Her delirious mind has been rejuvenated with a multitude of soldier pills and pain.
They are surrounded but Kakashi is desperate, he keeps fighting. Rin can see in his eyes that he isn't going to stop fighting. He looks so young.
Rin wonders if the watch clutching his wrist holds the answers to the vulnerability in his eyes.
He's not going to listen, Rin knows this. Still Isobu is rumbling in her and Rin isn't stupid. Her life isn't worth all of Konoha.
Surprisingly death is easy. Kakashi's hand feels cold, or maybe it's her heart that is cold. Maybe it's the world. Kakashi's eyes look so young.
Suddenly there is warmth. A sun is blazing. Rin can feel him. Obito.
When Rin was nine she met her soulmate.
He was an enemy.
Rin was nine and sobbed in her mother's arms. Broken pieces of shattered ice fell down her cheeks while her mother cooed to her. Whispered promises that "you'll meet again," had been meant to comfort her but Rin wasn't she had wanted to.
Rin is almost sixteen.
She is burning, and dying.
They've met again.
Rin smiles.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of it's characters
A/N: Did you guys like my excessive use of line breaks and italics? I was trying to use a lot at the end for a fragmented/staccato effect but I don't think that really worked. By the way guys this is a sort of series so what on the last story what I meant by 'this is the end' I meant of that story. Also my timeline is kind of guesstimated so yeah... Sorry for taking so long to update I kind of lost motivation- for like everything. Please review!