_Eternal_
Chapter 1

The sun lazily lowers itself below the western horizon, marking the switch between day and night and allowed the moon to shine brightly in the dark, star infested sky. Storm clouds slowly stretched across the night sky, obscuring the serene beams of light from the moon and darkening the forest below in more shadows. The forest itself was silent in fear of the ominous feeling approaching in terrified silence.

From within the forest was a safe house; inside the shelter, a portly, rich-looking man complaining loudly to two of his employees about the bad weather. The man was a pessimistic, pig-like politician who enjoyed complaining very much, and it was a cold day on the sun when he could find everything to his liking.

The duo in front of the pig-like man was unlucky to suffer his wrath. They were twins working in the mercenary business since they became wanted criminals from their homeland. The only reason they hadn't killed the loud man was because he was protecting them from being found… and the cash. They heard the surrounding forest become quiet, and urged their employer to do the same, but he wouldn't listen. Cree, the female twin, noticed two human-like forms outside the window. She tried to get her brother's attention, but one the shadows struck when she turned away. Cree was dead before she hit the ground. Her twin, Drae, heard the noise and saw his sister's dead body, falling to the floor. Enraged, Drae attacked the figure in the dark robes with all the skill he had, while his employer ran away to hide. He never noticed his enemy had a partner watching from the shadows.

Drae made a quick decision; knowing he was going to lose either way, and started the one jutsu move he was able to learn, dodging sharp objects and limbs as he formed the hand signs. Drae focused his energy, and shot lightning from his hands. It hit his foe, and Drae thought his sister was avenged. He turned away to find his employer when a popping noise was heard, and he looked back to see a log in the place of his enemy. "Ninja!" he thought as he leapt back, dodging a lethal attack from Bird, and saw the symbol on the mask, "Konoha! Shit!" Drae thought as he began the hand signs for the only jutsu he known again. Drae countered an attack from Bird with a kick to the stomach, and heard a resounding crack; a rib was broken. Having finished the hand signs, Drae fired his attack at a vulnerable Bird.

Bird, or more specifically Sparrow, thought he was the luckiest rookie of the Ninja Corporation on that day. He had been chosen to become a member of the ANBU Black-Ops under a ninja that was legendary across the Elemental Nations, Puma. This mission would be his last test before his probation period was over and he could officially be considered a member of ANBU; Puma will be staying on the sideline, watching critically, and would be the one to decide if he would stay in the elite group of ninja.

Sparrow believed the mission to be going smoothly when he eliminated one of the two threats with ease. The remaining threat began a jutsu hand sign that he recognized to be for lightning, so he used a substitution jutsu to dodge it. He waited for the best moment to strike, but Sparrow waited too long, and paid the price of his mistake with a broken rib and an opening to the lightning jutsu that was powered with more chakra than the previous, to the point of lethality.

The masked man thought about the woman he loved as he watched the lightning come closer, and regretted not confessing his love to her. The jutsu was almost upon him when he thought calmly, accepting that he was going to die, of a song that was about living every moment to the fullest because it might be the last. "How true," Sparrow thought. The ninja had completely forgotten his mentor was near until he felt Puma's chakra flare for a jutsu, he felt the familiar tug of the substitution jutsu with horror, and turned to see Puma in his place.

Puma looked at Sparrow with a smile that was apologetic for leaving him and assuring him that everything would be alright at the same time; her Puma mask lay on the ground by Sparrow's feet. It had been the first and last time Sparrow saw his mentor's face.

The lightning blast engulfed her body in yellow light before it dissipated and ashes were all that was left of Puma, Konoha's Nightmare Ninja. Sparrow stared at Puma's ashes, expecting another attack from the remaining threat, but it didn't come. He shifted his attention to where the attack originated from, and saw the threat dead, killed by a stab to his heart. Red blood blossomed around the corpse. Sparrow walked away with his raging emotions under lock and key. He would return later to collect his mentor's ashes. After all, the ninja had a mission to complete.

And Sparrow was going hunting for a whiny pig.

Sparrow stood at attention before the Third Hokage, his target's head that had been sealed in a scroll was lying on the paper-laden desk between them. They were in the Hokage's office, and the wrinkled fire shadow seemed to come to a conclusion when he finished the mission report. "I'll cut to the chase," the man who had been alive for almost 5 decades said. "Without Puma's report, you can't be inducted into the ANBU Black-Ops. Please leave your mask here." There was a pause, and then Hiruzen Sarutobi continued in a lighter tone, "Luckily for you, we have an opening in teaching some academy graduates." Sparrow nodded in acceptance and removed his mask to reveal a tanned man in his mid-twenties. The man's name was Teuchi Ichiraku, and the man's moniker was Knock-Out Ninja. Oddly enough, that back in all the Bingo Books remained to have no information or photographs that identify who the ninja was. Teuchi was handed three folders, each one belonging to his new students. Teuchi bowed again, this time in thanks, and left.

A thought stopped him from opening the door. "When will the memorial service—"

"Soon, today at sunset; at the memorial stone." the Hokage answered his cut-off question.

Satisfied, Teuchi left the round room with the old man inside with a bow. He found a little girl crying in the room that he entered. The girl had brown hair, hazel eyes, and creamy colored skin. She was scrawny and looked to be around nine years old. Teuchi knelt in front of the girl and ruffled her short brown hair in an assuring way. "What's wrong?" he asked, in a soft, concerned voice.

She jumped, a look of surprise on her tear-stained face as she realized that she wasn't alone. Hastily, the girl silenced her sobs, and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. "Nothing." She said with a small, forced smile.

Teuchi removed his hand to look around. "Where are your parents?" That was obviously the wrong thing to say, because the girl started to cry.

"Do-don't have any pa-parents." She said between (now smaller) sobs. "I o-o-only had ne-ne~san!" The little girl looked so vulnerable with her fists rubbing her eyes. Teuchi felt guilty to see anyone in this state, but that feeling changed when he saw her force herself to calm; he felt bitter. Teuchi knew the girl was at least trained to be a ninja when she locked her raging emotions, and wondered if the current war was getting so bad to rob the next generation of their childhood. "But she's gone. She's dead; Hokage~jiji just told me she died protecting an ally, that that was how she wanted to go." The girl in black (mourning) clothes whispered to herself.

Teuchi felt his stomach drop, but didn't let it show. "What's your name? Mine's Teuchi, but you can call me Oji~san." He hoped and hoped this little girl wasn't related to his sempai, that this little girl, this orphan, didn't lose her only sister because of his mistake.

"Rin" The girl looked up for the first time at Teuchi, showing her full face. Teuchi felt his breath hitch, inwardly berating himself for being so emotional, but he could see the similarities between them. The girl, Rin -he reminded himself-, had different coloring, but the shapes of her eyes, nose, and lips were the same. Teuchi idly wondered what the purple patches on her cheeks were. "Rin Yuube."

The door leading to the Hokage's office opened, revealing the Hokage holding a stack of papers Teuchi recognized as the same ones the aged man was working on while he was giving his mission report. The papers were given to a teary Rin, and her hand was held by Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage. The two began to leave, Teuchi watching them go, when Sarutobi looked back. "Would you like to join us, Teuchi?"

Rin sighed as she flopped onto the comfortable bed with exhaustion. In her opinion, that was one of the most stereotypical funerals she had ever been to, and reminded herself to tell-off the old Hokage for giving her previous life such a gloomy ending. Then again, she couldn't say much, considering the name she chose for herself meant "cold night."

The girl looked up at the ceiling of the bedroom she would be staying at for the night, and covered her face partially with the back of her hand. "Sometimes," Rin mumbled to herself in a sad tone. She remembered how painful that lightning jutsu was, how long it took to heal in comparison to her other injuries, and she had avoided most of that attack. "It sucks being unable to die." The girl thought for a few moments then barked a laugh. "Yeah. Me, Ryoko Makiguchi. Me, Rin Yuube. Me, the immortal." Rin let out another bark-like laugh. "I've been alive before Konoha was founded, and I'll pro'bly be here long after the Village Hidden in the Leaves crumbles to dust."

She sat up, tired of the emotional roller coaster she was riding, and looked out the open window of her temporary bedroom. Deciding she wanted to take a walk to sooth herself, she jumped through the window, and began to make her way at a leisurely pace to nowhere in particular with a satchel by her side.

Rin began to relax as she walked, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery Konoha always displayed around her.

The lights always amazed the immortal. Rin was walking down one the main streets in the shopping district, and the electric powered fluorescent lights in so many colors and patterns were new to her compared to those around her who grew old around the technology. Rin wasn't always Rin, or Ryoko, before that she had been many people, and the farthest one back in time she could remember had been a farmer's daughter, Chiyo Fujiwara. Even two lifetimes ago, there was nowhere near this type of advanced technology.

A string of disturbances began to make its way towards the walking Rin, made of many screeches and crashes, being led by a tabby cat. As the feline approached, she saw a hiding spot, and took it. The cat pounced into the bag slung around Rin's body just before a group of Gennin exploded from the crowd of people. They saw Rin, and asked her if she had seen the cat they were chasing. With an amused tone, Rin spoke. "Sorry, you just missed her." She smiled with her eyes closed, and when she opened them, she pointed to an ally between two stores. "She went through there it that's any help." The Gennin thanked her and rushed through the space between the two stores, hoping to catch the creature soon.

"They're gone, you know." Rin said with the same amused tone to the cat in her bag when she could hear their chaos making on the next street. The feline's head poked out the opening of the satchel. "You're Tora, right?" Rin asked, having heard the Gennin before hollering the name when searching for the cat. She jumped out and nodded at her before turning to leave. "Hey! If you want, you can stay with me for a while."

The cat stopped, considering the offer. "I'll give you some fish I have for my dinner tonight." Tora jumped onto Rin's shoulder, purring as she rubbed her face against the immortals. Rin laughed. "I guess that's a yes." Rin left the crowded market to find her way back to her temporary room in the Hokage Tower, courtesy of Hiruzen Sarutobi (they had an act to put on to avoid suspicion), happy to have some company for the night.

Hiruzen had finished assigning missions, the last one from the Fire Daimyo's wife to capture Tora, her cat. Those Gennin would be out all night, poor things.

The old man decided to visit his mentor and friend, now Rin Yuube. He thought back to when he didn't know anything about the girl who was meant to be his teammate, aside from the fact that the girl's parents didn't like her (if naming her Shi Genzai, "sin of death" was anything to go by), and she was depressed most of the time. He didn't learn her secret of being immortal until he became the Third Hokage and a woman he didn't know revealed herself as Shi, someone he believed had died, and explained how she was more than just one person.

The aged Hokage had a hard time wrapping his mind around the concept, but with time he came to understand at least a part of it. With his understanding, Rin gave him advice and guidance in his role of Hokage when he started out just like the first and second until he could do it on his own without a problem rearing its ugly head. Before he could continue, Hiruzen found himself at the door to the room which he had given to Rin that afternoon. The old man had offered the room to Rin because it would look like he was caring for a deceased ninja's relative; it was an act, after all.

The man knocked on the door, only to find the room empty. Rin probably needed some air to relax, he guessed. Hiruzen knew from previous experience that Rin (and every of her other lives) could put up with the daily chores of the indoor ninja life, but not for long. The immortal would grow restless inside buildings; it was in her nature. When she was raised, the immortal had told him, she had grown up outdoors for the majority of the farthest life she could recall. The immortal had lived as a farmer. She would not speak of anything else that happened in that life, and Hiruzen didn't push her.

A creaking noise signaled the window opening, and Rin hopped through easily, Tora still purring into her shoulder.

Somehow, it didn't surprise him.

Three days later, Rin walked into a classroom with Tora on her shoulder. It was the day to meet her new squad in that classroom. The room was normal for learning, and someone inside, waiting. The boy was wearing a cloth mask to cover most of his face and had gravity defying silver hair. Rin knew this boy to be one of her new teammates, Kakashi Hatake, son of the deceased White Fang of Konoha. The boy didn't look one for socializing, if Rin were to guess.

The immortal sat down, and placed her satchel next to her while the feline nuzzled her neck. She pet the cat as she unsealed a leather-bound book from the fabric in her bag, and began to draw. Tora quickly became bored, and decided to sleep on the windowsill. She went unnoticed by everyone that day (excluding Rin).

It was another ten minutes before their teacher observed the man: blond hair, angled blue eyes, Jounin vest; check, check, and check. The man was Minato Namikaze without a doubt. "Hello Kakashi, Rin." He leaned against the wall in a relaxed position when his new students replied with simple greetings. He had probably already been briefed on having three students instead of the two he was first told a few days ago.

They continued to wait long past the original meeting time, the third student had yet to show. In a burst on noise, the door slid open with a bang, and a boy rushed into the classroom, panting. "Sorry I'm late, my clock was broken."

The Team Minato tradition began.

The rest of the day was spent with Minato testing his Gennin to see their limits, and understanding what to teach them to help them survive the world of ninja.

When the sun began to set, Minato had them sit while he talked. "Tomorrow, we'll have our first mission, so sleep well tonight. Dismissed."

Before anyone could leave, Rin spoke up. "Um, Sensei? I won't be able to go on that mission tomorrow. I have a lot of stuff to do." It was a vague statement that kept everyone from leaving.

"What will you be busy with that you can't join us on a mission?" Minato asked, wondering what could be so important. The same question was parallel in her male teammates' minds.

Rin looked surprised, as if she expected them to know already. "I have to move to a different house. The landlord has given me until tomorrow to get my stuff out before everything gets thrown away. I still need to find a place to move into, but that's for tonight." The girl smiled.

"We could help you move, it could be fun." Minato offered, but Rin shook her head, and walked off.

The next morning, Team Minato (without Rin) had been charged with capturing Tora, but they couldn't find the feline anywhere. They checked all of the training grounds, the shopping district in its entirety, the Hokage Tower, the residential district, and every back ally in the village. SO WHERE WAS THAT CAT?

Tora was sleeping peacefully on a windowsill to bask in the morning sunlight. Around her were numerous bookshelves that held books to the brim, the bed against the wall and next to the slumbering cat was empty and made, and the walls and any vertical surface were a collage with artwork ranging from elegant paintings to hurried sketches, all of which held a hint of beauty that individualized every sheaf from the rest. Yet, the ceiling was truly awe inspiring. It arched upward to the center of the room in perfect black, only interrupted by glowing stars that -if one looked closely enough- were carefully engraved seals to absorb energy from the surrounding nature to expend light.

The cat yawned and stretched, but could not fall back into the land of dreams. She yawned again before she jumped off the windowsill, and stretched her spine once more. Tora then trotted down the stairs, looking at the pictures layered upon themselves on any vertical surface large enough, all of them independently similar. She crossed the hall into a large room that had the den, dining room, and kitchen separated with full bookshelves.

The kitchen was very impersonal compared with the rest of the rest of the house and modern with counter top that could be used on both sides facing towards the rest of the room. The dining area was on the opposite end of the rectangular room, with the area's walls replaced with large panes of glass to view the garden in the front yard, and the table lowered to sit on the cushions, which were embedded in the floor around the short table and seals stitched carefully with sparkly gold thread into the scarlet fabric to make a beautiful design. Lastly, the den was the buffer for the dining area and the kitchen, and was a maze of bookshelves with the center being a worn chair next to a window.

Tora went into the kitchen and began to meow softly, begging for food. "Alright, I know, here's your meal." A hand placed a bowl of cooked tuna down before the royal cat, and was about to pet said feline before a knock from the door echoed into the house. A sigh was heard, and the woman stood up and walked to the door to answer it. "Hello, wha-"

Minato, who was beginning to get annoyed at this mission, pointed out the Hokage Mountain hadn't been searched yet to his students. They jumped there just after the blond finished his phrase.

Tora wasn't inside the mountain, but the teacher did find the Root's main base (completely by accident: Hey, someone dropped money! Woah, where'd that tunnel come from? Oh! This is the Root's base? Heh... Whoopse?), not that it mattered because the cat hadn't been found.

But on top of the mountain hidden between the hair of the previous Hokage, oddly enough, was a house covered in a strong genjutsu with an iron gate attached to a stone perimeter and bamboo over it to prevent any peepers and a well-kept garden. The three males investigated, thinking the cat may be there. Yet, they didn't expect to see…

"Rin?"

The team had talked, and Rin explained how she met the feline and how it became fond of her. They had eventually decided to tour the girl's house (with many drinks and snacks consumed beforehand).

"Wow!" Obito exclaimed, standing in the middle of her large bedroom looking at all the art. "This is amazing, Rin!"

Unlike Kakashi and Minato, Obito (who wasn't as dense as he appeared) was an artist, and was able to pick up things the other two missed. Like the fact that all of the differently individual art he had seen since he had entered were created by the same person; the drawing Rin was fiddling with when he entered the previous day held the same characteristics as the artwork in that house. Rin had created all of that; that was what amazed Obito.

"This is very clever, Rin." Minato had said.

He was a master of seals, the art of fuuinjutsu, but he was only talented with ink and a brush. The things he saw in the furnishings were created with needle and thread! As he had sat on the scarlet cushions, his eye was caught by something sparkling next to the hand he was leaning against. It was golden thread woven through the fabric to make seals; already, he could identify the fortification seal and purge seal. When he entered his student's bedroom, he was floored. A converter seal to transition nature's chakra directly into light? And it hadn't overloaded from the chakra's potency? Minato wanted to talk to (and perhaps learn from) the person who had the ingenuity to create such seals. The creativity of the seals was what impressed Minato.

Kakashi enjoyed reading, always had. So the collection of bookshelves and what it held was interesting to him. When he had been alone, the silver haired child took one of the leather-bound books and checked its contents. What he saw was an ancient language he had only seen before in a history presentation back in the academy. The ink and paper were not old enough to be from that time, yet no one had been able to decipher that language. He looked at many more, and found the books were written by the same hand but in different languages that are from different time periods. The questions about who wrote those books confused him.

They didn't talk about what they found in the house. With an invitation to come back, the males of Team Minato left (with Tora) to complete their mission. Little did they know the moment Tora found a way to escape, she would run to Rin's house. Oh the irony.

The next time Team Minato went to Rin's house was November fifteenth, Rin's tenth birthday.

She wasn't there.

But that didn't mean the house was empty. Hiruzen was inside looking at the garden with a woman in her early twenties. She had long silver hair, and red eyes, an albino. Hiruzen was wearing his Hokage robes, and the albino was wearing a white sundress with a nylon shirt showing on her shoulder blades.

When they entered, Team Minato was introduced to the albino, Chiyo Fujiwara. Hiruzen told them she tended to the forest on the mountain. The question of how they knew each other was eventually brought up (along with food and drinks that Chiyo had made for them).

Hiruzen looked to Chiyo for the answer. "I'm his mentor." She said as she gazed through the pane of glass to the birds above flying in patterns only they know amongst the raining storm clouds. "Hiru~kun visits me for answers to his questions."

It was impossible to Team Minato, she was much too young to be his mentor; she had to be at least thirty years younger than the Hokage. But the way Hiruzen turned to Chiyo for the answer hinted at her words being true.

"So, you know everything?" Obito asked with stars in his eyes. He was probably imagining something overdramatic.

Chiyo's red eyes traveled from the open blue sky to Obito. The woman shook her head. "No, just the past."

Kakashi's eye sharpened, his curiosity getting the better of him. "Then read one of those books." He pointed to the bookshelves behind them aloofly.

Chiyo's face fell into confusion, as if wondering why reading an ancient language would prove her words, then understanding showed. She nodded seriously, and took a book from one of the shelves facing them. and returned to her seat. Chiyo opened to the middle of the book, and the noises coming from her mouth were sharp and quick, like she either spoke with a consonant on either side of a vowel, or no vowel at all. The rhythm was so different and off-beat compared to their language, yet almost entrancing. Almost.

When she stopped, Minato asked what it meant. Chiyo and Hiruzen chuckled before the Hokage spoke. "It was directions of how to infuse chakra into armor and weapons. Yes?" Hiruzen turned to face his mentor, and she nodded.

Her eyes returned to the sky and her memories of long ago. "The weather was the same as that day." Chiyo mumbled to herself, everyone else wondering what she meant.

It was a long time ago, Chiyo remembered; the sky was full of grey clouds, heavy with the rain that fell upon her village, a bad omen. But the girl couldn't care, she was being courted! Her! A farmer's daughter was being courted by the heir to the nearby royalty! Her life was wonderful, and their crops were plentiful. Chiyo had returned from the forest with many herbs carried in her woven basket.

Everything was peaceful, until the rouge samurai appeared.

They had plundered her village that day when the clouds wept. They had allowed the women to survive, including Chiyo, but the men and boys of the village were killed. Chiyo had returned just in time to see her family be killed; her mother had passed away years previous with an illness, and she only had younger brothers. She was in shock for many months afterward, not able to remember anything during that time, and her soul had shattered leaving her empty long after that.

By the time Chiyo was free from her shock, all of the other women from her village had been killed. She felt so alone. It was also around that time the rouge samurai realized any wound inflicted on the silver haired teen would heal (eventually), even lethal attacks could not kill her. They took their opportunity at having an unstoppable weapon, and trained her in the ways of battle.

Chiyo Fujiwara continued to learn from them, never sated, until, one day, she returned the favor they gave her town and family.

She would wander for months, searching for her home and village. It was during that time that she learned she needed no food or water, the pain for food and water could only go so far, illness could not grasp her with its sickly hands, and poison from food and animals didn't affect her. She had met a vassal for a nearby daimyo who was kind enough to bring her to the palace where she could clean herself and eat.

Apparently, the vassal had seen beauty beneath the grime and filth that covered Chiyo's body, and had brought her to his lord that had longingly spoken of his love that was killed. It was the same man that had courted her those years ago, and he was ecstatic to see her alive. He was already married to another woman that he faithfully loved, yet the daimyo had allowed Chiyo to be cared for as long as he lived. Her shattered soul had formed again, but the shards of her soul were held together by weak glue. But it was a start.

Chiyo Fujiwara began to listen at the courts the daimyo held, and she learned. Within the year she came here, her language and writing were returned and shot above what it once was before her village's massacre, and Chiyo only improved. Her interests pointed to the musicians that played the lovely music, then to the dancers that performed those weightless leaps and impossible angles of the body. Her soul was healing.

The daimyo was grey, wrinkled, and old. Wasn't he and Chiyo within a couple winters of each other? It that was so, why did she look the same as when she arrived those many seasons of cherry blossoms ago?

Could death not reach her?

Chiyo knew the answer, and said her final farewell to the daimyo, and disappeared. Ready to learn anything she could, and the she had heard there was a rising in warriors called ninja. Sounded interesting.

"-Chiyo." Hiruzen said, lightly tapping her elbow. She hummed as her red eyes trailed back to her student. "Do you know where Yuube~san is? Her team had wanted to celebrate her birthday with the girl."

The albino looked to Team Minato and the objects they had placed on the table. A birthday? Chiyo would have slapped herself if she could, Rin's birthday! "Yes, I'll send her here while I tend to the forest." She smiled as she tidied herself from sitting on the floor, and left.

That day was one to encrypt in her leather-bound books to remember later.

The immortal was glad Team Minato had stumbled upon her home.

(((A/N: Oh my green gophers, it has been so long since I uploaded this story, and I apologize for the wait. I still haven't found a beta that will respond to my offers, so this is mostly unedited -except I read it aloud multiple times-. If you have comments or questions, leave a review. You have no idea how those motivate me with the slightest of questions.

Also, pay attention to the names. I've struggled with those to have real meaning and every story I write the names I use are meant to have a meaning understood by the reader that give an insight to the character it names. (By the way, since I wasn't able to plug this into the chapter, this is what Chiyo Fujiwara means: Eternal Field of Hardship. That hardship was gotten from the stuff in the chapter, but also from stuff that was implied that I couldn't type out without fear of my story rating going up.)

I'll be going into depth with Chiyo's next life next chapter (some who had read the previous version of Eternal should have heard of her a bit: Fuyu Nakamura. The meaning of the name is a huge hint of where the story is going to take place: Village in the Middle of the Water).

And to cover everything, I use "~" on purpose.

This is SariauChan signing off!)))