Summary: Rin's story, told as if she's talking to Kakashi.
Notes: Obito and Rin graduated from the academy at age nine and became chuunin at eleven. Kakashi graduated from the academy at five years old and became chuunin at six, so he probably entered the academy at four. Presently, students start at about eight. Don't know if four was typical in those days or maybe Kakashi just got a head start, but for this story students start at four which is not unreasonable since pre-kindergarten kids are about four and in those days of war, they needed more recruits. But I'm not good at writing for four year olds, and four-year-old dialogue is pretty limiting, so the kids in this story will sound older, more like eight-12.
Funeno Daikoku was the sensei talking to Sasuke's father.
Motomori Kaori is based on Kuchiki Kaori, the ninja nurse from my other story. Kaori is a canon character and was Sasuke's nurse while he was in the hospital after the preliminary third chuunin exam.
Thoughts: Do they have alphabetical order in Japanese?
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Do You Remember
The Mission
In the golden twilight, the Leaf platoon stealthily made their way through enemy territory. Only someone looking for them, and staring directly at them, could have possibly noticed the five barely there figures crouching low to the ground. Only the slight refraction of the light revealed the imperfections in their camouflage techniques. Their work was nearly done. Soon they'd be heading back to the luscious green forests of Konoha, away from these rocky quarries where even weeds refused to grow.
The team of five, four fighters and a medic-nin, had been on a surveillance mission for weeks, trying to map out and decipher the enemy's troop movements. Were they advancing, regrouping, withdrawing, or feigning withdrawal? Tensions were coming to a head between Fire Country and Thunder Country; the Hokage felt sure the current tenuous truce was bound to break. All out war or peace, which would they choose?
With the setting of the sun came welcome relief from the heat. The weather had been dry all this time. Static electricity crackled in the air. Any water jutsu expert, even someone as talented as the Second Hokage, would have been hard pressed to perform a low level water jutsu just to fill a teaspoon with water. But there were hidden streams in the mountains of Thunder Country that the Leaf shinobi used to refill their canteens. And there were animals that peeked out at night, meeting sudden death by a quick kunai or shuriken, that the Leaf shinobi used for nourishment after their rations had run out.
They had been lucky so far, but as any hardened shinobi knows, the better luck you have now, the worst luck it will be when bad luck finds you.
And now the enemy had found them.
Kunai clashed and sparked in the ion charged air. Shadows in the twilight merged and disengaged and merged again. Hands flashed signs and forms changed from human to animal to inanimate objects. A hundred movements within seconds, indiscernible to the normal viewer.
One of the figures hung back, allowing its comrades to fight. Despite the urge to join the battle, the cardinal rule for a medic-nin was to save yourself. If you could not, how could you save your comrades if they're injured? With that mantra ingrained in her, she stayed back, but threw her shuriken to deflect the enemy's missiles and called out warnings whenever possible.
Five Cloud shinobi against the five of them, a fair fight even without her participation - Kakashi was there and with his sharingan he counted as two.
Then a preternatural mist fell upon the battlefield. 'A Cloud jutsu!' Rin looked around to see who had summoned it and to determine the type of cloud. It was not a poisonous one - the Cloud shinobi were not wearing masks. Nor was it a corrosive cloud – they were not wearing special protective clothing, just their normal gray robes. She deduced its purpose was to obscure the battlefield, which meant they thought they would have the advantage if the Leaf shinobi could not see. She almost laughed. Kakashi and his nin dogs did not need to see to find their adversaries.
Her amusement was cut short by a sudden pain in her calf. She looked down to find a kunai cut on her leg; then leaped back from the figure emerging from the ground. "Watch out, there're more of them from below!" she called to her team.
She deflected another kunai with one of her own. Then she stumbled back. There was something wrong. The cut was shallow, barely bleeding, but it burned as if she had been hit by a fireball.
Poison. The kunai had been dipped in poison. She fell to her knees, grasping at her hip pack with the hypodermic needles full of anti-venom. "Careful, their weapons are poisoned!" she warned as she plunged the tip into her leg, near the wound. She bit down on her lower lip to keep from crying out. The burning sensation was amplified tenfold when the antidote collided with the poison. She nearly passed out, but he appeared by her side, supporting her.
"Are you all right?" he asked, concern dripped over his words, though behind his mask, his expression was inscrutable.
"I'm fine, really. Get back to the fight," she ordered with a weak smile.
Kakashi glanced back at the battle. He had already taken out the one who had hurt her, and two others, but there were more emerging from the ground. 'She'll be fine,' he told himself - she had already taken the anti-poison. "I'll be back," he promised. He had to return to the battle, end it, and return to her. Despite his fatigue, he split himself and left a kage bunshin to guard her while he rejoined the fray.
The Leaf shinobi were victorious, but a few of the enemy escaped and had to be stopped from warning anyone else. Rin's comrades followed, leaving her behind.
The clone lifted her slight form in his arms, cradling her like a new bride. "I'll take you someplace safe." He carried her away from the battlefield to the small jutsu created cave they had been using as their base. He looked back at the retreating figures in the distance, wondering how long it would be before he was dispelled, then looked back at his charge.
Rin lay on a worn blanket spread out on the hard ground. She had already cleaned and bandaged her own wound. Her eyes were closed, her face flushed, and her breathing shallow.
"How are you doing? Is the antidote working? If not…" If not, he didn't know what they'd do. Rin was the medic-nin. Although Kakashi knew some healing techniques, he would not be able to develop a new antidote in time.
She opened her eyes and smiled up at the clone. "I'm fine. Don't worry. The antidote is kicking in. Sometimes you need to feel worse to feel better." She had never been able to perform the kage bunshin technique and wondered what it was like to be split into two. 'Kage bunshin, such an intimate technique. To be more than one person and yet still be the same. Is he the same? The exact, exact same? He looks the same as the real Kakashi, same wild white hair, same dark gray eyes, same creases in his forehead when he frowns, which is all too often. Does he feel the same? Well, I think I love him, just the same.' She closed her eyes again, but her smile remained.
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