Persephone
Summary: She returns to a home shattered to rubble, dust and ashes. OneShot- Rin. Not a goddess. Just a woman.
Warning: heavy AU-ishness, angst, drama etc. pp.
Set: Story-unrelated.
Disclaimer: Standards apply.
A/N: Do you know how long I've waited for Masashi Kishimoto to reveal Rin's story? And there he goes and has killed her years before! Of course we've all feared something like that. But it's still a shock. Actually, next to Tsunade and Jiraiya and Minato and Kushina, I love Rin the most. Ahrg. Man. Well, this story is so old I can't remember when I wrote it – wait, I actually can. Last year in March. I hope you'll enjoy it.
Rin knows this is not her home anymore. She knows from the first moment she sees the great gate unhinged, swinging back and forth heavily.
She passes the threshold and follows the main street towards the Hokage's Tower and the images she sees right and left are always the same: smoldering ruins, broken houses and shattered buildings, and the air is full of dust and smoke. This isn't Hidden Leaf, she thinks, numbly. This isn't home. But it is, and she knows. She recognizes it.
No.
This is not the place she has left a lifetime ago.
-v-
No.
Such an easy word to be uttered and yet the consequences are huge.
No.
"We won't give away a medical nin in exchange for protection. Hidden Leaf can protect itself."
No.
"Human beings are no payment. "
No.
"She's just a child, barely fifteen years old!"
"She has to decide for herself. She's a shinobi of Hidden Leaf. She is in the unique position to save her village. I'm sure she'd agree if you asked her."
"I won't even communicate this ridiculous request to her."
"It's your decision, honored Hokage."
"Deign to remove yourself from my sight and tell your master Konoha refuses to deliver children as hostages!"
"You will remember my master's offer, Namikaze."
No.
She hasn't left. She has been forced to leave.
(Civilians would call it abduction.)
But the Daimyo had kept his promise. He had protected Konoha. That was what counted.
(Was it really?)
-v-
As she drew closer to the center of the village, the dust and ashes thickened. There was a terrible familiarity underneath the blackened rubble and grey ashes. Rin knew the houses, recognized them again. She hadn't been here for twenty years but she saw the semblances. The old stone house whose owners had planted brightly colored plants in their window boxes every spring. The little white door she had passed every morning on her way to the training grounds. The big house the old lady had lived in whose cat they had chased after for so many afternoons. The street lamp they had waited under for Sensei. Every day, every week. The sweet store. The grocery shop. The book store. Everything was reduced to stone and rubble. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. She recognized but her mind refused to believe. Black, grey, a dirty layer of dust and muck covered the grounds. Pieces of rubble and charred wood crunched underneath her light steps but she barely noticed. She took in the stench of burned wood and coaled bodies, of fire and fights and death and something inside her chest tightened painfully. But the promise of peace had been so alluring. In vain, everything had been in vain. Her sacrifice, her acceptance, her resignation, her submission.
Her death.
A child was kneeling next to a still form, tears drawing white lines on its ash-covered face. "Mummy! Mummy! Wake up!" Rin could see every line in its face, every tear in its eyes. Without wanting to, she snapped into healing mode. It always had been the easiest way to deal with difficult situations, both in combat and in privacy. She almost flew over and kneeled down right next to the child.
"It's okay," she assured it and wondered her voice still was able to sound calm and collected. It was a bit rusty but other than that, nothing seemed to have remained of her years of silence. There was a pulse beating in the vein she touched, slowly but steadily. The woman wasn't dead, merely unconscious. She lay on the threshold of a house, a thick wooden bar right next to her. She seemed to have gotten hit by it when she tried to leave the burning house with the child. She probably had a concussion but she was alive.
"Shhhh," she hushed while blue chakra started to glow on her hands. It took time, seemed painfully slow, but she still knew how to heal. She still knew this, at least, it seemed she hadn't lost her abilities entirely. On the inside, she laughed of joy and cried in despair simultaneously. "It will be fine. Your mother will wake up now."
And really, the woman moaned and moved under her hands. Her eyes fluttered open.
"Mika? Mika!"
The child continued sobbing but now the tears were tears of relief. Rin stood and gasped as a sharp pain tore through her chest. She winced and stood stock-still for a second. She let her eyes wander over her surroundings but her desperate hopes were disappointed: The Village Hidden behind the Leaves was a scene of destruction. Suddenly she could hear the screams, too, the helpless cries and desperate pleas. Children screaming for their parents, mothers calling their children, cloaked figures moving to and fro wordlessly but who were greeted with cries for help and for information. Rin made a decision. She blocked out the stench and the sounds and the pain in her chest and started working.
-v-
They only found her hours later.
Her face was grimy and black and her already travel-worn clothes coated with ashes and dust. Her hair, pulled back in a straight pony-tail, had come lose and thin strands of silver hung in her face, disturbing her again and again but she didn't take the time to push them away. Her nondescript appearance made her blend in with the people all around her, injured and uninjured alike, and in the chaos and helplessness of the current situation nobody even cared who helped as long as anyone did. Years and pain had changed her features, she supposed, had turned a girl's face to a mask of weariness, fear, and sadness. She probably looked like an old woman now, with lines in her face and emptiness in her eyes, the silvery-white color of her hair reinforcing the image. But she wasn't sure about it since she hadn't looked into a mirror properly for the last twenty or so years.
Someone had been watching her the last four hours.
She had noticed but had been concentrating on her task. Her chakra had come more easily with each use and even as she felt a headache building, her limbs growing heavier and her movements slower and more forced, she hadn't stopped. She hadn't turned around, either. Years of incarceration had given her plenty of opportunity to hone her sense of what Sensei had called eyes in the back of the head. So finally they had realized someone was there who didn't belong here. She slowly got to her feet again, pretending to continue on to the next wounded (this one was dead already, there was nothing she could do for the man crying at the woman's side) and then whirled around, facing two ANBU in dark uniforms and white and red porcelain masks. They stared right back at her, nothing of their surprise registering on their covered features. The one who addressed her kept his voice calm.
"We have no intention to harm someone who helps Konoha-Gakure in times of need. Would you mind telling us your name?"
Rin eyed them carefully. She hadn't even thought of how she would announce her return. Yes, she had dreamed of it, dreamed of it so often in her musty, dark and cold room she had been able to feel Konoha's spring wind on her face, had seen faces in front of her, so alive she felt like she would only need to stretch out a hand to touch them. She had smelt the scent of warm bred from the bakery right under her apartment and the clean smell of the village after the summer monsoon. She had dreamed so much it had almost become reality. But she never had thought she would return; she would walk those beloved streets again, hearing people talk in the soft and melodic and yet sharp Konohan accent. Her throat felt dry. She attempted to speak and didn't know what to say, her voice sounding raw and hoarse after years of silence. She closed her mouth again when she realized there was nothing she could say and made a decision.
"I would like to speak to the Hokage."
It was the wrong thing to say, obviously. The ANBU immediately went alert, tensing, one of them even grabbing for the katana on his back in reflex. Rin didn't move. What was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to react, what was she supposed to say? I'm home? No. She hadn't got the flippancy to give a quirky comment, hadn't the strength to identify herself immediately. They had asked for her name but who was she? Was she still Rin, after all she had lived through? Could she still be seen as a child of Hidden Leaf? Was she allowed to carry the forehead protector? Well, at least that didn't matter since he had made sure there was nothing left to remind her from where she had come from. He had wanted to break her, to take away all her hope in order to make her stay. She had refused to give in and she had paid the price.
She had died for it. Literally.
-v-
Half of your life is gone, the voices whispered. Nothing is left. You were torn from the place you loved most, from the people you cared for most, and you won't ever return.
"Please let me go back."
"You are saving your village, Rin-chan, don't you realize? By agreeing to stay with me you protect the ones you love. You won't be unhappy here, I promise."
"I want to go back."
"Don't you care for your people?"
"They will be coming for me."
"They won't find you, Rin-chan. I've taken you, like Hades took Persephone, and the consequences don't matter. May the world starve and dry without you. You are mine."
"They will find me."
"For them, you are dead. Nobody will search for you when they have your body to bury."
"But I'm alive."
"Believe me, they will have something to bury. I saw to it. You can't return. Stay with me, Rin-chan, for it is the only choice you have."
And it is true because Hell has an entrance but no exit.
-v-
The office looked the same as always: high ceilings, stuffed shelves, a dark desk laden with scrolls and papers, pens and pencils. The high chair behind it, though, was unoccupied. Rin's two ANBU led her into the office and left her standing in front of the huge desk, taking up their usual, quiet position left and right to the door. Rin turned awkwardly and tried to catch their gazes but their masks hid their eyes and their features. She turned again and wondered what she was supposed to do now. Standing in the middle of the empty room made her uncomfortable. She moved to stand next to the window, looking down on the grey scene of destruction. Once, this office had belonged to Sensei. He had died long ago, she knew. She had been told often enough. She had seen him die in her dreams, seen the most horrible pictures the too-sweet voice of her torturer had invoked, had heard his cries as the monster consumed him. Too bad, Sensei, she thought bitterly. Neither you nor I had any chance. You were killed by the monster you sealed into your baby son and I was killed by a monster hidden in a man. Shortly, she wondered what had become out of Sensei's son. Probably the villagers had killed him after he had killed his own father, it was impossible the death of the Fourth hadn't been avenged. So who had the position of the Hokage now? Twenty-two years, and only darkness. It was like learning to walk, to talk and to function again after a long sickness. But hasn't it been exactly that?
The door opened and for a second, Rin could see Sensei stride in.
No. It was him. She gasped in surprise. "Sensei?"
The person stopped dead at the sight of a stranger in his office. The ANBU to his left and right didn't move. Clear, blue eyes mustered her with familiar intensity. Blond, unruly hair hung over the hitai-ate with the leaf-symbol. He wore the same, dark uniform every shinobi of Konoha wore, and the green jounin vest. He stood there, tall and lanky, and stared at her as if she was a stranger. Rin was unable to utter a word. Her throat felt tight.
He is dead, Rin-chan, killed by his own baby son when he sealed the kyuubi into it.
Lies. Lies. Lies.
The silence was broken by the almost inaudible rustling of an ANBU cloak. The right soldier – the one who had talked to Rin outside – moved forward.
"We found her helping injured civilians, Hokage-sama. She refused to identify herself and requested a meeting with you."
Sensei looked at her closely. He took in her disheveled, long hair that had gone from violet to silver with one last streak of color in one strand during the years of her imprisonment, her haggard, lined face and her worn clothes. Suddenly she felt how dirty she was, how sweaty after weeks of travel and hours of work. Dust clung to her, covering her face and bare arms, and her travel cloak was stained with blood and worse. Shame filled her, suddenly and entirely, and she averted her eyes. Of course he doesn't recognize me. Hate burned inside her, hate at the monster that had told her false stories, had fed her with lies. "Sensei…"
His voice still was the same as ever. "What's your name?"
The question stung, hurt so much she felt tears prick at the insides of her eyelids. She blinked.
"Look at me," he requested, still calm, and the tone was the gentle tone she remembered. She looked at him.
Blue eyes. Blond hair. Scars in his face like whisker marks.
She stared again, unable to look away. No. This wasn't Sensei. But he looks just like him. She caught herself quickly; glad some of her shinobi training still was intact.
"My name is Rin."
She watched his face carefully. The smile he gave her was pleasant but there wasn't any recognition in it. She felt her heart slam against her ribs again painfully. No, this wasn't Sensei.
"Welcome to Konoha-Gakure. I fear I don't have much time. As you can see there is a lot to do and…"
"Excuse me." She somehow found the strength to interrupt him in mid-sentence. The ANBU right and left straightened but the man who looked just like Sensei lifted his hand.
"It's all right, Neji."
Both stood in clear annoyance at his order. Blue eyes looked at her, looked right through her. "What would you like to ask, Rin-san?"
"What is your name?"
The most powerful man of the continent seemed as if he wasn't sure whether he was supposed to smile or to grimace. "Doesn't seem like I'm all too famous, doesn't it?" He asked his ANBU. One of them seemed to relax. The man called Neji didn't move, though, he just stared at her darkly. Whoever this man was, he had the absolute loyalty of his shinobi.
"My name's Uzumaki Naruto."
And everything fell into place.
-v-
"Do you know what happened when Persephone was taken away by Hades, Rin-chan? Her mother Demeter, Goddess of harvest and growth, fell into deep despair. She refused to fulfill her duty towards mankind and wandered the earth day and night, year after year, in search of her lost daughter. Eternal winter fell onto the world. People died of starvation; crops rotted on the field and floods killed the cattle. The world became grey and cold. After some time, Godfather Zeus pleaded Demeter to stop and offered her a compromise: She would fulfill her duty as Goddess of Harvest two seasons every year. During these two seasons, her daughter was to be allowed to leave Hades and the Underworld. The rest of the year, Persephone would spend with her husband in Underworld as Queen of the Dead. And so it happened. For two seasons Demeter is happy and Persephone walks on earth. These seasons are spring and summer. For fall and winter, Persephone returns to Hades and Demeter wanders the earth in sorrow, and life withers away. You are my precious Persephone, Rin-chan, but your mother won't search for you. She sold you for her own protection."
That's a lie.
"Still defiant, my precious, even after years of imprisonment?" A chuckle, hated, hated, so hated. "I keep my promises, just like Hades when he agreed to let his wife leave him for two seasons. I protect Konoha. But in return, you stay with me. Nobody asks for you anymore, Rin-chan, nobody comes to look for you anymore. Demeter has given up. Hades triumphs."
She has long given up waiting for someone to come to her rescue. She can't even wait for her death since he refuses to let her die. To the world, she is already dead.
Persephone.
She catches herself thinking of herself as her.
-v-
What was she supposed to do in a confined space like the office, caught with the monster that killed Sensei and two ANBU who were completely loyal to him?
Rin didn't care.
"Murderer!"
Her legs were strong from years of wandering, the strength and agility she lost during years of imprisonment had returned. She wasn't as quick as Sensei was, hadn't got a bloodline gift like Obito had or a special jutsu and lots of experience like Kakashi had. But she was a skilled medical nin (she once was) and there were different ways to approach a combat situation. She didn't think of her training, she didn't think of strategy and style and result. She just launched herself at him, red spots dancing in front of her eyes. His face contorted into a mask of dark red eyes and glittering, bloody-red chakra and she knew everything she had heard about the kyuubi was true.
And then he had her pinned to his desk, his eyes only inches from hers (blue, blue like glacier lakes, so blue), and two ANBU were pressing their katana to her throat.
"Don't kill her!" The monster said. Both ANBU were almost visibly shaking in anger but they were trained soldiers and obeyed orders. The door crashed open and more people came storming in.
"Naruto!"
Rin caught sight of a girl with pink hair and a man with sleepy, brown eyes and a man with silver hair and a half-mask and a twisted hitai-ate and she froze. Her breath stopped. She barely found her voice. The ANBU still had her at their sword's edge, the girl had stopped at the monster's side, the two men came to halt in front of the desk. Nobody said a word: the sudden silence was so profound it hammered in her ears loudly. It can't be true.
"Kakashi?"
One grey eye stared at her and she was lost.
"Rin?"
From his lips, her name sounded like a prayer. He hadn't forgotten her, never had, she could read it in his eyes. He had changed. He had aged, had grown taller. There were lines in what little she could see of his face, as well, and he moved somewhat awkwardly. He is hurt, her medic sense told her. Of course, there has been a fight. But how, how, could he look at Sensei's murderer with that softness in his eyes? Rin would have liked to repeat his name because seeing him in living flesh and blood was so much more than dreaming of him (sad, lonely, happy, alone, alive, married, with children, abandoning her, coming to her rescue, killing her, dying himself, being killed by the monster) and she wasn't sure whether she should believe her eyes or not. It was so much easier to live without memories. Now they returned in a crashing wave, drowning her, taking her away, and even if she had wanted to she wouldn't be able to fight this killer who was holding her down.
-v-
"Have you ever heard of the river Lethe, Rin-chan?"
She has stopped answering months ago. Or was it years? There is no way to mark the passing of time except for his visits.
"The river Lethe runs through Hades' realm. Whoever drinks from her waters will forget everything he ever was and anyone he ever knew…"
What bliss, she thinks, but she fears forgetting as much as she fears remembering.
"I wonder what would have happened if Persephone had drank from it? Maybe she wouldn't ever return to her mother and Demeter would still be wandering the world in despair…"
Is that what has happened?
No. Hidden Leaf is safe. That is all that counts.
"Maybe she would return to find her home shattered and Zeus replaced by a usurper…"
-v-
While the ANBU debated whether she should be taken into interrogation and put into prison immediately (at the mere thought of it she started trembling so badly they had to notice) Kakashi didn't say a word. He just looked at her. The monster was standing at the side, listening with rapt attention, while the pink-haired girl seemed to feel uncomfortable, like she didn't belong there. Strange, Rin thought, she belonged here more than Rin did and yet she felt uncomfortable. But the thought was distant. She felt tired, overwhelmed, and anger and fear still burned inside her hotly. No prison, please, no prison. She only looked up from the chair they had bound her in when the Hokage finally spoke up.
"Question her now, Neji, I don't have time to lose. But I won't allow you to hurt her."
The ANBU seemed decidedly unhappy but obeyed. His words passed her like a stream, the constant chatting and monotone voice adding to the numbness in her body. He didn't touch her, didn't speak up, just asked questions and questions and more questions. She wasn't sure whether she answered them or not but she must have because the questions didn't seem to be repeated except for the one odd one with which the ANBU reaffirmed that she wasn't telling lies. Kakashi watched, still, grey and red (her boys' colors though one of them is gone), his arms crossed. Rin dimly thought she would like to touch him to reaffirm he was real but he was too far away in more than one aspect. The world in front of her eyes had started to blend together. The skilled medic nin in her whispered she was suffering from a severe loss of chakra and probably would faint soon but she didn't care. It was the girl who was awkwardly trying to stay close to the monster that finally interrupted the questioning.
"That's enough! Does she think that's an excuse for her to attack you?"
Rin would have laughed if she had the strength to do so. Six of the eight grown men in the room shied away at the sound of her voice. The monster chuckled, though it wasn't a happy laugh. The rest of the people in the room didn't say a word. Either they were too shocked by what they had learned from her or they didn't want to get involved in their leader's discussion.
"Go ahead, take her to the hospital. I can see you're not exactly dying to treat her, but be nice."
The girl whirled around and glared. "She tried to kill you! She belongs into a prison, not into the hospital!"
"Sakura, she's barely conscious and cannot be blamed for her actions. And after what she has experienced I don't think a prison is the right place for her right now. Treat her like you treat every patient. Just make sure she doesn't leave without seeing me another time."
"She's dangerous and mentally-"
"She's exhausted."
It was his last word. They all obeyed, even the girl, and even in her dazed state Rin understood why. He was Sensei's son. He was tall and blonde and the blue eyes gave him away. But he had Sensei's character, too, his strength and his determination, his kindness and his strictness. The ANBU obeyed because they respected him. He had their absolute loyalty. Kakashi followed him because he believed in him. All his hopes and dreams rested on these shoulders. And the girl tried to talk back because she loved him.
Sensei's son.
She had to ask. She just had to. The ANBU deposited her on a stretcher unhappily. The girl was busy checking her pulse. Kakashi watched, as always, and the tall man was already giving out orders concerning the immediate situation of the village. Rin tried to lift her head but failed. They lifted the stretcher and carried her by and she barely managed to stretch out a hand and brush the man's jounin vest. He turned to look at her immediately. His blue eyes were kind.
"Yes?"
The ANBU turned back, alert.
"How did your father die?" Her voice was a whisper. He smiled, painful but honest.
"The kyuubi killed him."
But there was something in his eyes that made her understand.
-v-
"Do you believe I am a monster, Rin-chan?"
Is this torture? Even if her body is still intact, her mind is imprisoned. It is worse than anything she could ever have imagined. She craves sunlight and wind, the sounds of the world. The rustling of trees' leaves. The song of birds in spring. She craves the company of other human beings. She…
"You don't answer. You never answer. Why are you so cold, my precious? You think I am cruel, don't you. You think I am a monster. I'd like to tell you a story, Rin-chan, can I? This time, it isn't one of Greek Mythology. Once upon a time, there was a child who grew up as the son of a mighty Daimyo. The boy loved his father but his father never had time for him so he started hating him. He tried to disappoint him in any way possible. Years later, his home was attacked, and his whole family died. Why, do you ask? Because, in his insolence, the boy had allied himself with his father's enemies. These enemies attacked his family and burned down the house with them still in it. You know, Rin-chan, had the boy ever cared to listen to his father's excuses why he couldn't be with his son he would have known that there were good reasons. But he had ignored them… And his father died practically through his hands. Believe me, Rin-chan, the boy felt like he himself had lifted his sword and killed his entire family. Whatever your definition of a monster is it would never weight up to this."
Does he want her to feel pity? Does he want to explain his twisted motives to her? Does it matter?
She is losing her mind.
She isn't locked in and yet escape is impossible. There is nothing around her but darkness and emptiness. God must exist, because this is Hell.
"Answer me, Rin-chan, I beg you. Nothing will happen to you. You know I'd never hurt you."
Hades hadn't hurt his wife, either.
-v-
When she woke up, sunlight was streaming through a crack in the curtains. She was in a small room, all by herself. It wondered her. Dimly she remembered there has been an attack on Konoha and there should be many more people in the hospital. But she was the only one in the room. Light fell onto the nightstand and that was when she realized she wasn't in the hospital: a white lamp, two books, a glass of water and a picture frame laid there. Also, the room was too personal to be a hospital room. From the frozen image in the frame, four people smiled up at her: a pink-haired girl, a dark-eyed boy, a miniature version of Sensei. And Kakashi. Gasping, she pushed herself upright, almost desperately grabbing for the picture. Kakashi. So he had had a team – this had been his genin team – he was a jounin instructor – he had taught Sensei's son. Too many emotions overwhelmed her and she already was too worn, too weary, to stop the tears that suddenly came to her eyes. She sobbed dryly, once, and smiled despite the tears. They looked so carefree, so happy. Even Kakashi smiled, his face half-covered by his mask and his hitai-ate. She had imagined a grown Kakashi so often she felt like she had known him for her whole life. And in his students she saw a generation untouched by war, hate and sorrow. Children of summer. They never went through what Kakashi, Obito and she had been through… Then, abruptly, she remembered the face of the mon- No. She couldn't call the child monster when she knew what other people were like.
He was Sensei's son.
And his face when she asked him how Sensei had died had told her enough.
The door opened and the pink-haired girl stepped through. She left the door open just enough to let Rin see a dim corridor and a bright light at the end of it. The girl saw her with the picture frame, saw the drying streaks of tears on her cheeks, and her scowl softened a tiny fraction. She still remained angry, though. Rin couldn't blame her, she probably would have felt the same if someone had tried to kill her team mates. Except two of them are dead and Kakashi is the last one to remain. She didn't attempt to put back the frame. She looked at the girl instead.
"Why did you bring me into your home?"
How much have I told you?
The girl tried to hide her surprise at Rin's observation and only barely managed it.
"The hospital is over-filled. My home is at the verge of the village, as you can see it is still standing." Bitterness crept into her voice and onto her face. Rin remembered the sight of windowless houses, burned ruins and smoldering ashes and shook. The girl drew nearer and set down a tray of soup and bread on the nightstand.
"You need to eat something. You have slept for three days. Your body needs to recover."
Stupid. The first rule of every medic nin was to make sure one could function well enough for a long period of time. This girl, apparently, had learned it, because there were dark rings under her eyes and the air of exhaustion in her step but she still was walking upright and she still had chakra reserves. She had been taught well.
"What's your name?"
A glare. "Haruno Sakura."
And now? I am pleased to meet you? I'm sorry I attacked your friend? "What happened to Hidden Leaf?"
The girl's – she was a woman already, Rin couldn't help but notice but she felt so old the girl looked outright young to her – glare softened somewhat and darkened again.
"Hikari," she explained. "A group of mercenaries, mostly missing-nin, hired by a Daimyo to force us to bow to his law. Naruto – the Hokage – refused."
"Hidden Leaf is at war again." Rin stated. Sakura shook her head violently.
"No. Hidden Leaf is being threatened by a corrupt dictator who has the insolence to think he can overrule democracy. But he won't succeed. Naruto will see to that."
The belief and trust in her voice was steely. Rin felt a pang of sadness. So this boy, like Sensei, had the will of the fire and lived to protect. Her initial dislike hadn't faded entirely but slowly gave way to curiosity. This boy had gained the absolute loyalty of Konoha's ANBU. He had convinced the Council to elect him Hokage and Kakashi stood behind him firmly. Everyone seemed to believe in him.
"They attacked Hidden Leaf."
Sakura's shoulders slumped tiredly. "We fought them and we won."
"But they left a field of devastation."
Green eyes looked at Rin, full of resolve. "Konoha won't be defeated. We have already rebuilt the village three times since I can remember. We'll do it a fourth time and a fifth and again and again, as long as there is anyone left of us to do so." She placed the tray in front of Rin. "You need to eat something."
Staring down on the hot soup, Rin listened to her steps retreat to the door. She stopped there, uncertain, and looked back. When Rin didn't meet her gaze, she said:
"Welcome back to Hidden Leaf, Rin-San."
How much have I told you?
-v-
How many years have passed?
She doesn't know. Her hair has grown long, so long it falls all the way down to her knees. She refuses to let anyone cut it. The monster likes her hair so he lets her. She sometimes thinks of having them cut it, purely out of spite. But she can't. It is a reminder to what she never has been and now is.
"You look just like I always envisioned her, Rin-chan."
Her. She. Rin.
He is kind and he is cruel. He locks her up for days and takes her outside into the vast gardens of his estate on others. He gives her gifts – books and flowers and dresses – and spends many hours talking to her. And, against her best intentions, she is unable to reject him. Maybe years pass, maybe a decade, she doesn't know. He leaves her in darkness and alone and when he returns days later she is so glad someone talks to her, anyone, that she would gladly give him anything if he just promised he wouldn't leave her again. His despised presence becomes relief. And she hates herself for it, hates herself for being weak but anything else is impossible. As soon as the darkness descends again she starts whimpering in fear, pleading, offering.
She doesn't feel dirty.
She is far too lost for anything like that. There isn't guilt, or pain, or hate. She is empty, spent, and the only thing accompanying her in her darkness is terror. Is there a way to break more than once? She would give anything for not being left alone in the darkness, and she would give it to anyone.
Is that the way Zeus' daughter has felt, alone in the depths of Hell? Has Persephone, too, lost her pride, her sense of being, has been reduced to a whimpering piece of nothingness? Has she begged her husband not to leave her, has she offered him anything so he would stay with her?
The other side of myths, she thinks, is never told because it is an exact replica of every bit of shameful humanity mankind is marked by.
-v-
Hidden Leaf was shattered.
But then it had been so before and Rin was pretty sure a few more generations would see their beloved village in ashes. Still, it hurt. Walking down the street she tried not to remember Sakura had told her to stay inside. A week had passed since she had woken up and neither had the Hokage ordered her to come see him nor had Kakashi shown himself or any other ANBU tried to drag her into another session of questioning. So she had started to move on her own accord, even more tired of being idle than of having been active.
Ashes. Dust and Rubble. Ruins.
It was a horrible sight. In the entire war her generation had fought, Hidden Leaf had been their base of operations, never the actual combat scene. Now there were holes in the streets and people tirelessly carting away loads of rubble and stone and children getting in their way and medics still wandering everywhere, trying to find and heal injured. Many people were still buried underneath the ruins and nin-dogs were part of the picture as much as many other summons. Rin thought she had glanced a look at Pakkun or one of Kakashi's other dogs but it disappeared so fast she wasn't sure she had seen right.
Persephone returns to a home shattered to ashes.
Impossible to forget. Shivering, Rin pulled her cloak tighter around herself. It actually was one of Sakura's. She had found it in a cupboard and had been glad for it, since she was almost constantly freezing. Her long hair, still wet from the shower, didn't help to warm her up and the coat hadn't got a hood. Sakura had been right; her little apartment was almost at the northernmost verge of the town. Rin made her way through streets towards the centre of the town. The closer she came, the more thorough the destruction became. Dust still hung in the air, dancing in the glitteringly hot summer air. She still was cold. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt warm. Hell is made from ice, Rin-chan. She wasn't sure where she was going but she was certain she would lose her mind if she tried to remain in bed only one minute longer. Waiting, always waiting. Waiting for Kakashi to notice her, for Obito to let her go, for Sensei to save her, for the monster to come… She was fed up with waiting. And she was weak, so weak. She had given in, given up, and had been too afraid to return to her home for nine years. And now she was back and she still was afraid. Fear was everything that was left in her. And hate.
But Rin hated herself most.
How much have I told them?
-v-
Her hands are slick with blood.
"Rin-chan…"
His heart-beat is dying. His eyes are dulling. Everything of him is fading away except for his presence in her head. She won't ever be free no matter how often she kills him. Outside the carpet door, on the other side of the wall of the secret corridor known only by the Daimyo, the mob is advancing, cutting off her emergency exit. But she doesn't want to leave. Where should she go? They might as well kill me, she thinks dully. The shards of glass from the window she used to slit his throat cuts into her hand. After eleven years of imprisonment he hadn't thought she'd lift a hand against him when he came to take her into his exile. I'm an object, nothing more.
She can't hear his voice since her cut severed his vocal cords. But she can still hear him in her head, even as his chest rises and falls and doesn't rise anymore.
"My Rin, my precious, precious Persephone…"
She shakes so bad she cuts herself even more.
She hasn't stopped shaking ever since.
-v-
"Where are you going?"
Kakashi's voice was quiet and calm and bare of any emotions. She hadn't felt him approach and started at his sudden appearance. He was a dark shadow against the grey and white and black of the shattered houses behind him, moving with the silent grace he had adopted so many years ago. Instinctively, she tried to sink back into the coat to hide herself but knew the gesture was futile.
"Nowhere?"
She had longed to talk to him and had feared the moment at the same time. God, she was a wreck. She didn't remember how much she had told them in the office on that first day. She didn't know what he knew, didn't know what he thought. About it, about her. About everything. Did he think she was a traitor? Did he think she was insane? A threat, maybe? Did he feel put off by what she had become? He had to. He had to hate her. If he valued the memory of their childhood only a fraction as much as she had he had to feel disgusted with her. And he had every right to.
A bitter smile curved around her lips as her question-statement hung in the air between them. Kakashi buried his hands in the pockets of his uniform trousers and cocked his head to look at her. He seemed at a loss for words, which was strange because the old Kakashi wouldn't have bothered even attempting a conversation if he had nothing to say. But Rin knew she had changed horribly, so he would have changed, as well.
Kakashi then shrugged, a gesture that immediately made her see his younger self again. "Walk with me, then."
They walked.
What do you see, Kakashi? What do you see, Obito?
-v-
Ironically, this is what she has done for the last years.
How long has she been gone? She doesn't know, can't say. Nothing matters, neither her age nor the time. For some time, she hides in a forest just like Konoha's, pretending it was her home, pretending the little hut she lives in is her apartment, pretending the scarce food she forages for is enough. And it isn't even pretending – she doesn't want to go anywhere, doesn't want to return, doesn't even want to see people. She scarcely sleeps, and when she does she dreams of dark rooms and soothing voices and hands. No, she never wants to see people again. Strange, how, after years of yearning for company she has lost every connection to other human beings. There is nothing else to lose anymore. She spends the summer gathering wood and food for the winter and the winter waiting for spring and summer again. They find her there, two years into her self-chosen exile. Fall is still warm but wet and the woman and her children search for shelter in her little hut. They take her with them. Their home is a tiny village, consisting of not more than six farms and a few small houses gathered around a small, paved market place. But they care for her. They let her wander the village and don't try to force her to talk. They don't ask her anything. Her scars speak for her, she guesses, and after that dreadful day when she accompanied the women to the public bathhouse for the first time there is no one left who doesn't know about them. They accept her nevertheless and don't mind when she sits close silently and listens. Here, in the course of the years, she learns to see again. Sunlight doesn't seem too bright anymore and children's voices aren't too loud but strangely soothing and warm. And she learns to talk again, after even more time, listening to the children, playing with them, watching over them.
Since she never tells them her name, they give her one of their own. And, for the third time in her life, she receives a name. Amaya, because they found her that rainy fall night. It is a pretty name, so different from the European one she has carried for the last years, and she accepts it along with the hospitality of those people who don't care where she comes from and what she has experienced as long as she helps on the farms and in the houses and values their rules of coexistence.
But even while she grows to love the village she knows she can't stay forever. Another forest calls out to her another village, other children smile at her in her dreams. Somewhere there are people she can't erase from her memory as much as she wishes to do so. She hates it – hates herself and her weakness because she can't accept that they are dead. She has to see it with her own eyes, has to see what she has lost, has to see what it looks like to be whole while she is a mass of shards and splinters and broken pieces.
Persephone returns.
-v-
There was an awkward silence between them.
No, more than that. There was nothing between them, which was the worst thing Rin could imagine, even after what she had been through. There was nothing they could talk about, nothing to share, not even something she could ask him or he could ask her. The times when they had known each other were long gone. Too much had happened, too many years had passed, too many things, including themselves, had changed. Kakashi didn't ask why she had come back or what had happened, he knew the gist of it already. Maybe he had developed some strange, twisted sense of sensitivity but he didn't attempt to ask her anything from fear of touching sensitive subjects she didn't want to talk about. And Rin didn't want to ask about his life in Konoha, didn't want to know what had happened to him over the years because asking would have meant accepting the fact that she had lost so many years of her life to darkness in which he had lived, breathed, taught and fought.
He was disgusted with her. And she was, too, hating herself – and him, as insane as it was – for everything, anything. Nothing. She hated him because he had every reason to hate her, to avoid her, not to talk with her. She hated him because he had something like a life while she had only darkness. She hated him because he felt obligated to take care of her. She hated him because he was unable to be the young boy she had known such long time ago. She hated him because he understood she wouldn't want to be touched by anyone and, therefore, kept a considerable distance between them while walking. And, at the same time, she desperately wanted him to touch her, wanted to hear him say something, ask, talk, anything that would make this encounter easier, to break down the wall that was unbreakable.
They walked in silence until Rin found he had brought her right back to Sakura's place. She entered the apartment complex without looking back and he didn't ask her for another meeting.
-v-
Why has she come back in the first place?
She is broken beyond repair.
-v-
"Rin-San," the monster/boy/Hokage said as he materialized behind her, a few days later, on the top of the Hokage's monument. His blond hair shone in evening sun, just like Sensei's had. His smile was the same, as well.
"May I join you?"
She nodded. He carefully sat down next to her, sighing silently. She gazed at him and he grinned, rubbing his eyes with both hands. "A lot of work."
They were silent. Only after a while, the boy broke the layer of silence that had descended upon them.
"It's peaceful up here. You can hear the wind."
"Yes."
The insane urge to kill him was gone and left nothing but exhaustion. And something else. Maybe it was the late hours, maybe the presence of the silent boy… Maybe the disappointment of her meeting with Kakashi had flushed out all her resentment, hate and desperation, and had left her tired but strangely free.
"Rin-San… I meant to wait until you settled in again, but I figured you might feel uncomfortable. So I'll ask you directly."
She tensed, something that didn't escape his keen eyes. But there was neither anger nor threat in his voice, his face or his stature.
"Will you stay here, Rin-san?"
She stared at him for a few seconds, her face mirroring her surprise. Then she had to swallow before she was able to answer. "Am I allowed to?"
"Of course." Matter-of-factly. Without any doubt. "This is your home."
"Home," she repeated softly. "I'm not sure I know what that means anymore."
He didn't seem surprised or taken aback, just smiled again. "Then you'll have to learn what it means again."
She gazed over the village, laid out for her to see. "Can beings learn to be human again?"
"Yes."
"How can you know?" The question broke from her before she could check herself. Shocked, she froze, tried to make herself invisible. The boy –man – answered her gaze for a long second, then shrugged.
"I just know."
"I'm not so sure about that."
Somehow she wasn't sure she meant what she said anymore. She felt like he was extracting all her secrets, her confessions, her anger and hate and fear from her piece by piece, word by unsaid word. He didn't ask for anything and yet she already was willing to give it to him. He was at least fifteen years younger than her and yet if she had told anyone, she would have told him. Would have told him about endless nights and shattered hopes and broken beings. But she had the feeling he already knew, knew everything there was to know about her.
It made her feel ashamed. He, of all, shouldn't know about the darkness in her heart. He, who was pure light and hope and forgiveness, shouldn't see how dirty she was.
The man didn't answer, so she felt compelled to say something else.
"I don't even know who I am anymore."
Three names. She had carried three names and each one had belonged to another person. He called her Rin, but Rin had died in a dark prison years ago. Persephone had been born then, but she, too, had been abandoned when she had fled. She had been Amaya then but she had left those kind people who had offered her a place to stay so willingly, and she had returned to the place where everyone called her Rin again.
"I don't know my name. I don't know what I like, and what I am supposed to do, and how I could have come back in the first place. I don't know where to go next and what to say and how to continue on living like this."
The last words broke from her like a wave and she regretted having said them the second they left her lips. Clamping down her teeth, she stared over the village blindly, all too aware of the man next to her. At first, he didn't answer. Silence stretched out between them, endless and impossible to bridge. Rin already wanted to get up and leave, sure he would cast her out of the village immediately. When she finally dared to look at him, she saw he wasn't angry. There was a tiny smile around his lips, and the smile was sad.
"It's okay to be lost sometimes, I think."
-v-
It's okay to be lost sometimes.
The words accompanied her, awake and sleeping. As well as others. If you had been stronger, this wouldn't have happened. My precious Persephone. What are you doing here all alone? Come and stay with us! It's okay, Mum, isn't it? Welcome back to Hidden Leaf, Rin-San.
Sakura took her to the hospital and she tried to help. Children loved her; that much was clear. And there was enough to do. She met Kurenai by accident, who was accompanied by a little girl with red eyes and a mass of brown hair. She fled and hid after the first exchange of words, but Kurenai returned, and they talked again. And again. Short meetings, quick exchanges of words. How much does she know? Kurenai took her to meet Anko. And Yugao. She met Gai, and Genma, and Raidou, and was surprised how many of her childhood friends still were alive. And shocked at how many of them had died: quiet, sickly Hayate, tall Asuma, Kushina and all the others. Slowly, she learned what had happened, how they had died, how they had gone on. Every encounter was a pure act of will, her entire being shying away and screaming for her to run while her reason pleaded her to stay and watch. She stayed, frozen, digesting news and dreaming of old and new faces and dead and living.
Konoha was being rebuilt, she saw it every time she walked down the street towards Sakura's little apartment. She slept on the sofa now. She had wanted to leave but Sakura had told her she wasn't allowed to, since she wanted to have an eye on her. Which was just as well. Rin wasn't sure whether she would survive all by herself.
Easier than meeting her old friends and comrades was meeting the next shinobi generation. The newest Ino-Shika-Chou team, strangely different to the one she had known: silent, and withdrawn, and yet so tightly knit only those three families could be. Kurenai's team made her wonder how anyone could have thought of putting a Hyuuga heiress on the same team as a Aburame and a Inuzuka but it seemed to work out just fine. Gai's team starred another Hyuuga, a buoyant weapons' specialist and a complete Gai-clone named Lee who made her laugh. For the first time she laughed, short and quietly, but she laughed. It was easier because they didn't know her, didn't associate her name with the one of a teenage girl who had disappeared from Hidden Leaf twenty-three years ago and whose dead body had been found shortly afterwards. And she met Kakashi's team. It was perhaps the most painful experience she made and she hid in Sakura's small apartment for two days following, until Sakura forced her to return to the hospital. It hurt beyond imagination because this was what she had missed. The small, tightly knit team was shattered, like she was, and yet they continued on. Kurenai told her what neither the boy nor Sakura nor Kakashi told her: about traitors and brothers and best friends, about searches and encounters and all too many scars, both visible and invisible. And here she was, imagining she was the only one who hated herself! What must Kakashi feel, she wondered. He had killed her, they told her, he had been the one who had brought her dead body home. Her heart ached for him when she thought about it and pain and pity mingled. At the same time, her pain was personal. She could have been here. She could have seen them grow, could have laughed at Team Seven's attempts to pass the bell test, could have congratulated them for passing their first mission successfully. She should have been there. She wanted to have been there. She wanted to watch them grow, wanted to see Kakashi teach them, wanted to share his pride as they passed the bell test, as they defeated Zabusa, as they fought in the chuunin exams. She wanted to be part of them, of this little group that still met once in a time: a boy, looking younger than he was even though he was young and who carried the curse his father had laid upon him with the strength she knew rooted in Kushina-san's and Sensei's legacy. A girl, so strong and yet weak in some aspects, so caring and kind while, at the same time, unable to show it towards her team-mates. And Kakashi, so broken, just like her, and yet able to smile. Sometimes, Tenzou joined them, and a strange boy named Sai. And Rin couldn't help but think they had to look strange: a pink-haired medic, the blond Hokage, and two worn jounin, both grey-haired and sad and yet smiling. Yes, she caught herself smiling one day. And then she caught Kakashi staring at her and turned away quickly.
Sometimes, Rin wondered. When Persephone had returned and had found her home destroyed, her mother gone and her siblings dead, what had she done? Had she returned to Hades, had gone back to hell and remained there, mad with grief? Had she searched for her lost mother? Had she buried her siblings? Had she had the strength to go on, to look forward? Or had she simply given up and broken, gone completely insane and left everything behind? It was a viable option. Rin contemplated it. But she was already halfway insane, so the step wouldn't change much, she guessed.
She talked little and watched more. She saw Kakashi, sometimes, when he passed by or had special business in the hospital. He greeted her and she felt her fear of him ebb away with every passing day until she looked up from the book she had been reading to a few children one day and found him watching her again intently with his one, grey eye. She tried a smile, then, and maybe he smiled back – she wasn't sure because he wore his mask and probably her smile wasn't first-rate either but it was a start. She scolded herself later for thinking like that: a start of what?
One night, she was sitting at the window of Sakura's little apartment when she saw two people walk down the street. When they passed a lamp-post, pink hair flashed, green eyes and a slender figure. Sakura was accompanied by Sensei's son, tall, lean and blond. She watched as they parted and felt like she was intruding: the intimacy between the two of them was obvious even without them having touched or even kissed each other. Rin leaned back into the shadows and wondered what exactly had happened. How long since she had returned? Two years? She wasn't okay, far from it. And yet days passed without her wondering why she still was alive. Was it normal? How could she go on like this after all that had happened?
Hadn't she been lost a few months before?
But the answer was there, right in front of her. In the faces of all the people she knew: in the boy's sea-blue eyes, in Sakura's gentle voice and in Kakashi's wordless gestures.
Rin.
It's okay to be lost sometimes. You just have to find the strength to look for a way back.
She smiled softly. The front door of the apartment opened quietly and Sakura entered, a smile on her face that made her pretty in the dim light of the lamp. She saw Rin at the window.
"Good evening, Rin-San."
"Sakura-Chan." Rin nodded at her. Sakura's eyes went wide with surprise. Then, her eyes lit up even more.
The door fell shut with a final thud.
Welcome back, daughter.