The next few months were a blur. Rin spent less and less time sleeping, while Madara seemed only to spend more time huddled in his corner by the day.

When he was awake, he usually paced around and ranted about things that Rin couldn't really see the connection of. He continuously referenced his plan for… some kind of genjutsu that he wanted to force onto the world, which would create a world without pain or death.

Rin understood what he was coming from. In the few years since she had left the Academy, she had lost dozens of friends on the battlefield. She had killed people – the first one had been a little more than a year ago. She didn't want to lose anyone else, especially not her boys (and no, she still didn't regret pushing Obito out of the way. She couldn't imagine how he would do if he was stuck here – go crazy, probably.)

But that just seemed like the wrong way to do it. Not that Rin said anything against Madara out loud, but it seemed to her that Madara's genjutsu was just that – an illusion.

All she did was nod when it seemed that he wanted her to do. It was an act that Rin had long ago perfected – to be unassuming, to be non-combative, to be shy and accepting.

(That had been how she killed her first man, back then. He gave her an opportunity, and she took it. That was it.)

To her surprise, the other point of interest to Madara was her friendship with Obito. He questioned her continuously on how old they had been when they met, the circumstances concerning their first meeting, and – strangely – whether they had ever skipped stones together.

When she answered that they had, once or twice, but it certainly wasn't a common activity, Madara had looked almost disappointed, in a wrinkly old man kind of way.

Still, her contact with Madara was rather sparse. Rin still had no idea if he knew her name. Tobi and the other plant creatures under his command knew, of course, but the old Uchiha continued to call her by 'girl' whenever he addressed her. She wasn't sure if she should be annoyed at that.

Over the months, Rin had slowly regained her physical capabilities. She remembered vaguely the general gist of physical therapy, though that hadn't been her expertise, and she used it here. Slowly and steadily, she had taken her first steps, huffed and puffed her way through fifty push-ups, and – to her immense shock – discovered her newfound control over plants.

She… hadn't reacted well the first time plant roots burst out from her side.

Madara had squinted at her as if he suspected brain damage, which… wasn't actually impossible, given the injuries she had sustained. But Mokuton, an ability that by all accounts died out generations ago, was not something she was supposed to have.

…Though, if she really was a Senju, then she probably would have had the ability already, right? And so, Rin had made a terrible excuse for her surprise ("It wasn't this strong before," she had said weakly) and Madara had frowned.

"Disappointing… It seems that the Senju line has become quite diluted."

It was easy to suppress her indignation at that, just because it had, even more than Madara knew. She was Nohara Rin, not Senju Rin, after all… But it all reminded her too much of some of the grumpier, meaner (which was most) members of Obito's clan, and their annoying insistence on blood purity. She was thankful that Obito had never been forced into an arranged marriage, because he was passionate and willful, and she feared that something like that would stifle him.

(But as relieved as Obito had been, it had still been a source of embarrassment, because it meant that no one in his clan had deemed him worth the effort. Who wanted their daughter to be betrothed to the dead last of the clan?)

Really, it was surprisingly easy to deceive the old man, but Rin highly suspected that it was less her lying abilities and more that Madara could not comprehend that he could be wrong. He thought she was a Senju, and so she was – evidence to the contrary bowed in the face of Uchiha Madara.

Still, Rin wasn't sure what to do with the ability now that she had it. Like many of her civilian born classmates, she had held childhood fantasies of discovering some hidden kekkai genkai that she could use to become incredibly, ridiculously powerful – like the Sharingan and the Byakugan at the same time, one in each eye. But she had grown out of it with age, and realized that life as a shinobi wasn't like a storybook.

She wasn't the protagonist with incredible abilities and limitless chakra. All she had on her side was above-average chakra control, which lead her to become a medic-nin – to become support. Rin would never be as famous as Tsunade of the Sannin, but she could protect her friends.

That was good enough.

Rin stared intensely at the twig growing from her right hand. It made sense – her right side was plant matter already, so it shouldn't be surprising that things could grow from it.

"Woah! Nice job, Rin-chan!"

She started, with a yelp. Over the months, she had accustomed herself somewhat to the constant presence of the two androids who had been charged with her care and keeping… though, not by much.

Rin wasn't sure if she would ever be used to plant creatures jumping in and out of her personal space, often yelling loudly.

"Thank you, Tobi," she said after a moment, although with a smile. The plant creature didn't budge, face tilted toward her in the way that meant it wanted something from her (mostly, more information about human bodily functions.) Rin sighed mentally, but asked politely, "Tobi, do you need something?"

It was natural for Rin to treat everyone with some degree of kindness, just because she didn't see the benefit of getting on a person's bad side. It wasn't much different for Tobi and the other plant creatures. After all, they had no intentions of harming her, and in fact, been very friendly to her during her whole stay. Of course, they were odd creatures, with constant questions about human bodily functions, but Rin had experienced much worse in captivity.

"Rin-chan, I have a question..." It trailed off expectantly.

Rin racked her brains. She had already been asked about every detail of the production of human waste (which, as it happened, was a topic she knew a lot about, what with a lot of her work having to do with human body systems.) Rin knew far less about sewage lines, but what little she knew, Tobi now knew as well. Apart from those, the plant creatures didn't seem to show interest in much else.

"What is it?" She asked, stumped.

"You say a lot of weird stuff in your sleep," Tobi said, oblivious to the blood draining from Rin's face at the realization. "We're all super curious! You kept saying 'obiobiobi' once, and then something about a scarecrow -"

Rin let out a sigh of relief. She... had never been one for sleep talking (or for dreams, for that matter) and it was worrying that she might have given away information that she had not intended to. Her dreams lately had been deep and vivid, often pulling from reality to set its frame.

But this was information that Madara, if not the plant creatures, already knew.

"My teammates' names are Kakashi and Obito," she told them. "I was probably thinking of them in my sleep."

"Obito... " Said the other plant clone in thought. He was the one that Rin had been thinking of as 'Shiro' because of the unnatural pallor of his appearance. "Huh... the name sounds familiar. Wait...!" He (because it was much easier to think of it as that, with its masculine face and body) and held a single finger up. "He's from Madara-sama's clan, right?"

"Eh?" Tobi exclaimed, in clear fascination. "Does he look like a smaller Madara-sama?"

She took a moment to imagine a younger Madara... which was difficult, seeing how the man had a presence as if he had born as old (and grouchy) as he was now. "No," Rin said finally. "They both have spiky hair, but... Obito's hair is a great deal shorter. And, I don't think they look anything alike, to be honest."

There was a lot more than that, because Obito had always been obviously set apart from the rest of his clan, with his sweet smiles and cheerful disposition contrasting greatly with the grimaces and constantly schooled expressions of his relatives. He was worlds apart from the other Uchiha that Rin had seen around the village, to the point that she hadn't connected Uchiha Obito to the actual elite clan until a full week after she first met him.

Both clones looked intrigued at the discovery. "Weird," said Shiro. "How can humans be related and still look that different?"

Rin shrugged. She wasn't sure if she wanted to go in-depth with human genetics in this conversation. "Obito's a lot different from the rest of his clan," she said.

Neither of the creatures seemed much interested on that topic. "Obito's a boy, huh?" Tobi thought out loud. "We've never met a boy before - the only humans we know are you and Madara-sama. Hey," it said, voice curious, "what kind of parts do boys have?"

"...Madara is a boy," Rin pointed out weakly. It seemed that the conversation was moving in a direction she wasn't sure she liked. "Um, isn't Shiro also...?"

Both Tobi and Shiro looked surprised at that. "We don't have any parts!" Tobi exclaimed. Shirou thrust his pelvis forward helpfully, leaves unfurling to reveal a distinct lack of anything. "See?" Rin couldn't help but shrink backwards a bit, face vaguely pink.

"Huh," said Shiro thoughtfully. "Madara-sama doesn't have the -" he made cupping motions around his chest, " - like you do, Rin-chan! So the thing he has underneath," he gestured helpfully to his crotch, "you don't have that either?"

By now, Rin had already covered her face, which had probably grown an alarmingly red. This was quickly rising up on her personal list of 'Embarrassing Moments', and she was growing more and more desperate for it to be over. "No," she said, mortified. "No, I'm a girl - only boys have those."

"So Obito -" She nodded her head frantically.

Tobi tilted its head. "What did it look like?" It asked obliviously. "...Rin-chan, are you okay? You're changing colors again -"

"I've never seen it!" Rin squeaked. At the plant clones' obvious disappointment, she added, "Both boy parts and girl parts are, um, very private. Seeing each other's parts... that only happens if two people are very close. Like... boyfriends and girlfriends, or husbands and wives."

"Oh," it said. "So Obito isn't your boyfriend?"

"No," she replied, the color slowly fading from her face as the conversation took a decided turn for the less awkward. "He's my best friend. But we're not close like that."

Shiro widened his eyes. "Hey, what about the scarecrow guy? The other guy on your team. Is he your boyfriend?"

"K-Kakashi?" Rin stammered, a luminescent blush again appearing on her face. Maybe she had spoken too soon. "Um... I - I don't know if he's interested in that," she finished weakly.

There was something oddly inscrutable about the expression on his face. "But Rin-chan does want scarecrow guy to be her boyfriend!" He declared.

"Yes," she squeaked, before she managed to calm herself down again. "But he's, um, I don't think he likes me back. Anyways... both Kakashi and Obito are very important to me... it doesn't matter who I have a crush on."

Tobi stared at her, gaze more than just a little unsettling. But then, it was a faceless plant creature. "I bet you miss both of them very much, Rin-chan! You should work hard here, and then you'll get to see them both real soon."

"I hope so," Rin admitted. "...I hope they're doing okay, though."

"I bet they are," said Tobi, an odd note in his voice.

Sometimes, Rin asked the plant clones to bring her things back from the outside. "I'm sure Madara won't care," she told them. "I just miss a lot of things that are on the outside.

Tobi and Shiro took turns investigating the outside - for what, they never said - but they agreed that getting their hands on things like candy or a mirror shouldn't interfere with their missions. (A bingo book, on the other hand, was soundly denied. They - and Madara, by extension - weren't that oblivious, it seemed.)

The candy was an experiment, she decided. Rin knew she didn't have to eat. But could she? There was always the possibility that the plant matter graft had altered her digestive and excretory systems in a way that made them obsolete... After all, the plant creatures didn't have any organs.

But Rin wasn't exactly happy with the idea of never being able to eat anything again. Besides, there was a constant coppery taste in her mouth, and anything that would get it out would be greatly appreciated.

Several chocolate bars, a bag of hard candy, and a stale red bean bun later, Rin could confidently say that her sense of taste was fully intact. But devouring the stash had resulted in nothing else. The constant feeling of fullness had not changed in either direction - no feeling bloated, no nausea from the copious amounts of sugar, no aches that indicated an input into a body system that no longer worked - it was as if she hadn't eaten anything at all.

After several days had passed without any side-effects, natural or not, of her first meal in months, Rin let out a sigh of relief. That, at least, wasn't a worry.

The mirror, on the other hand, was... significantly more superficial. There were no reflective surfaces in the cave, no pools of water that she could glance at to see her reflection. All Rin could see was the unnatural pallor of her right arm and side, and...

Well, Rin had never been incredibly concerned with her appearance. She was very aware that her looks put her right in the middle of the 'average' category, but it had never bothered her. She wasn't exceptionally pretty, but she wasn't exceptionally ugly either. That was fine.

In fact, the last time she had paid any attention to her appearance was when she had finally decided that she would confess to Kakashi about her feelings for him, right after the mission. That... hadn't materialized.

But now, she had survived a close encounter with several tons of rock. Rin had already seen the scars on her body and limbs. She... just wanted to see how bad the damage was to her face, which might have been just a little vain.

Rin stared into the mirror. It took her a few minutes to take it in.

There were scars, whorled shapes stretching down her face. That must have been where the rock had struck her, causing flesh to swell and rupture the skin, she thought distantly. It was amazing that her eye was still intact, really. But right now, she couldn't help but stare at the deep curves of scar tissue. This couldn't be covered up, she knew, they were too big, too deep, too obvious for that.

And coupled with the obvious paleness of the right side of her face and her hair shorn patchily, to the scalp in some places... she looked terrible. She looked grotesque, and Rin trembled. There was no way Kakashi would like her back with her looking like this, she thought dizzily. Or, for that matter, anyone remotely interested in a relationship. The civilians would find her horrifying - her own civilian cousins had always gossiped about the horrific scars they've seen on some particularly mangled shinobi, and this was undoubtedly worse than a chunk taken out of her ear or cut over the nose.

"Rin-chan, are you okay?" Tobi asked, a note of worry in its voice. It had been the one to hand her the mirror. "You've been staring at that thing for a while now..."

Rin took a deep breath. Why... Why was she so concerned about that anyways? "I'm fine!" She replied, voice artificially high, falsely cheery. "I was just surprised, that's all."

It didn't matter. Obito wouldn't care how she looked - that was the kind of person he was. And Kakashi... she couldn't say anything sure about him, but he wasn't superficial. Else, he would have had a girlfriend or boyfriend long ago - there must have been someone in his horde of admirers that was his type.

...Her appearance could be worried about later. Right now, her main concern was getting back to Kakashi and Obito and her dad and Minato-sensei and - The list went on and on. Rin couldn't let them down.

Without sunlight and distinct intervals of day and night, it was impossible for Rin to estimate exactly how many days had passed since she left her team. All she could estimate was long - multiple months, perhaps even a year... the difference of each day became indistinct.

She could only measure the passage of time through the progress made. Rin regained her ability to walk and gained some degree of control over her new Mokuton, to the cheers and encouragement of Tobi and Shiro, both of whom she had begun to think of - however unwisely - as friends.

Rin was in the middle of her daily hundred push-ups when she heard the shout. "Rin-chan! Rin-chan!"

She glanced to the side, her eyes widening at the sight of Shiro sticking halfway out of the massive boulder that blocked the exit of the cave. There was a look of panic on his face, which was startling unfamiliar.

"Shiro...? What happened?"

"I was just outside," the android exclaimed, its one pupil-less eye wide in shock, "and I saw - Obito and the scarecrow guy, they're in some kind of trouble!"

Her mind went blank. "Obito, Kakashi...?" Rin's eyes widened. "What -?"

"The two of them were completely alone, and surrounded by enemy shinobi! Rin-chan, I don't know how long they're going to last... there was a lot of blood, and -"

Rin... didn't need any prompting. She was up and at the boulder in seconds, the fear of Madara - still slumped in his chair - completely vanished from her mind. She had to get out of here, Kakashi and Obito needed her help, they were hurt -

It's not good to hide your wounds, you know. I'm looking after you.

She gritted her teeth at the memory of the promise she had made Obito. He needed her now, and all that was standing in her way was this damn rock that she had no chance of breaking.

Rin glanced at Shiro again, and how his body simply seemed to phase through the earth wall. "Shiro, Tobi... is there any way that you two can bring me along with you? I have to go help them -"

"...Yeah, there is," said Tobi, extending an arm toward her. She took it in bemusement - and the spirals of Tobi's body seemed to come apart, seizing her like the maw of some kind of deep-sea predator. "You can wear my body!"

She forced herself not to struggle, and swallowed in worry as the plant tendrils that made up Tobi's body closed up around her face.

"I thought you two served Madara," Rin asked suspiciously. Surely, after trapping her in here for so long... Madara wouldn't let her go so easily.

Shiro shrugged visibly. "...Don't you want to save Kakashi and Obito?" He asked, head tilted.

...That wasn't an answer, and the lack of clarity only heightened Rin's suspicions. But then... this was Kakashi and Obito in danger. She couldn't let them die just because of a few cryptic words. "You know I do."

The plant creature's expression spoke clearly. Then why question a good thing?

Rin bit her lip even as her world was compressed into one bright dot - Tobi's one eye hole forced her to shut her left eye in order to lessen her nausea. Of course she had to question a good thing - that was what shinobi did, look underneath the underneath. And, if there was one word to describe the plant creatures... it was suspicious. All of this... seemed a bit too convenient to be true.

It felt odd, being enclosed of Tobi's body - for lack of a better word - like this. Rin turned away from Madara and eyed the massive boulder. She squeezed her fist, and felt the incredible power that had become open to her.

There was nothing left to be said. Rin took a running start before she slammed her fist into the rock wall - and felt it give. Her clenched fist kept going as the boulder disintegrated and broke into smaller pieces around the impact point, and she had a feeling that she was grinning rather maniacally underneath the Tobi armor.

...In her defense, it was pretty much every young medic nin's dream to be like Tsunade-sama of the Sannin, and not just because of her healing prowess.

The entire boulder, ten feet across, cracked and broke. "...I thought you were going to just phase through the wall," Tobi said around her, somewhat plaintive.

Rin shrugged. She could have. But with this option available, it was hardly a choice. She casually reached around to the back of her neck, and ripped away the root that connected Tobi - and her, by extension - to the huge desiccated statue. Tobi's 'face' unraveled, until the tendrils that made up his body curled up around her neck, almost like an octopus extending its tentacles. She sighed in relief at the return of binocular vision.

"So, you're going...?"

Madara's gravelly voice sent a shiver down Rin's spine. She didn't turn around to look at him.

"Thank you for saving me, Madara-sama," she said, as politely as she could with escape so close. "But I can't stay. I need to protect my friends."

"Heh. Is that so?" Somehow, she knew that a wrinkled smile had appeared on his face. "You're impatient - that's something you have in common with your ancestors, Senju."

Rin walked forward, ignoring Madara's words, even as thoughts whirled within her mind. Why... wasn't he ordering the plant androids to bring her back? It was as easy as a single word - it wasn't as if she could put up a fight, as trapped within Tobi as she was.

"You will return," Madara called out, and there was a concrete promise within his voice. "And when you do... You will thank me, Senju."

And then... because Rin knew how to add one and one to get two, that's when she realized.

Madara wanted her to leave.

It was a wholly unsavory thought. The idea of doing anything the strange old man wanted her to do grated.

But. Kakashi and Obito were out there - that's what Shiro and Tobi agreed on. She wouldn't let them die just to interfere with... whatever plans Madara had for her. It wasn't worth it.

"Shiro," she called out, voice hard. "Where's Kakashi and Obito?"

He tilted his head. "I'll show you the way, Rin-chan!"

Rin made her way through the forest quickly, jumping from tree to tree with a strength and agility that she was entirely unused to.

The trees rushed past her in blurs of varying degrees of green. "How's Kakashi and Obito doing right now?" She asked urgently.

"Um, it looks pretty bad," said Tobi, its body thrumming around her as it spoke. "Apparently all the enemies are Kiri ANBU and jounin. At least, that's what they're saying. It looks like there are at least two dozen of them."

Her eyes widened. 'Bad' was an understatement. Kakashi was a jounin and Obito had the Sharingan, but... the three of them had gone up against a handful of Iwa jounin, and the results had been pretty terrible. Two dozen enemies...

"Is Minato-sensei with them, at least?"

"Who?"

"The Yellow Flash," she amended. "Is he with them?"

Tobi paused for a moment. "Um, looks like he's a few dozen miles away..." It said apologetically. "Maybe he's on a different mission."

Bad, bad, bad. Rin understood too well how the shrinking Konoha shinobi corps strained to cover all parts of the war effort. The hospital had been especially affected, in that aspect. So, she couldn't exactly blame Minato-sensei for not being able to be there. But still...

Boys... please be working together. That had been what she had begged Kakashi and Obito to do, as she choked out what she thought was her last breaths. Rin was the primary audience to the boys' apparent inability to be in the vicinity of one another for more than a few minutes before getting into a fight with each other. Fighting together, working as a team... all that was out of the question.

She could only hope that they were looking out for each other now. Maybe then, they could stand a chance.

As she and Tobi get closer and closer to the edge of the forest, Rin could hear the dull roar of battle - the muffled shouts of techniques, the hiss and splash and crackling that spoke of the elements clashing. And... there was some kind of pressure in the air, like killing intent but more... monstrous, as if emitted not by a human but by some kind of beast.

She was here. The edge of the clearing laid before her, and it was easy for Rin to see the combatants easily.

Rin noticed Kakashi first, his distinctive silver hair a beacon to her eyes. But he was quite literally surrounded by chakra, one of a malevolent, uncontrolled, entirely un-Kakashi make. It ballooned up around him, forming tendrils that looked almost like tails, which waved angrily around him. There was an unearthly sound emanating from his form - he was screaming.

There was something strange about his image; it distorted slightly, like heat waves on a hot summer's day.

But, she thought, automatically looking for spiky black hair and orange goggles, where was Obito -

Several things happened in quick succession.

Rin saw a single dark haired figure, clad in a familiar jounin's flak jacket - no goggles, and with dual crimson eyes focused on Kakashi's form, but unmistakably the form of Uchiha Obito.

Somehow, the distortion around Kakashi's form was Obito's doing - its magnitude increased, along with the volume of Kakashi's bestial screams, even as what was obviously blood flowed from Obito's Sharingan in twin trails.

He was attacking Kakashi with his Sharingan, what was he -

Rin moved to jump forward, just as one of Kakashi's 'tails' shot out from his writhing, distorting form.

She halted in her tracks, her voice caught in her throat. Rin stared forward, horrified.

Obito hung soundlessly from the chakra tendril that had just punched right though his abdomen.

But his eyes were still staring forward at Kakashi, Sharingan still whirling, even as he coughed up blood. Just a few seconds later, the swirling around Kakashi's form reached its peak, and he - tails and all, including the one that had speared Obito through - disappeared, as if wiped from existence itself.

Without the tail to hold him up, Obito stumbled forward a step, swaying on his feet. With horrified fascination, Rin realized that she could see right through him.

Then, with a soft sigh that sounded too loud to her ears, he fell forward.

Rin's mind went suddenly, horrifyingly blank.

[A/N: Oh, look at that. I've been impaled!

I'll be gone for the next four days on my first (paid!) college visit. I'll be super busy during that time, so... don't expect an update for any of my fics for at least a week.]