~oOo~

Chapter 7:

Among the Ruins

~oOo~

Karura stalked over to Sasori, irritably joining him in the punishing, sandy wind. The One-Tail often caused sandstorms like that, though neither minded it so much. She was a wind master and could redirect it around her, while Sasori probably couldn't even feel it.

"I'm surprised you left Gaara's side," said Sasori.

She scowled, but not in his direction. "The old bat said I was getting in the way."

She dropped the scowl. "This was a poor night to do this. The One-Tail's even more aggressive than usual." It wouldn't stop roaring and lunging against its restraints.

The One-Tail's roars grew louder and the wind grew harsher.

"How do you know this is a bad night?" asked Sasori, eyes fixed on the monster.

"The air feels off," she observed. "And the One-Tail isn't focused on anyone around it. It won't look away from the east."

"Do you think it senses something we can't?" asked Sasori.

She shrugged. "Maybe. If the previous living sacrifice wasn't already dead, I'd recommend delaying the resealing until whatever it is goes away."

They both knew that wasn't really an option. The sealing team would just have to work harder tonight.

~oOo~

There was a storm in Rin's head. Waves crashed against her mind while branches filled her body.

"Kill him now!" the Three-Tails roared in her head. She was suffocating, drowning in the monster's roaring rapids while her lungs filled with leaves.

She looked into Obito's eye. His Kaleidoscope was on, but she saw the fear in it. She knew he was seeing the real her, not an idealized future her she didn't want.

"No," she said to monster in her head. "You will get rid of that thing that's controlling him, and the 'curse around his heart' that you talked about."

"You would die for the boy who's killing you?!" demanded the monster, more furious than incredulous.

"I'm not dying. And neither is Obito," she insisted. "That's my choice."

"Fine," it snapped.

Rin felt immense chakra pour out of her. It was so thick she could see it, a deep, dark red ooze. It seared her own skin. To her horror, it spread to Obito, and to her even greater horror, she felt her own arm pull back and slam forward into Obito's heart.

This was the most scared Obito had ever been. Some thing was covering his skin, forcing him to stab his best friend. He felt—no, he saw—the monster's surging chakra, and he saw Rin's eyes turn red like the Three-Tails'. He was scared that he'd killed her, that the monster was all that was left, and even as multiple voices screamed out in his head for the future, for the Eye of the Moon, he saw Three-Tails Rin draw her arm back and just accepted that he was going to die tonight.

Black Zetsu shrieked as the Three-Tails slammed Rin's arm into Obito. The boy's heart was incinerated by the beast's chakra, along with the Heart's Curse around it. Its anchor to Obito was gone. Perhaps later, when it wasn't newly-born and had absorbed many more lives, it could both force its will on him and endlessly absorb tailed beast chakra. But now, without the Heart's Curse resonating with Madara's will inside Obito, and with scarcely more than a few dozen people's worth of life force inside it, Black Zetsu could already feel Obito pulling his branches out of Rin and the Three-Tails' chakra burning into it, scraping it off the boy.

"You can't deny what you've done. You can't deny the Moon's Eye," Black Zetsu hissed in Obito's ear. "This is the only path open to you, and I will always be there, guiding you down it."

It let go. There were backup plans. Always a backup plan. Time to retreat. Black Zetsu let the foul chakra cloak reach out and push it off Obito. It wormed away and melted into the ground.

Once he felt the thing covering him gone, Obito opened up Authority. He was scared, of the strange Black Zetsu stalking him and of Rin, losing control of the monster. He was so tired from fighting that he could barely manage to pull Rin and himself into his personal dimension, where there were no Zetsus to haunt him and no way for the Three-Tails to hurt anyone.

His second-to-last thought, just before he passed out with Rin's arm where his heart should be, was that he was going to die. His last thought was that was exactly what he deserved.

~oOo~

"Naruto, you are my son, and I love you very, very much,"

Jiraiya would probably consider this a very sad moment. Of course, Jiraiya also said not to follow Minato and the Nine-Tails. For Orochimaru, it was exhilarating. He'd just witnessed the Death God Summoning Seal and the creation of a new living sacrifice.

"Orochimaru," said Minato.

"Yes, Lord Fourth?" he answered, stepping closer. The Fire shadow was a sensor. Orochimaru wasn't surprised he knew he was there.

Minato turned to face Orochimaru. He looked exhausted and deathly pale. Orochimaru wasn't a sensor, but he didn't need to read Minato's chakra to know the other man was about to die.

"I'm entrusting you with the attacker's body," the Fire Shadow said. Holding one of his special kunai, he flickered briefly in place, a body suddenly laying at his feet. "I don't think this is the real Obito. Leaf has an enemy with dangerous abilities."

Orochimaru stared with great interest at Obito's corpse. An artificial being of some kind, bearing wood release and a fully-awakened Copy Wheel? It was a dream come true for him.

"I understand what needs to be done. No enemy of Hidden Leaf should know more about its secrets than us," he responded. Especially not more than himself.

Minato nodded tiredly. "One other thing," he said, stumbling forward, tripping over the corpse. "Bring back Kushina."

Orochimaru raised an eyebrow at that. It wasn't that he couldn't, rather that Minato shouldn't have known he could.

"Oh? And how would you presume I do that?"

"Don't fuck with me, Orochimaru," said the Fire Shadow. "I know all about your obsession with immortality, and I know about the scrolls you've discovered."

"It's been over ten minutes since her death," Orochimaru responded. "Her soul's moved on to the Pure Land. Assuming I did know how to, it would almost certainly cost another life to bring it back. Surely the great and caring Minato Namikaze isn't asking me to use a forbidden technique?" Orochimaru was relishing this. He'd studiously avoided bending the rules too far for years, holding himself back as a courtesy to the ninja village that commanded his loyalty. And now, here was the Fire Shadow himself, begging him to break those rules.

"This is my..." Minato tried to step forward, but he stumbled again. Orochimaru caught him.

"This is my last order as Fire Shadow," he continued, voice quiet and ragged. "You will bring her back or so help me, I'll hunt you down... in the next life."

Orochimaru waited, but Minato had ceased talking. Such was the way of corpses.

"Very well, Lord Fourth," he said. "I am nothing if not loyal to my Fire Shadow." He laid Minato on the ground and stood up.

Kushina was lucky. Her soul may have moved on, but her corpse was fresh and entirely undamaged. He didn't need to make a cursed body of ashes to carry her soul when her original body was still available. As an added benefit, she might even come out of it properly alive, rather than undead.

"You, Sparrow," he barked at the black ops ninja holding the infant. "You swore to protect the Nine-Tails' living sacrifice and the Fourth Fire Shadow with your life. You failed. But you can still fulfill your Fire Shadow's last order."

Orochimaru worked very hard to keep from grinning the whole time. There were other black ops ninja around, after all, and it would reflect poorly on him in their reports, which he would never read. Still, you could hardly blame him for being in a good mood. Impure World Resurrection was a magnificent technique.

~oOo~

Jiraiya barged into the clearing, emerging from the woods around what remained of the safe house. Tsunade was close behind him.

"Is Minato—" he started to ask. Orochimaru cut him off.

"Very dead. But Kushina made a miraculous recovery."

Jiraiya had had a feeling this was going to happen. The fact of it still hammered him, and he was speechless. Minato was the Child of Prophecy. He wasn't supposed to die.

Tsunade stepped forward, narrowing her eyes. What kind of "miracle", she wanted to ask, but then she saw Kushina's body leaned up against a tree, pale but breathing, and rushed over to her. Jiraiya instinctively followed, still reeling, letting his team instincts drive him when nothing else could.

This is impossible. A living sacrifice can't survive having their prisoner removed. Still, Tsunade could tell that Kushina, while unconscious, at least seemed very much alive. "How could she survive the Nine-Tails' extraction?" asked Tsunade. She looked at Jiraiya, who had more experience with these kinds of seals.

"I don't know. It's impossible," Jiraiya muttered. It was all impossible. Kids came back from the dead, the invincible were destroyed, and sacrifices were undone. He looked up at Orochimaru. "How?" he asked, then after a moment of thought, he narrowed his eyes and pressed. "What did you do?" The impossible could be done, it's just the cost was always too high.

"I merely obeyed the Fire Shadow's orders to the letter and to the end," said Orochimaru, a little too cheerily.

Tsunade was satisfied now that Kushina was really, truly alive and glanced up at Orochimaru. She saw he was holding the infant. Amidst all the ruins, it was still the most disturbing thing she'd seen all night.

~oOo~

Rin slammed into a new, harder floor. Her arm was still rammed through Obito and she pulled it out. Obito wrenched his own arm back, now a stump half-dissolved by the Three-Tails' chakra.

"I removed the Heart's Curse from the boy," grumbled the Three-Tails in her head. "The living curse that bound itself to him is also gone."

Living curse? The stuff that covered Obito? She wanted to ask what the hell a living curse even was, and also where she was, but she was distracted by the pain. Yes, she hurt around the edges of the wound, and she could feel the emptiness where there should be something, but, strangely, the hole in her chest itself wasn't debilitating. No, what hurt was the Three-Tails' chakra. It burned her skin where it rolled across, and where it congealed and plugged the gap in her body it felt like acid chewing her out from the inside. She wanted to scream but the huge, gaping hole in her chest prevented her. Again.

It took way too long to heal.

"Wood release resists my chakra," said the monster. "Your suffering is incidental, not my goal."

That didn't make her feel any better. What did feel better was its chakra disappearing and being able to breathe normally again.

Obito opened his eye. He didn't know how long he'd been out of it, but Rin was still within arm's reach and just now sitting up.

"Ugh. Sure, why don't both my teammates have a go at me?" she groaned. She looked at Obito and saw he was conscious. "Where are we? And what happened?" she asked.

He sat up. "This is my dimension."

"We're in your God's Authority place?"

He nodded. She looked around. Obito's dimension was a sea of giant gray stone blocks, some raised higher, some sunk lower, some with gaps between them. She couldn't see any light sources, and there were no shadows, but it was still almost as bright as twilight and she could see just fine.

She looked back at him. His knees were pulled up to his chest now. "Obito," she asked, "What was that?"

"I don't know. But I didn't attack you!" he insisted. "It was that thing. I've never seen it before, but..." he trailed off.

"But what?"

"It sounded like a Zetsu." It'd sounded willful and menacing, different from any previous Zetsu he'd spoken with, but the voice itself was definitely a Zetsu's.

"The Three-Tails called it a 'living curse'," Rin added. They both certainly kept great company, didn't they?

"What happened?" she asked again. "Where's Madara? What was that seal you were laying on?"

Obito was quiet for a moment. "I killed everyone."

She raised an eyebrow at that. "What?"

"I..." he wasn't sure what to say. "I was in Hidden Leaf. I attacked Minato. And Kushina. I think... they had a kid?"

"It was just a nightmare, Obito," she said, dubious. It certainly sounded like a nightmare.

He looked her in the eye, the first time since he'd woken up with a hole in his chest, and flicked on his Copy Wheel. She flinched.

"The Copy Wheel doesn't memorize dreams, Rin. Or illusions," he said. It was why illusions didn't work on the Copy Wheel. And it was why Uchiha were never scared of nightmares. "Madara sent me. He wanted the Nine-Tails, and Kushina had it. And he wanted revenge on Leaf, so I think he made me..." he trailed off.

"Made you what, Obito," Rin pressed him. If he really had attacked the village, then she needed to what, exactly, had happened. Was her clan okay? If Madara was behind the attack, she wouldn't put it past him to attack her clan. "I need to know."

~oOo~

Mikoto couldn't feel the Fox's chakra anymore. Another Uchiha, a middle-aged chunin, stopped by her hospital room.

"The Nine-Tailed Fox has been resealed. The Fourth Fire Shadow is dead," the older woman announced.

"And Kushina Uzumaki?" asked Mikoto. Nobody could survive a tailed beast being pulled out of them, but she still hoped that maybe her friend had survived. Or in the very least, kicked all kinds of ass and left a few craters outside of Leaf. It was how she would've wanted to go.

"Lady Tsunade says she's still alive," she answered. "Lady Uzumaki has been transferred here."

Mikoto nodded. That made sense. The public hospitals were probably already full, and surrounding her with Uchiha MPs would be the greatest security available.

It was perfect, really. The military police were almost entirely Uchiha, and no one would dare attack their stronghold. And like all prominent clans, the Uchiha were large enough—nearly 138,000 total clan members when Mikoto last checked the roster—that their compound had its own hospital.

A bit late for enhanced security, though, Mikoto thought. "Here? Which room?" she asked. My best friend is alive.

"I'll find out, Lady Mikoto," said the ninja before leaving the room.

"You're not seriously thinking of visiting her, are you?" asked Fugaku.

"Of course I am. She just lost her husband and maybe even her baby. What kind of friend would I be if I didn't go to her?" she said.

She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. "Now, you can help me get to her, or I'm going to body flicker right there, and spend two minutes vomiting." She was dog tired from childbirth—she was physically spent in a way ninja rarely experienced, which meant her chakra reserves were so low that she was cutting into her life force. (Still, it wasn't anything worse than what she'd experienced in the Third Ninja World War, or when she'd birthed Itachi.)

"What about Sasuke?" Fugaku asked. Itachi was still holding them.

She gave Fugaku that impatient I'm-the-head-of-the-household look she normally reserved for servants who weren't moving fast enough. "He's coming with me, of course."

Fugaku raised an eyebrow. "You were going to body flicker while carrying a baby?"

Mikoto paused at that. "Of course I'd never do something that stupid. I'm just impatient. I need to be there for my old teammate. You'd do the same."

Fugaku nodded. He would. Any proper ninja would.

~oOo~

"Mikoto!" Kushina shouted, her face brightening when she saw her friend.

Mikoto rushed over. Which is to say, she carefully passed Sasuke to a nurse who was hovering around them, before awkwardly wheeling herself over to Kushina's bed with all the grace of someone who'd never been in a wheelchair before.

When Mikoto was as close as she could get, she hauled herself up next to Kushina. She thought she heard a nurse object, but she ignored whoever it was.

"You're alive," she said, hugging her, then pulling back and grasping Kushina's hand. "I was afraid... what happened?"

Kushina frowned. "We were attacked. The Nine-Tails was pulled out of me."

Mikoto was struck by how very sad she looked.

"It was Obito."

"What?" Mikoto responded. Minato's old student? Wasn't he dead? "How?"

Orochimaru hovered towards the back of Kushina's room. He didn't care much for gratuitous displays of friendship (a simple "I see you're still alive" was what he would've done in Mikoto's place), but he stayed because he was eager to gather information from a revived (former) living sacrifice. This was the first human soul he'd tried Impure World Resurrection on. Had she actually reached the Pure Land? Did she remember it? There were so many things he wanted to know!

He was also quite pleased that Kushina was alive. Being undead had certain benefits, but also drawbacks that Orochimaru considered unacceptable. It was why he considered Impure World Resurrection only a first step towards immortality, rather than the final technique. It also avoided many awkward questions.

~oOo~

Kushina was dead. Minato was dead. Obito had felt his life force fade to nothing.

"What about Kakashi?!" pressed Rin, sitting close to Obito, leaning closer in her panic. This was too much for her. She wasn't the like old Kakashi, she couldn't learn people she cared about were dead and feel nothing.

"I don't know. I think—"

"You think? Does the Copy Wheel show you what's real or not?!"

"I don't know!" he snapped back at her. "The Kaleidoscope shows me what I want and how to get it. I don't always know what's now and what's then!"

That didn't clear things up but it certainly explained why he acted so weird when he had it on.

"I—Madara—wanted him dead," Obito continued. "I think I made him commit seppuku? I think I left before he could do it? I didn't try to sense him before I came back."

"Is that it?" she asked. "Then you came straight back here?"

"No, I—" he clammed up, staring at her.

She waited, then couldn't anymore. "You what?"

"I went to the Nohara," he said.

"You what?!" she yelled. For the first time since he'd started talking, she reached out to him, gripping him tightly by the shoulders.

"And. You. Did. What." She bit out, glare boring into him. Her clan didn't deserve it. They'd already suffered so much. Wasn't it enough? Hadn't they lost enough? Hadn't she lost enough?

She felt the Three-Tails rumbling. The floor dropped out from her and she landed in an ocean of chakra, cool, wet, and salty, but still searing into her.

"I can't undo what hurt you, but I can remove the source," the monster said, it's voice an undertow pulling her deeper.

Obito went limp in her crushing grip. He felt the monstrous spike in chakra. And for the first time, his Kaleidoscope showed a vision of his own death. He was okay with it.

He repeated something he'd last said when he still thought Rin was dead, when he'd last slaughtered people he thought he hated.

"I am already in hell."

With the Kaleidoscope, he pushed aside the Three-Tail's will. Her hands were still burning him with chakra but her eyes were no longer red like the monster's.

"I'm okay with dying if you're the one who kills me," he said, a little sad but mostly, surprisingly calm. He was already in hell, but Rin didn't need to follow him. He'd pull her away from the monster, then, if she still wanted to kill him, he could take her back to Hidden Leaf and let her do so, in full control of herself.

"Madara wanted them dead. But all I can remember is telling Lady Nohara that she wasn't safe. That Hidden Leaf could throw any of us away," he said.

She blinked. "What?" she asked. "My family's alive? You didn't hurt them?"

He nodded. "Somebody used a seal and Madara lost control of me. We just talked."

The tailed beast chakra dropped to nothing.

~oOo~

Maki stared at the One-Tail, a little scared but mostly fascinated.

Chiyo strolled over to her. The seal was set up now, it just needed to be applied. Her work was finished, and she only stuck around in case something went wrong, and because her family was close by.

"Maki," she said to her. "Understand, you'll be Gaara's mentor as he grows up."

Maki looked up at her, wide-eyed. (Thank the sages they were upwind from the monster's sandstorm.)

"I—yes, Lady Second," she stuttered, taken aback that somebody like the Second Wind Shadow would approach her.

Chiyo waved her hand dismissively. "Don't be so nervous. You've done a fine job of controlling the Seven-Tails for the last six years. But Gaara needs a peer, someone who can understand him and, if necessary, overpower him should he fail to control the One-Tail."

Maki was already over her nervousness. She'd never needed much encouragement that way. She drew herself up and said, "Thanks. But I'm not scared."

Okay, so she was only twelve, could barely remembered her own sealing, and had only graduated into genin last year. But she thought she was pretty good at stuff, and hey, the Second Wind Shadow even trusted her with important jobs!

The Seven-Tails decided this was a great time to start talking. It never was. "You know this'd be a great time to make trouble, right? Think of all the fun we could have! And all the boring stiffs are stuck babysitting a big dumb desert raccoon, so we can really cut loose!"

Maki pursed her lips and ignored it. The Seven-Tails had horrible ideas about "fun". The one time she'd listened, she'd turned an entire training field into a crater and almost killed her best friend.

"Do you hate me?" she asked the older woman. Maki took whatever opportunities she got. She wanted to know, from the source, and here Lady Second was.

Chiyo looked down at the girl. "I beg your pardon?"

"I heard that you hated the Seven-Tails, and I thought maybe—"

Chiyo rolled her eyes. "Who told you that? And why would that make me hate you?"

"Kazan did," she answered.

The previous One-Tail living sacrifice? Chiyo's opinion of him took a sudden, posthumous downturn. And he'd seemed like such a disciplined man, too.

"I don't hate you. Nor do I hate the Seven-Tails," Chiyo said. "I merely resent the First Wind Shadow's decision to accept it over the Eight-Tails in the First Shadow Treaty."

"Why?" asked Maki.

Chiyo sighed, exasperated. She was an old woman and shouldn't have to put up with any of this. "Didn't you pay attention in history class? The tailed beasts were obviously supposed to be split between the great villages so each had nine tails worth, to maintain the balance of power. Leaf got the Nine-Tails, Stone the Four and Five-tails, and Mist the Three and Six-Tails."

"I don't think they talked about that part," Maki said.

Chiyo grumbled to herself. "Such disrespect for their own history." Then, more clearly, she continued. "My father—the First Wind Shadow—, rather than negotiate for the Eight-Tails, as it was clearly due to us, asked for the Seven-Tails."

"Not to be rude," said Maki, suspecting that she was being rude but forging ahead anyway, "but hasn't the Seven-Tailed Scarab always belonged to us? I mean, they worshipped it in the Imperial Era and everything." She remembered that much from history class, at least. Really, she'd find the Seven-Tailed royalty of the sands kind of cool if, you know, it wasn't stuffed inside of her.

Chiyo looked at her sternly. "The First Wind Shadow wasn't as wise as everyone thinks. The Eight-Tailed Ox produces water—that's its natural element. Better to have unlimited water chakra than a second sand demon in the desert."

Father had had his reasons. The Eight-Tails had long lived in Lighting Country, just like the Seven-Tails had lived in the desert. Human conceit could only hold them for so long. They would've naturally gravitated towards their favorite territories. Even with living sacrifices containing them, it would've only been a matter of time until someone lost control and the beast headed into enemy territory. Wars would start.

Chiyo rejected this reasoning. Water was more precious than peace. War could be endured while hunger and thirst could not.

~oOo~

"It's finished," declared Kouzen. "Gaara is now the One-Tail's living sacrifice."

"What next, Lord Third?" asked Rasa, standing next to him. Lady Second and her twin brother were headed toward them, both looking ready to unload a stern lecture.

"I'm going to visit my mother," the Wind Shadow said. Unfortunately, resealing the One-Tail had prevented him from comforting his now-widowed mother. But that was all out of the way now.

"Clean up, Rasa," Kouzen said, and promptly dissolved into iron sand.

"By sage, what an asshole," mumbled Rasa, bracing himself to face Lady Second alone.

~oOo~

Rin's grip on him loosened. He mumbled something.

"What?" she asked. He brushed off her hands and stood up.

"I can fix this," he said. His Kaleidoscope was still on.

She narrowed her eyes. "You can't undo death."

No, but he could undo the loss. "I can fix it," he insisted. "None of this matters with the Eye of the Moon."

"Obito, you can't," she insisted in turn. She stood up as well, and when their eyes met, she knew his Kaleidoscope once again saw something other than what was in front of him. "It won't be real."

She was getting angry again. She'd almost died, and Obito was still going to be stupid and make a stupid, fake world after making the real one even worse? Was he trying to be shitty?

"It doesn't matter if it's real, Rin," he said. "What matters is if it feels real." He started walking over to a different stone block, one raised high enough to look like a wall.

"Where are you going?" she demanded, following him.

Obito kept supplies here, including some of what he needed for Madara's—now Obito's—plans. Though Rin probably didn't know that. "I can't just sit around," he said. "The world needs Infinite Tsukuyomi. I need Infinite Tsukuyomi."

On impulse, Rin grabbed his shoulder, spun him around, and pinned him to the wall. "I don't need it," she said.

"Rin, I have to do this."

"You will not. I forbid it," she said sternly. "You will not start a war, you will not kill thousands, you will not take everything from me and everyone else."

He was silent for a moment, Kaleidoscope shifting from that thousand-yard, hundred-year stare to focus on the her in front of him. "I already have."

She hated his words but was grateful that he could actually meet her eyes. "You don't have to make it worse," she begged. "Obito, please, turn off your Copy Wheel. If what you've seen is so bad, just turn it off."

"I can't," he said softly. "The vision's all I have."

Why did he have to sound so damn sad? "I'm here, damn it, Obito! We're all we have!"

They stared at each other, Rin waiting for him to turn his eye normal. He did, but now he seemed even more reluctant to meet her eyes. She let go of him and he slid to the ground.

"I'm sorry, Rin," he said. She knew he meant it, but it didn't make her feel any better. And honestly, that he was sorry was sort of a given, because she knew Obito. It's not like she expected him feel good about himself after being mind-controlled into attempting genocide.

She closed her eyes and sighed wearily. She wanted to go home. She wanted to see her clan so badly. And she could help! It was her duty as a medic ninja of Hidden Leaf to assist her own village. She could do loads of good, rather than moping around with a twice-traumatized Obito.

And yet.

She was just one medic. Leaf had, what, nearly 50,000 medic ninjas? And only half of them were out in the field at any given time. What difference would a single fifteen-year-old special jounin make? Worse, she still didn't have control of the Three-Tails. The monster had almost taken over just now. Would it have let go if Obito hadn't stopped it?

And also.

Obito. He couldn't go back. Not now. He'd be killed on sight after what he did. She'd have to leave him here, and she knew, if she did, he'd do something terrible. He might let himself drown, like she had, and lash out at the world. (He'd drown in self-loathing and despair, until the only way to breathe was the Eye of the Moon.) Or... she simply wouldn't have a friend left to come back to.

No. She'd already lost the rest of her team, and she refused to let go of her friend. The only person she knew, for sure, she could help was Obito.

She kneeled down in front of him.

"Rin?" asked Obito nervously.

"I hate Madara, not you. You're still my best friend and teammate." She pulled him close. "I'm not going anywhere."

~oOo~

Author's Notes:

That's twice now Rin's experienced the trauma of dying without any of the benefits of actually being dead. Her life really is a shitshow.

Can you tell that I really like melodrama?

More worldbuilding! I attempted to spruce up the background of the tailed beasts, and also rewrote the Seven-Tails so it belongs to Wind Country. Kishimoto almost did a nine-tails-for-each-major-village thing, but he clearly couldn't commit to it, because that would've entailed putting more than five minutes of thought into worldbuilding, and Kishimoto had checks to cash.

Maki is not an OC, she just doesn't get a lot of screen time in the original series.

And yes, 138,000 Uchiha. They were supposedly world-famous for the entirety of the Warring Clans Era—you don't get that kind of fame and success if you can only take a few missions at a time. There were enough of them to maintain a sizeable fortress even while accepting many missions—Itachi and Sasuke had their big battle in the ruins of it. They were also numerous enough that they could marry among themselves without inbreeding becoming a problem. (The minimum viable genetic population for humans is, depending on who you ask, somewhere between 3,000 and 10,000. This is why the Uchiha can afford their obsession with heritage while Sakumo Hatake had to find a wife outside of his clan.) Again, one of Kishimoto's problems is how small he thinks. So no, the Uchiha aren't a group of people who can be killed in one night by two ninjas, any whispers of rebellion will make the rest of Hidden Leaf shit a brick for good reason, and any civil war they start is going to be a war.