Rin. Team Yondaime.


Rin allows herself to believe, just one time, in what everyone says about her sensei. That he is Konoha's God of War, the Yellow Flash, the turning tide of the war, and he'll come, he'll be there, he'll save you no matter what.

It is unfair, she knows, to expect so much of him, because he's just as human as any and despite how much he racks up the enemy death toll, astronomical levels, he can't lower theirs.

But she allows herself to hope, even as she sews up Obito's – Obito's and, dear god, can she ever forgive herself – eye, that somehow, somehow, her sensei will find a way to defy the finality of death.

He does not – and she is gripped with a grim, dark anger that wants to, and easily could, pin the blame on him. He wasn't there. He didn't save them. He wasn't fast enough. He didn't love them enough – And she catches herself, ashamed and furious, because her sensei really did the best he could, she knows him well enough to read the hard lines of sorrow and fury on his shoulders. She bites off the bloody condemnation on her tongue and, not in any mood to listen to his hypocritical talk of forgiveness, leaves to seek absolution from the stars instead.