Author's Note: I am back! Just over a week between updates is a pretty good turnaround on a chapter that clocks in at a little over 5k words. We're also popping off in hits, closing in on 4k. I'd love to pass up 100 follows and favorites in the next chapter or two. Can we do it? I want to believe we can, but I'm going to need your support!
Human
Whirlpool Arc
Chapter 9
Rin
Despite sleeping for eighteen straight hours, Rin was tired. The strain on her body from the previous day's attempts at controlling chakra had left her completely spent. She stumbled into the front room of the hold house as the sun was setting. "Wasn't it nighttime when I went to bed?" Rin asked, rubbing her eyes and yawning.
Kushina looked up from a small pile of notes, scratched her nose with a pen, and nodded. "You needed to recuperate your chakra. Your body and chakra system are nowhere near recovered from your last mission. Honestly we probably shouldn't have pushed it so hard yesterday."
Rin considered that, but nodded. "I feel like shit."
Kushina laughed. Rin waited for her to finish, but arranged her expression to convey that she did not find it funny at all.
"Is there food?" Rin asked, when Kushina had settled down.
"There's a whole mess of ration bars," Kushina said. "But I think you'll enjoy the ducks I caught earlier a lot more."
Rin nodded, thankful for the real food, and allowed herself to be led to the kitchen. Kushina had done an amazing job patching up the house, cleaning out the old dust, and making it mostly inhabitable. On the table were the field utensils and plates, holding a rather delicious looking pair of birds that were plucked, gutted, and cooked. Rin's stomach growled.
She practically threw herself into a chair, tearing a leg off and biting into it ravenously. "Please remember to breathe while you eat," Kushina said as she sat down and took a much more reasonable approach to the meal. Rin grinned sheepishly, mouth full, but did not slow down. How was she so hungry?
After... Dinner? Breakfast? After they ate, Kushina cleared off the table, and they took the bones outside to dispose of. Kushina showed Rin the way to a small creek, where they could safely wash their dishes. "About fifteen minutes walk upstream there's a pond you can bathe in," Kushina said. Kushina put their dishes down, pulled a scroll from her pocket, and unsealed a bag. Rin eyed it curiously, but Kushina shooed her away.
Rin left Kushina with the dishes, and wandered up the stream. The water got deeper after she clambered up a small waterfall about as tall as she was, and Rin found the pond a few moments later. The water was swirling slowly, because of course it was, and Rin was surprised that it wasn't as cold as she expected it to be.
She sat on a large rock at the edge of the pond, removed her sandals, and dangled her feet in the water. Rin opened the bag next, and found soap, shampoo, conditioner, a towel and a change of clothes waiting for her. She smiled. Kushina really did think of everything.
Putting the bag on the rock beside her, Rin found herself looking at the now emerging stars. She wondered if Kakashi was recovering, if he was even still alive. The thought that he could be dead at her hands made her feel sick, and she fought the all-consuming guilt that had so often accompanied thoughts of Kakashi since she'd set off with Kushina.
Wasn't it supposed to get easier to deal with? That was what Kushina had told her. But despite the week that had passed, Rin still felt as emotionally raw and devastated as ever. Perhaps it was too optimistic of her to be feeling any better so quickly, but she wanted to be able to function without the presence of someone to distract her.
Rin sniffled, and wiped her eyes. Bathe. She needed to bathe. She could mope later.
Forty minutes later, Rin was returning to the house, clean, and feeling at least able to focus.
"Still feel like shit?" Kushina teased when she stepped into the house. Rin grunted noncommittally and offered a 'so-so' gesture with the hand that was not carrying the toiletries bag. Kushina chuckled and rolled her eyes. "When you're up to it, I want to talk you through what I have in mind for your seal."
Rin nodded, put the bag in the bedroom, and returned to the table where Kushina was sitting. "Now's good."
Kushina nodded and took her outside. Around the side of the house, Kushina had constructed a sort of blackboard on the wall, but she couldn't make it out in the dark. As if reading her mind, Kushina walked around the area in a circle, and activated several seals that began to emit light, until it was like being in the Konoha stadium at night.
Rin looked at the wall and gaped.
Kushina had drawn what looked like scribbles all over the wall in charcoal. It was a joke. It had to be a joke.
"Okay," Kushina said. "This is my complete first draft of the seal. I've been tweaking my notes since you fell asleep, and I drew this out while you were getting cleaned up. It's easier to digest when it's bigger, I think. I don't know if you'd be able to follow along if we were looking at the version I drew in a scroll."
Rin looked at Kushina. "Oh don't worry about me following along. I definitely won't."
Kushina ruffled her hair fondly. "I think you'll do just fine."
Rin silently agreed to disagree. Sealing was complicated.
Kushina picked up a stick that had one end covered in soot. "I started with my seal," Kushina pointed at a strange spiral like set of markings with her stick. "My seal contains the nine-tailed fox, and allows me to use my chakra or the fox's chakra without harming myself."
Rin nodded, that was pretty straightforward. Not that she would have been able to figure that out on her own. But it was still easy enough to follow along.
"Your seal doesn't let you use either your chakra, or the beast's chakra safely," Kushina continued. "What I want to do is move all of the Sanbi's chakra into a seal identical to my own."
"That sounds good," Rin said, tilting her head and trying to figure out what any of the other scribbles were supposed to represent.
"Indeed it does," Kushina agreed. "But it leaves us with our first problem. We can't unseal your beast and reseal it without killing you outright. So we need a workaround." Kushina tapped another drawing, one that sort of looked like the eight gates if she had to describe it. "I have been working on a massive chakra sink of a seal that we can anchor to an existing seal."
"Anchor?" Rin asked, looking away from the drawing.
"Basically connecting one seal to the foci of the other. In your case, we'll be trying to connect to the chakra distribution pathway above your heart, so that you can transfer chakra from the Sanbi to the new seal." Kushina smiled at her.
"But you said that would kill me!" Rin said.
"Well that's just the thing. Unsealing the beast and resealing it is the only way to move it." Kushina held up a hand to forestall Rin's oncoming panic attack. "Tailed-beasts regenerate any chakra they expend just like we do. So my idea is for you to transfer enough of the chakra from the Sanbi into this seal," Kushina tapped the second seal she'd sketched again. "And for us to trick your body into thinking it wasn't losing its new source of chakra."
Rin didn't follow anymore.
Kushina ploughed forward. "We can unseal a tailed beast directly from one seal to the other without it actually manifesting physically, but we cannot transfer it from one seal on your body to another directly. There has to be a stage where the Sanbi is sealed in something outside of your body. If you can output enough chakra into the temporary seal to keep yourself alive for a few minutes without the three-tails, then I can move it to a safer seal that will allow you to use your chakra again safely."
Rin rubbed her eyes and blinked, looking from the scribbles to Kushina and back with a completely dazed look on her face. "This sounds really dangerous."
Kushina put a hand on her shoulder. "It is. But it's either this, or you retire to civilian life somewhere outside of the village."
Rin hung her head. "What are the chances this actually works?"
"With just the two of us? I'd give you sixty-forty odds to make it through. If Minato gets my note and arrives with Jiraiya or a team from the sealing corps, your chances are very good," Kushina said.
"Can we wait for that?" Rin asked hopefully.
Kushina pursed her lips. "We can, Rin. But we might be here for a long time. Months, potentially."
Rin nodded. "I'd like to make it through with more than a sixty percent chance of survival."
"Then we'll wait," Kushina agreed.
Rin turned back to the markings. "So we have this seal." She pointed to the one that Kushina said was her Kyubi seal. "You're going to draw one of these on me?" Rin asked, and Kushina nodded. "But only after I am able to channel chakra from my current seal into this one?" Rin pointed to the next seal. Kushina nodded again, and Rin found herself moving onto the next one. "What's this?" It looked like a… well Rin didn't know what it looked like. But it was easily the largest seal.
"That's the seal that will temporarily hold the Sanbi in an inanimate object," Kushina said.
"Why is it so much… more?" Rin asked, tracing the lines with her fingers.
"Why do you think?" Kushina asked.
Rin considered it. It was no more intricate than the other seals, but it was massive in comparison. But the longer she looked at it, the more she saw similarities to the human cardiovascular and chakra networks. Not the shape, but the clusters of simulated tenketsu and arteries. "It's because the human body isn't there to pick up the slack," Rin said. "The seal has to be able to store and circulate chakra like the human body."
"Very good, Rin," Kushina said.
"How is that even possible?" Rin asked incredulously.
"A lot of chakra theory, a bunch of Fuinjutsu intuition, a small amount of anatomical knowledge, and some testing to make sure it works," Kushina said.
"Testing?" Rin asked.
"I'm going to do a small scale experiment with my own tailed-beast chakra before we do the real thing with you," Kushina said.
"But you said it was dangerous! That it's potentially fatal!" Rin turned to Kushina, determined to stop her.
Kushina waved away her concern. "I am not going to unseal the Kyubi, Rin. I just want to make sure this seal will be able to hold a significant amount of chakra without overloading or breaking down in some way."
"But…" Rin said.
Kushina shook her head. "I can go over the theory a thousand times, Rin. But the truth is, nobody has ever tried this before. I want to make sure you're going to be safe."
Sensing she couldn't win the argument if she wanted to, Rin dropped the issue, and allowed Kushina to talk her through the seals in more detail, and then again they went step-by-step through her plan to relocate the Sanbi.
Despite the danger, Rin knew that it was a good plan. The first step for Rin was to be able to differentiate her own chakra from the Sanbi's when moulding chakra. Not an easy task, but Rin was glad of the chance to do something. To be proactive, instead of being swept up like a leaf in a river.
They returned to the house shortly after, and Kushina retired for the night. Rin, who had only been awake for a few hours, decided to read her sealing book in the kitchen. It was hard to concentrate with her mind analyzing the discussion of the sealing procedure. She closed the book with a sigh, and got to her feet, stretching her arms above her head.
Deciding to let her mind wander, Rin took to the streets of the once revered ninja village, and followed the path that Kushina had shown her. She wandered the streets listlessly, trying to calm her fraying nerves at the thought of extracting and relocating a tailed-beast in a potentially deadly sealing experiment.
She slowed to a stop in front of what remained of Kushina's childhood home. A strong sense of curiosity overcame her, and she stepped up to the doorframe. Rin hesitated. She wanted to go inside, really she did. She wanted to find something of Kushina's past, to return it to her, but Rin knew it would be a gross violation of trust.
Rin lingered, looking into the shadows of the house from the entryway. She took a deep breath, and stepped across the threshold. The old wood creaked beneath her feet as she stepped inside.
It was dark, save for the little moonlight that filtered in through the holes in the roof. It was enough for a ninja to navigate by.
There was little left in the way of furniture. What had likely once been tables or chairs was now little more than splintered and rotted wood. Rin tried to imagine the home with the lights on, the furniture intact, and with Kushina's family inside. Three children, running down the hall, laughing as they played a game, their parents sharing an exasperated look.
But in the dark of night and among the ruins of the home, Rin could do little but imagine ghosts.
Equally curious and somber, Rin explored the kitchen, opening up the old rickety cabinets that were still mostly in one piece. She ran her fingers across the old, cracked dishes and the rusted cutlery. There was an old cracked mixing bowl among the remains of what had once been a small kitchen table.
She found her way down the hall, cracked picture frames and photographs that had faded with age and exposure littered the floor. The bedrooms were thick with dust and cobwebs, and Rin found her hair sticking up when she went into the first one. It felt like she was being watched by someone.
She poked her head back into the hallway, but saw nothing. Nervous, Rin noticed for the first time just how loud her breathing was, and how much noise she made just by walking around. A creak echoed from farther down the hall. Rin gripped the doorframe. "Hello?" Rin asked the darkness.
Stupid, Rin told herself. She'd just given away her position. But there wasn't supposed to be anyone here. Maybe it was an animal?
"Kushina?" Rin asked.
Something thumped from another room, and Rin nearly jumped out of her skin. Deciding that her poking around could wait until there was daylight, Rin dashed for the exit. She slid to a halt in the hallway and stood stock still when she saw what looked like the silhouette of a person at the front door.
Rin held her breath. There was more banging from behind her. The floorboards creaked, Rin turned her head and peered down the hallway in the dark. There was nothing. She whipped her head back towards the door, and the silhouette was gone. She crept forward, looking for any sign of who had been there, but she found nothing.
She waited at the porch, looking, listening. It bore no further information.
She eventually backed away and walked back to the house they were staying in. That had been close, too close. Something about the Whirlpool village suddenly felt very wrong to Rin. She decided that she'd only nose around during the day until she had her chakra back. Once in the house, she sat back down at the table in front of her book, and vowed not to stray towards Kushina's childhood home again. She wasn't a superstitious person, but that house was most definitely haunted.
What made it all the more terrifying was that Rin could not ever tell Kushina. The horrors of the last hour were Rin's burden to bear.
Rin found herself drifting off a few hours later, it was clear her body needed more rest, and she wasn't willing to fight it. She slid into her sleeping bag, and waited for sleep to come. When it did, she rested fitfully, her dreams plagued by the feeling of being watched and the outline of a person in the darkness.
The next several days found Rin and Kushina falling into a routine, and Rin did her best to hide the fact that she wasn't sleeping particularly well, but she suspected that Kushina was aware. Thankfully, the older woman never brought it up.
They would wake up, eat breakfast, and then Kushina would lead Rin through kata that Rin was unfamiliar with. When asked about it, Kushina explained that the kata were the basic practice forms for the style of Taijutsu that she'd learned as a young girl. "The style is fluid, like water in a whirlpool, redirecting and controlling the ebb and flow of combat," Kushina had said. "The form of my family's martial art is ideal for your rehabilitation because it will force you to move in unfamiliar ways. The kata for the Academy Basic Taijutsu would be far less effective."
After their morning exercise, Kushina would begin experimenting with her seal, and Rin would read, or be given basic sealing work to do. She'd made a storage scroll, she learned to create explosive tags, and while the process was slow going, Rin found herself enjoying it. She just wished she could use her chakra to actually see if they worked.
They would break for lunch, and then Kushina would supervise Rin while she tried to use her chakra. It was dreadfully slow and exhausting work, but Kushina insisted that it was the most important part of their day, and that Rin would have to be able to learn to channel the Sanbi's chakra separately from her own if their plan was to succeed.
So, they worked at it. Day after day after day.
As Rin slowly regained control of her chakra system, she found her physical condition improving. Kushina eventually moved on from the first and mosaic basic kata, and started teaching Rin the kicks, punches, and blocks of the Whirling Palms style.
Rin had never been one for Taijutsu, but the more fluid and defensive fighting style was easier for her to grasp than the rather aggressive and direct fighting styles that were common in the Leaf Village. Or it was because she was older now, and more focused. Either way, she found the exercise invigorating and worthwhile.
On the fifth day of rigorous training, Rin managed to separate the Sanbi's chakra from her own. The result was that Rin immediately lost control of both streams of chakra and was once again brought back to that white void of excruciating pain.
"What happened there, Rin?" Kushina asked her as her chakra chains slowly unwrapped the girl.
"I… had it…" Rin panted. "But my concentration slipped. Keeping them separated is hard."
"I'll bet. I had a hard enough time learning to utilize the Kyubi's chakra alongside my own, and my seal is actually designed to help me, not hinder me." Kushina offered Rin a hand, and helped her to her feet. "You're making remarkable progress, Rin. You should be proud of yourself."
Rin heaved a tired sigh. "It doesn't feel like I am. I haven't been able to use my chakra for real in weeks. I feel trapped in my own skin. Helpless."
Kushina nodded. "I wish it could be easier, Rin."
Rin stretched her arms over her head, but didn't reply.
"We can spend more time working on Taijutsu if you want," Kushina offered.
"I think I'd like that, actually," Rin said. "I've never been great at Taijutsu, but what you've been teaching me feels a lot better than what we learned at the Academy. Or anything that Minato-sensei taught us, for that matter."
"That's because the Academy Taijutsu style is structured to teach only the fundamentals of hand-to-hand combat. And Minato's preference for Taijutsu involves speed and hard hits. You need something that works for your body type and personality. Everyone should seek a Taijutsu style that works for them after the Academy." Kushina grinned at her. "This one works for me, and I'm glad it works for you. The other style out of Uzushiogakure I am definitely worse with."
"There's another style?" Rin asked.
Kushina nodded. "It's called the Vortex Fist."
"It's more aggressive?" Rin guessed.
"That's right," Kushina said. "There's a lot of strong forms and direct attacks. It took me a long time to learn it, but I certainly don't prefer it."
"You learned both Taijutsu styles well enough to teach me before you came to Konoha?" Rin asked.
Kushina laughed. "Not at all! My Aunt Tsunade taught me. I was just old enough to enroll in the Academy when I arrived. I hadn't even started ninjutsu training at the time. My Taijutsu was super rudimentary at that age."
Rin's eyes bugged out of her head. Tsunade was super, super famous. What did she have to do with Kushina's Taijutsu training? "Tsunade of the Sannin?"
"That's her," Kushina said with a bright smile.
"She's your aunt?!" Rin exclaimed.
Kushina nodded. "Technically she's my cousin, I suppose. But she's my only family, and we're pretty close. Her grandmother and father were both members of my clan, so she's, like, half Uzumaki, and she learned the style from her parents.. She taught me when I graduated from the Academy."
"Was Tsunade your Jonin sensei?" Rin asked, maybe a little envious. Minato-sensei was awesome, but Tsunade was the kunoichi almost all girls in the Leaf village looked up to.
"Not officially. She was more like my personal trainer whenever we were both in the village," Kushina said. "Tsunade was out fighting wars and revolutionizing the medical teams. She never officially took on a Genin team."
"Did she only teach you Taijutsu?" Rin asked.
Kushina shook her head. "Tsunade taught me a lot. She helped me work on my really poor Genjutsu and chakra control. Hell, she tried to teach me medical jutsu, but I was never any good at it. My chakra control isn't precise enough for it. She did make me past basic field first-aid and triage classes though."
"I see," Rin said, nodding.
"I was terrible at them," Kushina said. "You're a better medic even if you can't use your chakra right now.
Rin smiled at her, grateful for the praise and confidence that Kushina gave her.
"Do you want to try again?" Kushina asked.
Rin considered the spot where she'd tried meditating, and shook her head. "Not today. I'm tired, and my chakra didn't want to cooperate anyway."
Kushina ruffled her hair. "Okay. How about a trip with me to see if there's anything in our traps? I'd rather not have ration bars or miso soup every day while we're here."
Rin agreed entirely, and they set off to the edge of the village. Finding a few birds, rabbits, or even a deer would be welcome after several days of boring fare. Though Rin wished they had more vegetables. The ones Kushina had purchased from the farmers had run out.
After another week of work, Rin could hold the chakra separated within herself for a period of time that Kushina deemed acceptable, and she showed Rin how to start channeling chakra into the seal that would contain enough tailed-beast chakra to temporarily sustain Rin's life.
The more Rin was able to put into the seal, the longer the window would be for the resealing of the three-tails. Of course, the amount that Rin could channel in one sitting was pitifully small. Not to mention it was exhausting, she could only do it twice a day before she had to sleep, so she saved her second session for after dinner.
The nightmares plagued her less this way, when she was too worn out to even remember if she had dreams at all. Rin was grateful for the mostly restful sleep.
Kushina, for her part, kept pushing Rin harder and harder. They had moved on to sparring in the mornings, and Rin was confident that her Taijutsu was better than it had ever been before.
They had now been in the Whirlpool village for over two weeks. Kushina had started to explore some of the areas of the village, putting to rest the ghosts of her past. Rin was happy for her, and she was happy that she sort of had an excuse to poke around in old houses. Not that she wanted to, but if Kushina did end up in her childhood home, at least the signs of her trespass could be explained away safely.
Of course, Kushina had purposefully avoided the street where she'd lived altogether. She seemed content to slowly remove any old traps or seals that were still in place (and still potentially dangerous) from the area immediately surrounding where they were living.
It was during these forays, the Kushina taught Rin how to locate active seals. A subtle bit of ninja craft that Rin had no natural aptitude for. It took dozens of tries over several days for Rin to find an active bit of sealing paper without any help.
"Well done, Rin," Kushina said, walking over to where Rin had found a paper bomb set to go off if anyone opened an old door. When Kushina did confirm it was a paper bomb and not something more nefarious, she said, "Now that you've got that part down, show me how to disarm it. We've gone over all the theory."
Rin nodded and crouched down beside the paper seal.
"Talk me through it," Kushina instructed. "Make sure you know your stuff, and I can make sure you don't blow us up if you make a mistake."
Rin pulled a small bottle of ink and a brush from her pocket and ran her eyes over the seal. "It's more advanced than the standard Konoha explosive tag seal. The radius is…" She traced her finger along a small cross section of ink. "The radius is fifty meters."
"Good," Kushina said, leaning over Rin's shoulder to see the seal "What else?"
"It's designed to go off if the paper is pulled off the wall," Rin said.
"How do you know?" Kushina pressed.
Rin pointed to small anchoring symbols in the corners of the sealing paper. "These are chakra anchors, and when the paper is removed while the chakra in the seal is active they ignite."
She could feel Kushina beaming at her proudly. "So if you can't remove the seal physically, how do you proceed?"
"We have to destabilize the seal by changing how the chakra moves through the sealing matrix," Rin recited. "I have to make the seal into something that won't explode."
"Just cover it up?" Kushina suggested.
Rin shook her head. "No can do. Uzumaki seals are too well designed for that. More chakra conducting ink in the wrong places would just make the explosion bigger."
Kushina chuckled. "Just making sure. So what do you do if that won't work?"
"I need to identify the areas where I can make changes to redirect the flow of chakra to make the seal malfunction or cease to work entirely," Rin said. She ran her pointer finger along a curve in the seal near the right edge of the paper. "I can add the symbol for light here, by crossing over this line." Rin pursed her lips, examining the tag and searching for the solution.
Seals were like puzzles, really cool, intricate, dangerous puzzles.
"This line here is what channels the chakra to the explosion. And these symbols determine the size and force of the blast." Rin hummed and ran her fingers over the seal. "So if we change the symbol that determines the force to be next to nothing, the seal should just…"
And Rin drew her brush across the seal, which glowed for a moment before emitting a small puff of smoke and light.
"Very well done, Rin," Kushina said.
Rin itched her nose sheepishly. "Well I learned from the best."
Kushina laughed and stepped back so Rin could put away her ink and brush. "You want to try another one?"
Rin grinned. "Let's do it!"
"Okay. Let's move to the next building, I think this one is in the clear," said Kushina. Rin nodded in the affirmative, and followed Kushina towards the next ruined house. As they crossed the threshold, Rin felt once more like she was being watched. She cast her gaze around nervously, but she saw no one else.
"Everything okay, Rin?" asked Kushina.
Rin started, and noticed that Kushina was already peeking her head around the corner to a different room while Rin stood absently in the entryway. "Oh! Uh, yeah! Coming!" She hurried through the house to the bedroom where Kushina was waiting for her.
"Well, you know what to do," Kushina said. "Find the seal that is still active in this area and safely disable it."
Rin, still not able to shake the feeling of being watched, tried to shake off the uneasy feeling in her gut, and started scouring the room for the seal. She moved slowly and carefully, so as not to accidentally trigger the seal. She knew that Kushina would step in and stop her if she was about to do something really stupid. Likely, Kushina had already found the seal and identified what it was for.
As she moved from wall to wall, she rotated around the room, and when she once again faced the door, Rin saw a silhouette of someone standing in the shadows of the room across the hallway. The feeling of dread nearly ripped a scream from her throat. She froze, eyes panicked, and stumbled backwards, tripping over a loose floorboard and falling gracelessly to the ground.
"Rin!?" Kushina asked. "What's wrong?"
Rin raised a trembling hand and pointed to the shadows in the room across the hall.
Kushina followed her fingers and stepped into the hallway, opening the door to the other room. The door creaked as Kushina pushed it open, and Rin desperately huddled in on herself. Something about the shadow-figure disturbed her. It was worse this time than it had been in Kushina's home. Kushina stepped into the room, glanced around for a minute, and then returned to Rin. "There's nobody there, ya know?"
The shadowed figure was still there.
Author's Note: Okay! I'm thinking there are 3 or 4 more chapters in this arc, and then we'll be moving on to the next and the next and the next! Hope you don't mind a longfic? Please leave me some love, I'd appreciate it. It's sooooo motivating! I really love how this story is shaping up as it goes. My outline and storyboard keeps getting shifted around as I try to meet the demands of Rin. She's really coming into her own. And for all of you lovely folks who want to know about Kakashi - sorry. You'll find out if he lived or died eventually. Hang in there.