Yang Dimension - Blood Hound
Less than a second after pushing the front door open and having barely crossed one foot through the doorway, the sound of loud steps thudding against the wooden floorboard filled her ears. The thunderous noise caused her to abandon the progress of sliding off her shoes and zone in on where the sound was coming from. It wasn't long before the source of the disruption showed itself.
Misa ran up to her, a panicked look etched across her features. The fear swimming in her wide, dark eyes caused all of the alarm bells to sound in Rin's head.
Abandoning the groceries on the floor next to the door and hastily sliding off the remaining shoe, Rin shut the door behind her before placing her entire attention on her distressed roommate.
Gently placing both of her hands on the shorter girl, Rin maneuvered Misa to take a seat on the couch. Misa's jaw quivered uncontrollably, her hands moved restlessly in her lap, and her right leg refused to stop bouncing up and down. Rin gave the other girl a few moments to compose herself.
"Misa, what's wrong? What happened?" Her chest heaved noticeably in and out as Misa took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. After the third intake of air, Misa suddenly spun to look at Rin.
Fright swam in her black eyes. "Is it true?" Her voice was wobbly and an octave higher than usual.
"Is what true?" Rin responded calmly. Calmly because that was always what she had been taught as a medical professional, to always remain calm no matter what happened. Only by keeping herself level-headed would she be adequate to deal with the situation that arose.
"Hatake...Kakashi?" was all Misa could manage. Those two words told Rin enough. Somehow, despite Minato's intentions to keep his presence under wraps, the news had leaked out to the public. Now that it had, panic would surely course through the village like a fierce tidal wave. Cries would erupt, calling for Minato to do something. The mounting pressure on head would force him to do something.
That something would most likely end in Kakashi's death.
"Where did you hear that from?" A diversion tactic, while Rin figured out how to respond to her. Would she tell her the truth? Knowing the history behind her village and his...Rin was afraid of how she would respond.
"Everyone in the village is saying it," Misa informed her, words jumbled together. "Is it true? Tell me it's not true. Someone said they saw him through the windows of one of the hospital rooms, so I figured you would know if it was true or not. So is it?" Desperation swam in her eyes, almost in a pleading manner that suggested she hoped it was all a nightmare.
An onslaught of guilt washed through Rin. If not for her, Kakashi wouldn't be in the village right now. If not for her, he would have been long dead within the borders of the Land of Fire. Not only had they gotten no useful intel from Kakashi, his presence instilled fear among the villagers. Not to mention, he had proven to be more dangerous than Rin anticipated with his explosive display of power earlier.
It was pure luck that she was even alive right now.
When Kakashi turned towards her, deeming her to be his next target, Rin had gotten a good look at the crazed look in his eyes. There wasn't a single trace of that boy left in him, the boy that she remembered to have risked his life to save hers.
Maybe...Obito was right.
"It's-it's true." Rin didn't have the heart to lie to Misa, not in her current state. Even if she did lie, Rin could foresee Misa not believing her or temporarily buying into her lie and having an even bigger breakdown when she found out the truth later on. At this point, the spread of the truth was inevitable.
It was a matter of what they were going to do about Kakashi now that the truth was out.
"Is he going to kill us?" All rationality flew out of the window. "Is he going to kill me? Gosh Rin, you know that he despises Kumo's nins. I already defected from the village, but he doesn't know that. All he is going to see is that I'm from Kumo and come after me! I'm barely twenty-one, I don't want to die now!"
"Misa, breathe," Rin instructed the wailing woman. "Take a deep breath and count to ten before you exhale." Thankfully, her words had gotten through Misa's hysterical mind. Rin never felt more relieved than in that moment. "You're okay. He's under a coma right now and in chakra suppressing chains. There are multiple guards watching him. He wouldn't even be able to get close to you."
That was a bold-faced lie, but there was no way that Rin was going to tell Misa about how Kakashi Hatake literally broke out of the chakra suppressing chains with a strong burst of chakra. Much less the fact that he somehow managed to wake up from the coma?
That was a first. Maybe her jutsu didn't have a strong enough hold as she originally had thought. How ironic that her reassurances were nothing but empty promises.
Speaking with Minato sensei had reached the top of her priority list. Yet one look at her panicking roommate, Rin couldn't bring herself to leave Misa by herself, at least until she fell asleep. For the next few hours, Rin stayed by Misa's side, doing everything that she could to keep her calm and divert her attention off of Kakashi.
It worked. Sometime during their conversation about the new bookstore that opened down the street, Misa's eyes began to droop close. Her head rolled over, supported by the arm of the couch. Retrieving her blanket from her bedroom, Rin draped it over the sleeping girl. Throwing one last look over her shoulder, Rin silently slipped out of her apartment.
Her apartment wasn't the only place where panic had broken out. The Central Tower had practically erupted into chaos. Villagers, civilians and shinobis alike, had crowded around the tower with incessant chants demanding an explanation from Minato. Even those who were defectors from other villages had joined in.
Clearly, Kakashi's notorious reputation didn't only extend to Konoha and Kumo. For the first time, the fact that Kakashi was an international terror really started settling into her mind. Rin had been too blind. Her tunnel vision had only led her to see the things that she wanted to see, to view him as the same eight year old boy that saved her from an imminent death by Iwa nins.
Times have changed. People changed along with it.
She was stupid to not have noticed it.
The chants echoed in her ear as Rin ran to the backside of the building. Even with a considerable distance between her and the crowd, their calls still sounded with so much clarity that it made her heart ache.
They wanted Kakashi dead.
Rin wasn't sure she could disagree with them.
Slipping through the back entrance of the Central Tower, Rin clambered up the stairs, two steps at a time. She didn't even stop on the third floor, where Minato's office was located. She knew Minato sensei too well.
During a time like this, he would most certainly be on the rooftops. While he wouldn't lean over to show his face to the crowd, Minato would sit there and listen. To listen to their calls for action, their cries for their safety, their insults to him for his incompetence. Appeasing everyone was an impossible feat; as leader, Minato was straddled between the medium of satisfying opposing ends of the spectrum.
One moment, Minato could be the village's hero and then the next, he was the village's fool. A fool for not having Kakashi executed right away.
The second she reached the top stairs, Rin's eyes zoned in on Minato, who was currently sitting cross-legged in the center of the flat, rectangular rooftop. He was leaning forward, locks of his yellow hair blocking his face from her view.
"Minato sensei!" She rushed over to her teacher.
"Rin?" Minato set aside his pen. Sheets of discarded papers scattered all around him. A slight gust of wind threatened to pick them up and carry them away. Each paper was full of a mess of scribbles and black strokes that she didn't understand, but she instantly knew what Minato had been trying to do. All thoughts of her change of heart slipped from the forefront of her mind.
"Are you creating a new seal?"
"Yeah." His eyes flickered to the sheets of paper that fluttered around him. "Nothing seems to be working so far. If only-" Minato stopped himself from finishing that sentence. He didn't need to, not for Rin to understand what he had been trying to say.
If only Kushina was here.
"What...what are you trying to create?"
"Do you remember that I mentioned creating a seal to force Kakashi to follow our orders?" Rin nodded hesitantly, already having an inkling of an idea where he was going with this train of thought. "After that conversation, I still couldn't stop thinking about the idea. Obito made a good point when he said that Kakashi wasn't above activating the seal and killing himself, so then I thought what if the seal didn't end in death?"
"Doesn't end in death?" Rin echoed. "You mean something like paralysis?"
"That was my initial thought," Minato confessed. "But then looking at Kakashi's display of strength earlier, I don't think simple paralysis will be enough to subdue him. After all, chakra suppressing chains weren't enough."
"What about blocking his tenketsu?" Rin suggested. Minato raised an eyebrow, interest piqued. "A human body has 361 chakra points and shinobis usually use the ones located along our arms and legs. The Hyuga clan's speciality is having the ability to see where these chakra points are located and disabling them. Only a Hyuga or medical ninja can undo the sealed chakra points."
"So a seal, upon activation, will block his chakra points?" Minato summarized. "So then it will restrict his use of chakra until someone heals it for him. How would that work anyways?"
Rin frowned. "I don't know much about how fuinjutsu works, but I was thinking that the seal could work as a series of attacks. When the seal is triggered through meeting a specific set of conditions, the first chakra point that will be blocked will be, for example, one in his arm. Not important enough to disable permanently but enough to incapacitate him as a warning."
"If I create an overall seal with that set of conditions and then link it to multiple smaller seals that will execute the attack, that could possibly work. But without the Byakugan, how will I know where to place the small seals? I don't know where the tenketsu are located."
The corner of her lips turned upwards into a smile. "Well, you're in luck Minato sensei. As part of the examination to obtain my medical license, I had to memorize where every single tenketsu is located."
Like Minato said, his overactive mind did wonders for speeding up the process of jutsu creation. Once Rin planted that idea into his mind, his brain immediately latched onto it. Already, he was assaulted with a million different possibilities of how he could make this seal work. With Rin's help, Minato was ready to test the seal by the end of the day. Except, that entailed having a willing test subject.
Minato couldn't test it on himself and he wasn't willing to test it on Rin, who he would need on standby to heal the test subject, in case something went wrong. The next person that his mind went to was Obito.
Only, Obito was adamantly against allowing Minato to test the seal on him, especially after he heard that it entailed blowing out chakra points. The thought alone was enough to make a seasoned shinobi shudder; the textbooks always described the feeling to be equivalent to that of a scorching, explosive pain. That didn't change the fact that Minato still needed a test subject.
"Sensei!" Was that a whine that Minato heard in his voice? "Don't you remember the last time that you tested a seal on me? The ink exploded on me and it took scrubbing my skin raw for me to wash it off!"
Hmm, Minato vaguely remembered that incident. He wasn't quite sure of the purpose of that seal, but Obito's ink splotched face had surely made for a comical sight. "That was completely harmless."
"Yeah," Obito agreed, with a sarcastic edge in his voice. "But this one isn't! Busting out my chakra points?"
"Blocking," Minato corrected. "It's just supposed to seal your tenketsu to prevent you from using your chakra. Rin," Minato gestured to her. "Will be here the entire time to make sure nothing goes wrong."
"She only steps in after things go wrong," Obito protested. Obito had a point, but Minato could tell that he was on the verge of agreeing to let him experiment on him. Just a little more push and Minato could begin his experiment. "Why can't you just test it on a clone?"
"When the seal activates, the p-impact will cause the clone to dispel so there's no way to test whether or not their chakra has been sealed." Minato had caught himself just in time. All of his efforts would have been for nothing if the word had slipped.
"So why me?"
"Why not you?" Minato countered. "I'm the caster of the seal, so I can't really test it on myself. I need Rin to be in top shape so she can re-open the blocked chakra point. And you already know my purpose for creating this seal, so it's perfect! I don't want this news to spread before I can confirm that it'll work."
Minato inwardly cheered the moment he saw Obito visibly cave. "Fine," the younger boy said through gritted teeth. In a lower voice he mumbled, "I don't understand why we can't just kill him."
Both of them heard him. Neither of them commented on it.
Minato clasped his hands together. "Perfect! Rin, you can go put the seals on him now and then we can get started."
The irritated look remained on Obito's face during the entire time that it took Rin to apply the seals. Their experiment was going to remain small, just to test the ten most non-lethal chakra points. Although Minato didn't originally want to include anything that would result in death, Rin talked him into it.
A fail safe just in case, Rin told him. Only, Kakashi would have to go through twenty-nine other hurdles before he reached the ultimate seal, which once triggered would shut down his chakra core. The effect on his body would be the equivalent of dying of chakra exhaustion.
Hopefully, Kakashi didn't possess enough knowledge on fuinjutsu to figure out that mechanism. If he did, they would be back at square one again; with him committing suicide to prevent himself from betraying the village. That was a gamble that Minato would have to risk.
"Sensei, I'm done," Rin announced. Stepping closer, Minato examined Obito's wrist. There was no visible seal in sight.
Already sensing his question, Rin jumped to explain. "I used my chakra to embed it into his skin so that it remains invisible. If Danzo sees the seals, then he'll know something is wrong."
Right, that was a smart call. Minato made a mental note to ask her how she did that later; he could use a little help in that field.
"Alright, Obito. Are you ready?"
Obito nodded grudgingly.
Minato went through the hand seal formation to lock the fuinjutsu in place. Upon activation, a faint blue glow appeared in those ten positions on Obito's body. The glow dimmed out three seconds later. "Okay, now try attacking me."
Obito half-heartedly lunged at him. Their kunais clashed, a metallic clang sounding through the clearing. Nothing happened.
"Maybe come at me with a little bit more killing intent," Minato suggested. Obito nodded, backing five steps away. This time, he came at him with a bit more anger, with a bit more force behind his attack, but again, nothing happened.
Minato was puzzled. He swore that the conditions of the seal were written so that the victim would not be able to reveal any confidential information and not be able to harm any member of Rougyu or Akatsuki. Maybe the conditions were written too vaguely?
That had been the very problem that Minato feared. The trigger to the seal had been the most difficult part to write too, but if Danzo could create something like it, why couldn't he?
"Maybe try saying my name."
"Minato Namikaze," Obito stated in a deadpan voice. "Are you sure this seal works?" Minato pulled out another copy of the seal from his weapon's pouch. Taking a seat on the wet grass, Minato laid it out in front of him. His students joined him, one on each side. Rin, who at least understood the basics of fuinjutsu, expressed more interest in it than Obito, who's attention wandered less than two minutes into the correction.
"Everything looks right," Minato murmured. "But something is not working."
From his left, Rin nodded. "Do you want to change the conditions to something direct and then test it? If that works, then at least you know that you have the principles down. From there, you can expand your way into making it broader."
Minato nodded, agreeing with her proposal. "Alright." He proceeded to pull out a blank scroll, unravelling it on top of the grass. Then he pulled out blank sealing paper and some ink, working on mirroring his previous work albeit with a few minor changes. Sometime during, Obito had lost interest and wandered off somewhere for five minutes before Rin followed him to make sure he wasn't taking it as an opportunity to escape.
After all, Minato still needed his test subject.
Obito and Rin appeared in the clearing once more, right as Minato finished the last stroke of the seal. With the help of a small wind jutsu, Minato sped up the process of the ink drying against the parchment paper.
"Alright, now let's try again." They repeated the same process of application and activation. "Now Obito, try saying my name again?"
"Minato Namikaze," he said, in an equally deadpan voice. "Are you-gawk!" Obito clutched his lower right arm.
"Great, that worked!" Minato announced excitedly.
All that could be heard through the clearing was, "Sensei! I'm in pain here!"
A/N: Hi again!
I honestly don't have much of an idea on fuinjutsu, so I'm just making the jutsu creation process up as I go. Hopefully still errs on the realistic side. Blood Hound will wake up in the next Yang Dimension chapter and I'm so ready for him to start wrecking havoc haha.
Ari: Ahhh Danzo's presence in the Yin Dimension will be explained eventually haha. I know canon had some type of sensory barrier and the Third Hokage did mention it was password protected to Itachi in the show, so I'm assuming they must have some sort of technology surrounding it at least. Thanks for the concrit, I did fear I made him seem too dumb lol but my impression of chunin guards are that they are pretty lax on duty so I tried to translate those vibes over. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me!
Thank you for reading! Until next time. :)
-MM