"No," Rin interrupted. "I don't understand."

She repeated herself in case she hadn't been heard. No one stepped forward to correct her ignorance—no one seemed to want to. She felt that there was a vital piece of information she was missing from the dialogue. A salient detail she was not privy to because she was a girl with no prospects, no great name and no bones tied to the root of the village.

Her parents were civilians. Their parents and their parents were civilians, farmers and merchants from the land of the slow-flowing rivers. She didn't know who Uchiha Shisui was but she had seen, her entire team and several classmates had seen, the adults had seen but never remarked upon, Obito bullied by his clansmen, ridiculed as the butt of every blue-blooded joke.

An arm of camaraderie often turned to trap when Uchiha boys, similar in age but unfamiliar, clan apprentices, chunin, genjutsu masters, dripped word after poisonous word into the curve of Obito's flushed ears. The Uchiha didn't give a shit about Obito. It was laughable how they recanted their indifference and laid claim to him when he wasn't. even. there.

"You're lying." Kakashi shook his head once, twice, like a stag trying to throw a hound from his proud shoulders. "No, Obito was your clansmen. This means you would have known. You knew he was alive."

Oh, Rin thought startled. But they left Obito behind.

Obito didn't die where they buried him in the land of grass far away from home. A passerby, maybe an Iwa scout sent to retrieve the bodies, tipped off by the scrabbling in the earth, raised her Uchiha teammate from his grave and killed him. He died alone. His death had been for nothing; his sacrifice meant nothing. Rin could have saved him and the truth became the thing that crawled out the drain at night, sour, misshapen and gross.

She was about to throw up.

Laughter strangled her throat.

"Obito is alive?"

One by one, her team looked away in shame. Shame was not what she was looking for. It wasn't what she needed. She wanted answers, answers from people she loved and trusted but thought so little of her as to shield her from reality.

Rin was no clan heiress to be coddled and guided into greatness. She was Team Minato. Her first kill was using a taijutsu technique she learned at the academy. She decided to bite the proverbial exploding tag and turned to the one person who knew.

"Is Obito alive?"

Uchiha Mikoto raised an eyebrow at her directness though she hadn't for Kakashi's outbursts. The Uchiha were one of the four noble houses of Konoha, a great honor, an unforgivable one. Rin was only a soldier, a chunin, and a field medic. When Uchiha Mikoto parted her mouth, Rin shrieked, "IS HE ALIVE?!"

She could have heard a cricket blink in the silence that followed.

"He is dead." The woman said baldly, face smooth as stone. "Uchiha Obito is dead."

At first, she thought the wretched scream was hers. Bile scoured her mouth. She was the one who made the decision Obito could not be saved. It was her fault, all of it. And he had been alive. She should have been the one to kill him.

But it was Kakashi who let loose a lion's roar and flooded the room with killing intent. Kakashi, whose promise to protect her came from the lips of a dying boy who was stupid enough to love her, to trust her, to care for her and to die for her. The surge of chakra shocked her into stillness. Too quick for anyone to react, he was already twelve steps ahead, lightning shackled to his bony wrists.

"Kakashi!"

Uchiha Mikoto was a mother, a housewife and a clan head. She was not bound by the same creed they were; she did not hesitate when sidestepping Kakashi's attack, her arms opening in a dancer's sweep to scatter stars from her floral sleeves.

The blades fell apart in midair, spreading into a mesh of spider silk over Kakashi's sharingan-mad eye. Uchiha Mikoto was born Uchiha. She knew secrets her teammate was only beginning to discover.

But she was not Kakashi.

There was a game she played when she was young. Back when she was at the Academy.

Supplies were limited in war and Konoha knew her wars well. She had survived two and hoarded her resources like an aging fishwife would her coins, knowing that the fragile treaty with Suna could shatter at any second, knowing Iwa despised her children, Kiri envied them and Kumo thought her ripe for taking.

Metal was precious. Once a week, a cart passed by her house, asking for donations in scrap metal and pans. Anything that could be melted down to forge a blade.

Instead of kunai, she grew up dodging broad-veined leaves. The goal was to mark every leaf as hers. Most of her classmates preferred the katon because of its wide range. But the katon was destructive and often created a sudden updraft, letting leaves pass harmlessly through licks of flames.

Rin personally preferred the suiton. She wasn't the best at nature transformations but she understood the goal was to mark her targets. The day she was introduced to her new teammates, Minato asked them to play leaf-tag and punched a tree. As predicted, Obito spat fire. The fire fizzled to smoke when water swept over them and she had grinned because nobody in her year could beat her.

Kakashi was different; he'd never been anything less than a ruthless tactician.

He cut through the strings like it was nothing. The skin on his fingers paled and sloughed into diamond scales. Rin could hear birds singing, thousands of them, all inside the small apartment Kakashi called his home.

Years later, when looking back, she would hear a thrush in the trees and remember this. Every time a sparrow sang or a rooster crowed to his heart's content, she'd set off an exploding seal to make them stop.

Kakashi kept going.

The dog seal's open palm sharpened into a spear thrust and Uchiha Mikoto threw herself backwards, chidori slicing through the black veil of her hair. She shaped her hands from rat to boar, biting back ember between her teeth. And at that range, Rin knew she would not miss.

The earth trembled.

Walls shook, floor vibrating as the furniture beat a fraught staccato against the grain. For a moment, she thought it was an earthquake and braced herself against whatever doton the Uchiha activated beneath her heel.

But it was not Uchiha Mikoto whose sharingan twisted into a three-sided shuriken. Rin gasped when she saw it. She recognized it. The death spiral tugged at the edges of the Uchiha's being—it was over.

Minato struck them apart and grabbed Kakashi from behind.

"Rin! Now!"

Instinctively, she leapt to her teacher's aid. She tore up the floorboards skidding to a stop. Too much chakra in her feet—a rookie mistake. Something her jounin teammate would have pointed out if he'd been in his right mind.

Sensei hissed and she yelped as Kakashi ran lightning through his coils. His sclera burned white and lit up his thick skull from inside out like a morbid paper lantern.

Rin uncapped a syringe with her teeth and jammed it in the muscle. If Kakashi would not stay still, she would make him. Just to remind him he was not alone. He did not have to do everything alone. The Uchiha had hid Obito from them and whether he liked it or not, she had just as much right to hate them too.

"Let, me, go."

"I will not." Their teacher promised him.

Kakashi choked back a sob, sucking oxygen like a hooked trout. He fell to the floor as his limbs turned to jelly and she struck him in the shoulder, again, again, and again.

"Stupid!" She yelled, driving the needle in the floor with her fist. "You are so stupid!"

She liked to think that he agreed. There was something in his eyes that hadn't been there before. Shot through the cornea like a wormy parasite.

It was like he finally tasted impossibility and found it bitter. Minato told her, everyone grieved differently. Hot droplets seared her collarbone and she understood them to be tears.

Obito was dead.

An arm dropped around her shoulder and she leaned, drawn to the warmth and the smell of sunshine even though it was dusk. Her teacher hummed, almost absentmindedly, his expression incredibly kind as he combed through the feathers of Kakashi's silvery-grey hair, wiping the boy's face clean with his bare palms.

She cried.

She didn't stop for a long time.

+++++2+++++

She answered her teacher with a wobbly, watery expression. Not very reassuring at all. Her cheeks heating up as she wiped her face, suddenly conscious of what she was doing, how she must look to everyone else.

Sniffling, Rin sat with her head lowered, waiting for her nose to drip-dry wondering why she couldn't muster the strength to grab the roll of toilet paper just a koi-length away behind her; ashamed and feeling like she could die from the embarrassment of her outburst.

Oblivious to her dilemma, Minato addressed the woman in front of them anchored with emerald chains, released only when Kushina came back with a half-hearted scowl and an armful of refreshments. She was surprised that Kakashi kept anything in his fridge at all. Rin had been starting to believe that the boy existed purely on stupidity and soldier pills.

She squeaked when Kushina dropped beside her, squishing her between Minato. But she did not move to get out of the way. It was fine—it made her feel safe.

"Mikoto," Her teacher asked, cradling Kakashi's head in his lap. "Please explain why you tried to kill my student."

Rin was startled.

Uchiha Mikoto seemed surprised he had said anything at all.

"Observe." The Uchiha said as she slid a kunai forward.

It was standard issue, sharp, metal. Rin had seen a thousand like it before, melted, bent, and broken. But she had never seen it stretched like a coil, pulled until it met end to end, the iron blanched with the strain of its new shape.

Minato looked around at the walls, at the floor, the disarray of furniture and far-flung books. He took a cassette on the floor and shook it until a tangle of tape fell through the bottom spinning bronze contrails in the air.

"What was that technique?"

"I don't know."

And Rin immediately thought—liar, black and pitched with hatred, because she saw the Uchiha's eyes go round and red like a leopard with scattered spots; a leopard that had seen movement below and slithered into the leaves wondering, how could she have it? How could she take it?

"The very nature of the mangekyo sharingan[1] makes it rare. We do not speak of it openly."

Minato's expression was cold and Rin flinched, remembering that her teacher was the Yellow Flash of Konoha. Bingo books warned enemy ninja to run in the other direction. At that moment, she would not have traded places with Uchiha Mikoto for anything in the world.

"You told us Uchiha Shisui completed his mangekyo."

"Shisui is not Obito." The woman corrected sharply. "His abilities were never in doubt; his parentage cannot be denied."

Blue eyes narrowed.

"Obito's parents were unacceptable."

"Means one of 'em wasn't Uchiha." Kushina stated, her voice incredibly flat.

"A poor choice of words." Uchiha Mikoto demurred but she did not deny it. It fit in with why Obito was treated so poorly by his clansmen. Clans took bloodline very seriously. For the Uchiha, marrying outside the family, whatever Obito's circumstances were, must have been tantamount to betrayal.

"Is that why he was ostracized?" Minato asked, echoing her thoughts.

"That is the simplest explanation." The Uchiha woman agreed and she leaned forward, intent on taking the kunai back.

"What is the long one?"

Killing intent poured off her teacher in waves and Uchiha Mikoto eyed the twisted kunai, silently balancing the risks and rewards of claiming the proof of Kakashi's mangekyo sharingan. She relented with a sigh, a leopard with only feathers and air between her claws.

"The shinobi of Obito's line were great warriors. Misled in their love and friendship perhaps, but they were once the pride of this village. It is a shame," she continued, "that they met their ends in the Second Shinobi War. His mother, may she rest in peace, did not live long after his birth."

The Uchiha's words made her hair rise on end and she didn't know why. The way she spoke of Obito's parents was beyond disrespectful. It was vile.

"Then it's true?" Kushina interrupted. She had dug crescents all the way up to her knees. Against her fair skin, they became bruises that mapped her bone like tattoos. "All of it? Obito..."

"Yes."

"But you spoke of bonds." Minato said harshly. "Between Obito and Uchiha Shisui. And," He looked down, at Kakashi who was curled in his lap. "Obito and Kakashi."

Annoyance flickered past the Uchiha's face. Like a veil-tailed fish in a murky water. So fast that she thought she'd imagined it.

"The basic theory of chakra, Namikaze-san, is that it can be traced back to a single source. The shinju, the sacred tree from which all creatures with chakra descend, connects us to each other. A mother to her child, a man to his lover, a friend to another, Jounin Hatake to my cousin."

"You know how he died."

And so it ran full circle into the thing that had brought them together.

Kakashi always reminded them that their lives did not allow for mistakes. He used to look down on Obito because he was soft and cheerful and naïve, hardly a ninja material. If it were not for his enthusiasm and name, she doubted that he would have made chunin.

In reality, Obito had been a competent ninja. Given time, he could have been good. Grown into his eyes and flailing limbs. But war was no place to raise children, her parents said. Obito, in many ways, had been a child. They all were. Children were expected to make mistakes. Except this time, her mistake cost Obito his life. And it felt terrible, having said it out loud. It had nothing to do with grief, anger or fear. It was just gnawing awfulness she would take to her grave.

She shook when Uchiha Mikoto said acid-tongued,

"We received no notes. No ransom. Nothing to begin the search."

"You could have tried."

"How?" The Uchiha asked, spreading her hands. "We are at war. Any attempt at retrieving the body would be treason."

Because the Uchiha were one of Konoha's noble clans, greatly honored and feared. They would never be allowed to set foot outside during wartime for the fear of other villages stealing their eyes. "The mangekyo proves the legitimacy of Jounin Hatake's claim. It would not have turned otherwise. But it will not stop the clan elders from demanding its return."

"What do you suggest we do?" Minato asked stiffly.

"Make him give it up. Burn it. Do not let him keep it."

Like how they burned incense before the ancestor tablet on New Year. To wish for good fortune and banish evil spirits. But Obito wasn't an evil spirit. Why would he bother reach out from the pure land to haunt an eye? If Rin had been the one left behind, she would have been so mad she wouldn't have bothered to look at them.

"And if he doesn't?"

"There will be warnings." Uchiha Mikoto suggested. "Nothing untoward. Little things like a misplaced cup or a missing scroll. A broken hinge, a cracked window. Enough to make others wary perhaps, enough that he would be alone. It wouldn't take much. It never does. We are shinobi. There are no shortages of blade for hire."

"Are you threatening my student?" Minato demanded, outraged.

"We cannot risk the mangekyo falling into enemy hands." The woman said matter-of-fact. "You know why it must be this way. My clan cannot afford another avenger."

"And what about Uchiha Shisui?"

"He understands."

"That you sacrificed his only family for this?"

Rin gasped.

But it was not her teacher the Uchiha reproached for his rudeness. She turned to Kushina in disappointment, brows furrowed like she'd seen a dirty puppy piddle on her thousand-thread Suna rug.

"You are an Uzumaki." The woman disapproved. "He should know better."

She let the rebuke sink in. Rin half-expected Kushina to be furious at the insult, hair wild and incandescent with rage. But she shrank back, her face pale like it had never felt the caress of sunlight or fresh air. Behind her, Minato lifted his hand to rest on Kushina's shoulder.

It occurred to her that Kushina was also from a prominent clan. Minato was not.

"Your actions will bring about the second Senju Extermination." Uchiha Mikoto said gravely. "Do you think it an accident that Kiri culls her children so diligently even now after house of storms and snow?"

Rin gritted her teeth noting that the woman had done it again, spoken in words with two meanings. She'd always been good at school but standardized education meant much of Konoha's history had been stripped from textbooks for the fear of insulting one clan or another. The Senju were a great clan once, much reduced since the days of the first Hokage. A Senju extermination? How was that possible? Two of Konoha's kages were Senju. Senju Tsunade, slug princess, first among medical nin, was her role model.

Immersed in her thoughts, she did not notice when the discussion wore itself out.

"Mikoto," Kushina asked hesitantly. "Will you tell them?"

Uchiha Mikoto's black eyes softened towards her friend.

"I will see myself out."

The woman slid slippers on her feet, steps slow and measured as though she was counting the exact number she would need to reach home. Rin thought about was the Uchiha's hands and how they had sparked green with chakra before drawing a kunai. And then she was gone.

She turned to her teacher. She, she had to make sure; she thought she might go insane if she didn't know.

"Was she right? Is Obito...?"

Minato squeezed his eyes shut.

"I don't know."

"Minato." Kushina gasped, mouth falling open.

"We can make the report." Her teacher said finally. "If he survived for this long, it's likely he had help."

But who? Who would be brazen enough to keep a Konohan from her borders? Kusa was timid after years of conflict. Ame rarely ventured from their homes. It had to be the Iwa. The Iwa did this. But could she be sure? She thought about the exploding tag in her medical bag, folded carefully into a strip of paper.

The Kamizuru would pay handsomely for information of their lost chunin. Somewhere in Iwa, there must be a Kakashi and Rin waiting for their own Obito.

Right?

"Sensei," She asked, "What is the Senju Extermination[2]?"

Minato grimaced.

"Aha, it's not a very good story."

"It's what they called the First Shinobi War." Kushina answered her, blowing her nose on the puffy sleeve of her sundress. "A lot of people got jealous of the Senju because of their bloodline ability. Before they knew it, the clan was cut in half. The First practically died from heartbreak but it didn't stop there."

Kushina's eyes were dull and far away. Staring at something in the distance no one else could see. It reminded her of the patients at the hospital. People who had been in their beds for a long time. Crippled and maimed, their entire world was the restricted wing on the sixth floor and what brought them there in the first place.

Her hand shot out and gripped Kushina's hand. Kushina squeezed back gratefully and continued.

"But it wasn't just the Senju. Anyone with a bloodline ability or a secret technique ended up with targets on their backs. Families gone, compounds emptied, it was awful. The survivors changed their names and married into other families. Most clans in the Fire Country can trace roots back to at least one Senju ancestor."

"But Lady Tsunade…"

Kushina shrugged.

"She's the last one; unless she's got a kid stashed somewhere."

"The books always said that the Uchiha hated the Senju."

Her hand squeezed along with her heartstrings.

"Do you believe that kiddo?"

She didn't know what to believe. Because the ninja rules said to look beneath the underneath.

It made it hard to remember to look up.

+++++2+++++

Kakashi woke an hour later.

Drowsy in contemplation, she laid back on the couch and listened as he argued with their teacher. There was a bucket stuck in the ceiling. She would have to remind him to take it down before it fell and broke someone's skull. Likely Kakashi's. She snorted.

"You have to rest. Obito won't..."

"I have to go find him."

"How? He could be anywhere."

"I'll find him."

She sighed.

Stupid, stubborn Kakashi.

"We're still at war."

"You can give me orders to go out to the front."

"You know I won't do that."

"But you need me out there."

"You're injured."

"I'm fine!"

And where did you get your medical license? She thought.

"There is a kill order for every Konohan that appears near Iwa borders." Minato reasoned. "When the war ends, we can look for him together."

When the war ends. She silently traced the words. What was that even like? She was barely out of her diapers when the second war ended. Sometimes she wondered what she would even do with peace.

A frantic tapping on the glass made her get up. Frowning, Kushina went to the window and slid it open.

Dawn had barely gripped the horizon as a hawk tumbled into the giant mess of Kakashi's apartment. It seemed lost as it landed on the floor, hooked claws catching against the weave of the tatami mats. Chirping nervously, it jumped onto an upturned coffee table and held a leg out where she spied a scroll tied with a black string.

Minato swept into the room shadowed by Kakashi who was suffering from a terrible case of bedhead. He appeared sullen, eye puffy but resigned as Rin bullied him into an exam.

"The Uchiha." Kushina confirmed, skimming through the scroll.

Kakashi tensed.

"Let's go."

"Tch, not so fast brat."

Lightning chakra snapped at her palms and she took them off, blowing on them hastily to ease the sting. She glared at Kakashi but he didn't seem to notice, static raising his messy hair to new degrees as his jaws popped under his mask, grinding his molars until she could hear cracking bone.

"Why?"

His question was short, blunted, and sounded more like a sucking wound. Even as she brushed the blisters back in her skin, she stood still, afraid that anything might set off her frazzled teammate.

"We need to prepare." Minato explained. "This is politics. It won't make a difference to us but it will for them." The man pulled Kakashi aside and pushed him back towards his room. "Go on, get dressed. You are the head of the Hatake clan."

"I am the only member of the Hatake clan." Kakashi growled. "We take this to court, we win."

"But then they have no reason to tell us where Obito is."

"I don't need their help. I'll find him myself!"

"How?"

Minato was serene. He did like to find teaching moments in the most outrageous moments, her teacher. And Kakashi was failing so badly she wanted to grab him by the ears and shake him until common sense fell out. It was something she should have done weeks ago wandering the borders of Fire and Earth. They were his teammates. Didn't that mean anything?

But she kept her hands to herself. Because Kakashi had shocked her. Worse, he did not even notice.

"Obito was chunin."

"I'd rather not leave this to chance."

She could see the gears turning in his head. Kakashi conceded with a sharp nod.

"Good," Minato said brightly, clapping his hands. "I know we don't have much time but it would be best if the Uchiha see you as a clan head rather than a jounin captain."

When Kakashi disappeared into his room, Minato told Kushina, "I'd better get ready too."

Kushina crossed her arms but didn't say anything.

"What should I do?" Rin asked.

Her teacher looked surprised as though it was obvious what Rin should be doing. But she didn't know. She wasn't clan. Her parents weren't even ninja. She felt her heart sink because this was clan matter. So she was surprised when he said, "You're coming with us."

"I am?"

"She is? Minato you moron—" Kushina pulled on his hair in frustration. "Well," She said, catching Rin's eye. "She'll need to wash up first. Let me walk you home." And pushed her out the door.

It was like stepping out into a new world.

She'd been on in the field for weeks. She hadn't the time to catch up or even take a shower in the time it took to find her teacher then Kakashi. Even the sunlight seemed different as it poured through the leaves, lovely and golden whereas the borderlands had been parched for water.

Every tree and blade of grass had been burnt to the roots months ago for the fear of an ambush. Konoha was just so beautiful. And loud. She held her hands to her ears, not quite sure if she wanted to listen to the early morning bustle or let it be. The only people out on the streets were merchants and shop owners setting their wares. Rin stretched surreptitiously, imagining that one or two pairs of scurrying feet belonged to her parents.

Birds cheeped from the undergrowth and she cheeped, annoyed with their song, bright plumage and existence. A man staggered past them in a drunken haze, breaking out into a run as soon as Kushina glared and shooed him off the streets.

"You needed to tell me something?"

"Aha," the redhead laughed, high-pitched and nervous. "You're so smart Rin!" After a moment of indecision, she declared loudly. "It's a terrible idea dammit. To go I mean, not because you're weak. Minato and Kakashi, they're idiots." She amended, "Okay, they're super smart but that's why they're idiots. You get what I'm saying?"

Rin bit her lip.

"Because I'm not clan."

"Exactly!" They stopped in the middle of the road. A boy on his bicycle swerved around them with an epithet. Kushina gave him the finger. "You're the easiest to come after." She continued as though nothing had happened. "The bastards won't see the strong, fearless chunin, they see a target. And you'll prove every one of them wrong but you don't have to."

"Um..."

Standing in front of Kushina, Rin did not feel strong or fearless.

"I... I wasn't born here ya know? Not in Konoha. I was a refugee. Uzushio was about the collapse and Konoha took me in because I'm an Uzumaki and they figured they could use me or some shit." Kushina grabbed her shoulders. "But you Rin, you're different. You're special—too good to get caught up in this."

That was the problem wasn't it? Everyone had an image of her they wanted to preserve. They thought she was a medic-nin in need of a protection they never even asked if she deserved it.

Rin hugged her.

"Thank you Kushina." She beamed, her cheeks aching. "But you don't need to worry. I'll be fine."

Kushina sniffled.

"Considering the blockheads on your team, I doubt it."

"I, I will think on this." Rin promised shyly. They both knew what it meant. Kushina muttered 'stupid' before slapping her lightly on the back which of course had her almost sprawled on the pavement.

"Kushina?" She asked as she hopped to a stop.

"Eeh?"

"What would you have done if you were in Kakashi's place. What would your clan have said?"

Her answer was prompt.

"I would give it up."

+++++2+++++

"There you are! You were supposed to have been back weeks ago—do you know how worried your parents were?!"

Her great-grandmother greeted her from the yard where she was feeding a small flock of white-feathered chicken. At the ripe old age of eighty, she was as spry as ever. Having outlived most of her children, she spent her time helping at her parents' shop or doing chores around the house. She had never approved of Rin's career choice and the old woman's face wrinkled like a brown walnut as she tiptoed past the gates, still shell-shocked in returning to civilian life. "Well?" Her great-grandmother demanded. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Obito is gone."

She didn't know why she answered. Gone, she said, instead of dead because in her mind, Obito's presence lingered like chips of nail polish under her cuticle, just out of reach. Enough that she knew about it, saw it, but couldn't touch it. She ground her knuckles into her gummy eyes, daring the woman to say something, anything at all.

Her great-grandmother's face slackened in confusion.

"Who?"

She laughed; she couldn't help it.

"Do you even care? Do you even know where I've been all this time?"

"You haven't been home in a month." The old woman said sourly. "For all we know, you might have been dead."

"But I wasn't!" Rin stammered. She always did this. Belittling her contributions to the village. Measuring blocks of bean curd against mission allowance as though it meant nothing. "I was out there, fighting while all of you were..."

"What in spirits has gotten into you?" Her great-grandmother interrupted. "Wars never stop. It's enough that we bring money into this village but you have to go out there, a girl your age! Playing war games like you're ninja."

"I can't do nothing!" Rin argued.

"And look where it got your friend." The old woman snorted. "You'll see. Nothing good comes out of running with those hooligans." She nodded at the passing of shadows overhead. It could have been birds or jounin reporting for duty; it could have been Anbu. Lifting a snowy eyebrow, she demanded, "Well? Aren't you going to wash up? Your parents received new shipments from Kiri and they'll need help if they're going to sell the lot before the inspectors come."

Rin felt chilled.

"It's not a game. Not to me."

"You are a young lady." Her great-grandmother warned. "There is no place for you in that world."

And it was true because that world was filled with clans and bloodlines and individuals with extraordinary abilities.

"Then I'll change that world!" She yelled. "I am a chunin of Konoha. I will make it so that everyone has a place!"

Her hand slipped into a ram seal. It was exhilarating how fast she could run, the chakra on the soles of her feet scratching wood all the way up to her room. She could hear her great-grandmother in the yard but didn't listen. There was no time for a proper wash; she barely got her face wet and her hair tied before jumping off her bed.

She opened the closet and tugged her chunin uniform off the hangers. Not the weather-beaten spare she used on the field but cloth and fabric for village ceremonies or ambassadorial visits. The collar was itchy and stiff, not yet broken in. She had never worn it before. No, she wore it when she thought Obito was dead and she swallowed, crushing her tears against the back of her hand.

The stairs creaked. She straightened her forehead protector and breathed out to Kakashi's front door.

"Well?" She demanded, half-in-jest, half-scared.

Kakashi shrugged but didn't keep his eyes from crinkling. She smiled back at him, cheeks flush with more than simple excitement as she took a step back, allowing him space. He looked so handsome in his clan colors. In the grey hakama and black haori, he moved like a young lordling rather than a blooded jounin, a spot of diamond in the rough, events of last night smothered in silk. She noticed that their teacher had also put in work taming the wild crest of his hair and gave him a thumbs up. It was something Obito might have done.

Minato hugged them from behind, wrapping his arms around their shoulders.

"Let's do this."


[1] Mangekyo Sharingan

Confession time.

I've changed the trigger for the mangekyo sharingan. It's overpowered to begin with but how the entire transformation is based off the trauma of seeing your loved one die is circumstantial at best. Does the grief not count for delivery?

As explained above, in this world people form relations/bonds with one another kind of like the red string of fate. the closer you are to a certain individual, the stronger the bond and stronger the backlash when it unexpectedly snaps.

[2] Senju Extermination

What it says on the tin. The Senju were already powerful when the five shinobi nations were founded. They bought more fear and jealousy with the capture of tailed beasts with the Mokuton bloodline ability. During the first shinobi war, the Senju were hunted down and killed. Along with them, dozens of other bloodlines were wiped out ensuring that no clan would again possess monopoly of the shinobi nation. Survivors buried their names and married into other families. Senju Tsunade is the last known individual to openly carry the name.