It took him weeks to return. Weeks of dodging patrols and hunter-nin who had been pressed to capture, not kill. Their advantage lay in the fact that they knew his destination. But the Land of Grass was still a war zone with more booby traps than the village of rain.
Pakkun had bit his ankles when summoned but still guided him to safety when explosions behind him deafened his ears. When he arrived at Kannabi Bridge, it wasn't Obito who waited for him crushed under a boulder. It was someone else.
Kakashi stared as his eye watered, Orochimaru dripping silk poison in his left ear. He grimaced when the man peeled away, feeling dirty and in desperate need of a shower. With acid if necessary. But under his mask, his disgust barely registered as a twitch. They were professionals after all.
"Well boy?" Orochimaru purred, mirth echoing through the carved walls. "Go on."
A paternal push thrust him into the shadows. Kakashi stumbled. It was uncharacteristic of him. He was the son of the White Fang—he could say that now. Freely. Proudly. It was no small thing. Shinobi were tools. They were unfeeling.
But Kakashi felt.
Kakashi felt everything. In the darkness, his senses were enhanced. He felt the brush of fresh air from vents that studded the ceiling. He heard the bubbles swirling in the water. He smelled the familiar sting of antiseptic, chemicals, harsh and abrasive.
He felt everything from his raw fingers to the fractured pinky toe of his right foot. The forehead protector which he had worn proudly since he was all of four bore a scratch through its center. He was no longer the shinobi of the leaf.
It meant he was a traitor. He was everything Obito told him he was.
His heart thudded.
He looked up.
+++++5+++++
Rin was running.
The hospital was not the first place she ran to though it should have been. All those patients. Poor Fudou counting down the days until he was sent back out into the field.
She did not drop by her parents at the market to tell them the happy news. She did not visit her great-grandmother all alone in their house with only chickens for company.
The news she bore was a year late. It didn't matter. War was what she knew. Peace was foreign to her. She didn't know what it meant not to fight. She didn't remember a time when she didn't have to fight.
Her feet skidded to a stop in front of the memorial stone. Someone had gotten there before her. An arrangement of flowers sat in a vase and she had nearly knocked it over with her feet before her hand caught it, bumped it back into standing straight where it spun and spun on its glass base before rattling to a stop.
The water splashed her fingers and she wiped it off on her skirt. The water blotted the fabric darker as she knelt.
"Obito." She gasped. "Obito."
Obito did not answer her.
What was she supposed to say?
The war ended. It changed nothing—it didn't bring Obito back. It didn't bring any of her friends back. It didn't suddenly restore Tonbo's eyesight or regrow Shimon's foot.
It didn't bring Kakashi back.
"It's over."
+++++5+++++
The war ended and the world went along with it.
The villages were shell-shocked at finding themselves thrust into peacetime. Here and there, she saw lucky lamps hung on their posts. Entrepreneurs were already hawking small memorabilia to commemorate the occasion. Rin had been accosted by no less than five vendors pushing leaf-stamped shuriken in her hands.
The hospital came into view. A jounin was loitering in front of the sliding doors. She recognized him. He was the one who'd brought them news of Onoki's truce.
Iwa was to withdraw from neighboring countries. Onoki had given Konoha three days to do the same while the daimyo redrew maps and borders. Toads had been sent out immediately to recall shinobi from the front lines, still tangled up in bitter battles. And every day, there were new faces, strangers, friends, classmates she hadn't seen years, stagger into the safety of the village, treated with reverence as much as they were with closeted suspicion.
"Excuse me." The jounin said timidly. "Can you help me?"
She thought he would have left to rejoin his team by now. Or—a darker part of her whispered, he doesn't have one.
Rin quashed the thought. Everyone had a team. In their hearts or out in the wilds making an ass out of themselves.
"Is there someone you're looking for?"
"Yes um." The jounin blushed.
He had the strangest hair she had ever seen on another person. It could have been the angle of the light but she swore his hair was teal. No, it was teal.
"I'm looking for Oban." He said hurriedly.
As though summoned, the doors slid open from behind her and Oban landed, tripping twice over his feet, breathing hard like he'd come running from the other side of the hospital.
"Kogame!"
Rin ducked when Oban flung himself at his visitor.
"You're back!" Oban shouted. "Are you okay? What's going on?"
The jounin recovered but barely under the sudden weight, his knees shaky when Oban bowled him over.
"I'm fine, I'm fine." The jounin protested. "Hey." His hand rested briefly on top of Oban's head. "Everyone's fine. Yoku sends his love. Soubi says hi."
"You're so tall now." Oban breathed. "And your hair!"
Oban tugged his fingers through the teal hair. Rin felt discomfited. Seeing the normally mild-mannered Oban bouncing around like a puppy hit too close to home.
"Can't stay long." Kogame admitted. "I should be on my way."
"You need rest." Oban countered. "You were supposed to be in Kusa! Yoku will understand."
Kogame rolled his eyes.
"Oh Yoku will understand."
"This is Kogame." Oban introduced once satisfied that his friend was only suffering from mild fatigue. Kogame bent in a strict ninety-degrees. She winced when she heard the jounin's back pop from the angle. "I used to be his teammate."
"You are still my teammate." Kogame corrected sternly. "We agreed that your skills were more useful elsewhere."
Oban did not react to the slight against his ability as a combatant. If she had been in his place, if Kogame had been Kakashi or Obito or Kurenai or even Minato, she knew she would have reacted with a fist, no questions asked. She wondered how Minato had kept them all in line. And if he had known, when he picked a team of Hatake, Uchiha and a civilian, she would be the only one to stay.
"How do you do?" Rin said, a smile straining her face.
They shook hands.
Oban's teammates were alive. Oban was a healer, a medic and a nurse. Not even a medical ninja.
It became evident. The common denominator was her. What happened to her teammates was her fault.
+++++5+++++
An owl hooted in the trees. Its friend answered. Perhaps it was an echo.
She wandered into the Forest of Death. No one was here. No one would think to look for her here. And why would they? The Third Shinobi War had come to a close. The cost had been too high for anyone to celebrate without going mad. Only a skeleton crew would patrol the walls tonight. Everyone else was too busy licking their wounds. Which was why Rin was slapping mosquitoes off her legs like an academy graduate on a D-rank mission.
She cleared her throat.
"Hello, it's been a long time."
"Nohara-san." Uchiha Shisui, all of eight, dressed in the finery of his family's wealth, regarded her with the boredom of a young princeling. So far removed from earthly matters that his eyes were already set on the terrible machine that moved their world. The war was over, now what?—his demeanor seemed to say. What was Konoha to do with its wealth of killers inside its walls?
And he was not alone. She was resentful for it. Shisui's honor guard loomed behind him. The light jingle of throwing stars in her weapons pouch was as much a warning as it was assurance.
"I received your message. Aunt Mikoto was most displeased."
No shit—She thought sourly. The Uchiha woman thought Rin was beneath her.
"I needed, I need to know. Did you help him?"
"Does it matter?"
"Yes."
"Hatake came to me for assistance." Shisui answered. "He wanted two things."
"And what were those two things?"
The honor guard bristled.
"Watch your tone girl."
"It's alright." Shisui said. "You're angry at him."
"I'm beyond angry at this point."
The boy nodded.
"The first was help getting out of the village."
His admission was treason. But Shisui was of a great house, one of four founding clans of Konoha. Rin was a nobody. Her parents were civilians. They had a stall in the marketplace. Their sole thoughts on the war had been fluctuating price of goods and exports. Not for the first time, she felt the limits of herself. Something that couldn't be quantified in chakra or strength.
Blood alone marked Shisui extraordinary. From what she knew of Uchiha burials—and she had researched much since Obito's passing—Uchiha burned their own in a rack of spice. Hyuuga buried their clansmen. Uzumaki offered theirs to the sea. If Shisui took offence, there wouldn't be a trace of her left to identify.
Shisui was eight. A killer. Maybe the best of his generation. Rin had compared Mikoto to a leopard when they first met. Compared to his older clanswoman, Shisui was young and earnest. His actions unpolished and even clumsy to her civilian eyes.
But when he was ready, Shisui would become a lion.
"And the second?" She demanded, painfully desperate.
Starlight fell through the canopies. It lit Shisui's teeth moon-bright.
An owl took flight and a life was snuffed out where she hadn't known was there before.
"He wanted a jutsu, one that could turn the bones of an Uchiha to cinders."
+++++5++++
The body count did not stop.
Even as the ink dried across the peace treaty, the fight went on. War was beyond disagreements between villages, kages and the daimyo. Petty anger boiled over. Hunger turned into desperation. Grievances turned into rage. The strong carved out territory between borders, slivers of land that had been turned over to the dead. Overnight, villages appeared. All with their own symbols and self-styled kages. These villages did not care that the war had ended. They killed shinobi and enslaved refugees. Whatever was necessary to eke out a living in the shadow of the Five Great Shinobi Nations.
After six deployments, Fudou had his leg amputated and was retired from duty.
Ibiki was tortured.
Minato was elected as the fourth Hokage.
Rin walked through the ceremony in a daze. Her family got front-row seats. Her parents were very pleased and even closed shop for the occasion.
The crowd cheered when Minato appeared on stage. From the far left, Anko shot her a poisoned look. Her mentor had been passed over for the seat of Hokage. Rin didn't know the details but it was clear what it meant.
The Third had looked at his student and found him wanting. He had chosen a student's student instead.
Politics—Orochimaru's supporters hissed. What did the golden boy, the poster child for Konoha's war efforts know of being a shinobi? Minato was too strong, too bright and too recognizable for subterfuge. He had no clan and owed no allegiances. He had never been caught alone with an informant he could not risk killing. Never sacrificed a comrade for a scrap of information that would win them a battle.
Minato was what she should have strived to be.
Wrinkling his eyes, the Third offered up his hat to him.
+++++5++++
Afterwards, she visited Minato in the newly vacated office of the Third. Kushina was talking over his head as always, equal parts frustrated and proud.
"Rin!" The redhead greeted happily, picking her up to giver a little twirl. Rin let out a peal of laughter. Kushina's joy was infectious. "Can you believe it? This idiot is the Hokage!"
"Hey..." Minato protested lamely.
He didn't look quite right in his ceremonial robes. His hat sat awkwardly on top of his head, squashing his hair flat. She would get used to it in time. Like with all things.
"This doesn't change anything." Minato said when he caught her staring. "I'm still your teacher."
But in name only. When was the last time they'd spoken? She saw the Hokage Rock outside the window. Workers were mapping out an area next to the Third.
"Sensei," she said. "Do you think I could be a sage?"
Rin might as well have struck both with a rasengan the way they were looking at her.
"What?" Minato asked, when he finally unstuck his jaw.
"What if I don't want to be a medical-nin?"
Kushina thumped Minato hard on his back.
"I'll leave you to it." She said. Minato stared balefully at her retreating back. He turned to look at her and sighed.
"I know the past few months have been hard." He said. "But it shouldn't be a reason for you to give up on your dreams."
Rin smiled but her heart wasn't in it. She could not remember if becoming a medical-nin had ever been a conscious choice or a role she had been cast into because she was a girl, because she was civilian-born and raised and no backing of a great clan or family behind her.
In Konoha, teams were made of threes. It was difficult not to compare each individual to the Sannin. Tsunade was the girl. Jiraiya was the joker and Orochimaru was the brooding asshole of the bunch. It didn't go deeper than that which was stupid. The Sannin were a legend. But they were real, breathing people—living icons and heroes of the Second Shinobi War. The Sannin were not memories of which people could speak of with any authority. But if she had to choose, Rin couldn't see herself as the healer, a caretaker, someone who could sit by while others got hurt. If she had to choose, she would have thought herself closer to Orochimaru.
Why not? One Sannin was just as powerful as the other. She was no heiress. She had grown up ordinary with parents who had never dreamed of becoming more than common merchants.
As though sensing her thoughts, Minato promised her a worthy mentor. She knew it wouldn't happen.
"I can't pretend that it doesn't matter. Not anymore. I was wrong to leave Obito behind. I was wrong not to help Kakashi. It's all my fault."
"Rin." Her teacher's hands landed squarely on her shoulders. "Look at me. This isn't your fault."
"But I have to take responsibility for the parts that are!" She burst out. "Obito made Kakashi promise that he would look out for me. Kakashi broke his promise. I have to bring him back!"
"Rin."
"Sensei, you promised, when the war was over that you'd let us go look for him."
Minato's expression was one of worn resignation.
"Kannabi Bridge is in Kusa. It is outside our jurisdiction. If anyone from Konoha was seen there, right after the peace agreement—I am sorry Rin."
+++++5+++++
Rin liked being around people. She had to remind herself that sometimes.
Sometimes she felt like a wave-battered shore and would take a short breather by doing a perimeter check around the hospital, pretending she was out on the front lines again, camping in some sage-forsaken swamp or shivering in the wet canopy.
It was after one of her jaunts she came back to find the entire hospital in a state of emergency. Chairs were kicked aside and counters cleared to make room.
Anbu swarmed the lobby like locusts. All were carrying bodies. Bodies that were too small to be anything than that of children.
Homura blanched at the rows of bodies.
"What in the name of Madara's three tits is going on here?"
"Orochimaru." Rat heaved, chin wet with something that looked suspiciously like vomit.
"Experiments." Dog hissed. "When we tried to stop him..."
"He killed two on the way out. Two. Lord Third did nothing."
They accounted for sixty-one bodies. Fifty-nine were children. The two were Anbu that were slain during Orochimaru's escape. Their masks, splattered with congealed blood, remained on their faces even as their bodies were examined for the cause of death. Their family would be notified in due time.
But for now, the entire hospital was in a lock down. Those who had been waiting in the lobby were hurried outside onto the grass where first-year residents and nurses hurriedly noted their symptoms and sent them on their way. Emergencies were redirected to nearby clinics. The Anbu put up wards around the first floor, ram, hare, horse and a clap of hands. She saw Homura hesitate. This was no ordinary barrier. It wasn't made to prevent anyone from getting in—it was meant to prevent them from getting out.
There was one survivor. One survivor out of sixty-two. A little boy with matted brown hair.
Oban immediately jumped to his side and pressed a glowing palm against the bony ribs until the taut flesh smoothed over and the cheeks were no longer as sunken. They looked in his mouth. He had all his baby teeth. His lungs were healthy. She let out a sigh of relief when Boar reached out to take him.
"No."
Air compressed inside her chest as she took a step back. Everyone took a step back when Oban grabbed Boar's wrist and twisted it until the fair-haired Anbu fell to his knees with a grunt.
Oban's eyes had taken on a glassy sheen. He looked different. He didn't look very much like the kind boy who comforted the maimed and the dying on the sixth floor.
"Don't touch him." He said.
Boar let out a soft hiss and somewhere behind her, a nurse fainted and two others scrambled to hold her up.
Anbu surrounded him in a half-circle with their weapons out. Some were crackling with unspent chakra. But then seemed unsure where to aim. At Boar, who had attempted to take the little boy, or at Oban whom they could barely see straight without wincing.
"I have my orders."
Rin ground her teeth in time with a rotating wrist.
"What orders?" Oban asked.
"Enough Oban." Homura barked. "This is a hospital. I will put you on bedpan duty if you break that moron's hand."
It was as though a spell had broken. Rin could suddenly breathe again. Chakra—that was all it had been. Enormous amount of chakra. All from Oban who was the nicest person she knew.
"Rin, get him out of here." Homura snapped and Rin tripped over her own feet before swinging an arm around Oban's shoulders. Oban shuddered at the sudden contact but leaned into her embrace. Like all his strength had drained from him and was now playing red-light green-light with the Shinigami.
She led him into the break room and pushed a stale red bean bun in his hands.
"Eat it." She prompted when he wasn't moving fast enough.
Oban was shaking.
"I have a little brother." He said. "They're about the same age and I..."
"It's okay." Rin did not offer empty platitudes. She did not tell him that she would have done the same if someone else had tried to lay claim to her teammates. How angry she was at being left behind by Kakashi. She squeezed his hand. "I need to go help Dr. Homura. Will you be okay?"
"I, yes."
By the time she got back to the lobby, cloths had been drawn over the faces of children. Boar was being treated off to the side. Some nurses wept. Others buried themselves in work. In the midst, Homura was arguing with an elderly man.
Rin's eyes widened when she realized who it was. It was councilman Shimura Danzo.
She discreetly began examining the bodies nearest to them. Danzo's hard gaze glanced over her like water off a duck's back.
"You're not taking the kid. He's sick."
"We need him to figure out what Orochimaru was planning."
"He is a child."
"He is a witness."
"A witness to what?" Homura snorted. "He's not exactly in the shape to be talking."
"You are being stubborn young lady."
"And you are an obstinate, old fool if you think I'm letting you anywhere near my patient. If this is what I think it is, I will charge the entire council with conspiracy and being accessory to kinjutsu."
Danzo's expression soured. He cleared his throat and conceded that the battle was lost.
"Perhaps, we can talk somewhere more private?"
+++++5+++++
Rin didn't go home when her shift ended. She called her great-grandmother to let her know that she would sleep at the hospital—no grandmother, it's not because of a boy. There is no boy.
Minato dropped by with a container of soup and candy overflowing from her pockets. The Third apologized publicly to the village and vowed to bring his wayward student to justice.
She filled out the form for patient #41.
She couldn't do this anymore.
+++++5+++++
"... And when I find him, I'm going to drag him back by his hair!" His mentor declared, loud enough to be heard by the village. Heck, they could probably hear him in Kumo.
"Jiraiya, please." Minato pleaded. "This is not helping. Lord Third wanted this taken care of quietly."
Jiraiya crossed his arms with a harrumph.
"Nah, just gives the bastard more wiggle room."
Minato rubbed his temples. He thought he was ready—he really did. Everyone told him he was ready. Something, something, will of fire, something. He let out an aggravated sigh. As much as he hated to admit it, he was starting to long for the simpler days of stabby, stabby, kill-y. At least corpses weren't mouthy. If an opponent went down, they stayed down. They didn't hurl politics at his unprotected back or shut him out because he didn't understand 'clan matters'. Yes, stabby, stabby, kill-y seemed like an excellent way to get rid of his problems.
"Rin!" He greeted brightly, grateful for the reprieve.
His student froze like a genin who had triggered a wire trap. There were bags under her eyes big enough to haul potatoes and he felt bad for putting her on the spot. She looked so tired! But then they all were. Peacetime was a lot of work.
She seemed tired. But then they all were. Peacetime was a lot of work.
"Rin!" Jiraiya boomed. "You've grown more beautiful than I saw you last!"
Minato groaned. Sometimes he wondered what the Third had been thinking letting his students loose out into the world. His mentor didn't say the garbage that came out of his mouth out of real malice. It was... just the way it was. But it was awkward as fuck when it happened. Kushina was much better at this. The Third should have given her the hat instead.
"Uh, thank you." Rin said.
"How can I help you Rin?" Minato asked her gently.
"Actually, I was looking for Sir Jiraiya."
"Me? Of course you were. Would you like a copy of the latest Icha-Icha..."
Rin knelt and bowed her in front of them both.
"Please take me as your student."
+++++5+++++
"Are you sure you can't wait?"
Kushina moved slowly, conscious of her burden. She would be a wonderful mother. Rin was sorry she could not be there for it. She was sorrier that they had grown so far apart.
She could see Jiraiya ahead, waiting for her to wrap up and knew that if she didn't go now, she would never get another chance.
"This can't wait." Rin said when she really meant—I can't wait. With a teary smile, she added, "I'll be back before you know it."
"Remember to write okay?"
Kushina gave her a hug and her belly squeezed between them. Minato wrapped his arms around both until Jiraiya began talking very loudly about how a certain fugitive was probably somewhere in the Tani at that point.
"I'll be back." She sniffled.
This was how she began year fifteen.
