"Is this really necessary?" Rin huffed as she thumbed through Icha Icha Paradise volume III Special Edition as though it was a diseased thing. "Can't we go back to chakra manipulation?" She stared mournfully at the balloon ball which had kept its cheery, round shape in the palm of her hands. Frustrated, she squeezed it and watched it bounce back in defiance.
Jiraiya had directed her to swirl the water inside the balloon. Something about shaping the chakra instead of simply kneading it. It was a great deal more difficult than it looked. But she thought if she could keep the momentum, feeding the whirlpool just a little bit at a time, she could get the balloon to burst. She didn't have the biggest pool of chakra, but it wouldn't take much. It would just take time.
She pouted.
"Ah Rin," Jiraiya said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "You should call me uncle. Why a girl like you and a man like me, what would people think?"
Rin narrowed her eyes at the faulty logic. Right. She had brought this upon herself.
The cowhand cleared his throat, awkward at being caught in the middle.
"We're here."
"And so we are." Jiraiya turned around with a wink. "Here you are my good man." He said, pressing copper ryo into the other man's hands. "May your crops grow fat and your wife have many beautiful daughters."
"I don't have a wife." The cowherd mumbled as his fist closed around the paltry coins. During the height of the Third Shinobi war, Rin would have given away her entire commission for an alternate mode of transportation. Kicking her feet against the side of the cart, she jumped off. The cowherd snuck a look at her. "Um, you too.
Rin rolled her eyes. She didn't know what was worse—being thought of Jiraiya's wife or pretending to be his niece.
After a week of travel, they were finally in the Land of Grass. To the east was the border to the Land of Fire. To the north was the Land of Falls. To the west was the Land of Earth. And finally, to the south was the wreckage of Kannabi Bridge.
She could almost taste the dust in her gums from when the rocks fell. As her teacher had once predicted, the war was over. Maybe she could go back now that it was peace time. To see if her teammates were there. Had been there. To say proper goodbyes to the two boys who left her behind.
"So." Rin ventured. "After we finish this mission..."
"Eh?" Jiraiya said, rummaging through his belt satchel. "One's mission is never finished. A shinobi's life is a series of missions."
He took out a leaf of paper and smoothed it out against a rock for Rin to see. She immediately wrinkled her nose at the wall of perfume that punched her in the face.
"This is a love letter." She said, pinching her nose shut.
In sprawling loops and a creative interpretation of what characters were supposed to look like, the letter graphically described how the sender longed to be ravished by her mentor. A kiss mark concluded the letter in lush slopes. Rin furiously willed the blush on her face to go away.
"You have much to learn my young student." Jiraiya said, smug. "This is no mere love letter. These are directions pointing us towards a certain, treacherous snake.
She squinted.
"How can you tell?"
Rin took code breaking in Academy. All students were supposed to take it though some, like Kakashi, were better at it than others. She remembered the afternoons after class putting heads together with Obito or Kurenai, trying to figure out how to break the carefully scripted code before Ibiki became frustrated enough to tell them the answers.
Jiraiya pointed at the end of the letter.
It was hard to make out his name under the glitter.
"That. Do you know how many love letters I get?"
"A lot?" She hazarded. Rin understood the commercial success of Jiraiya's works. She just preferred other authors.
"But how many do I get addressed to me personally? Such intimate letters!"
He looked down at the words with longing.
Rin didn't see why it was such a big deal. Jiraiya wrote porn.
He flipped the letter over.
There was a portrait on the back of the letter. An image of a woman in a scandalously low-cut furisode. Scales edged her collar. She was very pretty.
Rin gave her mentor a side eye as he dramatically declared, "The lady wished to have me where the winter cherries bloomed! Winter cherries bloom in the summer and are most plentiful in the Land of Grass—more specifically, Hozuki Castle."
She shivered in spite of herself. Rin knew Hozuki Castle by reputation only. It was where hidden villages used to send problem shinobi before the war. More specifically, problem shinobi they did not wish to kill themselves.
The cowhand had dropped them off on the outskirts of a settlement near the water, not a day as the crow flies from the ominous prison. Though the Land of Grass was a landlocked territory, water stretched towards the horizon like a river. Rin had seen pictures of oceans in books but could not imagine anything wider or deeper.
"Is he at Hozuki Castle?" She asked timidly.
"We don't know that yet."
Everyone stared as they walked into the settlement. The settlers were not used to visitors. It was only by sheer chance that Jiraiya's informant had spotted Orochimaru in the first place. And Rin supposed that they should count their blessings that the sannin was unmistakable.
"Never thought the bastard's vanity would come in handy." Jiraiya grumbled as though reading her mind.
"He must be long gone by now." Rin said out loud. "What are we doing here?"
"That's what we are here to find out. This is our mission Rin. Making sure we gather the information we need to save our comrade's lives."
Rin nodded, emboldened by the sense of purpose.
"How do we do that?"
Jiraiya winked.
"By asking of course!" He cheerfully slid in front of two women. "Excuse me my lovelies~"
Rin sighed. She asked to be a sannin's student. Jiraiya hadn't needed to take her. She was glad that he hadn't tried to ditch her at the first opportunity.
He tried but it didn't count. Not really.
She looked around. The settlement had maybe twenty people. Small enough that the news of their arrival would have spread quickly. If she wanted any useful information, she would have to move fast.
The first person Rin spoke to was their host. The older woman had been willing to rent out a spare bedroom for a fee and idly cautioned her to keep an eye on her husband. Gossip was thin. The settlers were small folk, simple folk. They were not used to visitors.
"No one will talk to me." She sighed over a bowl of yakisoba.
"Hmm? It takes practice. Not every adventure is about death-defying battles."
More book analogies. Jiraiya took out an unfinished manuscript as he nursed a cup of warmed sake.
"So what else can I do?"
Jiraiya looked her over critically.
"Perhaps." He suggested, thumbing the pages. "You could offer them companionship."
She finished her noodles.
"You want me to what?"
Rolling his eyes, Jiraiya leaned and whispered in her ear.
"Seduce them."
"What?!" She exclaimed, her face flushing hot.
Her mentor burst into laughter.
"Hahahahaha! How do you think I gather information?"
"I thought you peeped in public baths!" She snarled and immediately covered her mouth in case she gave their host any more wrong ideas.
"I'm wounded." Jiraiya said, clutching his chest. "Such accusation!" He waggled his finger. "But, you wished to become my student didn't you? Eh? Eh?"
Rin puffed up her cheeks.
"Don't remind me." She huffed.
Briefly, she thought about Kushina and her baby. The baby was due soon. Rin hadn't even known there was going to be one until the jounin had shown up one day with her stomach big as a watermelon. She always thought Kushina would get married first. Settle down. But they were shinobi. Nothing was easy for them.
Which was why she ended up creeping around men's bathhouse.
The houses in the settlement were modest, single-story structures that offered barest amenities. So the settlers used the public bathhouse which was really a large, stone hot tub divided by a screen. Privacy was an illusion. She could already hear the outrage from the women's side of the bathhouse.
Rin decided to do her laundry instead. Men were gross and her clothes smelled like a cow.
Barefoot, she waited for her things to dry. The women gossiped around her. Their words went in one ear and out the other, punctuated by thwacks of wet cloth.
"Did you hear? Suzuki's daughter ran off with the smith."
"No."
"She didn't!"
"He's old enough to be her father."
"Her poor fiancé."
"The fiancé wasn't much of a catch."
"Suzuki should have consulted her almanac—how inauspicious."
"Suzuki will have another worry if the bandits get them."
Rin perked up.
"Bandits?"
And at once, the women's expressions turned dull and uninspired.
Rin tried again. "You have bandits?"
"Yes." A laundress replied.
"Why not hire someone?"
The women shared awkward glances between them.
"Because we can't afford it?" A kind-faced woman offered.
"But," She bit her lip. "Where are the bandits? Maybe I can help."
An older woman shrugged. "Pay it no mind child. The bandits do not bother us as long as we stay within village limits."
But she did pay it mind. She bought a pack of dumplings from a man who gave her extra bits of meat for being new and pretty.
Rin grinned at the compliment. She knew what she looked like. She was bedraggled from a week's travel with Jiraiya. Her great-grandmother, if she could see her now, would have made her bite a bar of soap and beat her like spring laundry.
The people needed help.
+++++6+++++
"No." Jiraiya said decisively.
"Why not?" She protested. "They need help."
"This is not our battle Rin. It's peacetime."
"So we're going to let them suffer because the war is over? That's not right."
"Rin," Her mentor sighed. "Our mission is to find Orochimaru. Fighting here? Without a contract with the civvies? We might as well declare the Fourth Shinobi War."
Her expression pulled into a pained grimace. The Third Shinobi War had just ended. Would their actions be enough to ignite the Fourth? No one had the manpower for invasions. Maybe the samurai in the Land of Iron. Or the Dark Continent across the sea.
"But we can help them."
"Rin, you are a shinobi."
But it didn't mean that she couldn't help, she thought determinedly as Jiraiya handed her another book to memorize. It just meant that she couldn't be caught.
She slept to early light. To an hour when Jiraiya was still snoring away in his bedroll. Dodging the empty bottles of sake at her feet, she used the body flicker technique to land on top of the roof. Dawn was beginning to peek over the horizon, drenching the world in pastel watercolors.
It was easier than she thought it would be to find the bandits. She had been thinking like a shinobi, expecting cloak and daggers. But the bandits were a band of men that had gathered to take advantage of those weaker than them.
She heard their footfall and clamor long before they marched into view. Steel slapped the meat of their thighs. She noticed that two even had bows and arrows.
Bandits or no, Rin could not believe how loud the men were as they carried out a hind from the tall grass. The hind was newly killed, still dripping blood from its mouth. One of the men commented that they would eat well for a week.
She thought, maybe if she could tie them all up, she could make the bandits give back what they pillaged from the settlement.
Carefully, she snuck up behind them.
"What about them newcomers huh?"
"They're staying with Michiru aren't they?"
"I'm just saying, the girl would be a fair match for Jiro's boy."
"Bah, have you seen her man?"
"That can be taken care of heh heh."
Rin struck.
The rearguard was easy to take out. They fell by surprise onto their knees and she kicked their heads together, knocking them out.
Two down.
The difficulty were in numbers. Rin had fought bandits before. But she always had back up. Power was nothing if your reach was only three feet. She'd learned that lesson when Kakashi attempted to skewer five people with his skinny, thirteen-year-old arm. She wondered if he had grown at all.
Birds took flight, shaken from sleep. Their cries rang like chidori in her ears and she rolled to dodge a machete.
"You!" One of the men cried out in surprise. He faltered when he caught sight of her face. He was the man who had sold dumplings to her.
All of them were men from the settlement.
There was no time to think. She threw a shuriken which struck the man's wrist. His machete went spinning into the undergrowth as she landed between two others, hamstrung one with tiger-horse-rabbit-rat-dog and disarmed the other.
Five down.
From a few feet away, a man released an arrow. It cut a line in her shoulder. More arrows followed and she ducked under the dumpling man. The arrows struck and he fell with a short gurgle.
Six down.
Rin heard someone cry out in denial. In her haste, she had strayed into the path of a waiting foot. She cursed herself even as she fell and shaped her hand into a tiger.
"Close your eyes Rin!"
She closed her eyes.
A flash bomb went off.
When she pried one eye open, she was treated to the sight of her mentor's face.
"I told you not to come here." He rebuked even as he cut an arrow out of the air.
"I wanted to help!"
"No." Jiraiya shook his head. He looked sad. "You wanted to prove yourself."
One of the men bolted. He must have heeded Jiraiya's warning.
The sannin was in the wrong place to intercept. But Rin was not. She finished the rest of the seals and drew air into her lungs.
"Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!"
A giant ball of fire erupted from her mouth. It was nothing like what Obito had shown her during their last mission together. It lacked force. She hadn't managed to hurt him. Sheer animal instincts drove the man to the ground with a soiled seat.
"The Grand Fire Ball Technique." Jiraiya looked furious. "How?"
"I saw Obito do it a few times." She stammered.
"Your teammate." Her mentor looked skeptical.
She turned to the groaning bodies.
"They're from the settlement. Why would they...?" She didn't know what to say. Did the women know? Did they lie? The Land of Grass was still governed by Iwa. Was she really surprised?
"We are not wanted here."
"But why?"
Jiraiya tapped his forehead. Instinctively, Rin raised her hand to hers. Her forehead felt oddly bare without her forehead protector. But she had taken it off after crossing the border of the Land of Fire.
Suddenly, something occurred to her.
"You knew. They made it look like there were bandits prowling the area to protect themselves."
Jiraiya sighed.
"Yes."
All of them had known. The settlers. Men, pretending at being bandits like little boys.
"Then why didn't you tell me?"
Because she remembered the dumpling man's smile when he gave her extra bits of meat. The truth in the laundrywomen's voice when they told her that they could not afford protection.
"Because we cannot have dissent this close to the border." Jiraiya said sternly. "What would you have done during the war?"
She would have killed them all.
Jiraiya knelt and cast genjutsu on the survivors.
"It won't last forever. But it will last long enough." He explained. "Memories fade."
"But they need help! When is it their turn to be saved?" Rin asked. "When they have enough money?"
"Ah Rin, you are too kind."
She fought the urge to sniff. She was not kind. She had just wanted to help the villagers. But Jiraiya was right. Part of it was her own hubris. She wanted to prove that she was a capable shinobi.
Jiraiya suddenly took her by the arm and turned her around. He pulled on her sleeve and stretched it out where an arrow had gone through the fabric.
"Are you alright?" He asked, even as he wiggled his finger in the hole.
"Yes, I'm fine." Rin replied. She'd forgotten that was there. "They missed."
"Whoever made this knew what they were doing." Jiraiya said with reproach. "They wouldn't miss." He pulled the arrowhead free and accidentally cut himself on the sharp edge. "Tch."
Rin pulled bandages from her utility pouch. She noticed that it was the one she had taken from Obito's room. The one he had used and unraveled instead of tossing it away. She rolled it across her palms and cut an appropriate length, careful to store the rest back.
"Your chakra control needs work." Jiraiya observed which didn't seem right because she had been chosen to be a medical-nin because of her fine chakra control. As she tied off the bandaging, Jiraiya said meaningfully, "Nature transformation is difficult. Electricity comes from the heart. Water follows your hands. Feet touch earth. Lungs breathe air. Fire comes from the mouth."
"Oh." She said. She hadn't known that. She was tested for nature affinity back at the academy. Her conduction paper had turned to ash. It hadn't been that unusual. A lot of ninjas in Konoha had fire affinity.
But not all of them were strong enough to use nature transformation. Fire was tricky because by itself, it had no power. The trick was getting it to last long enough for objects to catch on fire. Or build up enough heat that it would damage an enemy. At most, people kneaded just enough chakra as a surprise tactic. In that way, suiton and doton were much more useful.
"We will need to move." Jiraiya sighed. "And we just paid for those rooms too."
"I'm sorry." She stammered. "I will get our things."
"No, in a place like this. It's best if I do it. Just make sure they're all tied up."
+++++6+++++
She waited.
Long past the time the sun had cleared the horizon, Jiraiya did not return. It was as though he had forgotten her. She didn't think that the villagers could have contained him. Maybe a pretty face had turned his gaze. But her legs were going numb from sitting. She was hungry and the men were beginning to stir.
Rin took out two soldier pills from her pack and swallowed them. The grass rustled. She was so close now. This was the place where her life had irrevocably changed. Changed Kakashi for the worst. Revealed her to be the worst.
Nausea and terror turned her stomach as she scratched hasty directions in the dirt. Because she had to know. Once upon a time, she had a team too. Just like Jiraiya. Like Jiraiya, she had been left behind. One teammate gone rogue. And the other—
But Jiraiya's team was alive in a way hers wasn't. In a way, she couldn't be sure hers was. What happened the night Kakashi put her to sleep with a head full of what-could-have-beens and what-should-have-beens? Was he safe? Was he alive?
She hadn't asked Kakashi. Kakashi was the best. That did not mean that he was infallible. That did not mean that he was always right.
Rin would get hell for this later. Jiraiya may even refuse her as a pupil. But she was already in hot waters with the sannin. She shouldn't have gone against his orders. She wanted to help. She tried to help. But ultimately, she had wanted to prove that she could stand on her own.
She was a shinobi of the leaf. She had been trained climbing trees that stretched mile high into the air. Her mad dash to Kannabi pushed air into her lungs. It almost felt like someone had tied wings to her feet.
By the time she arrived, the sky was beginning to turn dark. Clouds had melted away into the night. The sun hovered just over the horizon as though it had been waiting for her. Like Obito had been waiting for her.
Was he still there? His grave had grown grassy green. Short violets waved at her from the crags between rocks.
Deep down, she knew her teammate was far away. For if he had been where she buried him, Kakashi would have returned with the body. Obito would have a real grave. She would have never left Konoha.
"Rin."
She whirled around.
"I'm sorry, I had to—"
The morning after Kakashi's betrayal, Jiraiya had dispelled the genjutsu with his chakra. The same pressure bore down on her as she took a step back.
"I think it's time you revealed who you really are."
The toad sage peel the bandaging from his finger and let his chakra burn it to nothingness.
"I don't understand."
"No, not you Rin-chan."
He appeared behind her and slid his hand down her face. She squeezed her eyes shut expecting to struck and when she wasn't, she opened her eyes and her mouth dropped in horror.
In the thin veil of light, Obito stood before her, just as she had known him. He seemed surprised to see her and reached out to her, teary-eyed under his goggles like he'd been away for a while. A little trip there and back. As though the two years since his death had been a terrible dream.
His lips formed a syllable 'Rin' and she cupped a hand to her mouth. Rin hadn't realized how much she'd missed him. It hadn't hit her until she saw him. He was just a kid. Shorter than her, younger than her. Two years younger. Not a day older than when he died.
Tears streaked down her striped cheeks.
"Obito—"
She stepped forward and as she did, the sun slipped past the horizon.
He was gone.
