"Kakashi found you?"
+++++9+++++
"Then why didn't he come back?"
+++++9+++++
He liked to pretend that it was the lack of oxygen that made his head spin. Underground, it was the same, damp unfiltered crap they breathed day in and day out. Sooner or later, they were going to run out of breathable air and save the shinobi nation another war.
Beside him, Kisame, even with the advantage of his blue-tinged skin, looked ill. The gill marks on his cheeks fluttered as their prisoner gurgled under the knife.
Kakashi rubbed his mouth hard against the fabric of his mask, nauseated by the wash of copper and ammonia in the air. It chilled him to think that Minato, Jiraiya, the Third Hokage—hell, even Danzo and the rest of the useless council elders—had all missed the fact that they were nestling a serpent at their breast.
Pleased, Orochimaru's face cut itself into a thin smile.
"You are dismissed."
Outside the lab, the air had a bite of mold. But as soon as Kisame closed the heavy doors behind him, Orochimaru doing sage-knows-what to the poor fucker who was dumb enough to string together a sentence with his name and immortality, he sucked it down like a dying man because he made a promise. He made a promise to Obito.
It was funny.
If it hadn't been for Obito, he wouldn't have left the village. He wouldn't have had the courage to do what needed to be done.
Kakashi thought that for him at least, there would always be a before and an after. Before Obito's death and an after. The person he had been before Obito's death had held himself together with a desperate sort of strength that followed a tragedy. The aftermath had instilled a sense of dignity, a sense of purpose with which to conduct himself.
Deep down, he knew that it was all bullshit.
Obito was two years gone. Kakashi was the older one, the taller one, and the stronger one. Kakashi was still the self-important, arrogant whelp who got his friend killed. The only difference between before and after was that after, he knew it. He couldn't un-know it. He could not un-know the price of failure sitting in his left eye.
"That was bad." Kisame said mildly.
"Say it like it is Kisame." Kakashi sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Ame was bad. Living puppets are bad. This is something else."
Kisame hummed in response.
"They say that Kakuzu of Taki has five hearts."
A pause.
"Guess we're sleeping outside tonight."
"Iwa is a week away Kakashi-san. Should we not prepare for an early start?"
He shrugged.
"You and I both know Orochimaru doesn't believe in clairvoyance. He just wants us out of the base. And even if he did believe in it, the Seifuujin will tell us nothing."
"Nothing about Orochimaru's plans perhaps." Kisame suggested.
Kakashi cut him with a look.
In another life, Kisame might have been a shinobi loyal to his village. His sword arm would have been the pride of Kiri. The blood he spilt, those of her enemies. But the Kisame standing before him was a missing-nin who'd thrown his lot with a pack of murderers whose illustrious leader was one senbon shy of a full mission kit. Kakashi did not entertain false hopes as to where Kisame's loyalty lay.
"We'll talk about it later."
"But—"
"Kisame." A copy of Icha Icha Paradise landed in his hand. Kakashi was hoping that a Zetsu would catch a glimpse of its orange cover and ask. Orochimaru had been apoplectic when he found that copies of Jiraiya's work was making rounds in his hideout. "I'm just going to visit my friend."
He patted himself on the back for keeping his voice from breaking. As he walked down to the lower levels, the Zetsu collectively turned their pale faces at him. Some roused themselves from inside walls while others looked hopefully for entertainment.
Kakashi didn't know what the Zetsu were. Clones perhaps. But of no one he knew. He'd flipped through the Bingo Books with Obito's sharingan and recognized Zetsu in none of the faces.
Black Zetsu watched him like a broody hen, yellow eyes glittering in the dark. It followed him from floor to floor, from hallway to hallway until it was satisfied that Kakashi was acting the part of a good little minion, keeping from mischief.
Obito's body was held in a clear tank, suspended in water. Flesh full on one side and smashed in the other. His right arm had been amputated barely a week after Kakashi found Orochimaru's hideout. It had begun to rot. He remembered it very well. The Sannin had taken perverse joy in taking the pulpy hand first and its tiny finger bones, cut up to the elbow then the shoulder.
He didn't know what Orochimaru did with the arm. For Obito's sake, he hoped that the decay took it, that the decay took all of him. But Obito stayed just as Kakashi stayed.
Clearing his throat, Kakashi patted his hair back, trying to tame the crest of his hair into something presentable. Something that looked like effort. Obito would have understood. Funny how everything he knew about his teammate came after his death when it was too late for him to do anything about it.
Kakashi remembered when Obito's name had been dug into the memorial stone, his body unable to be retrieved. But then his eye turned. Obito's last gift had shown him that the other boy did not die in the land of grass under a pile of rocks. He died after. After his team left. After Kakashi had given him up for dead. When he couldn't even give him a proper burial.
Shisui's technique scalded his throat as he pressed a palm into the warm glass. Orochimaru hadn't dissected his friend yet. Which meant that he still needed Obito's body for something. And Orochimaru had plans. He had so many plans.
Kakashi did not believe in an afterlife. His father hadn't been able to teach him otherwise before he died and what little he heard from villagers appealed to him even less. He wondered if Obito had believed in anything during his brief tenure as a shinobi of the Leaf. If he believed in the Will of Fire crap that the Third Hokage and Minato liked to espouse so much.
Obito believed that Hatake Sakumo was a hero.
Palm turned into a fist.
Behind his forehead protector, his left eye was whirling.
Rin couldn't help him; Rin was safe in peacetime Konoha. Rin would mourn her teammates alone because it was the proper thing to do. Because it was the shinobi thing to do.
Kakashi thought he knew death. He thought he knew grief.
The Hyuuga buried their dead. The Uzumaki gave theirs to the sea. The Uchiha buried theirs in pyres that burned straight for seven days and seven nights. Kakashi could not leave Obito anymore than he could have given the Uchiha his sharingan.
The Nara buried their dead in the forest. The Inuzuka in the hills.
This was not the future Obito was meant to see.
Lightning split his nail as he lit the incense sticks one by one and let the smoke dry his right eye.
He would bring Obito's body home.
As the incense sticks burned themselves out, he left.
+++++9+++++
Gravity sank into her lap. The chanting made her head hurt. The drums made her knees shake.
Obito stared far away. Somewhere Rin could not perceive. Seeing things that she could not see. Hearing things that she could not hear.
In the folds of patterned silk, Tosogare was a rabbit one moment and a rooster the next. Rin held her breath. Held it in as long as she could because coughing might have scared Obito away. It might have scared his soul away, his spirit away, and she would have never gotten another chance to speak to him.
She remembered her great-grandmother telling her stories when she was young. Before the war, before the Academy, when parents had children hoping that they would never know battle. The dead were honored. They were respected and they protected. She tapped the rhythm of her heart on her thigh and knew that at the very least, this ritual couldn't be denied to her. This was no bloodline limit to be coveted like a scandal. Obito was dead. His ghost followed the Honorable Tosogare as he cleaved the air with war fans made of bone and edged in steel. Their arms flowed from the rigid horse to a coiled snake, briefly lifting the veil into afterlife where Obito could turn briefly and look back at her.
Obito was not the boy she remembered. Obito spun as Tosogare pivoted on one heel, hair falling slick across his shoulders, hiding the exposed marrow, smoothing the ruined lines of his left side into shadows.
Rin bit her knuckles as someone behind her pinched her side, as quick as a viper and just as kind, warning her to keep still.
"Hold your place." Guren said sourly from her seat. "Or your friend will cease."
At the center of the room, the Honorable Tosogare was tiring. His jaws tightened as he diffused chakra into his limbs, kneading it with the whole of his body instead of just his hands.
"Rin?"
Breath came out in a sudden gasp from the woman behind her as Obito stepped in front of her, leaning into her, cold where his shape parted the oxygen and left only swirling frost in their wake. Rin snapped awake from her stupor and clenched her fists hard into her knees. Tosogare continued to dance, unknowing or perhaps uncaring that his charge had escaped the center of the room to be with Rin.
It made her hair stand on end. It felt like the time Kakashi tried to kill Uchiha Mikoto. Like all the alarms in her head were going off at once screaming danger, danger, danger and the only thing she could do was watch because this was what she wanted. Not an exorcism. Not closure.
She hadn't wanted to be left behind.
"Rin, what's wrong? You're crying."
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Obito! I didn't mean to leave you!"
"Rin." Jiraiya warned her, antsy from her left. "Stop talking to him."
"You didn't leave me." Obito replied, both confused and upset. "I'm here. I'm always here."
She pressed her hands against her mouth.
"Obito, help me find you."
Rin could see the lazy tick of his remaining eye and the haughty nod of chin. She could see the cracked incisors inside his mouth, the torn lips, the rough plains of his cheeks and the push of his ribs. It became easier to see her friend's ghost. Minute details filled in. Like he was becoming more solid, real.
No, that wasn't right, she thought. It was more like all that he had been was being sloughed off thrusting Obito, only Obito, and the essence of him, into realization. Obito's left hand followed Tosogare's sweep in a half-hearted motion before falling.
"Obito." She said firmly, fingers clawing at her knees to hold them steady. "Pay attention, this is important. Where is Kakashi?"
Because Obito's presence in their world depended on the Honorable Tosogare's dance. And by her estimate, he would not last long.
"He's close right now." Obito pouted. "He isn't always."
"What do you mean? Where does he go?"
"Child." Lord Tegaki reprimanded, voice like a crack of whip. Rin jumped. She'd forgotten that they weren't alone. "Where is your body?"
"I think I'm in water." Obito answered after a pause. His voice echoed and the ends of his fingers flickered, losing shape.
Jiraiya cursed under his breath.
"But that doesn't make sense." Rin said. "You said someone found you. You said Kakashi found you."
Kakashi did not come back. Why didn't they all come back?
"Communing with spirits rarely makes sense." Guren said artlessly.
"Focus Obito. You said someone else found you—your body." Rin corrected herself. "Who else found you? And what does that have to do with your promise?"
"I promised to see the future with Kakashi." Obito mumbled. He twitched in place, looking forlornly at Rin. Only at Rin. Waiting for her to give him the answer.
If Rin was able, she would have throttled him.
"Obito," she repeated with a calm breath. "Kakashi found your body. Who else found it?"
"Oh," Obito said. "It was that creepy guy. Orochimaru."
"Where is he?"
Before Rin could think, before she could even process what Obito had said, Jiraiya loomed over them both, face blotchy with rage. He didn't raise his voice. He did not spun on his heel as to attack Obito. By the trembling lines by his mouth, Rin knew that Jiraiya was afraid. Afraid of her dead teammate who would never be more than thirteen of age.
Jiraiya had set fire to his empty grave and put leagues between them before being satisfied. Her teacher's teacher, and now her teacher, was a spiritual man. Someone whom she suspected had seen that bedtime stories and terrors swapped at candlelight were true.
"Where is he?"
"Jiraiya," Tegaki snapped. "Sit down."
Several other Seifuujin had gotten to their feet, ready to force Jiraiya down if necessary.
"Where is Orochimaru?" Jiraiya demanded as though he hadn't heard.
Obito blinked in confusion. He seemed surprised to see Jiraiya there. Surprised to see someone other than Rin. And in response, Obito's face turned stony and cold. Darkness found purchase on Obito's ghost and what Rin thought were mere shadows turned his skin like a fever.
"You're being rude." Obito said silkily in a tone she did not recognize.
Rin remembered when Sora held her hands to look for Obito, his cigarette smoke sliding off something unseen. Obito died alone. Obito had died away from home. No tablet or family altar was made to soothe his soul. The Uchiha gave him up for dead. Rin gave him up for dead. His ghost blackened like the angry ma that haunted riverbeds. Jiraiya stepped sideways, pulling a sake-filled gourd from his belt.
A heartbeat before it happened, Rin saw Lord Tegaki snap his head to where his brother danced a woman's part for a boy he didn't know. A boy whom the Seifuujin said was cursed, a boy his own clan sacrificed as the fortunes of war, a boy who had been her friend and loved her innocently as she was then.
The Honorable Tosogare stopped. His gaze fixed on something Obito had looked towards but failed to find. Something beyond their sight.
His fan slipped from his nerveless fingers and landed heavy on the wooden floor. Tegaki threw an arm out, spinning a wire net to catch his brother when blood gushed from Tosogare's mouth. The man frowned, nose wrinkling as he brought his fingers to smear the redness around his lips. He coughed once and Obito mimicked the movement, blood streaking down his throat. Darkness receded from his face and hid in the crags of his scars and the dips between his ribs.
"Hey mister." Obito wheezed, addressing the Honorable Tosogare. "You don't look so good."
The Honorable Tosogare smiled warmly and fell.
Rin had medical training. She'd worked at a hospital. She should have gone to the Honorable Tosogare as he was laid out on the floor, the Seifuujin gathering around their lord and lady. She should have pumped his heart. Resuscitate him. Something.
Jiraiya splashed Obito with the sake. She could not tell if any of it landed on him.
She should have gone with Kakashi; Kakashi should have waited for her.
And in that instant, she knew that it fell on her to bring Obito back. To bring both Obito and Kakashi back home.
"Obito!" Rin shouted to her friend's fading form. "You wait! You wait for me Uchiha Obito! I'm going to find you! I'm going to find both of you!"
"Rin, there is something else." Obito said, translucent, his expression no longer his own. Her fingers slipped through when she reached out for him. "It—it's evil. You have to kill it okay?"
"Yes," She nodded frantically. "I understand."
Then, he was Obito again. His scars smoothed into a grin.
"Rin, thank you."
+++++9+++++
The Seifuujin mourned for three days.
Instead of telling fortunes, the people of the-place-between-the-rocks arranged for mass prayers to soothe the Honorable Tosogare's passing. Tears flowed freely as liquor. Though most of them knew him as a wife and the sister of Lord Tegaki, the people spoke of Tosogare kindly in public and went about their days, snatching glimpses of the eight-petal lotus carved on the side of the mountain.
Then there were the visitors. Passerby who had hoped to have their palms read. Clients who had known Tosogare when he was a younger man. The spiritual, the superstitious and the forewarned. Even Iwa sent dignitaries as a sign of respect—a three-man formation led by a young woman with beautiful, coral eyes.
She and Jiraiya quietly moved their things outside the village when they felt her gaze pass over them one too many times.
The Honorable Tosogare had left his mark in shinobi legends but Tegaki's reputation precede him. Jiraiya explained that Lord Tegaki of Seifuujin was a known summoner of demons.
"He doesn't use the power idly. But, he can do it." Jiraiya elaborated after a loud belch. Which meant that his brother could also do it. Rin remembered that Jiraiya told her that the Seifuujin were responsible for Uzushio.
"What kind of demons?"
"The kind with tails." Jiraiya said grimly.
"Oh."
The hidden villages were notoriously secretive about tailed beasts. She knew that the last sighting of the Nine-Tails was in the Land of Fire, during the age of the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama. But after that, nothing. It was as though the tailed beast had disappeared into thin air.
She wondered...
Jiraiya, half a bottle of sake in him, grunted that Tosogare had hardly been a saint but nonetheless burned incense in his memory so Rin too clasped her hands and prayed. She wished him a safe journey. She wished his family peace and prosperity.
It was time to leave.
He mentor acquired a bottle of hair dye and darkened his hair into common brown. They would act the part of father and daughter in their new identity. Rin didn't bother applying stripes and when birds chattered at her from tops of trees, hoping for handouts or something to thieve, she threw a kunai in the branches, scattering feathers among leaves.
Jiraiya laughed.
"And what did the birds do to you eh?"
Rin was not sulking. She felt that it was perfectly reasonable to ask that she be allowed to accompany her mentor on a mission to find their teammates.
But no, Jiraiya was playing dumb.
"To find who?" He asked gamely, picking wax from his ears.
Rin glared.
"You've been looking for Orochimaru. It wasn't sanctioned, was it?"
"Minato never said I couldn't look for him." Jiraiya shrugged. "Information is information."
Rin bit her tongue. Minato was the Fourth Hokage. He deserved respect. But she also needed to find her team.
"So we find one, we find the other." She said calmly. "We bring them both home."
She could see Jiraiya rolling his eyes, beseeching the Sage for strength.
"Rin, it's too dangerous. Now that we've taken care of this possession nonsense, I think it's time we had a talk about your future as an active shinobi."
"I know I'm not strong enough to become a sage." She admitted. "But I still want to try. I never want to be in another situation where I'm useless."
"Medical-nin keep their comrades alive." Jiraiya reminded her.
"I don't get to protect myself?"
"Your job is to protect others."
But Rin failed. Both in the field and in the hospital. She left Obito for dead. She put men back together just for them to be sent out into the front lines.
It wasn't protection. Not in the way she saw it.
"Then let me go with you to keep you alive."
"No."
Jiraiya turned away from her.
"Why not?"
"Rin, it's not safe."
"We are ninja—we aren't supposed to be safe."
"Dammit Rin, the Hatake brat isn't a traitor!"
"What?"
She must have heard wrong. She had to have heard wrong.
Except Jiraiya looked absolutely miserable.
"Your friend didn't betray the village."
"Then why..."
Rin turned over the facts in her head. One teenaged jounin against Konoha's best trackers. Even Kakashi wasn't that good. Someone must have told him to go; someone ordered Kakashi to leave the village. To play the part of a traitor. "The Hokage would never."
"Hatake's on a mission." Jiraiya said. "Deep-cover. If anything, our little detour proved that it's legit. It's one thing if I clobber the snake-bastard over the head. If Orochimaru saw you or if you blew Hatake's cover... Anyway. He's not a traitor." Jiraiya finished lamely.
"Then why..."
"Because Hatake sent a message. Said that there was a greater threat. Something's controlling Orochimaru. Now I've known that treacherous son of a bitch a long time. The thought of someone pulling his strings? It scares the shit out of me."
"That's why you came here." Rin said dumbly. "Because Lord Tegaki and the Honorable Tosogare can control demons."
"That's a part of it." Jiraiya admitted. "But Rin, possessions are not a joke. It's a good thing that Uchiha brat was in love with you but love can turn into obsession. Obsession into hate. I should know. What is dead is dead. The living honor the dead but we do not call of them. We do not use them. And most importantly, we don't make them promises."
Rin's eyes stung. But she made Obito a promise.
"So we're all liars here." She said bitterly. "Traitors."
"I am sorry Rin."
"Ah, is this a bad time?"
The first person Rin recognized over the width of Jiraiya's shoulder was Kuroi and the sweep of his jet black hair. It rose half-heartedly from his skull like a crow's wing before falling messily into his face, bringing to mind a there-and-gone image of Kakashi after a hard tumble, sweat and dirt weighing down the usual shock of grey hair.
In Kuroi's arms, he cradled a tanto sheathed in black wood. The same he threatened to cut her with when Rin and his husband Sora held hands. A thin gold line traced the seams. She noticed that he would not take his eyes off of it.
His companion, a kunai-width taller, and she noticed with slight embarrassment, just as good looking, smiled with his amber eyes and held his hands up in a gesture of good will. Scars raked his work-roughened palms in a series of bone script[1] that flowed like poetry.
And between them, right arm wrapped tightly in a sling, was Yamagaze Souken, Sora's older brother.
It was the first time since their initial encounter that she'd gotten a good look at Souken. At first glance, she could hardly believe that he, Sora and Sousuke were related. Souken looked nothing like his brothers. Whereas the youngest and the eldest were tall, narrow at the waist with high-knees, Souken was barrel-chested and broad—she could easily see him in the fields working the land or selling wares in the market than wrapped in silk, playing the part of a gentle-born clansman.
Yet his sky-blue eyes were unmistakable. Both Kuroi and his amber-eyed companion planted their feet and allowed Souken to pass. She knew Kuroi had shinobi training. But all three had managed to slip their notice and gotten close. She found herself fingering the scalpels woven into her sleeve. Two against three was hardly fair. But with Jiraiya's warnings about the Seifuujin being demon summoners, she couldn't help but lean away as though they might suddenly sprout fur and tails.
"Yamagaze Souken." Souken greeted. "Pleased to make your acquaintance at last. This is Gin." He gestured injured arm towards the man with scarred hands. "And you've met Kuroi."
"How is your arm?" Rin found herself asking.
"Still here." Souken hummed.
"I am sorry for your loss." Jiraiya said stiffly.
Souken smiled and nodded in his direction.
"I as well. It was good of the Honorable Tosogare to help your friend."
His hand whipped out, bypassing Jiraiya's guard like it was nothing and snatching the charm Rin wore around her neck. He turned it over in his hand, politely ignoring sputtering noise.
"It's very well made." Souken said at last. "I hope it will serve you well."
She shivered.
Jiraiya's hand landed heavy on Souken's shoulder.
"Can we help you?"
Kuroi bristled.
"Oy, take your hands off of him."
"Easy," Souken said. "I've only come to deliver a message." And without taking his eyes off of Rin, Souken took an envelope out from inside his haori. It was stamped with the mark of leaf. "And I am here to collect payment."
Rin took the envelope gingerly as though it contained exploding tags instead of a message.
"Figures." Jiraiya scoffed and took out his wallet. "So what's the damage?"
"We cannot live on altruism alone." Souken answered simply. "But no." He grabbed Jiraiya's wrist and twisted it until it turned palm up, fingers digging hard into the leather of his wallet. Rin saw the space between his eyebrows crease as he struggled to pull free. But Yamagaze Souken was as strong as he looked. "The Honorable Tosogare may not have asked anything of you but he is dead. It is the Seifuujin who demands recompense for your carelessness."
"And why," Jiraiya said with a strained grin. "Does it feel like we're no longer talking about money?"
"Because you're smart Sannin Jiraiya-sama. How does the saying in Konoha go—" Souken released Jiraiya and reached behind for the hilt of Kuroi's tanto. And as the blade slid from its sheath, the sound putting Rin's teeth on edge, his haori fell open to reveal the naked flesh beneath and the band of cloth and metal wrapped tight around his left bicep. "An eye for an eye."
An Iwa forehead protector.
Jiraiya's voice was low.
"Who are you?"
"Are you frightened of an injured man?" Souken asked, cocking his head.
"I do not wish to fight."
"You misunderstand." Souken said with all the confidence of a man who knew the outcome either good or bad. "It's not a fight if it's murder. Kamizuru Kurotsuchi is paying us a visit and I think she would be interested to know why two Konoha shinobi are in the Land of Earth."
Kuroi's tanto lit up in an eerie fire. It was a chakra blade and in Souken's hands, it came to life, slicing through air. "Even we cannot stay here without Iwa's sanctions."
"It's peacetime."
The argument rang hollow.
"And so it is." Souken replied. "It would be a shame if someone saw you with Iwa-nin blood on your hands."
Gin and Kuroi knelt. They would not fight. They would play witnesses to Souken's suicide.
Jiraiya's lips pressed into a thin line. Rin could see him mentally calculate how long it would take Kurotsuchi to notice the sudden burst of earth and fire in the outskirts of the-place-between-the-rocks. Less if one of the three-man cell turned out to be a sensor. Less because they had been waiting.
They had been played.
"Wait," Rin interrupted in a sudden burst of inspiration. She rummaged through her bags hoping, praying that it was still there and legible.
She presented the three men with a crumpled exploding tag and both Gin and Kuroi pushed Souken back, one turning liquid below the waist, the other holding kunai between his fingers.
"Two years ago, I killed an Iwa chunin."
"A chunin isn't worth much." Souken said but his eyes were sharp and he was interested. He took the exploding tag from her and held it up against the sun.
"He belonged to the Kamizuru clan."
Jiraiya stared at her, dumbstruck.
She had gone through the bingo books once, two years ago. The boy hadn't been listed. He had been too young. Dead before he could make a name for himself. But maybe Souken knew him. Maybe Souken recognized him. Because under his forehead protector had been a tattoo that marked him Iwa's equivalent of Anbu.
"Well now." Souken said at last. "Kamizuru Kuroishi went missing during the Third Shinobi War. The Tsuchikage offered a kage's ransom[2] for information about his grandson. He was never found of course."
"Of course." Rin repeated, relaxing about an inch. "Tamonten forest, three kilometers west."
Before Souken could carelessly stick the exploding tag in his pockets or cast, Gin slapped the piece of paper between his palms and dampened it, letting the ink color his scars.
"We were never formerly introduced." Souken said. "May I have the honor of putting name to the slayer of Onoki's grandson?"
Rin shook her head. She knew what she had to say.
"Tell the Iwa it was Kakashi of the Sharingan."
Souken's smile was infectious and she couldn't help but smile back in kind.
"And may I have the pleasure of having your name as well?"
"It's Rin, Nohara Rin."
"Nohara-san," Souken tipped his head. "I'll be sure to keep an eye on you." And she saw that he meant it.
Souken slid the tanto back in its sheath. And as he left, from behind him, Kuroi and Gin both spun on their heels and bowed to her, low, much lower than it was warranted for a foreign shinobi, a shinobi of her rank and her gender.
"Thank you."
Jiraiya and Rin left immediately. Once they were far enough, once Jiraiya felt that they were far enough, a toad watching the roads for attempts at pursuit, Rin cut open the wax seal on her envelope and held the letter up to moonlight.
Boy. It said. Come see.
"Will you go?" Jiraiya asked, coaxing a fire into bloom.
"No."
She tossed the letter in the fire and watched the words burn away.
"My training is not complete yet."
[1] Bone script – see Oracle bones on Wikipedia
[2] The Third Kazekage also went missing around this time and I'm betting Suna offered some kind of a reward for news of their leader
