Rin flipped her egg over and let the yolk, runny in the center, sink into the broth. Teuchi had lit up when he saw her come in with the others. He seemed genuinely pleased to see one of Minato's genins come home at last.

"It's not like that."

Genma's tone was too casual as he picked a pair of chopsticks out of a bin and rubbed them together. Though they were as smooth as they could be, Teuchi wouldn't have allowed otherwise, it was a habit with him. A cunning ninja could have dipped the wood in poison. There could be splinters. No one would know if Genma choked on a splinter and died.

She stirred her noodles and took a big bite.

And since she was less than forthcoming with her feelings, Genma tried again.

"They're Orochimaru's kids." He said in a low whisper, picking at his callouses before turning his hands over. "No one wanted them so the Hokage took them in."

"It's fine." She said. It was. She didn't need Minato looking out for her anymore. They were all adults now. They could find Obito on their own—as they always had.

Her hips thinned at the thought. They had needed him then.

She piled her noodles into a spoon and placed a single piece of daikon on top.

Genma took the hint. He pushed a plate of dumplings in front of her as a gesture of peace. She stabbed two and swallowed both. They were fresh from the frying pan and she could pretend that the redness in her eyes came from stupidity and not anger.

Rin hummed in interest when Raido told her that people in the Land of Tea cooked everything with tea—even eggs. She returned the favor by recalling the time she was in Suna, playing hide-and-seek with a hunter-nin in a red striped mask, ducking between the dunes, licking moisture from her palms.

"What happened then?"

Kakashi's look-alike asked with a baited breath.

Everyone frowned at him. He was only a genin. He did not wear a flak jacket. His shirt did not have the telltale whirlpool hemmed to the back. He always paused and deferred to others, though whether by design or lack of agency, she didn't know. His fingers were swift. She could tell from the way he held his chopsticks. And his eyes were oddly restless beneath his oversized frames.

He seemed harmless.

She emptied her cup and Genma refilled it brazenly with more sake.

"I won of course."

The group burst out into cheers. She reveled in it. Just for one second. It had been years since she could share her experiences without having people trying to stab her in the back. It was different.

It was exciting.

She laughed once and raised her cup to toast.

"To our enemies."

It was Anko who recognized the salute first. They fought in the war together after all.

"May they go to hell."

Genma raised his cup.

"To absent friends."

"May the roads find them well."

"To us."

"Who will join them," Aoba slung an arm across Genma's shoulders.

"Hear, hear!"

+++++15+++++

Word got out.

Sometime after Minato bowed out from the ramen shop and gave her a meaningful glance about visiting him and Kushina, the group moved to a bar frequented by active shinobi. Actually, it wasn't a bar at all. There was no bar. It was a fire pit at the edge of forty-fourth training ground, also known as the Forest of Death, felled trees and failed attempts at hyoton completing the eerie atmosphere.

Even at the heart of Konoha, they had to remain vigilant. They sat close enough that they could hear each other but not so close that they were pinched in. Their knees bumped together and they might have passed Hayate around too many laps.

They were friends after all.

Her graduating class, the ones in the village at least, dropped by through the night to greet her and snag the few bottles of sake that had successfully been chilled.

Rin elbowed Kurenai in the ribs.

"Still with Asuma?"

To her delight, Kurenai did not blush once but instead glanced back with a slow wink.

"Well done." Rin said, clicking their cups together.

"Thank you." Kurenai replied demurely.

It wouldn't be official. Asuma was a Sarutobi and the Third Hokage's youngest son. Kurenai belonged to a family of two. Kurenai was not an appropriate match for him.

She could feel Anko burning holes in the back of her head.

"I need to go to the ladies room." She declared.

There was no ladies room. It was just her way of warning others that there would be hell to pay if someone peeped.

Aoba faked disappointment and she flipped him off.

"As if there's anything to look at." Anko scoffed.

She got up from a lazy squat wondering whose grandfather it was that she'd pissed on and kicked dirt over the roots.

"I hope you got a good look because I'm about to make sure you won't need to ever again."

"Nohara-san."

Shisui appeared from the dark like he had been born to it, wearing a hawk mask with hollow rings around each eye, one blue, the other red, the stuff an active ninja's nightmares were made of.

She looked around. The forest was pitch black. Not even the moonlight could penetrate the thick canopy and the bonfire was a mere suggestion of color in the distance.

If he attacked her, she could not be sure that she would win.

So, she didn't try. She held her hands up and flipped them around to show that they were empty, unarmed.

"Where is your lackey?"

"I came alone." Shisui assured her.

She was unmoved.

"I'm here. So talk."

"I have a message—for Hatake-san."

"I'm no messenger." She replied sulkily.

"No." He agreed. "But you will pass on the message. Things have changed since you last set foot in Konoha. Lady Grandmother is dead."

For a moment, she thought of her own grandmother, her great-grandmother. Grand matriarchs of a changed world. When they were young, Konoha had barely been an inkling in the mind's eye. Or so the story went. Going out in the world meant that sometimes she heard different stories from different people.

"My condolences."

"Yes." Shisui said dryly. "For more than one reason. Did you know that the last Hokage the Uchiha swore allegiance to was the Third? But the Third is kage no longer and the Fourth failed to see that all heads of my clan showed up. He believes the village you see. He believes in the Uchiha clan. "

He let the words hang in a tone of disbelief.

She understood that—the sudden gut punch of having her place on the team filled by Anko of all people.

"So a couple of elders played hooky. I don't see the problem."

"The problem is that for the first time in more than seventy years, the Uchiha clan is unopposed. I believe you have one of my cousins in your genin team."

Rin's eyes sharpened.

"That's classified."

Shisui laughed politely under his mask.

"Well then."

"Why not bring this matter to the Hokage?" Rin asked in a low voice.

"It would be my word against theirs."

"Your word means that your clan is planning a coup."

To his credit, Shisui didn't deny it.

"I am loyal to my village, do you understand?" He sighed. "I am loyal to my clan as well—which is why I have come to you. It is time Hatake-san honored our agreement."

"What can Kakashi possibly do?"

"He can bring my cousin home."

+++++15+++++

The next day, squinty-eyed and hurting from a hangover like everyone else, Rin went to the Hokage Tower to apply for housing.

She had no intentions of staying at her parents' place. For one, ninja did not have permanent addresses. Addresses only served to paint targets on their backs. Whereas powerful jounin like Gai or clansmen like Asuma were nigh invulnerable, she was not. She had to tread carefully. Ninja like her were assigned empty units or attics in districts with higher-than-average genin population. The genin were to act as human shields in exchange for the opportunity to observe her and gain from her experiences.

Second, she had no desire to listen to her great-grandmother's thoughts on propriety now that the old bat was certain she was a demon.

Rin looked at the address on the slip of paper and cleared her throat.

"Excuse me, I think there's been a mistake."

"There is no mistake. This is the address you've been assigned."

"But this is next to the Hokage's residence."

The desk chunin shrugged, suggesting that it wasn't his problem where Rin had been assigned.

She dialed back her annoyance and managed a polite, if not sweet, smile. The kind of smile she would use if she happened to find herself fishing for information, pretending to be lost or looking for a fair-faced husband gone astray.

"Can you please look at this again? Only the Hokage Guard Platoon is ever assigned to that unit."

"Then I suggest you take it up with the Hokage ma'am. I'm just following orders."

Her teeth clicked closed and the chunin pushed another slip of paper forward.

"You've been promoted. Congratulations. You must be very proud."

+++++15+++++

"I told you." The Hokage said, squinting over documents from T&I. "I want you to lead the next Team 7."

Rin fought the urge to scream.

"They haven't even graduated."

After taking office, Minato pushed the graduation age back to 13. His reasoning was that genin benefited from a stronger curriculum on basics. Jiraiya had grumbled about it when he heard. Something about genin lacking talent.

Privately, Rin thought it was a good idea. Murder was their trade, not suicide. After the war, every single hidden village was scrambling to meet demand—and lost a good population of their children as a result. Yu in the Land of Hot Water was one of them. It prided itself as the 'village that has forgotten wars'. But everyone knew that it was because they could no longer offer services.

"There is no guarantee that they'll make it—or even one will make it."

Accidents happened after all.

Minato looked up as though he heard.

"They'll make it." He said simply.

She had no idea where his confidence was coming from. His team had been built from necessity and war. The future Team 7 was made up of Naruto, Minato's son, Sasuke, Obito's cousin many times over, and Sakura, a girl whose father's genin career was so uneventful that he might as well have been a civilian.

Her eyebrows twitched.

She thought of saying something, anything, and settled on one word.

"Naruto."

"Who else could I entrust my beloved son to?"

There was something she was missing. Being the Jounin instructor for Team 7 meant more than babysitting a group of genin. She had the Hokage's son on her hands. Minato did not have a clan. He was a fluke as far as anyone was concerned—the story of a carp jumping the waterfall, as her great-grandmother liked to say. The rumor back at the Academy said that he was descended from one of Suna's warrior clans on account of his yellow hair and blue eyes, tracing back to Setsuna of Black Sand herself. But as far as she knew, nothing came out of it. Minato was a beacon of hope. Hope that even a genin, a civilian, a nobody could become something great.

She pressed her lips into a thin line. Kushina was a different story. She was from a clan that had once laid claim to Uzuzhio. And Sasuke, his family needed no introduction. Hadn't Kakashi made his name throughout the Five Great Shinobi Nations with the eye Obito gifted him?

Team configuration was rarely based on merit. Traditions had to be kept. Grudges were honored. In hidden villages, its pick of Academy genins was often the face of the village. They were flashy, loud, powerful with accompanying pedigrees. Individuals that couldn't be flunked into genin corps—though Ebisu tried his best; individuals unfit for Anbu.

Clans trained their own. Those that attended the Academy were heirs, like the Hyuuga heiress who had recently turned ten, or bargaining chips, like the Inuzuka's spare. Scattered between were civilians of 'talent'. Few actually graduated the Academy. The better ones were tossed into Anbu. The lackluster went to the genin corps. Only jounins ever graduated. Minato was telling her that Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura were jounin material.

Naruto, Sasuke and even Sakura, with her bright, pink hair, were expected to become the village elite or die trying.

They were ten. By the time she was ten, she was doing B-grade missions. Kakashi had both of his eyes and Obito was live.

She turned the thoughts over in her head.

Shisui had warned her that the Uchiha were planning a coup.

Before Shisui left her in the middle of the Forest of Death, where a wrong turn could have rendered her lost and wandering through the woods until she turned to dust, he put her under a genjutsu.

And through Shisui's eyes, she had seen Konoha.

"Oh and Rin? Dinner at my place, around 8 I think."