Chapter Three: Blank Period Part I
By the end of the second month, Rin was able to regain her previous chakra control. By the end of the eighth month, Rin's mind was practically exploding with all sorts of medical knowledge. At that point, Tsunade had declared there was nothing more that she could teach the young medic. Upon seeing Rin sparring, so pathetically if Tsunade may add, Tsunade changed her mind and began teaching her taijutsu. By the end of the twelfth month, Rin had completely mastered the technique behind her monstrous strength and was evading attacks at a jonin level. All that was left was for Rin to work on her stamina.
After being in the village for over one year, Tsunade decided that she was long overdue for a break. Her final act as a shisou had been to teach Rin how to summon Katsuyu, hoping that there would never be a situation in which she would need to use it and left with a young Shizune in tow.
And then Rin was alone again. Minato sensei was too busy with his Hokage duties to train her. Kakashi had fully immersed himself in the Anbu and was rarely to be found traversing the village anymore. So Rin turned to Kushina nee, something that was long overdue.
Upon seeing Rin, Kushina had let out a long string of expletives before going on to rant about how Rin should have came to her earlier for help. By the end of her rant, Kushina broke down in tears and merely pulled Rin closer to embrace her in a hug.
Kushina forced Rin to stay for almost the whole day, insisting that they had a lot to catch up on. So Rin stayed for lunch, then an afternoon snack, then for dinner. Rin told Kushina all about her experience as a jinchuuriki, which Kushina confirmed that Isobu was a lot more pleasant than Kurama.
As promised, Rin did visit Isobu after she figured out how to control his chakra and made a point to visit him at least twice a month, just to chat. Isobu had been wary of her frequent appearance at first, and even accused her of wanting something from him, but eventually warmed up to the idea of participating in an ulterior free conversation. According to Isobu, his previous hosts only ever sought him out when they had a favor to ask. From that point forward, Rin swore that she wouldn't do the same to him and would only rely on his power in absolute dire circumstances only.
Eventually the conversation drifted away from tailed beasts into Kushina complaining about Minato. At first it had been to lament the fact that he had gotten Hokage - when it was Kushina's childhood dream - but that had been in a joking manner. However, the conversation turned more somber as Kushina admitted she was lonely with Minato busy with his Hokage duties and her being unable to leave the village for missions.
"And if I do get missions, it's some stupid D rank mission. Who does Minato think I am, a genin?" Kushina ranted, waving her hands wildly in the air to enunciate her point.
"Why can't you leave the village for missions? Is Minato too overprotective?"
Kushina shot Rin a sympathetic look, hating to be the one to break the news to her. "It's because Konoha likes to keep their jinchuurikis safe within village borders." Kushina knew that would be enough for Rin to put together the pieces.
"So the same goes for me too then," Rin stated. Her tone of voice didn't give away a hint of how she was feeling and Kushina desperately wished to know how Minato's only female student was taking the information.
"But it wouldn't be so bad for you," Kushina insisted and continued to babble on to fill the silence. "I mean you're a medical ninja so I'm sure you'll be so busy at the hospital that you won't be bored at all. Plus you get to sleep on an actual bed everyday and not have to camp out on the cold, hard ground, you know!"
Kushina cut herself off when it was clear that Rin wasn't listening to her at all.
"Rin?" Kushina nudged her shoulder. The faraway look in Rin's eyes disappeared.
"I was just thinking," Rin began, biting the bottom of her lip. "Can you train me?"
"Train you?" Kushina repeated.
Rin nodded. "I want to become a jonin."
"What of your training with Tsunade? Did you not learn enough?"
"No, it's not that," Rin protested. "Most of what I learned is regarding medical ninjutsu and she even helped me improve my taijutsu. It's just that I don't think that her fighting style is suited for me."
Kushina nodded in agreement. Having watched Tsunade spar before, Kushina honestly couldn't imagine Rin, the sweetest member of Team Minato, crushing boulders or tearing up the landscape in a single punch.
"So what will you do?"
"That's what I came to you for," Rin admitted. "Can you teach me?"
"I know some fuinjutsu if you're interested…" Kushina offered. Rin was quick to accept.
Some was an understatement, Rin quickly found out, as Kushina dumped a pile of scrolls on her. At first Rin had been hesitant, knowing that all of the scrolls were clan secrets, but Kushina waved her off, stating that her clan was practically nonexistent so it didn't matter anymore. Of course there was a catch, Kushina would pawn off her future kid's fuinjutsu training to her. Rin wasn't even sure if she couldn't properly learn fuinjutsu in the first place, but she agreed to it nonetheless.
Day after day, Rin showed up at the doorsteps of Kushina's home, ready to discuss with her what she had read before. Not before long, Kushina passed her an ink brush and special sealing paper to start writing her own seals under her supervision.
In the first few attempts, the sealing exploded, covering her entire face with black ink. Out of desire to learn the fuinjutsu properly, but mostly to avoid having to scrub ink off of her face every time she failed, Rin had gotten to the point where she didn't make enough mistakes to have the seal blow up in her face. Rather, the seal just wouldn't work when Rin tried to activate it so she would retrace every stroke to figure out exactly where she went wrong.
By the end of the week, Rin was able to replicate an explosive tag from memory at an efficient speed. Along the way, Rin picked up some common sealing tricks that all jonin were aware of, such as the one that allowed ninja to seal weapons or objects inside of a scroll or the one to block off chakra control.
By the third week, Rin had managed to master recreating all of the common seals.
"Well now that you have the basics down, what you do with fuinjutsu depends on you now," Kushina told her. "Like Minato, for example, used the principles of fuinjutsu to develop his Hiraishin jutsu."
"Minato sensei developed that on his own?"
"Well I helped him of course," Kushina responded haughtily. "I mean where would the poor boy be without my help?" Rin let out a small giggle at Kushina's playful comment.
"Can you help me too?"
"Of course kid."
While Rin took the time to mull over what she could create with her newfound fuinjutsu knowledge, Kushina recommended improving her combat skills.
The first person that Rin sought out for that purpose was Gai, mainly for two reasons. One, Gai was the best at taijutsu among their generation and Rin definitely needed to keep her taijutsu skills sharp lest Tsunade demolished her if she found out Rin had been slacking. Two, Gai was the person to turn to if anyone wanted to know about Kakashi's wellbeing. The good thing was that Rin didn't even have to ask; Gai spilled all of that information on his own. Even if most of the so called information was just Gai ranting about how Kakashi kept rejecting his challenges.
Surprisingly, Gai was the one who recommended Rin to find Genma upon hearing that she wanted to improve her aim in weapon throwing. Of course that suggestion wasn't given without a very detailed account of how Genma once spit out the senbon from his mouth with such deadly accuracy that it took out an enemy's eye.
Cutting off Gai with a thanks, lest Gai launched into another story about Genma's abilities, Rin darted off in the direction of Konoha's market. If Rin was going to ask Genma for help, it wouldn't do if she didn't have the proper supplies.
Throwing senbons with accuracy was...hard. Unlike throwing kunais or shurikens, throwing senbons required a greater amount of accuracy due to its smaller and slender size. On top of that, the lighter weight called for Rin to change the amount of force that she put behind the throw so that the senbon would actually sink into the wooden post. Channeling her chakra into the needle helped with the speed and force of the throw and kept the trajectory straight in windy settings, but that was a waste of chakra. So Rin forced herself to practice without chakra, using her ten senbons so much that the tips of them had dulled.
Before Rin had the chance to seek out Genma, it was him who found her first. At first, Genma had been hiding in the trees, watching her target practice, before he suddenly spoke, catching Rin off guard.
Had Rin made the rookie mistake of not being aware of her surroundings?
"Hello, Genma," Rin greeted as she reached over to yank out the senbon imbedded into the wood.
"Gai informed me that you wanted to learn how to use the senbon? I didn't imagine that you would have already started."
"Yes," Rin admitted as her cheeks flushed red from realizing that the senbon expert had seen her pathetic attempts. "I wanted to try by myself before I sought you out for pointers."
"What level are you at now?" Genma asked, curiously eyeing the depth of the holes left behind on the target from where the senbon had pierced it. The holes were pretty shallow.
"I still don't put enough force behind it," Rin told him. "But I guess it's better than before. At least the senbon somewhat sticks to the target."
"And your aim is decent, I suppose," Genma mused as his brown eyes roved the distance between each hole in the wood, "But not good enough for your purposes."
"For my purposes?"
Genma raised a questioning eyebrow at Rin. "Do you not know what you can do with senbons?"
"Not really. I was just trying them to see if they were a good fit for me."
"So you don't know what your fighting style is?"
"I don't really have any offensive moves."
And Rin still made it to chunin? Genma questioned in his head. Sure, Rin had the intelligence and analytical mind of a chunin, but her physical prowess was something else. However, he supposed, being on a team with the prodigy of their generation and a combat eager Uchiha meant that Rin never really had to fight an enemy, especially since she was a medical ninja.
Genma inwardly sighed and decided that he would trouble himself to help the girl out. After all, Genma was grateful to the Yondaime for taking him under his tutelage as the Hokage's personal guard platoon, so he could return the favor by helping out his former student.
"Listen here…"
And listen she did. Genma explained the trick to throwing senbon with accuracy and deadly speed, before moving on to the potential damage that senbons can cause. As a smaller and much less common weapon, most ninjas tended to underestimate the power of the senbon. If there was one good thing about teaching Rin was that the girl was smart enough on her own.
All Genma needed to mention was piercing the enemy's vital points for Rin to understand its vast potential.
"Ah! So depending on my purpose, I can use senbon to aim at various points in the body, either to maim, kill, cut off their chakra flow, and so on. And if I coat the senbon with poison...then even the smallest scratches will have an affect on the enemy."
"Precisely." Genma had an extensive knowledge of the human body for a non medical ninja for this reason. And Rin's knowledge of poisons gave her an edge that Genma didn't have. An idea flickered in Genma's mind.
"Say...when you get the poison thing figured out, can you coat my weapons stash with it too?"
And the rest was history. Once Rin did figure out how to coat poison on senbons, then her kunais, she did the same with Genma's entire stash of weapons, save for the one senbon that was always in his mouth, but not before lecturing him on the deadly side effects of accidentally nicking himself. Just to be safe, Rin stocked him up with the antidote.
It wasn't long before Genma dragged his best friend, Raido, another peer from Rin's graduating class to have the same thing done to his weapons stash, plus a sword.
Rin happily obliged.
If Kakashi was a different man, he would have complained about how boring being in the Anbu was, but he wasn't so he kept his mouth shut as he placed on surveillance duty for the nth time. Barely an hour into his shift at watching the grainy footage of the village, Kakashi felt his eye itching to look at anywhere but the computer screen. Still, Kakashi took his duty seriously, no matter how miniscule of an assignment, and kept his eyes riveted onto the screen.
Plus Kakashi knew that his team was still wary of his commitment. There was no denying his prowess, as Kakashi single handedly beat Deer and Boar the first time Fox conducted a team spar, but it was clear that they had no idea how to handle a shinobi so young. Kakashi could tell all of the doubts that they had in their minds...would he be ruthless enough for an assassination mission? Did he have the attention span of a child?
This time, Kakashi was trying to pass their examination under Deer's watchful eye. So far, Kakashi gave Deer and Boar nothing to complain about to Fox.
Two months in, Kakashi was assigned to his first real mission outside of Konoha. Or rather, he was pulled into the mission rather than assigned as Kakashi tore off chasing the infiltrators after being pulled along by Fox. There was no time for him to get briefed on the mission, all he knew was that they weren't to escape by using any means necessary to stop them. With that in mind, Kakashi pumped more chakra in his legs, tearing off through the forest at such incredible speed that left the rest of the Anbu in dust.
Kakashi easily caught up with the first nin. In less than three seconds, Kakashi drew his sword and pierced it straight through the first nin's heart. Kakashi didn't stop to watch the dead body fall as he pulled out his sword. With his sword by his side, blood trickling down it, Kakashi continued forward, already spotting the second infiltrator ten meters away.
The second nin was ready to fight back and launched several kunais in an effort to slow down Kakashi. He dodged with ease, lifting his sword to parry off two of the kunais. Before Kakashi even had time to set his sword back down to his side, a large fireball was headed his way. With his right hand, Kakashi made the necessary seals to conjure a powerful water jutsu. The two jutsus crashed head to head, the vapor spreading throughout the area.
It didn't take long for Kakashi to pinpoint the second nin's location. Channeling chakra to the sole of his feet, Kakashi used it as an extra boost of speed as he propelled himself to land onto the same branch where the second nin was on.
Caught off guard by Kakashi's sudden appearance, fear was written all over the second nin's face as his trembling hands raised a sole kunai to defend himself. In under two seconds, the same kunai that was supposed to defend himself was lodged in his heart. Kakashi released the man's hand, letting him tumbling head first onto the ground.
Now for the third nin…
Once again, Kakashi tore off through the trees, his Sharingan picking up a foreign chakra signature in the distance. He didn't bother masking his chakra; Kakashi was gaining on the foreign nin and that nin knew it from the way his chakra fluctuated wildly like he was panicking.
He hopped down from the branches, landing gracefully into the clearing and was greeted with the sight of a young man holding a kunai to his own throat, hands shaking.
Committing suicide so that he won't be able to reveal information about his mission?
Too late. Right as the man finally gathered the courage to slit his own throat, Kakashi's Sharingan was spinning wildly, putting the man under an illusion. In the genjutsu, the man saw himself slitting his own throat, but in actuality, the man's knees buckled from beneath him and he crumbled to the ground, kunai tumbling out of his grasp.
Just as Kakashi hefted the man onto his shoulder, Fox dropped down into the clearing, along with two other Anbu members.
"Well done, Hound. Take him to T we'll dispose the other bodies." With a nod, Kakashi disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Back at the T&I department, Inoichi was able to get inside the man's mind in an instant. There were virtually no mental blocks in his mind which suggested that this man was chunin level at best.
Inoichi turned to the man standing in the corner. "If you were Kiri, why would you send a chunin level operative to infiltrate a village?"
"They're expendable," Kakashi answered without hesitation.
"Yes, but to send them knowing that Konoha will most likely capture them and get information from them?"
"I would presume that any sensitive village information have been erased from their memories."
"You're correct," Inoichi affirmed, staring down at the unconscious Mist nin in front of him. "But I found out the details of their mission."
"A warning," Kakashi stated. "What are they after?"
"The sanbi. I wasn't even aware that Konoha was in the possession of the sanbi." Even if Kakashi barely reacted to the news, the slight tightening of muscles around his jawline told Inoichi that Kakashi was very much aware of the existence of the sanbi in the village. Inoichi didn't press for details; he probably was sworn to keep it to himself.
"Come on," Inoichi called. "Let's go report this to the Hokage."
Predictably the first thing that Kakashi did after reporting to Minato sensei was to find Rin, even if Minato sensei assured him that Anbu would be watching over her. Kakashi felt the compelling need to see for himself, to see with his eye and Obito's eye, that Rin was still alive. A part of him had almost requested to be assigned to watch over Rin, but it made sense why Minato sensei hadn't assigned him. His chakra signature would be too recognizable to Rin and he didn't want to have to explain why he was stalking her.
Relief flooded through Kakashi upon seeing Rin working on a patient through the window of one of the hospital rooms. After making sure that Rin was safe and acknowledging the Anbu hiding in the trees, Kakashi took off to the training grounds.
He needed to get stronger so he could protect Rin from the Mist nins.
A/N: Hi again!
Sorry for any mistakes that I make throughout the story. When I'm writing, sometimes I don't really pay attention to what I am typing sometimes so I type really weird things lol. I try to go back and catch them all before I post, but I might have missed something or two.
Anyways, writing "fight" scenes isn't really my forte. I can see it in my head exactly how the fight plays out, but I have a hard time putting it into words, so sorry if this fight or any fight in the future turns out meh. I tried my best.
This is part one of two in the Blank Period. The Blank Period will span a total of three years because I need a time skip to develop Rin's nonexistent combat skills without boring you all with the details of her training + not magically her having moves that she never learned. As for Kakashi, in this Blank Period, he'll meet some important characters that will be crucial to the remainder of the plot.
As I am writing and thinking ahead to further down the plot, I'm thinking all of the techniques I want Rin to have will probably make her OP. Not OP in Naruto and Sasuke sense but OP enough to beat Part I Kakashi. To help combat that, I'm going to powerscale Kakashi as well, so by the beginning of Naruto, they will both be a lot more powerful than in canon.
Bonus question: can anyone guess who Fox might be? His identity will be revealed in the next chapter, but he's a character that we all know, so take a guess! He may or may not have been in the Anbu in canon, I'm not exactly sure.
As always, thank you for reading! Let me know what you think and until next time!
-MM