Chapter Seven: A New Weapon
Shisui and Kakashi had been careful to not reveal too much about the jonin exams as they trained with Rin and Itachi, the latter spontaneously deciding to also register for the jonin on the day of the deadline for registration. Rin wasn't sure how she was supposed to feel about his sudden participation. Would he hurt her chances if there were limited slots? Would he overshadow her so much that she wouldn't be seen to be jonin level?
When Shisui revealed that there is a one to one combat portion of the exam, Rin inwardly panicked. What if she got pitted against Itachi? Sure, she knew his fighting style better than most, but that didn't mean she had an appropriate counter. What use was her knowledge if she couldn't use it to her advantage?
When Rin expressed her self doubts to Kakashi, making sure both Uchihas were out of earshot, Kakashi assured her that she had nothing to worry about. In fact, Kakashi seemed to confidently state that Itachi's participation in the exam alongside her would only increase her chances of passing. Rin doubted that, but refrained from voicing the new concerns that arose from Kakashi's cryptic words.
At the very least, Rin assured herself that she had an edge over Itachi in medical ninjutsu that his Sharingan wasn't able to copy. Even if he was able to analyze the technique with his dojutsu, Rin knew that Itachi's chakra control didn't reach the level to use medical ninjutsu.
Over the past three months, Rin learned more than she ever did, even when she was under Tsunade's tutelage. After sparring against Shisui, Rin knew she was lagging behind in almost every aspect. The only area that Rin was able to match Shisui in was taijutsu, courtesy of Tsunade's training. Even so, Shisui was still always a fraction of a second faster than her. Even if Rin could predict his next move, that didn't mean she would react fast enough to dodge it. To compensate for that, Rin ended up having to pick and choose which hits she would let him land, so she can strike him once or twice.
And that had only been because Shisui was going easy on her.
In terms of her genjutsu, well Shisui insisted that she wasn't totally hopeless. Her precise chakra control made it easy for her to detect genjutsu in an instant and was useful in preventing her from not noticing multiple layers of genjutsu. However beyond academy level genjutsu, Rin was completely hopeless at casting.
"There's multiple ways to go about casting a genjutsu," Shisui explained. "However, the key is that you need to affect one of their five senses. The most common one is sight, which is also the easiest one to detect; however, you can also cast it by affecting their sense of hearing, taste, feeling, and smell.
"There's two common approaches to using genjutsu. First, you manipulate the victim by casting a genjutsu that mirrors their reality, but trick them into attacking a nonexistent opponent or turning your enemies against each other. You can also use it to fool your opponents into thinking you are in front of them, but in fact, you are behind them. The second is to capitalize on the enemy's fear and drive them insane by letting them face their worst fears. For example, Itachi has a power called Tsukuyomi, which takes the user's worst fear and projects them into reality.
"The catch to using genjutsu is that you must be aware if the enemy is still caught in or not. Smart shinobis will continue pretending to be caught in the genjutsu to lure the caster into complacency. However, I think with your natural sensory skills you should be able to sense the disturbance in their chakra, or the lack thereof."
Rin understood the theory behind genjutsu, but casting a believable genjutsu was harder than it seemed. She had the basics down, manipulating one or two things in a landscape, a C ranked genjutsu that allowed her an element of surprise or a quick escape, but Shisui wanted to push her to A ranked level.
"To manipulate a landscape, you need to have extensive knowledge of the territory. For example, if someone cast a genjutsu on you and put a plant in the landscape that is commonly found in Iwa, you would immediately notice it. However, something like that is only gained through extensive travelling. For now, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with areas of Konoha since the exam will take place in the village."
Rin did just that, often running through parts of the village she typically avoided as she built up her stamina and endurance. It took her three days just to completely explore the layout of the Forest of Death.
She worked on her landscape manipulation, often failing because she was used to concentrating on one thing at a time. After adjusting her mindset, Rin's genjutsu landscape looked to be more believable everyday.
When Shisui came back from his mission, he challenged her to a spar. After multiple failed attempts at being interrupted by Shisui's attacks, Rin successfully activated the genjutsu and caught him for 1.5 seconds before Shisui easily broke out of the genjutsu.
"You need to work on your speed of casting. I'm sure you noticed that if your opponent doesn't give you an opening, you'll never be able to cast it successfully. And you should also be able to cast it without using hand seals; that's a dead giveaway that you are up to something, unless you want to follow up with some sort of jutsu in your genjutsu. Other than that, well done. The landscape was very believable."
"But you broke out of it so quickly," Rin frowned. "How is that supposed to give me an advantage?"
"A high level genjutsu user will cast multiple layers at a time. Most shinobis will break through the first one easily, but will let down their guard and not notice there is a second one. A good strategy is to plant something minor, but suspicious in the first layer so that the shinobi will dispel it. The second layer should be realistic and thus his guard will be down."
"How many layers can you cast?"
"I suppose the limit is as much as your chakra can handle," Shisui answered. "But three is usually enough for me."
By the next time Shisui met up with her to check her progress, Rin was able to reduce the hand seals down to one and mastered a double layered genjutsu, but failed to make a third layer that wasn't an exact copy of the second.
At that point, Shisui told her to work on the third layer after the exams since it was only a failsafe in case Rin met a genjutsu user.
"I'm leaving on an extended mission, so I'm not sure when I'll be back. In the meantime, I want you to work on fear inducing genjutsus."
"No guidance?" Rin asked as Shisui had begun to turn to walk away.
"I've taught you the basics and now it's up to you to apply it. Any good jonin will have a few original jutsus in their stash of techniques. If you only learn existing jutsus, then there's always a possibility that they will have already encountered it before, so you lose the element of surprise."
And there was that. Rin supposed she had never been on the innovative side like Kakashi and Shisui, but she could see his point.
The first thing that Rin worked on was figuring out how to cast a genjutsu without using hand seals. Sight was the most common way to induce a genjutsu, but that was too predictable. Taste was contingent upon getting the target to eat something, so it was highly unlikely to work. Touch would require skin to skin contact, in which she would have to channel her chakra into the target's system. It was too risky since she didn't have a quick getaway like her sensei's Hiarishin in case her genjutsu failed. That left sound and smell.
In regards to smell, an odorless smoke bomb could possibly work. However, creating the gas that would go inside the smoke bomb would take some time, so Rin decided that she would come back to it once she mastered sound.
The sound would need to be one that was commonly heard within any battle. Then…
An idea flickered to mind and Rin immediately took off to the nearest weapons store and asked the cashier if there was any weapon that made to accomodate chakra being channelled through it. The cashier quickly pointed to the aisle next to her, which featured an assortment of swords. Figures, using chakra nature in a sword was popular, but Rin didn't know any kenjutsu.
Rin left the shop after figuring that her regular kunais would have to make do. After channeling her chakra through a kunai, Rin took out another one and clanged it against the first. She felt a bit of disturbance to her chakra, but it was hardly anything.
Perhaps it was something that built up after multiple clangs? Rin continued to hit kunai against kunai repeatedly, but found that the interval between the sound waves reaching her ears took too long. The minor disturbance at each sound wave disappeared before the next one reached her ears.
Rin sought out Kurenai, the best genjutsu user of their generation, for help. Unfortunately, the girl hadn't been that useful since she used sight genjutsu, but she did give Rin another direction to look in.
"Your mother, Yua Nohara, was one of the most revered genjutsu user. According to the bingo book, her genjutsus were powerful and strong enough that the enemies don't even realize they've been placed under a genjutsu until they die."
Rin thanked Kurenai for the information, pretending that she knew everything that Kurenai had told her, except she didn't. She didn't even remember her mother's face, much less her name or know of her techniques. She didn't know anything about her mother's existence save for the few offhand comments she received about looking just like her mother.
Rin scoured the library to find any information on her mother, but there wasn't a single trace of her. It was almost like someone had deliberately erased her existence from Konoha's archives.
But why? What had her mother done to be given that treatment?
Her next bet was to get her hands on the bingo book that Kurenai had mentioned, but only jonin level shinobis were privy to that sort of information. Kakashi was bound to have one, but he was out of the village and not likely to lend it to her. She supposed that she could break into his apartment to retrieve it, if Kakashi left that sort of thing at home, but from Obito's experience, Kakashi laid traps everywhere.
Without the aid of the Sharingan, Rin was unlikely to get through all of them without triggering one.
Minato sensei had clammed up when Rin asked him and brushed her off, stating that he didn't know much about her mother. However the guilt that contorted his features suggested that Minato sensei knew something that he wasn't telling her. Not the type to press on the matter, Rin accepted his answer and left the Hokage Tower, but not before eyeing the Hokage archives. If the Hokage library was anything like his house, then Rin bet it was full of detection seals. It would immediately be a red flag if Minato sensei felt her chakra in the Hokage library, but it wouldn't be suspicious for her chakra signature to be at his house.
Minato sensei had a vast book collection, so he was bound to have a bingo book among them. If not, Kushina nee probably owned a copy and seeing that she never left the village, it was bound to be inside the house.
Rin paid a visit to Kushina, during the day while Minato was still stuck at the Hokage's office since it was much easier to sneak around when there was only one person. As a form of apology for sneaking around in her house, Rin brought Kushina ramen from Ichiraku, but Kushina was under the guise that Rin just wanted to eat lunch with her.
Rin mentioned her genjutsu training to Kushina when she inquired about it. Kushina admitted that she didn't have much experience in that area, but lightheartedly suggested that Rin just plant an image of an angry nine tailed fox for her fear inducing genjutsu.
The doorbell rang right on time. Kushina excused herself to get the door, while Rin muttered something about going to the bathroom before slipping out of the kitchen. Kushina opened the door to see it was a delivery of flowers from Minato, well they were from Rin who signed the card with Minato's name. From the living room, Rin could hear the Yamanaka engaging Kushina in small talk, just like she had instructed. Satisfied that Kushina was sufficely distracted, Rin's eyes scanned the bookshelf for the book.
The first shelf was dedicated to Jiraya's novels, most notably the Tales of a Gutsy Ninja, which Minato had encouraged his students to read as well. Then there were some history books, some books on teleportation and wind nature manipulation, and clan politics.
Then Rin saw it. The bingo book on the very last shelf, stashed behind some books about the history of the Whirlpool. When Rin removed the Whirlpool book, it revealed five identical black books, about the size for her to fit into her weapons pouch. Rin grabbed all five, ready to flip through the pages to confirm if they were copies or different books, but she could hear Kushina shutting the door. Rin quickly sealed the books away and tucked her scroll into her weapons pouch.
"Aren't these lovely?" Kushina said as Rin entered the kitchen. Her left hand held the bouquet of roses while her right opened the tap to fill up the vase with water.
"From Minato sensei?" Rin inquired.
"Yes. He'll be so embarrassed when I confront him about it," Kushina stated, to which Rin inwardly panicked, knowing that she would be busted. "But I think I'll give him a pass since he was so thoughtful."
Relief coursed through her.
Rin chatted with Kushina for just a bit longer before feigning some excuse that she had to get going. Kushina waved her off and Rin hurried home to crack open the bingo books. Unrolling the scroll, Rin made the hand seal to activate the seal and the stack of books poofed into existence. Grabbing the top one, Rin cracked it open to find it belonged to Kiri.
Flipping through the book, Rin found pictures of members from the other four great shinobi villages. From Konoha, Minato, the third Hokage, and others were listed in the bingo book. It was clearly outdated as Sakumo Hatake was still listed as alive in the book. Rin flipped to the last page, mouth widening as she saw a very familiar figure staring right back at her.
Her mother, who looked like an older version of her. Or Rin was her carbon copy. They had the same straight brown hair, except hers was longer than Rin's, and the same shade of brown eyes. Their similarities in their facial structures was undeniable. The only difference between the two of them was the purple paint that she always wore, while her mother didn't have any.
Rin quickly read the minimal information Kiri possessed on her mother. Aside from her name and village affiliation, Rin learned that her mother's speciality was genjutsu. Other than that, the only piece of helpful information was that her mother wielded a flute as her weapon.
A flute? Auditory genjutsu, then?
Rin flipped through the other books. Suna's was slightly more updated, marking her mother as deceased, while Iwa, the most updated of the three, didn't even have her mother listed. Instead, she found Kakashi, Shisui, and Itachi listed in their bingo book, the youngest members in the entire bingo book, noted for their use of wielding the Sharingan. Like Iwa, Kumo's didn't have her mother listed.
Was that all of the information she was going to find on her mother? Out of curiosity, Rin opened Konoha's bingo book, just to see who Konoha deemed to be threats. There were a couple Iwa names that she recognized from the war and the Seven Legendary Sword ninjas was a name that everyone knew, but most of the names were foreign to her.
Then she flipped to the last section, that listened former Konoha shinobis. Missing nins, traitors.
Rin didn't recognize any of the names and she reckoned that Konoha wouldn't want to advertise their missing nins to the younger generation. She had been able to close the book, not wanting to bother with the two pages left in the book, but the crease on the corner of the page had drawn her attention.
It was bookmarked by either Minato sensei or Kushina nee, but it had to be important if it was. Rin flipped the page.
Missing nin. Yua Nohara. Last spotted in the Land of Ice. Written over her profile was the word "deceased" in Minato's neat handwriting.
The bingo book detailed the extent of her genjutsu abilities as well as her proficient medical ninjutsu skills but Rin couldn't concentrate on the words. The words "missing nin" rang through her mind, non stop.
She wanted to cry. Why had her mother abandoned the village, abandoned her? Was this what Minato sensei didn't want to tell her?
Even if the truth hurt, Rin would have wanted to know.
Yua Nohara, the Illusionist. Former ninja of Konoha. Her mother.
A traitor.
A flash of yellow appeared in her apartment, tugging the bingo book from her grasp. Rin didn't fight it. Minato's eyes narrowed at the opened page from the book.
"You found out."
"Did you think you could hide it from me forever, sensei?"
"I wanted to wait until you were older. Besides, I didn't find out the details of her departure until recently."
"Sensei, I know you still see me as a little kid, but I'm sixteen," Rin protested. "I deserved to know."
"And then what? Let you turn into another Kakashi, who harbored a grudge towards his dad and turned him into someone who he's not? Answer me honestly, if you knew your mother was a medical ninja, would you have worked so hard to learn it?"
"Probably not," Rin admitted. It was one thing for them to look identical, but for them to specialize in the same areas…
Perhaps that was how Kakashi felt, constantly being seen as his father that he wanted nothing to do with the blade.
"Listen. The Sandaime told me that her missing nin status is a misunderstanding, but the older generation is too hard headed to believe him, so your mother had to bear the missing nin status."
"Can you tell me the story?"
Minato nodded. "Yua met your father on one of her missions. Your father was the ruler of the Land of the Ice and Yua's loyalties were tied with Konoha. To see him, Yua would often sneak out of the village. Naturally that raised suspicions, so a group of our trackers were sent to follow her. When they did, they found Yua killing an Iwa nin, who was an ally at the time. Some condemned her for being one of the reasons for causing the Third Great Ninja War. The word spread through the village and eventually Yua was outcasted. Rather than staying in a place where she was exiled, Yua decided to leave the village to join your father in the Land of the Ice."
"But did she kill the Iwa nin?"
"Yes, but the Iwa nin was a missing nin. Plus, she had no choice but to kill him or be killed herself."
"Then why am I in Konoha? Shouldn't I be in the Land of the Ice?"
"I don't know the details, but it is said that the Land of the Ice has perished. It is assumed that Yua perished along with the rest of the population."
"Why didn't I die too?"
"I think you're the only one who knows the answer to that," Minato responded wryly. "But you were very young when you showed up at Konoha's doorstep, so it's natural if you don't remember anything."
"I see. Thank you, sensei."
"Now, next time you want something, don't go stealing it from my house."
"I'm sorry, sensei."
Minato smiled. "You know, this is the first time you've caused trouble for me. I've been waiting so many years to be able to scold you like I did to Kakashi and Obito, but the satisfaction that I got wasn't as great as I thought. What a shame."
"You know, you can scold your kid soon instead of taking it out on your students," Rin responded cheekily.
Seeing Minato stumble from the shock wasn't something that anyone saw everyday. Just seeing that made it all worth it.
"Kushina's pregnant?"
"I'm 90% sure, but you should ask Kushina yourself if you want to know."
"No. Kushina would kill me if I already found out. I'll just have to pretend that I don't know, no thanks to you." At this, Minato attempted to glare at Rin, but she continued to smile cheekily at him.
"Don't you have Hokage duties to attend?" Rin prodded upon seeing that Minato still made no move to leave her apartment. Perhaps, Minato was still in shock from the news she dropped on him, judging from the dazed look in his eyes.
"I figured that catching my student in the act of robbery was a much more pressing matter than filling out paperwork. I swear, all that paperwork will be the death of me."
"You should hire an assistant," Rin suggested.
"You're right, but that person would have to be someone I trust since they'll be in contact with a lot of sensitive information. On top of that, the person will always have to stay in the village because there's an endless amount of paper. Kushina won't do because she has zero patience. Hmm, who will be the perfect candidate...you!" Minato beamed at her, as if this had been his most genius idea, surpassing the creation of the Rasengan and Hiarishin.
"No," Rin responded flatly. "I already did my share of paperwork when I worked at the hospital, thank you. Besides, I'm taking the jonin exams soon, so I'm too busy training to be doing paperwork."
"Ah yes, I heard from Kakashi that Shisui Uchiha is training you? How has he done? Maybe I'll assign him to be a jonin sensei when he decides to retire from the Anbu," Minato mused.
Rin shrugged. "I learned a lot, but he's really a more of 'you should figure it out on your own' type of person."
"Well it's good practice. Maybe you'll be the next to invent a jutsu."
"We'll see, sensei."
"I'll leave you to it. Come by for dinner before your exams, alright? No stealing anything this time."
"I will," Rin promised. "By the way, do you know if my mother's flute still exists?"
"It might be in the weapons vault," Minato told her. "Come." That was the only warning that he gave before Minato grabbed her by the wrist, activating Hiarishin to teleport the two of them to the Konoha's weapons vault, where forbidden techniques and abandoned clan tools were kept. Minato pressed his hand against the seal of the vault, channeling his chakra into the paper. He ripped off the tag and spun the door open, revealing a walk in room, with shelves of many, many scrolls, as well as weaponry of all kinds.
Rin reached out to pull one of the scrolls off the shelf, but Minato's hand stopped her. "Those are forbidden techniques."
"Then why don't they burn it instead?" Rin questioned. "If no one is allowed to learn it."
"For sentimental value, I suppose," Minato answered as his eyes scanned the shelves for Yua's flute. "A lot of the Shodaime and Nidaime's techniques are located here."
"But what if the technique gets stolen? Wouldn't it be safer to just get rid of it altogether?"
"It won't," Minato stated confidently. "Since I took Hokage, I had upped the security on the vault with my sealing technique. It will only respond to my chakra, so there's no other way in, other than brute force. Technically, I'm not supposed to bring you here, but I trust you."
"What an honor," Rin replied cheekily, standing on her tippy toes to view the weapons on the tallest shelf.
"Ah well, I think this is it," Minato said, holding out a very dusty flute that looked like it was in desperate need of a polish.
Minato let out a couple of curses as the flute suddenly glowed red, forcing Minato to drop the weapon to the floor. "It burned my hand."
Hesitantly, Rin bent down to the floor, reaching out towards the flute with shaky hands. Her fingers brushed against the dust layered on top of the flute before her fingers touched cool metal. Her fingers curled around the flute, lifting it up so she held it with both hands.
Rin waited for the flute to reach to her touch, to burn her like it did with Minato, but after two minutes of holding it, Rin didn't feel anything. Instead, it almost felt soothing to hold the flute in her hands.
"Channel your chakra into it," Minato instructed. Rin did, until the entire metal hummed to her chakra. There was a faint white chakra that surrounded it, but it was hardly noticeable unless one looked closely.
"Indeed a family heirloom after all," Minato chuckled. "I guess that as an outsider, I wasn't meant to touch it."
Rin tucked away her flute, reaching out to heal Minato's hands.
"Say sensei, can you test something with me?"
"Why not?" Minato shrugged. "Anything to get me out of doing paperwork."
It worked. The flute worked. Contrary to its conventional use of blowing into it, the flute was able to cast anything from academy level to high level genjutsu depending on how much chakra Rin channelled into it, just from the clanging of metal together. Upon hearing from the sound, the opponent's hearing will become distorted and paralysis will occur as the sound will damage some of the nearby nerves. From there, the genjutsu will set in.
When Shisui returned from his extended mission, four days before the first part of the jonin exams were expected to take place, Rin hadn't mastered fear inducing genjutsu at all. After the discovery of her mother's secret weapon, Rin had channelled all of her energy into practicing yielding it and discovering everything that it could do. Blowing into the flute, Rin found out, caused complete paralysis for one minute for those who were unlucky to bear the brunt of its full force.
Rin figured her mastery of the flute would make up for not experimenting fear inducing genjutsu, not that Rin really wanted to subject anyone to it. Perhaps it was necessary sometimes, but facing her own fears in her nightmares were enough for her to not wish that on anyone else.
When Shisui asked to spar, he had been taken aback slightly upon seeing her using the flute, but he recovered quickly. As they clashed, Shisui was undoubtedly caught in the genjutsu, but he managed to break it faster than Rin expected. Twenty two seconds.
"That's Yua's technique, isn't it?" Shisui asked when they took a break from sparring.
"How did you know?"
"Bingo book," was all Shisui said. "No wonder Yua was always at the bane of the Uchiha's existence. Even if our Sharingan can detect the genjutsu, we can't break out of it that quickly due to the paralysis element. Even after breaking out of the genjutsu, I can still feel some of the side effects."
"A jutsu made to fight the Uchiha?"
"Perhaps. The Nohara family is a descendant of the Senju clan so I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case," Shisui said. He stood up, brushing the dirt off of his pants. "Come on, we have four more days."
"Don't you want to train Itachi?" Rin questioned.
"Itachi has learned everything he can from me aside from the Body Flicker technique," Shisui revealed. "He'll learn more from Kakashi. After all, the Copy Ninja has a lot more techniques in his arsenal."
Rin didn't question it anymore and instead listened intently as Shisui lectured her on the properties of ninjutsu, which Rin had briefly read about when she was in the academy. Four days wasn't nearly enough to master any high level ninjutsu, but she could learn a low ranked one.
"Your other skills should be enough to carry you through the exam, but just in case you happen to meet a genjutsu user, you can always use ninjutsu to confuse your opponent. Most shinobis tend to specialize in one or the other, so it'll definitely come as a surprise to them. Now channel your chakra into this paper."
Rin did as he asked, watching the paper splice in half before being soaked in water.
"Wind and water?" Rin asked. "Aren't we only supposed to have one main chakra nature?"
"Normally that's the case, but most jonins can use two or more chakra natures almost as well as their first. I guess you are a special case. In that case, we'll focus on water jutsus since they are easier to learn and well, I don't know any wind jutsus."
Water jutsus were easy to learn, just like Shisui said, but it sapped a lot of chakra, especially when there wasn't a water source nearby. The larger the volume of water that Rin tried to manipulate, the more chakra it tooked. When Rin voiced her concern to Shisui, he merely explained that all ninjutsu was like that and as she got used to it, it would take less exertion and chakra wield it.
"You should definitely train with Kakashi after the exams if you are interested in working more on your ninjutsu," Shisui told her. "That man is an expert. He doesn't even have to wield hand seals and when he does, he only does it to show off how fast he is."
Rin would have to think about it. Her genjutsu skills were good, but still not on par with the likes of Shisui and Itachi. Maybe she should focus on one thing at a time. Still, Rin did feel a lot better entering the exams with three simple water techniques in her arsenal.
Before she knew it, the day of the jonin exams had arrived.
A/N: Hi again!
Boring training chapter, but she needs some skills before the jonin exams that will begin next chapter. The next chapter is called Jonin Exams Part I. Super obvious I know, but anyone want to take a guess at the content?
The entire jonin exam arc was fun to write because of Itachi + Rin friendship development. Odd friendship, but they made it work haha.
Anyways, thank you to everyone for reviewing, reading, and just taking the time to click on my story. It means a lot to me! Feel free to let me know what you think and until next time!
-MM