"Dammit, it's all spinning..."

"Be quiet, Bakakashi," Obito hissed, shifting his grip on his silver-haired teammate as he half-carried him on his shoulder. Next to him Rin shot them a worried look, her brown eyes filled with concern and anxiety as they roved over their teammate. Obito knew Rin, ever sweet and kind, wanted nothing more than to stop and treat him, but even he could tell that stopping now for any reason would be a bad idea.

What started as a B-rank delivery mission within the war zone took a dangerous turn when an unexpected battle erupted between their allies and some enemy shinobi. During the fray a stray kunai had grazed Kakashi's leg, and while initially he'd been fine it quickly became clear that something was wrong with it after a while he'd started getting nauseous. As much as Obito wanted to blame Bakakashi for being inept, he knew none of them held any particular responsibility. All of them had small nicks and scratches, but Kakashi had the misfortune of the only scrape he got being from the one kunai that happened to be poisoned.

Thus, Team Seven found themselves trying to sneak through enemy territory to safety, or at least find somewhere safe enough for Rin to properly examine and treat their poisoned teammate. With one man down and in increasingly bad shape they had no time to waste, they needed to move fast.

Sneaking through the brush and stones, they darted behind a series of boulders and Rin peered around the corner. Her eyes widened and her mouth pulled into a tight frown, her grim expression prompting Obito's stomach to sink even before he poked his head around the corner. He froze when he saw a small girl with brownish-green hair pulled into a bushy ponytail hunched over a corpse, her hands folded as if in prayer. His breath hitched as he saw the ragged state of her clothing, almost seeming to hang from her small frame as her head tilted forward.

This is only a kid, he thought with a pang of sadness, and a glance at Rin told him she had similar thoughts. Indecision visibly flickered in her eyes as she glanced at him, but he could see her caring personality already winning. Flashing her a small, reassuring smile and a nod, she returned a strained smile of her own before she stepped out of their hiding place, leaving Obito behind with Kakashi.

"Hey, excuse me?" she called, her voice slightly hushed to avoid drawing unwanted attention but still carrying that sweet, nurturing tone that made his heart flutter. "Are you okay?" Startled by her voice, the girl spun to stare at Rin with wide green eyes—

—and Obito froze as he saw the Kiri plate on the sash tied around her waist.

An enemy!? Here and now!? Startled, he found himself rooted to his spot as he stared at the metal plate, and a glance at Rin revealed her to be in an equally shocked state, her gaze riveted to the symbol. The girl rose to her feet as she turned to face Rin more fully, and at that point Obito noticed her eyes seemed to be focused on a point just above Rin's eyes—crap, her hitai-ate!

Heart pounding, with barely a second's thought Obito quickly slid Kakashi to the ground and leapt out of his hiding spot. From the corner of his eye he saw Rin give a small start at his sudden appearance while the girl turned to face him, but he shoved his anxiety to the back of his mind and kept a giant smile plastered on his face as he met her gaze. "Hey there!" he greeted loudly with a note of false cheer, willing himself to sound calm and cheerful and not freaked out at all. "You're pretty young to be out here alone, aren't you?"

"Ah, y-yeah!" Rin agreed quickly, gaining the girl's attention once more. "It must be really scary being out here, right?"

Blinking owlishly, the girl tilted her head and regarded both him and Rin for a brief moment before speaking. "Are you scared?" she questioned, her voice the epitome of childish curiosity, and the two Chuunin felt their smiles grow more strained, their bodies stiff as they faced her.

"Um... no?" Obito squeaked, and even Rin winced at how high-pitched his voice got. The girl's head tilted in the opposite direction and she hummed in thought. Then before any of them could speak a soft groan emanated from behind the boulder, making the two Leaf ninja's blood run cold. Kakashi. Panic visibly flashed across Rin's face as her gaze flickered towards the boulder, while Obito felt himself tense as the girl followed Rin's gaze and realized he might have to kill a little kid—

"Is someone hurt?" she asked, taking a step forward. Instinct took over and Obito quickly launched forward at her, but the girl ducked to the side to avoid him and zoomed past him in a blur of blue and green. Horror set in as he spun to see her disappear behind the boulder, and he gave chase while pulling out a kunai, really really really not wanting to hurt a little kid, but he also didn't want to let Bakakashi die—

When he darted around the boulder he froze upon seeing her hunched over Kakashi, a strange look on her face as she pressed her fingers to his neck. Rin stood mere feet away, seemingly petrified clutching a kunai with both hands in a white-knuckled grip. Time seemed to slow as Obito stared at the girl, knowing that even if he threw his kunai right now she'd still have time to stab Kakashi, and there'd be nothing they could do to stop it.

"Oh! I know this poison!"

The sudden declaration jarred him to the point that he nearly staggered in place, while Rin's eyes narrowed sharply and her grip on her kunai tightened even more, her hands shaking violently. "What do you mean?" she bit out, her eyes flashing with fear and cold determination in equal parts. The girl smiled as she looked at Rin, totally ignoring Obito.

"I know this poison!" she repeated brightly. "I have the antidote in my bag!" As she spoke she gestured to the pouch on her hip, and while Obito felt his blood run cold he could see the blood drain from Rin's face, her eyes widening in horror as her mouth trembled. Assuming she wasn't lying the kid held the advantage, the key between Kakashi's life and death.

Obito dared to shoot a glance at his standing teammate as the girl began rooting through her bag, silently asking if they should try to take the antidote. Their eyes met and Rin's lips pressed in a firm line as she shook her head, but her eyes looked just as lost as he felt and he couldn't tell what she was actually thinking. He ground his teeth in frustration the child fumbled through her pouch, soon producing a plastic vial with a reddish-violet liquid. Squinting as she held it up to the sun, she soon gave a small nod of approval and turned back to Kakashi.

Then she paused, her brow furrowing.

"...Um, his mask isn't booby-trapped, right?" she asked, shooting Obito a skeptical glance, and he nearly stumbled again.

"Uh... n-no?" he stuttered, because what the hell do you say to that?

"Oh, good!" the girl replied cheerfully—

And then yanked on Kakashi's mask and dumped the contents of the vial into his mouth.

Immediately both chuunin lunged at her, their pulses spiking as they instinctively moved to protect their fallen teammate. The girl quickly jumped out of the way and Rin skidded to a halt next to Kakashi, while Obito landed between his teammates and the stranger with his kunai tightly gripped and pointed at her. "What did you do?" he growled, his hands shaking as he squeezed the kunai. The girl blinked, tilting her head with a slightly confused look.

"I gave him the antidote?" she said, phrasing it like a question, and Obito felt his heart skip a beat. What?

"He's—he's getting better," Rin suddenly interjected, and Obito turned his head slightly to peer at her over his shoulder in disbelief. Green chakra coated her hands as they hovered over Kakashi's chest, her eyes wide. "I can feel it working already, his vitals are already starting to stabilize." The declaration made Obito's hands fall limply to dangle in front of him, his eyes wide as he spun to face his teammates in full.

"Wait, she actually gave him the antidote?" he blurted.

"Yes?" the girl replied from behind him, her voice a little high-pitch and uncertain, and Obito suddenly remembered there was still technically an enemy ninja there and whirled around to defend his teammates once more.

"W-why?" he asked, way too shaky for his liking, and she frowned, crossing her arms as she tilted her head in thought.

"...He's too important to die," she finally settled on with a nod. They just stared at her dumbly, taking a moment to process her response. Then she straightened her head and gasped, her eyes shining. "Wait! If that's Kakashi, then... You're his teammates, right?" The pair just slowly tilted their heads, their brains starting to shut down. Did... did she really just realize that...?

Suddenly she was right in Obito's face, her bright green eyes sparkling as she beamed up at him. "What's Konoha like? Is the Hokage Monument as awesome as I think? Oh! Oh! Is Yellow Flash-san Hokage yet?"

Obito admittedly had trouble processing the random flurry of questions suddenly thrown at him, and as he stared at her large sparkling eyes he couldn't help but wonder, 'Is this girl really a ninja?' Because no cold-blooded killer could be that sweet and hyper and innocent and wow, did she really come from Kiri? Maybe she just found the belt on the ground and used it as a sash to hold her yukata closed.

Then, lowering her voice so only he could hear, she whispered, "Stay away from caves, Uchiha-san."

His entire body tensed at that, his eyes widening in some instinctive horror, but before he could even fully comprehend her words Rin spoke up. "What do you mean, is the Yellow Flash Hokage?" she demanded, and like that the trance on Obito broke.

"Wait... Minato-sensei!?" he blurted. That seemed to snap her back to reality, or maybe it was the kunai that suddenly zoomed past her head that did it. The girl leaped back rapidly to dodge it, her eyes widening with horror as an ever-familiar figure suddenly appeared between her and Obito.

"What are you doing," Minato-sensei snarled, baring his teeth as he glared down the girl, and the girl recoiled, all color draining from her face. A complicated swirl of emotions flickered across her features, her eyes snapping towards Obito, then Kakashi, then back to Minato-sensei with a dawning look of understanding, and she winced before quickly backing away.

"I-it's not—I didn't—" She flinched as he started flashing through hand signs, her eyes full of pure, unbridled fear, and Obito felt his heart sink. Enemy or not, his chest twisted with guilt as he spied the panic on her face. As Minato-sensei took a step forward he opened his mouth to yell for him to stop, she's just a kid—

And then Minato-sensei tripped and fell flat on his face.

The sudden crash was so stunning Obito almost couldn't process it. Watching his normally perfectly coordinated and almost infuriatingly graceful teacher basically trip over his own feet in front of a potential enemy had to be one of the most dumbfounding things he'd ever witnessed up to that point. The second Minato-sensei began to tumble forward the girl shot off like a raging fireball, taking advantage of the team's fussing and shock over their jounin leader tripping to make her escape.

Obito expected Minato-sensei to leap to his feet and take off after her in hot pursuit, but instead the second he jumped up he body-flickered to the side, reappearing a few feet away. "What the hell?" the blond muttered, brow furrowing in confusion and alarm as he eyed the spot he'd occupied moments ago.

"Minato-sensei, what just happened?" Rin questioned breathlessly behind Obito, sounding every bit as alarmed as he felt. "It looked like you just tripped, and—"

At that point Kakashi gave a low groan, and all conversation immediately halted as they turned their attention to him. Instantly Minato appeared by his side, Rin's hands glowing green as she ran another examination on him. "What's wrong with him?" he demanded briskly.

"He got hit by a poisoned kunai," she explained tightly, and then proceeded to brief him on their mission while Obito just continued to stare at the spot where Minato-sensei had tripped. It couldn't be, could it? He swore he saw—No, he silently decided as Kakashi finally opened his eyes. It must have been his imagination.

A full half hour passed before Rin deemed their teammate had recovered enough to resume their journey. Of course the bastard didn't feel ashamed that he got poisoned and slowed them down, but Obito bit his tongue on that while Rin filled Kakashi and Minato-sensei in on their unusual encounter. "She just dumped the antidote in my mouth?" Kakashi asked, his eyes narrowing in clear disapproval.

"She asked us if your mask had a booby trap first," Obito muttered, and at that point Kakashi swiveled his head to look at him with a look he hadn't ever actually seen the bastard show before. After looking at his wide eyes trying to place a name on the unfamiliar emotion, Obito tentatively settled on utter bewilderment.

"...What." He turned his head to Rin as if seeking confirmation. Obito didn't even feel offended, the question was just that weird and random.

"She did," Rin confirmed blandly. "She gave you the antidote while we were still surprised by it." Her voice took on a note of shame at that, and Kakashi looked at her levelly for a moment before slowly nodding. Obito liked to think that Kakashi had just silently decided he couldn't blame them for being too shocked to react, but he felt too cool to actually tell them that.

"We'll... work on that later," Minato-sensei muttered under his breath, and it suddenly occurred to Obito that even he was weirded out by it considering he wasn't scolding them right away for being careless. They'd probably still get chewed out later though, after they reached safe territory. Oh, joy.

"Still, she was really weird," Rin mumbled, her mouth thinning in a pensive frown as she folded her arms over her chest. "I mean, just... I don't know. I know ninja can get pretty eccentric, but... I've never seen one go out of their way to help an enemy for no reason. Especially one from Kiri."

"You're sure she didn't slip me another poison?" Kakashi asked warily, and the kunoichi frowned.

"Of course I am! I mean, that was definitely the antidote, I could sense the poison leaving your system when I was using the Mystic Palm. If she'd slipped in another poison I definitely would have noticed."

"Then why did she help me?"

"She said something about you being too important to die," Obito offered sulkily. At that point Rin abruptly staggered to a halt, her eyes wide.

"Rin?" Minato-sensei turned to her, face all serious, and she looked at him for a moment before turning to Obito.

"Obito. We—we never said Kakashi's name, did we?"

"What?" Obito asked, frowning in confusion. "No way! We're shinobi, we know better than—" He stopped short as he realized what Rin was getting at, the breath flying from his lungs. No way.

"What's wrong?" Minato-sensei demanded sharply, and Rin sucked in a breath before turning to him.

"She—she asked if we were Kakashi's teammates, using his name." The other two males tensed up at that. Kakashi wasn't bad for a chuunin, but he wasn't good enough to be a household name either. Obito had only seen a handful of bingo books with the silver-haired bastard's face in it, and they usually just identified him as "Hatake" or a student of Minato-sensei, no mention of his given name.

"How did she know that?" Kakashi demanded, and Minato released a long breath as he ruffled his hair.

"This makes two instances of her seeming to know things she shouldn't," he muttered under his breath, and all three Chuunin leveled him with sharp, alert looks.

"You've met her before?" Obito asked, voicing the question on everyone's minds, and he could see the muscles in his jaw tighten before Minato gave a curt nod.

"Her name is Ringo Sute. She's technically Kiri, but..." He trailed off, glancing the direction she'd run with a deep frown before turning back to them with a resolute gleam in his eyes. "If you meet her again, try to convince her to come to Konoha, or at least aim to capture her alive."

The orders caught them all by surprise, even Kakashi's eyes widened a bit. "What," he bit out. "She's Kiri. She's an enemy, why would she want to come to Konoha? Why would we want her to come to Konoha?"

"I can't tell you right now," Minato-sensei replied grimly. "It's only a hunch, and Kushina made me swear not to tell anyone yet. Just... trust us on this."

The others seemed a bit unsatisfied by the vague response, especially since Kushina was apparently involved too somehow, but reluctantly agreed anyway. Obito joined in quietly, his mind echoing with her whispered warning. "Stay away from caves." What did that even mean? The entire thing unsettled Obito, left him on edge, but he soon put it out of mind. They were in a war after all, so he didn't really have time to dwell on strange girls and cryptic warnings.

(Months later, as he lay half-crushed underneath a boulder with one eye carved out and waiting for death, he devoted plenty of thought to the girl with the cryptic warning to avoid caves.)

Only one more noteworthy event happened in the war.

A few short months before its end, Sute found herself the sole survivor of her platoon. The original group had whittled down over the past two years, and by that point most of her comrades had either died or otherwise transferred into other platoons. The death of four of the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen only cemented the formal dissolving of the platoon, but on their way back to Kiri to get reshuffled they'd run into an ambush. Luck alone allowed Sute to survive, the rest of her comrades slaughtered in the ensuing battle that left her as the sole fighter of either side to walk away.

She trudged down the thickly wooded roads of Hot Water country in a daze, her feet dragging along tiredly as she made her way to the coast to hopefully catch a boat to Kiri. "Stupid humidity," she grumbled, scowling as she wiped the sweat from her forehead. She never liked hot and humid weather, in both this life and her last one, and it made her hair even more frizzy and unmanageable. Heaving a large sigh, she paused to start rummaging through her knapsack for a water bottle when a flicker of movement caught her eye in the trees.

Snapping her head upward, she narrowed her eyes as she peered into the forest, her fingers releasing the bottle and wrapping around the hilt of a kunai. Sute had minimal experience as a sensor; Ao had given her some training but she lacked the supernatural knack for it he seemed to possess. Still, she'd gotten the basics down so she tried to stretch her senses out and search for any other presences.

Nothing.

Or at least, nothing she could sense.

Paranoid and warier than before, she slowly started back down the road, much more alert to her surroundings this time. Another flash of black flickered in the corner of her eye and she spun around, flinging a kunai at the object. It sunk into a tree with a solid thunk, the mysterious black figure no longer there. Now thoroughly spooked, she swiftly walked over and yanked the kunai out, pausing as her hand brushed against the bark.

She did have one trick for sensory skills, one that she discovered by accident while training alone shortly after Ameyuri died. She didn't use it much, it required specific conditions and she didn't want anyone to notice, but no one she knew was around to see it. Pulsing a small bit of chakra into the tree, she could feel it spread through the roots and ripple across the forest like a wave, providing an image of her surroundings in her mind's eye similar to the projections created by sonar.

The forest was rather large, and she only got to spy about a mile's worth of the area. To her relief there was no one in the immediate area, but she could sense people running on the fringes of her range. A small horde of adults, unknown allegiance, lugging a squirming form not much larger than herself over one person's shoulder. Something about the scene twisted in her stomach, and the scene faded from her mind as she pulled her hand away. Swallowing thickly, she silently turned and resumed her walk, her pace faster than before.

Those people were strangers. Sute had no way to identify them from chakra alone, and no reason to try to help. She should just forget them and go away.

So why the hell was she going towards them?

Debating with herself even as she moved, black flickered in her vision again and she winced, grinding her teeth. Screw it. She didn't care if it was her imagination, she was not walking through a forest alone with some unknown boogeyman possibly lurking in the shadows. "This better not turn out like a stupid horror movie," she hissed in English, and took off at a run. If she got lucky, some of them would be from Kiri, and she wouldn't have to go back alone.

In the end, she was right. The group were Mist ninja, and one of them even seemed to recognize her somehow. She wasn't sure if the encounter was actually lucky though once she saw their prisoner.

"Ringo Sute," the girl whispered, her face paling. And as Sute stared at her, with messy brown hair and terrified chocolate-colored eyes and purple squares on her cheeks, her face suddenly slid into place and—

Oh.

She always did wonder why Kakashi was alone. It looked like she was about to find out.

Sorry for the delay! Yesterday I had work and was just too exhausted to edit and post the chapter. Anyways, I thought Chapter 7 would be the most fitting place for the previous Team Seven to make their grand entrance. And that cliffhanger... Muahaha? The last scene has a LOT of interesting little hints and bits of foreshadowing, I wonder how much you guys can pick up on.

Also, a lot of readers seem to assume the Yuki woman last chapter was Haku's mother. Sadly I must debunk that. All evidence suggests that his mother was a civilian and never entered the shinobi forces, otherwise I doubt she could've been killed by her husband and the villagers. She might have hesitated to kill her husband, but at the very least I think she'd kill the others to protect Haku.

Thanks as always to my lovely reviewers: The Absolutely Mad Mage (She'll have some very interesting offensive medical ninjutsu one day~), xenocanaan (They'll have a very FUN relationship), Elise142 (she never did have a good bedside manner), BlackDove WhiteDove, angelicana1230, MorteSangriz (Thanks! I think Kishi missed a lot of chances by not covering any of the jinchuuriki), Ritz-Chan (looks like your request has been fulfilled), Len (no I did not, looked into it and not my cup of tea), Northchild (well she met Minato, and at this point is suitably terrified of him), Shadowing, lizyeh2000, Guest, Thomas Drovin (It's not over quite yet as you can see), Guest (yep, he's the jinchuuriki, hence why all the other nurses cleared out. And Juzo will live for a while yet), Guest, Mighty Empress, royalpurple153, Artificier of the Void (ooh, can you maybe dig it up? I want more gray/dark OCs), Sabie0521, KadeBear (oh, I've read that! Thanks for giving me a chapter number, it'll be good to review the fuinjutsu system there. Also as you can see Rin's death is DEFINITELY part of her experiences), and Arcane Charmcaster (those are actually some good points I hadn't considered. She wouldn't make a railgun though, but the laser thing is something to potentially consider.)

That's all for now. See you next Saturday!