There she was again. In the middle of the training field. Minato calling out her name. Kakashi and Obito standing behind him, alive and twelve years old again.
The day before the Kannabi Bridge mission. Here Rin was, listening to the same set of instructions for the fifth time.
The fifth and last time. Rin wouldn't allow a sixth.
Even if it pained her to do so, she'd somehow find a way for the initial sequence of events to happen again. Her capture. Kakashi and Obito's fight. The loss of Kakashi's left eye. The cave in. The Sharingan transplant.
And then her capture again. The Sanbi sealed within her. Ending her life via Kakashi's Chidori.
And hopefully by doing so, it would break her out of this vicious loop of hell.
Rin didn't know how much more she could take before she shattered.
It took every fiber of her being to not move when she felt the Iwa nin's presence behind her. Just a few more seconds of acting like a naive chunin on the battlefield and everything would fall into the place again.
A chop to the back of the neck and then everything went dark.
The genjutsu they casted on her was ridiculously easy to break. Her instinct itched to break it, yet for the sake of allowing everything to pan out the same way it did the first time, Rin fought against the temptation.
The minutes ticked downwards until Obito and Kakashi showed up; ticked downwards until Obito would die for the fifth time.
Her two teammates showed up and with a brilliant display of teamwork had gotten past the enemy nin. Kakashi knelt down in front of her, sending a blast of his chakra through her system to disrupt the genjutsu. Bleary eyed and dazed, Rin allowed Kakashi to pull her to her feet before they started sprinting towards the exit.
As they sprinted, a fleeting thought crossed her mind.
What if…Rin took Obito's place underneath the boulders? What ramifications would that have on the future? Kakashi would be missing an eye, never receiving the transplant from Obito. Would the missing eye be a detriment to Kakashi's future, just like how never unlocking the Sharingan in the last iteration led to a mission gone so horribly wrong?
Who wasn't to say that Kakashi even lived much longer after her death? Rin never had the opportunity to witness life past thirteen; her changes may have not been for the worst - she had just simply been too caught up in her grief that she had been so convinced that everything was her fault.
Rin wouldn't know unless she tried.
So when she spotted Obito headed towards Kakashi, her hand shot outward. Fingers wrapped around Obito's lower arm, she yanked him back towards the wall. With an extra boost of chakra to the soles of her feet, Rin propelled herself to Kakashi's side. Planting both hands firmly on his backside, she shoved him in Obito's direction. Obito let out a grunt as he caught Kakashi, a wild look in his eyes as he tried to reach out for her…
Rin saw the world fade to red. The tomoes in Obito's eyes spun and spun, the tomoes merging together to form a three edged shuriken pattern.
And then, the world went dark.
Rin wasn't dead. If she was, then Rin should have woken up back in that training field again, ready to relive the Kannabi Bridge mission. Instead, Rin was stuck in a vast plane of nothingness for as far as she could see.
What was this place? How had she gotten here?
It didn't matter. This wasn't where she was meant to be.
Digging a kunai from her weapons pouch, Rin drove the sharp tip straight through her heart.
It was the sixth time. Rin felt like she was watching a movie play on a broken record, showing the same exact scene again and again until she felt so sick to the stomach that she couldn't stand being there any longer. The day dragged on. Rin had been restless for the entire night, contemplating how the hell she was going to survive another year in this state.
Possessing too much knowledge that Rin shouldn't have, with every circumstance, Rin itched to interfere, to fix it. It had been hard enough helplessly watching the rock crush Obito's right side, and her resolve crumbled the last time when she witnessed the enactment about to happen again.
But if Rin wanted to get out of this nightmare, then she needed it to happen.
The ground rumbled beneath their feet as the boulders at the top of the cave came crashing down on them. With tear stained eyes, Rin sprinted towards the exit. Never once did she look back, knowing that if she did her resolve would crumble once more.
A huge boulder landed on the ground in front of her, cutting off her path to the exit. The ground shook fiercely, knocking her clean off of her feet. Squeezing her eyes shut, Rin waited until the ground stopped shaking before she found the courage to turn around and look.
There it was. Obito half-crushed underneath a gigantic boulder. Kakashi's fist pounding uselessly against the surface, doing nothing more than bruising the side of his hand. Rin crawled her way over to the pair, reaching to squeeze Obito's hand tightly.
Obito, I'm sorry.
Once again, Obito gifted Kakashi his Sharingan as a jonin present. Kakashi broke out of the cave with his Chidori, his newly acquired gift allowing the completion of his original jutsu. The Iwa nin outside of the cave was easily taken care of. Rin was reluctant to let go of Obito, but when the ground started rumbling once again, she knew that it was time to go.
Goodbye Obito. I'll see you in the afterlife next year.
Rin allowed herself to be pulled out of the cave as she solemnly watched the rest of the rocks pile onto the opening, effectively sealing Obito six feet down under.
Everyday Rin visited the memorial stone, leaving a single white tulip at the base of the quartz structure. According to the Yamanaka at the flower shop, white tulips symbolize a new beginning.
Soon. Soon, Rin would join him in heaven where she could finally apologize for letting him die. In her head, she could already picture Obito's response.
"I told you that my teammates are important to me. I would do anything to protect them."
Her teammates were important to her too, so much so that she was going to endure dying for the sixth time. Yet it seemed that no matter what Rin did, the ones that were fated to die, were still bound to die.
Fate was a fickle thing like that.
A mere human being was hardly its match.
Despite having a gaping hole in her chest, it was surprisingly painless. The tingling feeling wasn't unlike what she had felt before, but there was no pain and no voices inside of her head to drive her insane. Everything was quiet. Peaceful.
So much so that Rin wished she could just close her eyes forever and never wake up again. A small smile graced her lips as Rin stared into the black void, her eyelids slowly closing when a dim ray of light appeared in her line of sight. The light had drawn her attention and captivated her to the point where she found it was difficult to tear her eyes away from it.
A figure appeared.
From the wrinkles that riddled his face, the man had lived well into old age before he passed away. Two horns stuck out from the top of his head. Three eyes: two purple ones and a third that sat in the center of his forehead.
A Sharingan.
Yet with his pale brown colorings, the man hardly looked like he belonged to the Uchiha clan.
"Who are you?" Her voice was merely a whisper yet it echoed loudly in the void. Gathering strength to her wobbly hands, Rin pushed herself into a sitting position. The mysterious man moved closer to her. She didn't react. What was the worst that he could do? Rin was already dead.
"My name is Hagoromo Otsutsuki, the Sage of Six Paths." The name rang a bell in her memory; he had been one of the many historical figures that she once learned during the Academy, but her familiarity with the knowledge about him had waned with time. The Sage of Six Paths…the founder of ninshu that spawned the creation of the ninja world.
"Where am I?"
"You're currently stuck in limbo, the dimension between the world of living and the afterlife. Unfortunately when you died the first time, Hamura had gotten ahold of you before I did."
"Hamura?"
"He is my brother. I am the keeper to the gateway to heaven while he is the keeper to hell. Usually when someone parts, their soul will be sent to either the gates of heaven or hell, depending on their own conscience. There are a few where the conscience is torn in the middle, leading the soul to be stuck in limbo. Either Hamura or I have to come retrieve the souls from limbo, otherwise they are stuck here for an eternity."
"Hamura was that voice in my head," Rin murmured to herself. "He was the one accusing me of being selfish, for haunting Kakashi for the rest of my life…"
"Yes. And I assume that he sent you on an excursion as well."
"A time loop?" Rin pondered.
"A time loop," Hagaroma confirmed. "The reason people call Hamura the Demon of Hell is that he puts people into an endless time loop that one cannot break out of unless they allow the same set of events to happen again. It's his way of reminding people how powerless humans are; most never have the courage to accept that."
Rin let out a mirthless chortle. "Or I'm simply a coward, not wanting to relive the same nightmare over and over again."
The corner of Hagaroma's lips curled up into a small smile. He held out a hand towards her. "Now come, don't you want to wait for the others in heaven?"
Rin nodded. "Hopefully I won't have to see them for a long time."
Rin was right and wrong at the same time. From up above, Rin watched as the remaining members of Team Minato's life panned out.
Minato sensei rescuing Kakashi. Minato becoming Hokage just like she always expected. Kakashi spiraling into depression, suffering from PTSD associated with the traumatic experience of the death of two of his teammates. Kakashi joining the Anbu forces, heading deeper into the deep end.
What truly surprised Rin was that Obito hadn't been crushed under those rocks. By some miracle, Obito was well and alive, even if he was relying on Senju cells to stitch together the crushed right half of his body.
And he had become a shadow of the boy that Rin once knew. Other than the physical resemblance, Rin hardly recognized the teenage boy who constantly wore a dark cloak and approached Konoha, not to return, but to spy.
Kakashi knelt in front of her grave, replacing the wilted bouquet of flowers with a fresh batch. The palm of his hand wiped away the dirt and stray leaves that had marred the top of her headstone. Then, Kakashi stood up again, lone eye expressing his solemn regret as he simply stared at the kanji of her name etched into the headstone for the next hour.
"Kushina san is giving birth soon," Kakashi whispered. "A boy. You would have been so delighted to hear the news that you would have dragged Kushina san out to go baby clothes shopping every moment that you could and shove a stack of parenting books into Minato sensei's hands.
"I wish you were here to do that."
That broke her heart. Rin reached out into the void, wishing that she could somehow signal to him that she was there; that she could hear him and that in fact, Rin had been afforded the opportunity to do that once during one of her time loop journeys. The sentimental spell was broken when Kakashi left the cemetery and Obito emerged from the shadows. Grabbing the bouquet, Obito tugged it out of the vase and tossed it onto the ground, stamping and crushing the petals with his feet.
Obito…what happened to you?
Death…perhaps that had been a better alternative than seeing her former teammate become an enemy of Konoha.
Rin cried out when she saw Obito infiltrate Konoha on the night of Naruto's birth. Her breath hitched in her throat when she saw him hold a kunai to baby Naruto's throat, threatening Minato sensei to step away from Kushina.
Who had Obito become?
And Rin had thought she had been a monster for allowing Obito to die, but now as she watched the future - the one that should have happened - pan out before her, death would have been a kinder option for him. Her heart ached as she watched Obito extract the nine tail beast from Kushina, capturing it under a genjutsu, before he unreleased the wrath of the beast onto the village.
Minato and Obito exchanged blows after Minato managed to get Kushina and Naruto out of the cross-fire. The entire time, Rin was on the edge of her seat, wanting, wishing there was something that she could do to help her sensei. Help stop Obito from making more choices that he would ultimately regret for the rest of his life.
Minato emerged victorious from the battle, having quickly figured out the weakness of Obito's ability to phase in and out of existence. Yet it was a hollow victory, not when Minato had been too tied up in the fight that the Kyuubi had already wrecked a quarter of the village and taken countless lives. The scene panned to a clearing, where all of the younger shinobis were ordered to be on standby.
Among them, Rin spotted a flash of silver and let out a sigh of relief. Kakashi wouldn't die today.
But she had a sinking suspicion that the outcome wouldn't fare so well for Minato sensei.
And Rin hated that she was right. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she watched the Kyuubi drive a fingernail through both Minato and Kushina's bodies as they attempted to use themselves as a shield to protect Naruto. And then when Minato summoned the Death Reaper Seal, Rin knew that it was all over.
The name of the jutsu told her everything she needed to know.
Neither of them made it to heaven or hell. Minato's soul was trapped eternally inside of the Reaper's seal and Kushina's…remained a dispersed form of chakra inside the eight trigram seal painted on Naruto's stomach. Until the day Naruto activated Kushina's presence, Rin wouldn't be reuniting with her anytime soon.
The only good news was that Kakashi was still alive.
The bad news was that Rin could only watch as Danzo, one of the council members, manipulated and twisted the truth of the Kyuubi attack to convert Kakashi to work for him. As if watching one teammate spiral into the deep end wasn't enough, now Rin was watching the same story repeat itself all over again.
If Rin ever met Danzo in heaven, she swore that she'd punch him so hard that it would send him right back to hell.
For the next ten years, Rin kept tabs on Kakashi and Obito's lives. Neither of them had made any big moves in the past decade. For the most part, Obito was gathering chess pieces to erect his organization to accomplish the "Eye of the Moon" plan, one that would provide everyone the opportunity to live in their so-called "dream world." On more than one occasion, Obito had claimed that he was doing all of this for her, so that she could experience the ideal life.
Rin cursed at him, shouting that she didn't want it. All she wanted was for him to stop, to return to Konoha and turn himself in to repent for his misgivings. Obito couldn't hear her and even if he did, Rin doubted that he would have listened. At this point, Obito was so wrapped up in his own delusions and misguided ideals that there was no room for someone else's opinion.
On the other hand, Kakashi managed to get himself back on the right path when he betrayed Danzo by warning the Third Hokage of Danzo's plans to assassinate him. From there, Kakashi returned to the regular Anbu forces. Promoted to captain. Taken a few kids under his wing. Even had become so admirable that some of the younger teens looked up to him despite the whispers of how he was a "Comrade Leaver Kakashi."
The trauma stayed with him through the years. Many nights, Kakashi jerked himself awake after being attacked by another nightmare. It had become routine at this point for Kakashi's feet to mechanically carry him to the kitchen sink, where he stood until his hands were scrubbed raw.
Was there a way that Rin could visit him in his dreams to assure him that everything was alright? She asked Hagoromo, but unfortunately, even his abilities were limited.
At twenty-four years old, Kakashi was discharged from the Anbu Black Ops by the Third Hokage and reinstated into the regular forces as a jonin sensei candidate. Never one to complain, Kakashi accepted the reassignment without a word of protest even though Rin could see it in his eyes how much he despised being in that role.
It hadn't come as a surprise that he failed the first two teams, one for not exhibiting an ounce of teamwork and the other for over reliance on the oldest brother's judgement. The third team had come as a surprise: consisting of the last Uchiha in the village, Sensei's son, and a girl with a civilian background.
Oh, how much that team reminded Rin of their team when they had been fresh graduates of the Academy. She hoped that Naruto's vibrant personality would help inject some vibrancy back into Kakashi's bleak life, and hoped that his presence would remind Kakashi that both Kushina and Minato were still watching over him even if they were gone.
The night after Kakashi passed Team Seven, he sat on top of his bed, staring wistfully at the old and frayed picture of Team Minato.
The peace didn't last long. One thing after another, and suddenly Konoha found themselves without a Hokage. And then it wasn't long before the Akatsuki, the group that Obito had recruited, started making a move towards collecting all of the tailed beasts. Of course, he wouldn't have stayed hidden for too long.
Rin could only hope that one of the tailed beasts could stop him, to prevent him from obtaining his goal. However, as Rin watched the first seven tailed beasts go down in rapid succession, her hope was diminishing bit by bit.
And then, Pein launched an attack on Konoha in search for Naruto.
Shizune died. Ibiki died. Rin wondered how many more souls would be joining her and Asuma in heaven, even if she wished that wasn't the case. Yet anyone could tell that Konoha was losing.
Kakashi died.
Besides her, Asuma let out a string of surprised curses while Rin just stared at the scene in complete and utter shock. Formidable Kakashi. Invincible Kakashi. The Kakashi who always managed to escape death by a hair no matter how awful the odds looked had died in the invasion.
And of course his last act was to save another comrade. To drain his chakra completely by executing one last Kamui to warp away the missile.
How? Why?
Had the entirety of Team Minato been cursed to be doomed from the very start?
Rin got on her feet, wandering listlessly towards the entrance of heaven. Once there, Rin planted herself by the entrance, intending on waiting for Kakashi to join her. The apologies were already on the tip of her tongue. After the apologies were all of the things that she wanted to tell him: the truth behind the Kyuubi attack, of how Obito was still alive and how much danger his students were in-
Only, Rin never had the opportunity to speak to him. When Hagoromo returned without her teammate in tow, her heart sank. Had Hamaru instilled the same mental torture on him as he had on her?
"He went back to the world of living," Hagoromo explained. The corner of his eyes crinkled. "A jutsu revived him. Looks like he won't be joining you today."
Rin let out a sigh of relief.
The Fourth Great Ninja War. After almost fifteen years of peace, Rin had been lulled into a sense of complacency that there wouldn't be another war that would wreak havoc on the innocent civilian villages, tear families apart, and brutally rip loved ones away from each other. Beyond not expecting another world war, Rin hadn't expected for all five elemental nations to unite as one - to fight against Obito and the undead.
Asuma's soul had been one of the those who had been ripped from heaven and thrown back into the body of a white Zetsu to be forced to fight against his own students. Battlefield chaos was scattered at all fronts, each shinobi fighting to keep their life, fighting to keep their futures untainted by a genjutsu that was nothing more than being forced to live in a complete lie.
A Kakashi and Obito standoff was inevitable, only Rin hadn't expected for Kakashi to simply freeze in the middle of the battlefield. It was a rookie mistake, one that someone of his caliber shouldn't have been making, but it wasn't everyday that a teammate that you thought had died turned out to be the perpetrator of the destruction of the world.
In the Kamui dimension, her former teammates traded blows so reminiscent of their many sparring sessions. Except this time, the two of them were going at each other with the intent to kill.
Kakashi was much stronger than she would ever be. In such a short amount of time, he managed to get over his shock and stupor to find his resolve to kill Obito, to end this madness for once and for all. Rin perched by the gates of heaven, awaiting for Obito to arrive, even if she knew it was likely that hell was his only option after all of the things that he had done.
Rin turned to Hagoromo. "Is it possible for me to intercept a soul going to hell in the limbo dimension?"
"Possibly. If they were meant for hell, they usually pass so quickly that you can't get ahold of them. However, if there is something there waiting for them, there's a possibility that they would stop."
Before Hagoromo could stop her, Rin was already leaping out into the dark void.
It had happened nineteen years too late, but Obito finally found himself again. At thirty-one years old and on the brink of death, Obito was finally fighting alongside Kakashi, like how it should have been all along. Along with Team Seven, the two of them worked in tandem to fight Kaguya after being warped to another strange dimension.
Desperate to protect Sasuke and Naruto from the deadly sticks that would disintegrate them into ashes upon impact, Kakashi and Obito leapt in front of them, using their bodies as a shield. Rin's breath caught in her throat; was that it?
Was that the end of the road for Team Minato?
Obito angled his head in Kakashi's direction, activating both of his eyes to warp away the rod moments before it made contact with Kakashi's torso. The rod rammed straight through Obito's stomach and he still somehow had the energy to elicit a small smile, imparting words of encouragement before his body erupted into a pile of ashes.
Rin intercepted Obito's soul before he passed through to hell.
"Obito!"
"Rin?" Obito blinked twice, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. "What are you doing here?"
Her response came in the form of a packed right hook to the face. Obito cradled his jaw, rubbing the area to soothe the pain.
"I can't say I don't deserve that."
"That was for killing Minato sensei and Kushina san!" Rin's arm was pulled back, ready and poised to land another hit. Obito resigned to his fate, making no attempt to protect himself. Her fist stopped right before making contact with the other side of his face.
"I'm sorry," Obito whispered. "I don't deserve your forgiveness or anyone else's, but before I go to hell, there's one last thing that I need to do."
And with that, Obito left as quickly as he came, returning to the world of living for just a moment to impart the last of his chakra into Kakashi's soul. One last time, Kakashi fought with the help of the Sharingan, and allowed Obito to witness the end of the war through his eyes. Obito's chakra ran out and the red hues in Kakashi's eyes faded to its original black color.
The war was over.
Right before his death, Obito had finally set his foot on the right path again. Now that Minato's soul could be released to the heavens, Kushina could finally reunite with him.
The future now rested on the next generation's shoulders.
Rin turned away from the portal that played out the scene of the living world, finally able to rest knowing that the future was in good hands. Kakashi had finally found closure, finally made peace with himself.
Despite the tumultuous ups and downs Team Minato suffered along the way, everything turned out alright. There was no way of knowing if any of the other iterations that Rin experienced had panned out for better or for worse than this, but this outcome…was one that she could accept.
They'd all died protecting the people and things that were most precious to them.
In the end, everything turned out alright.
A/N: Hi again!
This is the end of the story! I hope the ending was okay; I flip flopped back and forth between having the ending play out like canon or having one small change happen. Ultimately, I decided on canon. A Rin time loop is quite difficult to master because she never lived beyond 13 - she has no idea that the changes she has been making are better or worse than how it pans out in canon. And at this point, I think closure is the most important thing for her and I don't think Rin would have been satisfied with any outcome if she knew she had a hand in causing it.
Canon was wild, but I'd say she would have been alright with how things ended. And I think it tied pretty neatly with Obito meeting Rin in afterlife like in canon.
I hope you guys enjoyed! This was my first attempt at a time loop so I hope it turned out alright. :) Thank you so much for reading and I'm eager to hear your thoughts!
-MM