The high pitched cry catches their attention.
"I can sense someone's chakra," Rin says.
"Honestly woman, you could be leading us into danger-" Deidara starts.
"Then you stay here!" she says angrily.
Illogical as her actions may be, her intuition speaks for itself at the strangest of time. Together with her chakra's special ability to detect distressful emotions, she tracks the source from a distance.
By the riverbank, she sees it, a tiny floating body carelessly dragged downstream by the merciless grips of Mother Nature.
Without thinking, she jumps into the waters and takes hold of the little girl.
But the current does not discriminate. It sends an immense shockwave through that even Rin's chakra is fighting to hold steady.
I won't…
With a surge of determined willpower, she takes the opportunity and grips onto a lowered branch. Then, in one torturous tug, she drags them both to safety.
Her immediate response is resuscitation.
"Please stay with me okay?" she whispers frantically.
Her composure holds, but the pale-faced girl is slipping.
Over and over Rin tries, and she really tries but the more she does, the more her mind enters a realm of denial.
"Dammit! Dammit! No, no, no!"
And the tears keep coming and it does not stop.
The failure is imminent, and it hovers there as a stark reminder of her inadequacy to fulfil her curative duties.
Then, the overwhelming guilt permeates. It is a sense of emptiness, despondency, disappointment, all intermeshed so strongly, she can physically feel the suffocating pain.
As she slumps there, useless and feeble, a reassuring hand rests on her shoulder.
And she allows the comfort to sit for a long time.
Her thoughts speak to her and echo words she cannot comprehend.
For now, at this point in time, she gives in to those excruciating muses and takes the physical pain of failure head on.