Author's Note: So a couple of things. One I apologize for how much exposition there is in this chapter. I'm just trying to establish my interpretation of the Naruto verse through the eyes of someone, Quinn, who has no real idea or preconceived notion of it. Any other story I've read where someone is reborn into the Naruto world they have a passing familiarity with it. They at least know major plot points and who the main players are. Quinn doesn't. And speaking of Quinn, a stylistic choice I chose to make with this story is that the names Rin and Quinn are completely interchangeable in this story. Naruto-verse characters will think of and call her Rin while Quinn will continue to think of herself as Quinn. It can be a little confusing but I think I make it work. The easiest thing to remember is that Rin and Quinn are the exact same person and if I ever refer to Kakashi's teammate who was also named Rin, I will be sure to make it extremely clear.
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xXx-Chapter 2-xXx
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Quinn was determined to make the best of this situation. It was a brand new life, she had been dying, had died, and for some reason she had been allowed to be reborn, she couldn't waste this opportunity. She was actually a little ashamed to admit that it took her almost two weeks to come to this decision, during which time all she could do was cry. The depression and despair had hit her hard, she couldn't eat, and the only time she slept was when she was able to cry herself to sleep, which was awful because she was then plagued by nightmares of the crash, which in turn woke her up and made her cry even more.
What had really changed her mind about this whole thing though was her new father. Or Otousan, to the best that she had been able to work out. He used that word a lot while pointing to himself so it was either father or his name, she wasn't sure, because she heard the word Inoichi thrown around quite a bit as well.
Anyway, her parents had gotten so worried that they had taken her back to the hospital, where she had been connected to an IV for nutrients and was then surrounded by strange writing that seemed glow and pulse at times, it certainly caused that energy in her body to react. She was pretty sure they had placed her in some kind of pediatrics ward, and despite her best efforts they kept her alive. Because at the time she had wanted to die, because all of this was just so wrong. She was an adult stuck in a baby's body and trapped in a strange new world and at the time it was way too much for her to handle.
It was either late at night or early in the morning, it was fairly impossible for her to tell, that her new father had lifted her in his arms and held a bottle up to her face for what felt like the millionth time. His eyes were red and his face was full of despair as he pleaded with her in his strange tongue to eat.
That same word over and over again as he began to cry.
"Onegai."
And it was at that moment that it struck her, her actions were affecting these people as well, not just her. They had no idea of what a freak she truly was, of how unnatural she was, they just thought they were losing their daughter. She had given up Beth and it had nearly destroyed her but at least she had known that Beth was in a safe place and loved. These people had no such assurance, and she couldn't even imagine how it would feel if she were to ever learn that Beth was refusing to eat and trying to die. So with what felt like a huge amount of effort she stopped her crying and started to feed.
His laughter and the joy on his face was worth it and soon she found herself surrounded by her new family. Her new sister, her new mother and her new father, all of them so happy with her for such a little thing. In that moment she made a promise, she would make the most of this second chance, she would be the perfect daughter to them, the perfect sister, she wouldn't waste this opportunity.
And more importantly than anything else, she resolved that they would never, ever, learn the truth about her. Her first family had rejected her completely and by all accounts she had been a perfectly normal human girl. She had no way of knowing how these people would react if they ever learned the truth about her, but it couldn't be pretty.
Currently, she was in her mother's arms, and she was either called Okaasan or Megumi, she really had no point of reference other than it was a similar situation to her father. She had been able to work out that her sisters name was Ino and little Ino had become her saving grace in all of this. It might have been a little twisted but she looked at Ino as almost like a second chance with Beth. They may have both had the bodies of infants but Quinn still had her mind and she was determined to look after the little girl and to make sure she had a life of happiness. Ino would never have to wonder, like Quinn used to, if her sister hated her. Ino would always know she was loved.
She had even discovered a nifty little trick that helped. She found she was able to manipulate the strange energy within in her, she couldn't tell you how she did it, only that she could. It came as naturally to her as breathing. And she could make it flair up when she wanted to and as long as she didn't push it too hard, doing so near the other girl gave them both a lot of entertainment. Ino just seemed to enjoy it, the warm sensation that it sent out, and Quinn, she just absolutely adored the sound of her sister's laugh that always followed.
She couldn't do it too many times in a row, after a few minutes of causing her energy to pulse she would grow super tired and then she would fall asleep for a couple of hours. It wasn't like a regular nap either, after doing it she always felt like she had run a marathon or something. But as she did it more often it got easier and easier to do it for longer and more often. She figured it was like any kind of exercise, you got better at it the more you did it. Plus every once in a while Ino would return the favor and when Ino's energy washed over her it was like… like her soul was getting a hug.
That description was way more poetic than she would normally try to describe something but she had no idea of how else to describe it, plus it was accurate. Sometimes she could even feel her new parents use this energy and since even Ino flared it once in a while, and she really was just a baby, Quinn didn't think she was doing anything out of the ordinary. It was just something that people here did.
The point was to fit in, to appear normal, so if that meant flaring her energy at times like everyone else then so be it, and if it happened to have the added bonus of making her new sister happy then she saw nothing wrong with doing it a little more often then she might have otherwise. It wasn't like it was hurting her or anyone else and besides, she was stuck in a baby's body, there was literally nothing else for her to do.
She gurgles happily when she hears her new mother say her name. Rin, it was close enough to Quinn in her mind so as far as names went she could live with it. Her mom was currently bouncing her gently in her arms, and it seemed to make her mother happy to do this so Quinn didn't have the heart to try and make her stop, though the motions could make her feel just a little nauseous at times. Her mother was currently talking to a strange blond man in a white jacket and funny hat. Quinn concluded that he must be some kind of friend to the family because when he held his arms out to her, her mother handed her right to him.
He smiles down at her and if Quinn had been older she would have blushed heavily because, holy shit… he was hot. Even the way he talked baby talk at her, which she usually found a little annoying if not tolerable, sounded kind of sexy coming from him.
He smiles up at her mother and speaks to her, and she follows his gaze and she can see her mother's shoulders slump in visible relief, maybe this man was a doctor and he was just confirming that she was completely fine and perfectly normal. It would explain the white coat. But honestly she really had no idea, she was doing her best to pick up the language, and they did say that immersion was the best way to learn a language but this was proving difficult. She was learning from scratch, completely on her own here. She wasn't even old enough to start learning their alphabet yet, so she didn't have anyone to teach her yet either. Basically she was stuck doing her best to try and recognize patterns.
He then meets her gaze with his own and she is mesmerized by his eyes, and he says something to her and even if she understood the language she wasn't sure she would have heard him, she was so lost in his gaze. And then he flared his own energy and in that moment Quinn would swear she touched God. She was well aware of her own energy, she had felt Ino's energy which was a little smaller than hers, she had felt her parent's energy which was far greater. But nothing compared to this man. It was like she had spent her entire life with her world being illuminated only by candles and then suddenly being exposed to the power of the sun.
It was huge and powerful and overwhelming… and good. A force this powerful, as powerful as was coming from this man should be absolutely terrifying. She knew that she was nothing but a little insect in comparison to this man, but she didn't feel that way. The kindness, the warmth that emanated from him was awe inspiring. She began to giggle and laugh and she couldn't help it she flared her own energy right back at him. In the back of her mind she realized she was actually getting high off of this but she didn't care.
She knew good people back in her old life, she had known a couple of genuinely good people. In this new life of hers, she knew her parents were genuinely good people, she could feel it and sense it by their actions and by the energy that was in their bodies, but this man here was so far beyond that. He smiles at her and laughs with her and Quinn fell in love in an instant. This man, whoever he was, was the very best that the world had to offer. If she wasn't so high off of the warmth emanating from this man she would have been depressed that she was way, way, way too young for him. As it was, with how she was feeling right now she didn't know if she would ever be sad again.
He flares his energy three more times after that, and after each time she responds in kind and even when he passes her back to her mother she could still feel his energy, which was a little strange. Contact had always determined whether or not she could feel another person's energy. But now she was hyper aware of all of the energy around her and from every single person, at least within this building. She could just sense it. She couldn't see it she just knew it was there, it flowed through every living thing around her.
This building was full of it. Some of it was large and concentrated, others were small and free flowing. Some of it was happy, some of it was sad, others were excited and others were board. Some of the energy radiated was good and some of it even radiated evil, but no matter where she sensed it from or from who, it all paled in comparison to the man standing in front of her and her mother. She was aware of the other energies but she may as well have been trying to see the stars through the sun.
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xXx-Scene Break-xXx
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Megumi sat nervously in front of the fourth Hokage, carefully bouncing Rin in her arms. The past few weeks had been rough. As soon as they got home from the hospital Rin wouldn't stop crying, and it wasn't just upset newborn crying this had been something completely different. She would cry herself into exhaustion only to wake up screaming and start crying all over again. And when she wasn't crying, there was no happy contentment or any of the curiosity they had seen when she came into this world, her eyes just stared out straight ahead, void of any life. She refused to eat, no matter what they tried, and their newborn baby girl was slowly fading away, it was almost as if she wanted to die.
They had no idea of what to do so not even a two days later they had gone right back to the hospital and set Rin up in the pediatric ward. They placed an IV in her to provide her with some nutrients and then had used some of the most advanced medical sealing arrays that she had ever seen to monitor her child, but nothing helped.
Their little girl was wasting away and then one night something had changed, Inoichi got her to start eating, and she stopped crying and from then on she was as happy a baby as they could have ever hoped for and both she and Inoichi had begun to breathe easy again.
But it wasn't to last. Within days Rin had begun to access her Chakra. It wasn't unusual for a baby to flare their Chakra occasionally. In fact doing so was a sign of a healthy baby. Ino flared hers when she was particularly happy or upset. It was normal.
Rin however, did it to the point of Chakra exhaustion. She would continually pulse her Chakra to amuse herself and Ino and then when she ran out she would fall asleep. Her reserves would refill while she slept and then she would wake up and start it all over again.
She and Inoichi were very careful to not act overly alarmed by this. They didn't want to startle Rin, and they certainly didn't want to do anything that might get her to stop eating again, but they were worried. It was unheard of for a baby to actively use their Chakra like Rin was. They had no idea what kind of effect it might have on her, and more worryingly was the fact that they had no idea how the village elders might react if they found out. The Fourth was on their side, but if Rin was made out to be a danger to the village then he would have to act, no matter how much he might not want to.
They had almost lost her once, Megumi couldn't handle the thought of it happening again. They were a family, herself, Inoichi, Ino, and Rin and if even one of them was gone it would break them. Inoichi wanted to keep it quiet just to be safe and Megumi had agreed that it was in Rin's best interest to handle this within the family, until yesterday when she had felt Rin doing it from across the house. She had rushed to the room and laying there happy as clam were Rin and Ino, with Rin's Chakra swirling around them, wisps of it were actually visible. That was dangerous, that could get Rin killed. Inoichi was firm in saying that he would talk it over with Shikaku and Chouza, that they would figure it out but that this needed to stay within the clan. Megumi couldn't take that risk?
Chakra could be a wonderful thing, it could propel a person beyond what they would normally be capable of. You could be faster, or stronger than was humanly possible without it. You could even use it to manipulate the very fabric of reality. Chakra was an amazing thing, but it was a double edged sword and if you weren't careful you could hurt or even kill yourself with it.
Megumi couldn't risk that, Rin was her daughter and she was using a force that she was way too young to comprehend. So while Inoichi was out with Ino picking up some groceries, Megumi had made a request to see the Yondaime who had graciously agreed to meet with her.
And so here she was, sitting in the office of the one man in the village who controlled her daughter's fate. He had been very kind to them, in any other Hidden Village Rin would have been either taken from them or killed, but the fourth had supported them. She was still nervous, but if there was anyone who could help it would be him.
The fourth sat patiently across from her, a polite and pleasant smile on his face as he waited for her to start and so with a deep breath she begins.
"Thank you for agreeing to see me." Megumi begins softly. "Inoichi will be furious that I came but… I didn't know what else to do."
The fourth frowns, "What's wrong?"
Megumi wants to cry, she feels so embarrassed. She was a trained Shinobi for goodness sake, she had made it to the rank of Special Jounin before she had retired, she should be able to keep a better handle on her emotions, but she knew she was radiating tension. She was truly and genuinely afraid in a way that she had never experienced before. Her baby, her daughter, could be putting herself in danger and the only way to help her may be to lose her. The only reason she wasn't crying right now was that she didn't want to startle Rin.
"I… I don't want to lose her, Inoichi wants to keep it quiet but I'm afraid that she might hurt herself, I really, truly, don't know what else to do." Her voice slightly cracking.
The fourth Hokage looks at her sympathetically, "Take a moment okay, stay calm and just tell me what's happened that has you so worried."
"You're aware of how things started off with her correct?"
The Fourth nods.
"When we finally got her eating, when we finally were able to bring her home for good we were so relieved. We love her so much… there is so much we don't know about her but… it doesn't matter because she's our baby. My baby, I carried her, she's mine. How she arrived doesn't matter." She had to make him understand, he had to know just how much Rin meant to them.
"Mrs. Yamanaka, I understand okay, but I can't help you if you won't talk to me." The fourth says gently, his voice laced with sympathy.
Megumi takes a deep breath, "A couple of days after we got her home we noticed something…"
The Fourth nods his head, encouraging her to continue.
"She's been flaring her Chakra…"
The Fourth shrugs, "Baby's will do that." He offers.
"Yes, I know but… not like this. She does it a lot and at will, it's not an emotional response like it is with Ino or other babies she's doing it on purpose."
The Fourth's brows raise in surprise, "Really… well now that is interesting. You're sure it's a conscious effort on her part?"
"Yes, she mostly does it around Ino, they have a… bond, we think that Ino is particularly sensitive to it because of how Rin came into this world. Anyway, it makes Ino laugh which causes Rin to do it again and well, you get the idea."
"What about Chakra exhaustion?" The Fourth asks.
"That's just it, she does it until she tires out, you know before it becomes dangerous, and then she sleeps for a couple of hours and then she's right back to it… I, I originally wasn't going to come here but then… yesterday while she was doing it again, she was using so much of it that I was able to sense her doing it from all the way across the house and when I rushed there to check on her… her Chakra was visible. That's… that's way too much Chakra for a baby to be able to access, it's dangerous isn't it?"
"It is strange, I'll grant you that…" The Hokage has a pensive look on his face before he stands up and walks around his desk over to her, he then smiles at the baby. "What's her name again?"
"Rin." Rin looks up at her mother when she says her name and gurgles happily.
"That's a very nice name, may I hold her?" He asks, holding his arms out for her. Megumi passes her daughter over because what else could she do? When the Hokage made a request, you did it, no matter how much you might not want to. But looking at him at that moment however, she felt some of her concern disappear because looking at him you would never know that he was arguably the most powerful shinobi to have ever lived, because he was grinning down at her daughter with a goofy smile on his face and babbling like an idiot to her in baby talk. She can't help but laugh at the thought of Iwa seeing the great Yellow Flash like this.
"I'd like to test something if that's okay, I promise you that it won't hurt her in the least bit?"
Megumi hesitates, her nerves and fears rushing back in full force, and he must have noticed.
"I swear to you, I will not hurt her and I promise you, no matter what, I'm not going to take your child away from you and I won't let anyone else do it either."
Relief floods through her. Because until he said it, that was a very real possibility, and if it had happened she would never forgive herself. Hearing him promise her that he wouldn't let anyone else take her child from her was like having the weight of the world lifted from her shoulders. She nods her head, giving her consent.
"Hi Rin, I'm Minato and I want to try a little experiment with you, okay? In just a second I'm going to channel just a little bit of my Chakra, just a tiny little bit, and then I want you to copy me, can you do that for me, huh?"
Rin doesn't do anything, she just continues to stare at the man holding her.
The Fourth then proceeds to flare a tiny bit of his Chakra, not even enough to do a simple clone technique, Megumi was a sensor type, like her husband was, but if she hadn't been so nervous, and hyper aware of everything going on around her as a result, even she might not have noticed it. But Rin certainly seemed to and in a moment she was laughing and squealing with delight, and not a moment later she created a pulse of her own chakra. He repeats the process three more times and Rin copies him each time.
The Fourth Hokage beams down at her. "There now, that wasn't so bad, was it?" He then hands her back to Megumi. Rin is still moving and squirming and gurgling away completely happy.
"Is she okay, is she going to be okay?"
The Fourth scratches the back of his head, a little embarrassed. "Well… I'm no doctor, but in my opinion she's going to be just fine."
Megumi pulls Rin to her just a little more closely, a lot of her worries evaporating. "So she's not in any danger?"
"No, not really. I would say that she's just curious. It's not uncontrollable or getting away from her, you were right it's a very conscious effort on her part. But I don't think she would be doing it if she was hurting herself. At this age she's going to be really sensitive to her own Chakra, if it was doing any damage she'd feel it and stop. I would just think of it as early Chakra control exercises… really early, but considering the way we think she was created it might not be that strange. Maybe see if you can find a way to work with her on it. But if you are really worried about it, I can draw up some inhibitor seals for her that won't do any harm to her Chakra development, they'll just limit the access that she has."
"I'll talk it over with Inoichi, but if she's really okay then I don't want to do anything that might stunt her growth. My biggest concern was that I didn't want her to get hurt."
The Fourth nods his head, agreeing with her decision. "Was that all, do you need anything else?" He asks her kindly.
"No, thank you, I just… thank you…"
"Don't mention it."
"Um… Lord Hokage?"
"Yes?"
"How would you go about working with her?"
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xXx-Scene Break-xXx
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After her mother and she had left the hot guy, her mother seemed to be walking on air. She was playful and cheerful and laughing and Quinn was still riding her high and in such a good mood herself that she played back. Well as much as she could in this body, which mostly consisted of giggling. Still everything was going great and she felt fantastic and her family was happy so really she couldn't complain.
When they got home her mother fed her and then she took Quinn into her and Ino's nursery, where she sat down in the rocking chair and gently moved them back and forth. Her mother then says something else to her and then Quinn feel's her mother's energy pulse, just like the blue eyed man. It wasn't nearly as powerful but it still dwarfed her own energy. And it had a different feel to it than she was used to. Just by feeling the energy she was able to tell things about her mother by how her energy felt. Her mother's energy was gentle but firm, kind and a little reserved. She absolutely loved her, which was a little jarring to know, for reasons that she probably would spend the rest of her life working through. She was also nervous about something, but she wasn't afraid.
But Quinn didn't like the fact that her new mom was nervous about anything so she decided to do for her what she did for Ino and she flared her energy. The brilliant smile on her mother's face showed the absolute removal of whatever was making her nervous.
Her mother then flared her energy three more times in evenly spaced intervals. Quinn was confused, but responded in kind, causing her mother to let out a short little laugh. Quinn was now able to tell that by the feel of her energy that her mother was excited and super happy right now.
Her mother then did it again, slightly changing up the intervals between pulses. And that was when Quinn got it, her mother was trying to play a game with her. The only question was, did she play back? Were they doing this with Ino, had she been using this strange energy too often? In the end she decided to go along with it anyway. It was the closest to a real interaction that she had had in what felt like forever, plus her parents were already aware of her using this energy, if she just stopped then that might raise suspicions, plus it made her mother happy.
They did this a couple more times, each time her mother would slightly vary the pattern and Quinn would be sure to respond in kind. She was actually about to try her own pattern when she realized just how much energy she had been using by doing this and felt the familiar exhaustion that came with using this energy. So with one last little pulse, she fell right asleep.
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xXx-Scene Break-xXx
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Time passed slowly but surely for Quinn. She kept a close eye on Ino to establish where she should be developmentally. Whatever Ino was able to do Quinn made sure she was soon to follow. She was currently able and allowed to sit up on her own and give it another week or two and Ino would be crawling, which meant she could crawl too.
It was hard doing this, but keeping an eye on Ino served more than just keeping her families suspicion low, it was also a good judge of what her body was physically capable of. For example, she may know how to walk mentally, but physically her body couldn't handle it. There were things she wanted to do that her body just couldn't physically do yet and Ino was a good measuring stick.
Another thing that was frustrating was the language, she was picking it up, but very, very slowly. Ino seemed to have much better grasp of the language than she did. She was already making sounds, and she seemed to be picking up the rules and patterns of the language easily. She hadn't said a real word yet, but considering how much she liked to babble, Quinn figured it would happen sooner rather than later.
Baby's brains were well equipped to handle learning brand new languages from scratch, and Quinn figured that was where her struggle was coming from. Her brain may be at that stage of development where it just absorbed information like a sponge but her mind was well past that. It had already established and learned a dominant language, so now she was forced to learn this knew language from scratch. Instead of just intuitively knowing that item A was word A, she had to filter it from English into whatever this new language was called. So it became a game of if item A was an apple, and the word they said when they showed it to her was Ringo, then Ringo meant apple… or possibly red. It was very frustrating.
The one thing she knew she had blown in terms of appearing normal was her use of the strange energy, which was apparently called Chakra. Ino used it on occasion as part of a strong emotional reaction and in very short weak bursts. But Quinn had established that she was able to access her Chakra and manipulate it at will. That was well beyond what a normal baby could do apparently, but if she just stopped using it now then it would seem even stranger.
She also had a ton of this Chakra now, not as much as her parents but leaps and bounds more than Ino, Chouji, or Shikamaru, the three other children that she had the most contact with. But her parents seemed excited for her whenever she played the Chakra game with them, which consisted of them pulsing patterns with their Chakra and her copying it, so she figured why not just continue doing it. She was actually trying to figure out how to use it to communicate with her family, because honestly, trying to learn this new language on her own was a giant pain in the ass and it wasn't like she could talk yet anyway.
No, she would continue to develop her skill with using this Chakra stuff, and since Chakra seemed to play an important part in this society, and if she was good at utilizing it, then that would make her family proud of her and then they would continue to love her. Yes she knew that it was a warped way to look at it, but she had been rejected by her family once before, she didn't think she could handle it again.
Her skill at reading and understanding people with Chakra also increased by leaps and bounds. For example she no longer needed to actually be touching someone to sense their Chakra. Within, what she figured was currently a ten to fifteen foot radius she could pinpoint someone's location by their Chakra and she could tell you what kind of mood they were in too. And people she had a connection with, people like her family, that range extended much farther.
That was another thing she had noticed as time passed, her family stopped being her "new" family and just became her family. Her father was just that, her father, not her "new" father, her mother was her mother, not her "new" mother. Ino was her sister. There was no new, or other, or different placed before it anymore. Yeah she sometimes found herself missing her old life, her old friends and even her mom, but she had a good thing going here and she hoped that they would be happy for her, that she had found a family that loved her and that she loved back.
All things considered, Quinn was happy with her life, she was safe and loved and while there were some challenges, life was good and she had no real worries. Until late one night Quinn woke up startled and afraid, they were all in grave danger.
