Author's Note: Thanks for reading so far. A little more kunoichi angst for you. I promise, though, that Yuugao has some good times on the way.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and am making no profit from this fan fiction.

Turn of Blade, Twist of Fate

Chapter Six: Devastation

By Nessie

By the time she had broken free of the eastern woods and was sprinting through Konoha's main streets, Yuugao could feel her lungs burning, her heart pounding an indefatigable rhythm, hundreds of voices in her head. Each little voice whispered the same thing over, and over in time with her heart: Rin, Rin, Rin…

Even when she leapt up to the rooftops she could not escape that horrible, unending pulse. It appeared to the civilians out and about that afternoon as though she were outrunning the three shinobi following her. But it was not them from which she ran; rather, she longed to lose the horror of the reality she faced – that her uncle and aunt had both died and left her to spend her nights in an empty house, and now the unspoken idea of living without her best friend loomed over her.

How gravely had Rin been injured? Why was she still at the western city limits instead of at the hospital? The messenger had not said.

Yuugao forced the questions from her mind, so focused on reaching her destination that she nearly knocked a blond-headed boy from his perch on the rooftop of Ichiraku Ramen. His bright blue eyes glared at her as he shrieked out an offended "Hey!" but she was gone before he could tell her off.

When she finally arrived at the west gate, it took only an additional five seconds to find the party in the forest. And then Yuugao wished she hadn't found them, feeling dizzy and sick with the sight that greeted her.

Rin was pinned to the trunk of a large oak, her arms pressed backwards around it, the left one angled so unnaturally that it was definitely broken. Nothing seemed to be holding her up, though her feet did not touch the ground. Holes of various sizes gaped in her torso, some deeper and bleeding more than other. Rin's head hung forward but her shoulders moved as much as possible, proving she could breathe.

"There was a missing-nin out here, saying he was sick," one white-dressed medic was explaining to someone Yuugao did not look to identify. She could not take her eyes from the woman ahead, but she could not block out the sound of the medic's voice. "We didn't want to let him into the village, so Rin-san came out to him, but he fooled us." Raw pain entered the medic's tone, his speech becoming disjointed as he went on. "He attacked her – the jutsu – we don't know what it was, it's like his chakra is keeping her up on the tree – we can't remove her without the shinobi releasing it – but he ran off, he escaped, and we can't track him – the only other way is if…if she…"

Another person hushed the apologetically stammering medic, but Yuugao did not need to hear the truth spoken aloud to recognize it. Stepping forward, she went within a foot of the older kunoichi, and her voice came out so softly it was almost unheard. "Rin?"

Rin raised her head slowly, revealing glazed brown eyes and ashen cheeks. The mist lifted from her gaze as she saw her solemn-faced visitor. "Yuugao," she murmured, a line of blood spilling from the corner of her mouth. Her breath came shallowly. "Oh, Y-Yuugao…"

"Who did this to you?" the violet-haired kunoichi demanded. "Tell me."

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does!" Yuugao exclaimed immediately, louder than all present had ever heard her speak. "I will—"

"No," Rin pleaded, "please just…do you remember when we were first friends, Yuugao?"

"Stop talking," she urged, not noticing it when the ANBU shinobi she had fought with came to stand by her right side.

"You asked me if I ever thought my life was worthless…because I wasn't taking missions…because I am a kunoichi." She sounded distant, a small smile touching her lips. "The truth is I have. I've felt worthless. In a world where you are judged on accomplishment rather than effort, rather than drive…it takes so very little for a kunoichi to feel worthless."

"My dear," said a man who had come to Yuugao's left side without making himself known. "You have made this village proud."

"Hokage-sama." Yuugao could not find the strength to turn and acknowledge her leader but watched Rin's eyes look at him. "Thank you."

The wolf-faced ANBU spoke for the first time. "Well done, Rin."

Yuugao's eyes went wide at the voice. In her peripheral vision, she saw the shinobi slowly remove his mask. He wore his standard blue-black cloth over his chin, mouth, and nose, but no hitai-ate. He brought up his free hand to touch a finger to the cheekbone beneath his right eye – marred with a vertical scar, blood-red, black dotting the iris. "And thank you for what you've done for me."

Rin only went on to turn her smile to him. "Kakashi." Her eyes drooped. "You…you were right." She coughed, blood spattering the soil and leaves on the forest floor. Hatake Kakashi moved closer so his former teammate could whisper something more to him.

Yuugao stood rooted but heard Kakashi respond: "I know."

"Yuugao." At her friend's call, she moved forward and placed a hand on her immobile shoulder. "Do not avenge me," Rin murmured. "And don't live in hatred, Yuugao."

"Rin!" The cry was pained and forced, as though an ill-meaning hand had wrenched it from her heart through her throat. She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to bear the sight of that contented, bleeding smile.

"We can prove our worth. We must." The kind voice softened, fading. "You must, Yuugao. For us both."

Yuugao opened her eyes in time to see Rin's close, like a shade pulled to block the light. The medic-kunoichi exhaled, then collapsed forward into the younger girl's arms. Yuugao gasped at the unanticipated weight, Rin's warm blood soaking into her clothes. She half-turned, aiming traitorously moist eyes at Kakashi's too-calm ones. Her secret opponent stared black, black and red and shadow and flame, and both hurt Yuugao, hurt her so deeply.

A waterfall of blood rushed in her eyes, and she could not hear the Third's placidly-given instructions, but she saw, though he attempted to hide it, that Kakashi's pain was as intense as hers. He reached for Rin, and for a moment Yuugao's arms tightened on her friend. He only waited patiently, until her trembling muscles gave out, and he lifted the lifeless woman from Yuugao's desperate embrace. She stumbled backward and, unwilling to hold herself up, would have fallen if Hayate had not caught her.

She did not know when he had come and didn't take time to wonder about it. She simply watched while Kakashi steadied the lithe, beautiful body in his hold before starting for the village, Rin's hand hanging limply over his right shoulder, paler than his hair.

And the forest seemed to burst into color for Yuugao. Leaves were greener, bark more intricate, her own hair more brilliant a shade – it was as though devastation had enriched the world around the Uzuki girl at a terrible price.

Hayate carried her, murmuring quietly as he jumped through the tree branches, interrupted by his illness. "I was told ten minutes ago, I tried to – tried to reach you, but it was so – far." His coughing was worse, telling her he had used the Dance of the Crescent Moon, but she didn't care. One of Yuugao's hands tightened on his forearm. "If there's anything – anything you need me to do, Yuugao…"

She could only thing that it was with this person she had spent so much time – this person who was not Rin, who she had left Rin to train with, who had not just died, moments ago, with a smile. Rin had been in the back of her mind prior to the ANBU trials, and now she was gone, gone like her parents, her aunt, her trust, and her innocence.

She struggled in Hayate's arms until the combination of her persistence and his cough freed her, and she fell to a lower branch to run ahead of him. He called her name the way her heart had called for Rin, but she did not look back at him. It would be too hard.

If everything was to be lost, she mused in misery, it seemed the only question was: when?

Her availability for missions was put on hiatus, and it tore her apart. She wanted work, she wanted blood to spill and goals to achieve. Since she would have none of that, Yuugao did not step out of her house for five days. She received a missive from ANBU, but it was left unopened and ignored on her kitchen table.

Mostly, she trained, trained even more than she ever had for her test. Eating came only when she feared she would not be able to continue without it. Yuugao did not want to die, but she wanted to feel different, not human, not a ninja, and definitely not a woman. She threw blades and blunt objects without form, letting her hand or arms bleed when she neglected to handle a tool the correct way. The cuts would clot and leave her stinging all day, and Yuugao welcomed that discomfort. The little sleep she had was filled with nightmares of brown eyes and millions of holes through a body too young for such damage.

When the blood was so caked she could no longer move her fingers properly, she lay in a scalding bath until her skin wrinkled from the wet. For a moment she had the depressing wish that she was old, old and past all of her pain.

Yuugao was preparing for a fitful night's sleep when her front door rattled from someone's furious pounding. Laying down her brush, she made no hurry in answering despite the obvious urgency of the knocking.

When she opened the door, she was met by three tall men standing against the black night. Two of them she knew – there was no mistaken those dark-rimmed eyes, or that mask – and the other was vaguely familiar, a horizontal scar across his nose.

"Yuugao," Hayate greeted her with a weak smile. "Will you let us in?"

She did by passively walking away while leaving the door open, though the manners she was raised with had her going to the stove to boil water for tea.

"No one has seen you for days," commented Kakashi in a voice that was at once cheerful and solemn, as though his emotions, too, were confused. "Though you seem in good hygiene," he added, looking at her wet hair.

She did not respond, but her hands moved deftly about gathering a teapot and cups.

"You also made Jounin and ANBU," added the unnamed man.

At that, her hands stilled, and she slowly turned around. "I did?" It was the first thing she had spoken aloud since her self-confinement, and her voice came out hoarse and broken. Her deep eyes landed on Kakashi, the questioning not obvious, but there.

"It's true," the older shinobi verified. Without hesitation, he lifted the hem of his shirt and showed her a long strip of bandage bound to his left side. "You'll have left me quite a scar."

Her gaze swung to the sealed, ANBU-marked envelope, untouched and unseen since its arrival. There was no need to open it now, she realized, now that she knew.

"We both made it, Yuugao," Hayate said even as he lifted a hand to stifle his cough. "I feel the need to thank you." He made a quick bow, and she felt embarrassed, though of course it did not show. "We're both assigned to Kakashi-sempai's squad."

The briefly-parted gloom settled over her again. Lowering herself into a chair, Yuugao leaned forward on her elbows at the table, her pale hands covering her face. "It wasn't worth it," she told them all, guilt overpowering her as a result of the elation she had momentarily experienced. She did not sound grief-stricken, only weary, but all three men knew of her true feelings.

Kakashi's one visible eye softened, unseen by her. "Of course not, Yuugao. Nothing was worth Rin's death."

The room went fearfully still. No one had as yet said the name with the word. Rin's death, Yuugao considered, and thought she would have fallen apart like so much shattered glass in that very moment if the shinobi she did not know the name of had not spoken first.

"But Rin-san would have been quite pleased for you, Yuugao-san." When she looked up at him, he gave her a wide smile, his brunette ponytail bobbing as he nodded. "I'm sure of it."

"This is Umino Iruka." Hayate gestured to him belatedly while Iruka bowed. "He's a Chuunin."

Yuugao evaluated Iruka as thoroughly and neutral-mindedly as she did everything else; though he was her age, she could see that he was the type of shinobi to be contented with the average accomplishments for himself. She recalled seeing him in the Academy in their younger days, a bit of a crybaby but otherwise good-natured and earnest. He would stay a Chuunin, she was sure, and probably take to teach like the rest of the well-adjusted, satisfied ninja in Konoha.

He was her very opposite, perhaps, but she decided right away that he was someone worth knowing.

"Good evening, Iruka-kun." Iruka's smile grew all the wider with her quiet greeting.

"Yuugao." All eyes turned to Kakashi, who spoke with gentleness but also bluntness. "ANBU is an organization dominated by shinobi. In total, there are currently only eight kunoichi in a group consisted of about one ninety." Moving into the house from the doorway he had until now been loitering in, Kakashi approached her with an even gait. "You will be constantly doubted, repeatedly tested, and possibly harassed – all because you are a woman who believes herself as skillful as a man."

The one eye he used to look at her (and Yuugao inhaled slowly because she remembered his other) was piercing, seeking, asking.

"Will you be able to bear it?"

Yuugao met him steadily, gaze for gaze, until Kakashi inclined his head in silent acknowledgement of her unspoken resolve. For the benefit of the other two shinobi in her home, she leaned back in her chair, squared her shoulders, and looked Hayate in the face. She wanted him to see her certainty.

"Yes, Kakashi-sempai."

To Be Continued