Chapter Two

...

There weren't exactly any books or any manuals to go off of that said how one should live their new life; what to do with the knowledge you had, how to act around others. Rin had realized this in the beginning. It was like throwing a brand new actor on the stage and expecting them to take to a part instantly without a single clue as to what the story was about. Rin needed to sort things out, for instance: where exactly was she?

Where did she live?

While she couldn't find that out for the longest time, she did still think about it. Heck, she took note of the kind of house—or apartment should she say—that she currently lived in. It was from her crib that she could first see the monotonous wood walls that matched right along with the floors in her new home. And each day the early morning sun would peek into her little window, revealing a backdrop outside of buildings vastly ranging in colors.

Peaceful, she thought at first.

When she found herself at last up and walking again (much to the shock of her mother), she toddled around the apartment itself. It was small and about the same plain color as her room. Four rooms in total, with one room conjoined as both the kitchen and the living room. The one thing that actually made the dull wood pop was the abundant and overwhelming amount of green plants inhabiting pots that sat on the floors and tables and which seemed to crawl up the walls. Flowers of different colors too made their presence known among the sharp green, carrying different smells, some of which were sweet and others bitter.

And it happened to be the thing Rin came to love most about it.

'I must have loved plants at some point' she couldn't help but think. And it made sense; she did have lingering images of flourishing roses and vibrant daffodils in her head. Seeing her interest in the plants, her mother had even told her that they were medicinal plants. That was Rin's first hint of her mother's own career, that of a nurse at a local hospital she assumed. It would explain the subtle scent of disinfectants lingering on her clothing from when she came home each day.

Rin took note of her mother as well.

A tall lady (coming from the standpoint of a toddler) with the same brown eyes and hair as her, she was gentle and caring towards Rin. It didn't matter how tired she returned from work, but she always smiled for her. Day in and day out, she wore nearly the same outfit too: a simple kimono composed of a soft blue.

When Rin thought about it, she did find a lot of interest in her new surroundings. Everything, from the way her mother was dressed to the tatami matted floor, spoke volumes of the new culture she was in. Eastern culture her mind says. And the language she was learning too pointed more specifically to Japanese. But then it was something else altogether that made her rethink where she was.

If she was in Japan, then where was all the technology she expected to find?

That's right, this new world she was living in, it didn't have some of the things she was used to. Sure there was simple electricity; she watched her mother switch the lights on and off and even observed her using an electric stove. The main things that seemed to be missing where phones, televisions. They weren't anywhere in sight.

In the beginning Rin simply assumed that they weren't rich enough to afford such luxuries, but her tune changed when she first walked outside and saw the village.

A village of all things.

She couldn't believe her eyes either when she first saw it. Compared to how things she knew were supposed to be, this was different. Out on the streets, there were no cars in sight; people just walked from place to place, intermingling with each other in the bustling streets. Stores had open fronts to them where people would walk inside; vendors sat around the corners and peddled their wares.

It was then that Rin realized she must have ended up in a different time entirely.

Oh, how interesting things were going to be.

Something that confused her however was the idea that if she was in fact in a completely different time, why were women walking around in the streets unaccompanied by a man? She must have missed something somewhere unless she was in a new dimension altogether.

And when that thought entered her mind, she laughed at it.

But she didn't know just how right she was.

...

There comes a time in everybody's life where they have a sudden epiphany, a revelation that all of a sudden shines a new life on their existence. For Rin, that happened at the tender age of four. She should have seen the signs that something was wrong with the universe, but she didn't. Rin didn't mind the fact that the whole village seemed to sit in the middle of a forest. She even brushed off the fact that she had seen a crazy (or not so crazy) man leaping across the rooftops on one outing.

And when her mother first said the word shinobi?

She brushed that aside too.

But there Rin was now, standing in silence and looking up with her eyes wide in shock. Her mother tugged at her hand, slightly worried at her sudden silence. Glancing up, the woman finally saw what Rin's own eyes had finally settled on.

The undeniable proof.

"Okaa-san?" She asked breaking her silence. Raising a small finger, she pointed. "What's that?"

She was afraid to hear the answer. It was one she already knew.

"That's the Hokage Monument, Rin-chan." She said kneeling over and tousling the girl's brown hair. "I can tell you a bit more of it later, but first we need to finish grocery shopping, okay?"

Rin nodded in silence, the smile dropping from her face and replaced by a pensive look.

The Hokage Monument.

It was missing a face, but it was the exact same. Why did she even ask that question in the first place? Was she expecting the answer to be Mount Rushmore? It was more familiar than Rin was comfortable with; how could she forget something like that?

The place she was in? She had yet to hear the name clearly; something about leaves. In the back of her mind though, she knew what it was called.

Konohagakure.

And there were shinobi—ninjas. People who could and most certainly did travel along the rooftops.

Rin mind was already racing with one single thought: what exactly did she remember about that one show…Naruto?

"Come on, you know this…"

She closed her eyes for a brief second. Black and white pictures fluttered by, depicting unnamed faces and thrilling fights; that was about all she had. And was her face among them? Not at all, but she did know that her name was familiar and not just because it was the one she was given.

What did this mean for her?

Rin wasn't too sure. All this started to mean to her was that not all of the things she could remember were useless. She might very well know things that people there didn't even know themselves. The fact that there was one less face on the Hokage Monument already spoke a lot about what had yet to happen.

So this was her new reality: One in which people possessed unnatural abilities that defied any laws imaginable.

But the ending at least was happy…right?

...

"Ne Shizune-chan, what do you know about ninjas?"

Rin sat on the floor with her back against a small cream colored couch.

Where was she now? She was in the comforting setting she knew well: it was the break room at Konoha's hospital. The small room was a frequent place that Rin's mother normally brought her when she worked (it was that or she was left at the apartment under the watch of a neighbor). Rin wasn't normally left alone though. Even now across from her sat another girl a little older than she was. That girl was in that room just about as much Rin was. Short dark hair and dark eyes to match, Rin never fully realized how she faintly recognized the girl and her appearance; her name struck a chord with Rin too.

It was Shizune.

"Kinda something," She said softly. "Oji-san is one."

Looking back on it, the first time Rin had met her she always had a niggling feeling in the back of her mind that the girl was awfully familiar. After seeing the Hokage Monument she finally knew why. Shizune wasn't necessarily the main character, but she was a part of the story all the same; something to do with a blonde lady.

It was through her uncle that the two met. The man's name was Dan Kato. He was a young man who looked a bit younger than Rin's mother and had silvery blue hair and green eyes. Dan was working alongside Rin's mother too on some level; their paths crossed a lot. Appearance wise, Rin would never have guessed that Shizune and Dan were even related had it not been for the girl calling him 'Oji-san'.

At present, Shizune was about the extent of interaction that Rin had with other people aside from her mother or her neighbor. She was fawned over, but Rin never really made much of an attempt to speak with them, especially with how weak her grasp of the Japanese language still was. Her cheeks would flush red in embarrassment each time she couldn't say a word correctly. And Shizune was at about the same level she was with speaking, something that comforted Rin into opening up her own mouth. They were peers; she wouldn't be laughed like with the older crowd.

Smiling the other girl continued speaking.

With Rin's eyes being opened about exactly the world she was in, she snapped to attention with every word spoken by her mother, her neighbor—anyone she could listen to for that matter, even Shizune. She was trying to piece together what was happening in the chaotic world of shinobi, what was going on. So far, and much to her dismay, everything she heard was evidence pointing at war. It even matched up with what she had seen.

Rin's mother was always working late at the hospital, always being called in on the side too and sometimes in the middle of the night. Her neighbor, Haru, who was usually called in to watch her on those occasions even went along with it, not really questioning it and instead asking about the status of things at the hospital.

Walking in and through the hospital too one could see carnage hinting at war. Sure there were some beds occupied by civilians, but for the most part the people who took up the cots were heavily bandaged and grievously injured. Rin had come across more than a few weeping people too and all in all, her new reality was shaping up to be kind of scary.

"Rin-chan? Are you still there?" Shizune said waving a hand in the girl's face.

Breaking out of her thoughts, Rin nodded back at her. Whenever she asked her questions, Shizune did tend to wander off with what she was talking about, much like any young child would. Though Rin didn't want to admit it, she sometimes found her mind wandering when that happened. But just because she wasn't listening didn't mean she didn't hear her.

"You were talking about Tsunade-sama, right?" Rin said back.

"She's so cool! She helps lots of people too and knows medical ninjutsu." The girl said with a proud grin. "Tsunade-sama said she'd teach me too!"

Rin's expression dropped slightly with curiosity shining in her eyes.

"Teach you how to use Chakra?" She added in question to the excited girl. That was something she hadn't put much thought into even with her recent discovery. Rin's mind had been completely overwhelmed by her own personal discovery. She even found herself admitting that sometimes she envied Shizune's way of thinking. It was free, not held down with the knowledge that weighed heavy on Rin's mind. What would things have been like for her if she didn't know what she did?

"Mmhmh! I'm gonna be a med-nin too, just like Tsunade-sama. I'll be helping everybody that way!"

Perhaps she would be happier…Then again, Rin was also glad for the things she knew. It was a different kind of freedom in itself.

"What about you, Rin-chan? Do you want to be one too?"

"A ninja?" Rin said blankly in response. "I've never thought of it before…" What Rin said was the truth; she had never even remotely considered dealing with chakra at all. That was the kind of logic her mind followed. It still told her that chakra wasn't real, that it was merely a part of a story. Shizune's question caused her to pause for a moment. In that world, she would be capable of wielding chakra just the same as everybody else there.

A superhuman power right at her fingertips.

The question was: did she want to go down that path?

From what Rin had seen, death in this world was everywhere, and walking down the path of a ninja was a surefire way for her to get killed. And then there was that single thought that who she was—Rin Nohara—had died before. She could vaguely remember that that Rin had been Kakashi Hatake's teammate and with what little she could remember of her, she had little doubt that something had happened.

How: she didn't know.

When: not a single clue.

It was just a single small feeling in the back of her mind that that was what happened.

"It would be so much fun! Just think of it, we could work together!" Shizune chirped.

Rin looked back at the girl, a smile forming on her face. She had already died before, so what difference did it really make? She was granted a second chance and even presented with the ability to use chakra—an opportunity that she would be a fool to miss out on. Sure, the outlook in the direction she was looking seemed bleak, but as it was said, 'no use crying over spilled milk. Better yet, maybe she could prevent that glass from tipping over in the first place.

"Know what? You're right." Rin finally answered. "It'll be a lot of fun!"

And hard work, but for the moment Rin was willing to overlook that.

She had a whole other life ahead of her, one that was hers to live as she saw fit. The circumstances may have been a little different from her last life, but she wasn't about to sit out on the opportunity of a lifetime all because of a few sour thoughts. No, she would train. Train hard and hopefully learn all that she could. Whatever was to come, she would face it head on and, who knows, maybe she would eventually rub elbows with the main characters.

And with any luck, things would go smoothly.