Title: Duplicity

Rating: T

Summary: Rocks fall, and her world falls apart. It all goes wrong, and Rin is faced with a decision that will shape the rest of her life.

They left at dawn. Or would have, if Obito hadn't been late.

She had given Kakashi a congratulations gift for joining the ranks of Konoha's jounin- at twelve, he was the youngest ever to do so. It was a special medical bag that, if everything went according to plan, the boy would never get the chance to use. After all, shinobi die on missions. It wouldn't be surprising if Kakashi Hatake was killed by enemy nin, or bled out from a stray kunai in the heat of battle.

This was her chance, and she intended to make the most of it. She would return to her village in glory, and she would never again have to think about the crybaby Uchiha who had, completely accidentally, slipped past her protective veneer and into her heart.

In his typical fashion, Obito had completely forgotten about his teammate's ascension to jounin. That had lead to an argument between the two, which had delayed their departure far more than Obito being tardy by ten minutes.

She felt a tinge of nostalgia to realize that she would never again listen to the bickering of her two teammates, nor Sensei's hapless attempts of placating the two. After all, by the end of this mission, Kakashi will be dead, and she will be halfway to Kiri.

Under Kakashi's command, the squad moved stealthily across the enemy landscape.

The enemy nin finally made an appearance with a shower of lethal stakes, and Rin dove into combat, taking care to limit her arsenal into that of a below average Konoha chuunin. She dodged a swipe of kunai and saw, in the distance, one of the Iwa nin. He gave her a malicious look, but her attention was focused on the message his fingers were communicating through taps on his left leg.

The actual content was pure gibberish, but she understood the reasoning. That specific kind of communication was originally developed in Kiri and was still seldom used outside of their ranks. The fact that an Iwa nin was using it to send her- a Konoha nin- told her one thing, and one thing only.

Kirigakure and Iwagakure must have formed a temporary alliance, and the former had instructed the latter to assist them in retrieving their spy. Rin nodded back almost imperceptibility and slowed her movements to make it look like she was suffering from fatigue. Hopefully, the Iwa shinobi would be intelligent enough to see the opening she was giving them.

Moments later, Rin stood tensely, a kunai held to her throat. The sharp blade had made a small cut in the skin of her neck, which was now oozing blood. She was losing her touch- she hadn't noticed the nin hidden behind her until it had been too late. Konoha was turning her soft.

A low voice whispered in her ear, "Pretend to be unconscious, or you'll have to do more than pretend." She collapsed immediately- thankfully, her captor caught her body instead of letting her slam into the hard dirt. She gritted her teeth- this was an incredibly undignified, vulnerable position to be in.

Rin stayed unmoving as her (old) teammates- or Obito, rather- exchanged words with the Iwa nin. Obito wasn't going to let her go, she realized. That wasn't the kind of person he was; it was against the boy's nature to give up a teammate without a fight.

This was good. If her (old) team came after her, they would be lured into an ambush and prevented from completing the mission- and during the confusion, Rin would be safe to eliminate her target. Kakashi wouldn't even know who did it. For some reason, the fact made her feel slightly better about her mission.

But deep down, she had to fight the urge to shout at Obito, to warn him not to come after her- because if he did, he would die. Or, if he survived, he would learn the truth behind the kindly, sympathetic Rin Nohara he thought he loved- and that would break him. And, for some reason that she couldn't comprehend, she couldn't allow for that to happen.

As her teammates vanished, along with her surroundings, with a pop, Rin looked up and into Obito's eyes. They were defiant and stubborn, and she knew that he would not continue on his mission so easily.

"Heh. So you're Kiri's little spy, huh? They weren't kidding when they said that you wouldn't look the part."

Rin stayed stoic under the Iwa nin's appreciating eyes. "I require more time. I have not yet completed my assignment."

The man grinned grotesquely, rotten teeth showing under purple gums. "You are a serious little girl, aren't you? But no, sorry- your higher-ups want you back, now. Looks like you took a bit too long, missie. Me thinks your kage is getting second thoughts about your loyalty."

Her expression tightened. Impossible. She had the complete trust of her village, and she had kept up with her reports, to and from her leader. "Tell them I will return once I have eliminated my target," she bit out. "And once I have done so, I will prove that my loyalty still resides with the Mizukage-sama."

"No can do," he shrugged nonchalantly. "We can't let you leave."

There was something wrong about this situation, Rin decided. After all, she had already sent confirmation to her village head of plans- he had no reason to doubt her loyalty. This was suspicious. And in situations like this, it was better to be safe than to be sorry.

"Really," she said, and formed her hands into seals. "Say I don't believe you."

The Iwa nin stared at her incredulously- and let out a bark of laughter. "Ha! Guess you're smarter than you look. But I'm afraid I can't let you leave this place- at least not alive."

Rin peered at him with calculating eyes. "What happened to Iwa's alliance with Kiri? Or, was that a lie as well?"

"Heh. That wasn't a lie. But I doubt your village will care about a single deep cover spy killed in action. I bet you know more secrets than we do- am I right?"

She didn't reply. So... the enemy shinobi were after her information, which were so important to them that they would turn against their ally in order to get it. That left only one thing for her to do- she could not afford to have her knowledge fall into the hands of traitors.

It was not until the handle of a kunai thudded into the back of her head that Rin realized just where exactly the other Iwa nin had gone.

Crap-!

Through her dimming vision, she saw the man grin victoriously, his hand snapping into a flurry of seals that she remembered as a very strong genjutsu. Shit- it seemed that they had better ways to interrogate her than through torture.

The last thing she heard before everything turned dark was a taunt.

"Sweet dreams."

Rin woke up to the sight of a worried looking Obito peering at her frantically. Kakashi hovered behind him, looking awkward, one of his eyes swollen shut.

She was restrained, her hands tied up behind her back. The genjutsu... it must not have worked, she decided. She did not remember divulging any information to the enemy nin while under the technique, and the fact that she was still alive proved it.

They had came back for her- Obito and Kakashi had both set aside their mission, had considered her survival to be more important than the achievement.

"We came to save you, Rin!" The Uchiha added, somewhat needlessly. "It's alright now!"

She had considered, maybe even expected Obito to come after her- but not Kakashi. After all, he had always viewed her as some kind of burden he had to deal with, a necessary waste of time. But even he, the rule-abiding Kakashi Hatake, had came to save her from the Iwa nin.

Nobody had ever done anything remotely close to this for her. Her comrades in Kirigakure... could hardly be called that. It was survival of the fittest, and that was that. She wouldn't be surprised to learn if any of the people she knew from back then had sold her out for survival, for money, for glory.

But her team- her team- had, and Rin didn't know how to react. Obito and Kakashi still stared at her, probably worried about possible brain damage she might have suffered from the genjutsu.

She smiled- a genuine one, possibly the first one in her life. She was with her boys and they were all alive, and everything was fine. It didn't matter that her village still expected her to kill Kakashi, it didn't matter that she was a deep cover spy from an enemy village. She wouldn't- couldn't- complete her mission, and she couldn't care less about the consequences.

For a moment, the world seemed perfect. And it had all came tumbling down, just a few moments after.

It had ended in a shower of rocks. As a last ditch attempt to stop the squad from accomplishing their mission, the Iwa nin had used a technique to cause a cave in of the cave they were all inside.

Then Kakashi had been hit by a large rock, right in his blind spot, and was sent sprawling to the ground. Rin screamed out his name instinctively, and whirled around to see her teammate's defenseless form- underneath the growing shadow of a huge boulder, one large enough to crush bones with effortless ease.

There was a split second when Rin had thought about diving for him, about pushing Kakashi away from the incoming rock- but she hesitated, and that cost her everything.

She saw, with numb horror, as Obito- the stupid, stupid idiot- leaped forward, into the path of the boulder. He looked at her resolutely, and her heart fell.

Obito, get out of there, you- She wanted to yell, to cry, anything to stop Obito from sacrificing himself- but she knew that nothing she could say would change his mind. With watering eyes, Rin saw him push Kakashi out of the way, giving her one last smile before the boulder slammed down with a sickening crack and her vision was obscured with dust and dirt.

"...Are you okay? Rin? Kakashi?"

She got up from the cold hard ground, limbs trembling uncharacteristically. She had been in worse situations than this- but it was different this time, in a way she could not explain.

Obito's voice came from under a massive rock to her left, and she almost screamed when she caught a glimpse of the left side of his body poking out from underneath. It was obvious that there was no going back- nobody could survive losing the right half of their body, even someone with the sheer determination and will of Obito Uchiha. That could only get a person so far, after all.

She could only stare blankly as Obito babbled, joked, and made Kakashi promise to take care of her. There were tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, and they shouldn't be there- it wasn't as if she hadn't lost teammates in the past, hadn't seen fellow shinobi die in gruesome, horrific ways. Hell, this wasn't even one of the worse deaths she had seen.

But it was Obito- the boy she loved- underneath that rock, gasping out his last breaths, and she just couldn't hold in her tears.

Then he had smiled- smiled, with several tons of rock obscuring the other half of his face- and told them, almost conversationally, that he had a present for Kakashi- one that wouldn't be useless baggage.

His Sharingan.

Rin wanted to refuse, wanted to shout at Obito for being a complete idiot. Hadn't he suffered enough? And now, he wanted her to give his eye- his only eye- to Kakashi. He knew it would hurt- Rin had no anesthetics, no proper tools, nothing to make the surgery other than gouging Obito's eye out and popping it into Kakashi's empty eye socket.

But he had looked at her pleadingly, and she couldn't say no.

They left Obito there, under the rocks- there was nothing they could do to get him out. Even trying could send what remained of the cave toppling onto their heads.

Rin was quiet. When she and Kakashi encountered the Iwa nin outside, she couldn't bring herself to hold back. She sliced, she stabbed, she burned with a ruthless efficiency that was completely unlike anything Rin Nohara, chuunin medic nin of Konoha, could have, would have done. But if Kakashi noticed this discrepancy, he said nothing.

For a moment, they stood alone. For a moment, Rin pondered. This would be the perfect time to attack- no witnesses other than the dying-dead Obito, and Kakashi weakened from his previous battles. With a single twist of kunai, Kakashi Hatake would be no more, and she would be free to her village in glory.

But she couldn't. It was impossible for her to do so- Kakashi had saved her, Kakashi had put aside his mission to look out for her well-being, but (deep down) she knew the main reason was because Kakashi was all she had of Obito now.

There were reinforcements, and even with Rin going full out, she couldn't hold up for long.

Finally, Kakashi looked at her with empty, dead eyes. "Get out of here," he said. "I'll hold them off, and you go look for Sensei."

"You'll die," she replied, with the same lack of emotion. "You won't last long against them."

"So be it. Obito liked you... loved you... and because of that, I will protect you with my life."

And he had ran forward with reckless abandon, and Rin growled. That bastard. Even if he made the pointless sacrifice, there were still more than enough shinobi to come after her and finish her off. And so she dove in, joined in the fighting, ever aware of her quickly depleting chakra reserves.

So they'll die here. Fitting, really. Obito had been the heart of the team- he had been the only thing connecting the two ruthless killers who were his teammates. And everyone dies without their heart, right?

But out of the corner of her sight, she saw a flash of yellow- the Yellow Flash-

Sensei.

He butchered the enemy nin with ease, moving so fast that only a few drops of arterial blood had landed on his clothing. The tide was turning quickly, and even though she could see Kakashi's unconscious- or so she hoped- form slumped on the ground right of her, they were going to win- to live.

She collapsed to the ground just moments later.

Kakashi and Rin sat quietly, both looking at the Memorial Stone.

There had been no body, and so Obito Uchiha would never be buried in the Konoha Cemetery. All that was left of the eager, kind boy who helped the elderly and played with the Uchiha kids was a few kanji enscribed in the black stone of the village's Memorial Stone.

"I think he would have liked this," Rin notes, "He always wanted to be a hero."

Kakashi said nothing, and she knew he was blaming himself for Obito's death. She knew he was wrong.

It had been her fault. She had foolishly trusted the Iwa nin, had put herself at their mercy. It was because of her hesitation that Obito had had to push Kakashi out of the way. It was because Rin Nohara was a Kirigakure spy that she had been kidnapped by the Iwa nin, and thus had needed to be rescued.

It was because of her that Obito was dead.

Rin never contacted her home village again. She knew that they now considered her a traitor, that they will soon send hunter-nin after her to make sure none of her secrets got out, that she could never go back. It meant nothing to her.

She avoided her pursuers for the first few months, and started to kill them after they came after her non-stop. Kakashi and Sensei- who had become the Yondaime and married his girlfriend- seemed slightly suspicious about how any innocuous mission she was sent on turned into a bloodbath. She didn't make any excuses.

If they figured out her secret, so be it. They will execute her as a traitor to Konohagakure. That was fine. The punishment fit the crime, didn't it? Her mistakes had cost Obito his life. Shouldn't hers be taken as recompense?

But she knew deep long that Obito was three times the person she was. He was a real boy- every emotion of his was genuine, every action done for his own sake, with no ulterior motives. He was loved by the Uchiha children- and especially his cousin, Itachi- and the elderly populace of Konoha. He was a good person, not like her.

Rin Nohara had no one. Rin Nohara was no one.

She gritted her teeth, and bid farewell to the boy she loved- and still did love.

Goodbye, Obito.