Author's Note: The dam cracks. Minato's POV.
Chapter Three
Underneath
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The first thing he checks when the dust finally clears and the last of the enemy shinobi stops twitching, is if Kakashi is still breathing. (He is.) The second thing he confirms is that the boy seems otherwise mostly intact, with the exception of a few nasty-looking flash wounds and the fact that he is knocked out cold. (Thank God it's only that.) The third and final thing he deals with is the sharp end of the kunai pressed against the soft of his throat from behind by the hands of one of his own students. (Because it is her, Minato is sure. The chakra feels too familiar, though the killing intent, which is rolling off her in thick waves, certainly isn't.)
"Don't touch him," she hisses; and if the sheer number of dead bodies strewn around them wasn't enough to clue him in, then the raw edge in her voice would have told him that something very serious must have happened.
"It's me," he says. "Rin, drop the kunai."
She hesitates, but finally she lowers her arm, though he notes that she doesn't let go of her weapon.
(Good girl.)
"Sensei," she murmurs hoarsely, and he imagines some of the tension draining from her shoulders. "You're here."
She bites her lower lip, but even that doesn't stop it from quivering – and exactly four heartbeats later, the appearance of outer calm shatters in a way that immediately sets off alarm bells in his head. They are still on enemy territory, Kakashi is in an unconscious heap on the ground and Rin is exhausted and bleeding and staring at him with too big, too glassy eyes. But at least she is awake, at least her breathing is shallow but steady, and Minato must know.
"What happened?" he asks as gently as he can, even patting her on the shoulder in a manner he hopes is encouraging. "What happened here, Rin?"
There is a brief flicker of something frantic crossing her face as she snaps to attention. "Sensei," she breathes. "Minato-sensei, he… We…"
She trails off, but bravely begins anew. "It just… It just…"
Minato frowns.
"I wanted to so much," she suddenly blurts out. "But I couldn't! And then… And then…"
(He's losing her.)
"Sensei, he… He…"
"Rin?"
(He must hurry. The focus in her eyes is almost completely gone.)
"Rin. Kakashi is fine. He probably just overdid it, see? He's fine."
But she stares at him without showing any signs of understanding, and Minato is just starting to think that maybe he overestimated her devotion to that particular teammate when Rin shakes her head violently. "No. Not Kakashi. It was Obito, sensei. It was Obito who asked me to do it!"
Obito. And only then does Minato realize that their Uchiha is nowhere to be seen. "Where is he?"
She doesn't answer.
"Rin, look at me." He forces a smile over lips. It doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Where is Obito?"
"…Obito." She all but chokes out his name. "He… Obito is…"
"Tell me where Obito is." Minato swallows hard and hopes that she won't notice. "Rin, tell me."
(Please. They were his first students.)
Slowly, she points to the landslide below, and he suddenly feels a lot older than his twenty-four years.
"Obito is hiding down there?" he asks quietly, because he could still be wrong.
But she shakes her head again and whispers only one word:
"Underneath."
Minato doesn't ask again.