Author's Note: It's good to be back so quickly (and with our longest chapter yet)! I'm super excited to get this arc finished up - I'm thinking in one or two more chapters after this one.

I've had a few reviews and direct messages about Obito not arriving, and all I will say is that it will be addressed in time. I'll leave it open to you. Maybe he's really dead, maybe something else happened to him with Madara, maybe none of those things. That's what's great about fanfiction, the story doesn't have to be the same. Have you noticed that Rin isn't a shishkebab?

Human

Rin's Capture Arc

Chapter 5

Kushina

What they found when they arrived was, to say the very least, not what Kushina had expected. Pakkun had smelled it long before they arrived on the scene, and had informed them that he could smell Rin and Kakashi - and blood, lots and lots of blood. Their course was corrected accordingly, and Kushina noted that this location was hours closer than Pakkun had predicted.

The poor dog nearly collapsed when they arrived. "I can't pick them out. Too much blood in the air," Pakkun said. Instead, he clambered up onto Kushina's shoulder and sat as a sentinel.

"What the hell happened here?" Genma asked when they touched down.

"I… I don't know," Kushina said. The ground was covered in mud, trees had been upended or blown to pieces, and there were bodies strewn everywhere. The sight was one of the most disturbing she'd seen in a long time. "Spread out and look for them!"

"Must have been one hell of a battle," Raido said offhandedly.

"Do you think they're okay?" Iwashi asked.

"I don't know," Raido said. "It doesn't look like anyone survive. Let's hope the damage was done by Rin and Kakashi."

"Just focus on finding them," Genma said. "Battlefields like this aren't known for their good news."

She knelt down and turned over a body that was face down in the mud. She grimaced when she saw the still oozing hole in his neck. Someone had torn out his throat. Her eyes flicked to his forehead. Mist Village. She pushed the body back down and moved onto the next one.

A man with a hole straight through his chest. It was big enough to be someone's fist. The lack of cauterization led Kushina to believe that it was not Kakashi's Chidori that did the damage. Kushina gagged and bit back bile.

The gore and the smell were beginning to get to her. She'd fought in battles before, but she'd never personally scavenged one hours after it had taken place. It was equal parts disgusting and disturbing.

Whatever had happened in this part of the forest had been unmistakably, unforgivably violent.

"I found one of them!" Iwashi called. "It's the girl, Rin."

Kushina was across the battlefield in an instant, eyes looking over the pushed Iwashi aside and knelt beside the girl. She was covered in blood from head to toe, and one of her arms was covered in something both muddy and sticky. Rin had a heartbeat, however. And she was breathing. "It looks like she's not in any immediate danger," Kushina said.

Carefully as possible, she sat Rin against the tree she was closest to. Kushina checked Rin from head to toe, cursing the fact that she had no medical training whatsoever. Her clothes were torn and dirty as sin, but she was not openly bleeding anywhere. Unless she had severe damage internally, Kushina felt confident that Rin was going to be okay.

She started to turn away when she felt something strange in Rin's chakra. Kushina Uzumaki possessed the rare gifts that her clan's blood passed on genetically. One of these things was a sensory ability that let Kushina feel and see chakra much more effectively than an ninja who had undergone intense training to achieve the same result.

Kushina paused, and put her hand on Rin's head. She closed her eyes and reached out with her chakra, feeling and listening. Rin's chakra was usually bright and hot, not unlike fire. But it was colder now, more subdued, and there was something lying just beneath the surface of it, something that was foreign and not entirely unfamiliar all at once.

Whatever it was, it was enormous. Kushina couldn't help but note that it was dangerous. Likely, she reasoned, it was some kind of seal. Seals could, after all, contain incredible amounts of chakra. And much like her long dead clan, she was an expert in the mostly forgotten art of sealing.

"This doesn't look good," Kushina said, opening her eyes and scanning Rin for any obvious ink markings.

"What is it?" Iwashi asked.

"Something is amiss with Rin's chakra, but I'm not sure what it is," Kushina explained. "I'd like to take a look at her, but this is a terrible place to do it."

"We can always look at her back in the village," Iwashi said. "The hospital has medics to do that."

"I don't think it's medical," explained Kushina, taking a kunai from the holster on her thigh, and slicing open Rin's shirt. "I think there's a seal on her somewhere. The feel of it is all kinds of weird, but it's like I've seen this kind of thing before."

"Can I help?" Iwashi asked.

"Either roll up her sleeves or tear them off. Tell me if you see any chakra paper or ink on her," Kushina ordered. "It's in our best interest to do this quickly."

"Right," Iwashi said.

They worked in silence, Iwashi checking her arms, while Kushina looked at Rin's torso and back.

"I don't see anything," Iwashi said when he was finished.

"Neither do I," Kushina said with a frown. "Something about this is all wrong. I just wish I knew what." She popped her neck and got to her feet. "We shouldn't stay here too much longer."

"Kakashi!" Genma said from behind her.

Kushina let out a breath she hadn't been aware she'd been holding. Kakashi was here, too. That was good news. Hopefully he was okay after this battle. She looked to see Genma and Raido about ten meters away at another tree, then she turned to Iwashi. "Iwashi, get yourself ready to carry Rin. We'll take shifts, but you're up first. Whatever you need to do to secure her. We aren't staying here any longer than is strictly necessary."

"Yes, captain," Iwashi said. He reached for his pouch and pulled out a length of cord, and began creating loops for him to slip Rin's arms and legs through.

"Oh no," Genma said when he crouched down next to Kakashi.

"Is he…?" Raido asked, from Kakashi's other side.

Kushina whirled back and saw Genma and Raido crouched beside a body. Or what was left of one, at least. She was at their side as fast as her legs could take her. When she saw Kakashi, she inhaled sharply, and it was only her years of ninja training that stopped her from crying, or reacting openly.

Kakashi's clothes were unrecognizable, leaving large patches of skin exposed. His skin was covered in cuts and bruises and even a nasty burn on his right leg. His mask was in shambles, and she saw his face for the first time. He looked so peaceful… so young.

Pakkun let out a whine, but didn't move from her shoulder.

Don't be dead, She thought.

"Let's go help Iwashi," Genma said quietly. Kushina barely registered Raido and Genma moving away.

She reached out with trembling fingers to feel for Kakashi's pulse. She felt nothing but the friction of her shaking fingers against the ruined material of his mask. Her blood ran cold and she felt her stomach drop. If his heartbeat was faint, she was unable to feel it.

No, no, no, no, no….

She tried his nose next, ripping what was left of his mask away. If he was breathing, she could not see it.

Kakashi...

Kushina gathered Kakashi up in her arms, cradling him to her chest, willing him to move, to breathe, anything. He was so light, so small and fragile. "You three are to follow as close behind me as you can, bring Rin. I am going to outpace you. Kakashi's not… he's not… he can't be… I have to get him to a doctor as fast as possible."

If anyone ever asked her how she managed to give orders without her voice cracking, she wouldn't have been able to give a coherent answer. Kushina would tell anyone who asked about that moment how all she could feel was dread.

"Go," Raido said. "We will follow with Rin."

And Kushina was off, faster than she could ever remember running before. It wasn't fast enough. Her legs moved and the trees sailed by as she ran, pumping chakra into her movements. It wasn't enough. She needed more. She reached down within herself, feeling for the chakra that she had spent years learning to control, and she pulled on it with more force than she had ever done before.

She fell into her seal, only barely aware of her moving, physical self.

Kushina found herself face to face with the Kyubi, the nine-tailed fox demon, defiantly facing it down from within the seal. It was, to her mind, modeled after an old shrine or castle. But the intricate writing on the gates and doors made it impossible for the fox to leave.

"Why are you here?" The fox asked with a growl.

"I need help saving someone," Kushina said.

"What do I care if that child dies?" The fox asked.

"I don't think you understand," Kushina said. "This isn't a request. I need to get Kakashi to a hospital. And the only way I can think of that will get him there alive, is with your chakra."

"You would take from me without permission?" The nine-tails asked, leering.

"I'd prefer not to, but time isn't on my side here," Kushina said.

"Well I don't feel like helping," The nine-tails said.

"We've come a long way, ya know?" Kushina said. "And I'd like to imagine that we won't hate each other forever. But I'm taking your chakra."

Kushina reached out, and took hold of the fox's chakra with her own. She tugged. Malevolent orange energy flowed from the gates of the shrine, and Kushina was engulfed by it.

When she opened her eyes, they were no longer soft violet, but crimson.

"Hold on Pakkun," Kushina said as the orange chakra flowed from her seal and surrounded them. "We're going to pick up the pace."

She rocketed forward, speed increased threefold, trees turning into green and brown blurs as she leapt through the canopy. Pakkun, she noticed, was clinging to her shoulder for dear life as she rocketed towards Konoha.

Be alive!

In record time, Kushina was through the gates, offering no explanation, and running into the hospital. She skidded to a halt in front of the reception desk, a trail of dust following her into the building. "I need every available doctor, nurse, janitor in the whole building!"

The receptionist looked at her, cloaked in amorphous orange chakra, holding a dying teenager in her arms, with a dog perched on her shoulder. She blinked, then really looked at Kakashi, and was on her feet. A nurse arrived fifteen seconds later with a gurney, but it felt to Kushina like a lifetime. "Hurry!" Kushina yelled. A team of doctors took him down the hall and Kushina moved to follow.

She watched in horror as the doctors began their work, talking rapidly, hands glowing with chakra as they moved him down the hall and to an operating room. A nurse blocked her from entering with ease, and Kushina was forced to watch in horror as the doors to the operating room closed, and Kakashi vanished from her sight.

"Miss, please, let us do our job," The nurse said as she reached for Kushina's arm.

"Just please help him," Kushina said, desperately.

"We are going to do everything we can," The nurse said gently. "Why don't you stop using that horrible chakra? It's scaring patients and medical staff alike."

Kushina, who hadn't even registered she was still cloaked in the chakra, blinked in confusion, looked at her shoulder, and allowed the chakra to dissipate.

"He's in good hands now," The nurse continued. "Why don't you go home and rest, and get yourself some clean clothes? You can come back for an update when you're cleaned up."

"What?" Kushina asked, feeling completely detached. She looked down at herself. Her arms, shirt, and vest were caked with blood and dirt. "Oh, right."

"Do you need someone to walk you home?" The nurse asked.

"No," Kushina said, blankly. "I'll be fine. It's not my blood. I didn't even fight."

They were standing just outside the hospital now. When had the nurse steered her to the door? "We're going to do everything in our power to help that boy," The nurse said.

"I'll be back in an hour," Kushina said. "I'll just get cleaned up and then come back and sit in the waiting area."

The nurse nodded. "Just as long as you don't interfere with his treatment."

Kushina turned and walked away, moving her arms and legs robotically. She was in shock, she realized. The same way she'd been when Minato had come back from that mission to the Kannabi Bridge. The look in his eyes that day broke her heart, and she hated that she'd likely have to see it again when he came home. She wasn't a medic by any stretch, but she hadn't felt a heartbeat. She hadn't heard Kakashi breath. Nothing.

She was a block away from the hospital when she realized that Pakkun wasn't with her anymore. When had he separated from her? Kushina looked around, but she didn't see him anywhere. She hoped that he was coping better than she was. Kushina wasn't entirely sure how summoned animals reacted when their summoners died.

The road split four ways at the next intersection, and Kushina stopped. Her shoulders shook. It wasn't until she saw the road at her feet speckled with dark spots that she realized she was crying.

When had the world gone so wrong? Kids their age shouldn't be soldiers in a war they couldn't hope to understand. She screamed at nothing in particular and stumbled to the nearest bench. She collapsed onto the seat and let her tears fall freely.

She'd pull herself together in a moment.

It took longer than one moment. Maybe closer to five or six. But when Kushina calmed down, she realized two things. First, she had entered the village unapproved and had not reported to the Hokage. Second, Rin was still out there with Genma and his team.

Then, finally, a thought that wasn't horrible floated into her mind. The doctors had taken Kakashi to the O.R., not to a morgue. He had still been alive. Kakashi wasn't dead!

There was a chance, even if it was slim, Kushina thanked all the stars in the sky for a chance. The fact that Kakashi wasn't dead yet wasn't a particularly happy thing. He could very well still die, even in the hands of the medics. Kushina hated knowing that. She hated knowing that some wounds just couldn't be healed.

Kushina arrived at the Hokage's tower, and made her way past the receptionist desk without a word. She knocked twice on the Hokage's door, and waited.

Was the Hokage even awake? It was nearly dawn. Surely the man had to sleep.

"Enter," Hiruzen called.

Kushina did so. She didn't say anything. She didn't know how to even start.

"What is the situation?" The Hokage asked.

"Bad," Kushina said before she could stop herself.

The Hokage raised an eyebrow.

"Kakashi is in the hospital - in surgery," Kushina clarified, and was unsurprised to find her voice so detached and emotionless. "I brought him here directly from the field. He might already be dead, I couldn't tell. Still warm."

Hiruzen let out a long breath. "And Rin?"

"She's being escorted back to the village by Genma, Raido, and Iwashi. She's unconscious but in better shape. Something weird with her chakra, though. Rin needs a sealing examination. I'd like to do it myself when she arrives." Kushina crossed her arms, but they were sticky with Kakashi's blood, so she dropped them back to her sides. "I don't know how far behind me they are. I used the Kyubi's chakra to get here as fast as possible, and they were just returning from another mission. It's possible they stopped to rest once they were out of harm's way."

The Hokage gave her a sympathetic look. "You need to rest and reset, Kushina, but I need to know everything you saw out there. Let's get a full debrief over with now, and then you can rest for a few hours. I'll send someone along to fetch you when Iwashi and his team arrive with Rin."

Kushina nodded, and started talking.

An hour later, Kushina stumbled out of the Hokage's tower. She considered going back to the hospital, but she was still in bloodstained mission clothes. Deciding to go home and change, Kushina leapt to the rooftops. She was home in less than a minute

She kicked off her sandals and made her way upstairs, undressing as she went. Kushina dumped the soiled clothes onto the floor unceremoniously. She fumbled with the knobs in the shower, before stepping in and letting the hot water wash away the blood and dirt from her outing. Somehow she felt dirtier now than she ever had after a kill of her own.

Carrying Kakashi's body like that had been horrible. He'd always been capable and independent. Seeing him like that made her heart break. Chances were that he'd been beyond saving before she'd left the battlefield. Try as she might, she couldn't shake the feeling of dread, nor remove the sight of Kakashi's mangled body from her mind.

They weren't her students. They weren't, technically. But she loved them all the same.

Hands braced against the front wall, she let the water run over her hair, and she didn't fight the trembling of her shoulders or the gasping of breath when the tears came.

Rin

In the void of unconsciousness, Rin found only suffering. It spiraled around her and drew her into its depths. She tried, in vain, to swim upwards, but the weight of her suffering was too heavy. There was no peace. Rin wasn't sure there ever had been as her ghosts and doubts shimmered in and out of her sight.

All that was left was a soul crushing fear that she could barely understand. She was sure the turtle was to blame for her flashed before her, constant, morphing, allowing her no respite. Some of them were even real.

Kakashi impaling her with his Chidori instead of turning away. She could feel the blood coming from her mouth as she tried to apologize.

She felt the stabbing pain of the jutsu as it pierced her flesh. She felt her life bleed away. And then it was over, and happening again. And again.

Rin pushed away from the nightmares, but she could not escape the tendrils of smoke and darkness. She tried to run, but she was stuck in place. Her legs could not deliver her from the hell she was stuck in. She closed her eyes, but nothing changed.

There was something bubbling up from within her.

Obito, crushed, broken, pleading with them to take his eye and run. Rin's tears never dried.

The scene had plagued her dreams constantly since his death. She watched it again now with a pit in her stomach. Rin tasted bile on her lips and knew that she'd forever be guilty of unforgivable weakness. Rin heaved and her bile spattered the dirt beside Obito.

And then he was being crushed under the rocks again. Rin tried to reach him, to take his place, but it was always the same.

Her mother's body, lifeless and still in the hospital. She'd vowed to become a medic, but she couldn't do that anymore. She was a beast.

"I'm sorry!" Rin screamed to the darkness. "Mom, please, come back." She repeated the words as she had so many times before. It didn't change anything. The sickness that took her mother was deadly.

Rin knew how to save her now. The treatments, if started early, were effective. But each time she tried to explain, she felt her mother's hand go still. Again and again until there was nothing but the ache of a child growing up without her mother.

Her father, hitting her after too many drinks. Just like it always was.

Rin knew too well, having covered up the bruises before. They didn't hurt now like she remembered. He hadn't been strong enough to hurt her for years. She knew she could pull away from him, and she tried to, just as she had in real life. His hands always seemed to reach her in this darkness.

She hated what her father had become after her mother passed. She hated him more than she'd ever hated anyone. But at the same time, her heart broke for him. Rin did not know what kind of pain he must have endured, watching the love of his life wither and die.

With each nightmare, the bubbling grew stronger. From within her the power of what she was grew more pressing, more urgent. She wanted to make it go away.

"Make it stop!" Rin screamed into the nothing.

Minato-sensei and his fiance Kushina in a pool of their blood and tangled limbs, eyes unseeing. Rin was crying. Their funeral. Guilt. A baby screaming.

It was familiar, like something out of a lost dream. She rushed to them, trying to summon the chakra to heal them, but it was too late. She tried everything she could think of, but nothing ever worked. No amount of begging, or pleading, or chakra could stop the blood from covering her hands. Nothing could make their eyes see again.

"I want to go home!" Rin screamed. Her voice echoed in the nightmares.

Kakashi hitting her after too many drinks, blaming her for a failed mission. She knew it was her fault.

"Stop!" She yelled. "I'll do better, I promise!" He didn't.

She endured his beatings and his blame. But she was sure this was wrong. Kakashi wouldn't hit her. He'd never hit her. The more she thought that, the more the evidence disagreed with her. His single, detached eye watching her as she shielded herself.

Minato-sensei dismissing her from the hospital room while he wept for his dead wife. Rin hadn't been strong enough to help her during a mission.

She watched in horror as he destroyed the room, saying her name like a curse. "No!" Rin screamed. "It wasn't me!"

Minato looked up at her yell. She opened the door, and she was sitting next to him again. He was dismissing her again. She was leaving and watching as she was blamed for the death of Kushina.

The energy was at a fever pitch now, and she struggled against it, but the darkness of the nightmares forced her forward - to one horrid possibility after another.

Her mother, abandoning her for a different daughter, a better daughter.

"Mom! Mom please!" Rin screamed. Her mother never turned away, leading the girl from her. "Mom I'm right here!"

Everywhere she turned her mother walked away from her, holding the hand of a girl who wasn't a monster. They were laughing and smiling as they walked. Rin was crying harder than ever.

Obito, blaming her for his death, for her death.

"I know," Rin cried, trying to hug him. She was never close enough to reach him. "I got caught and we are both dying because of it. Kakashi, too." She needed Obito to understand. She was sorry. So, so sorry.

Kushina, reminding her that she was less than dirt.

Rin bowed her head, trying not to show the hurt on her face. Kushina had always been kind to her after her home life fell apart. Kushina had been the one to help her find her own apartment when she'd earned enough money from missions to get away from her father.

Lord Hokage, stripping her of her status as a ninja. She was an exile.

Now there was nobody left to protect her. She was alone, her teammates were dead. Her mentors hated her, and she was exiled from the village forever.

Alone.

The bubbles exploded all at once, and Rin felt that all encompassing pain in every nerve of her body once again. She screamed, and all that was black turned white.

Rin thrust into the waking world as chakra exploded from her with more force than a dam giving way to a river. She recoiled from it, but she was stuck to something.

She screamed violently. She screamed in fear and agony and desperation as chakra exploded outwards from her.

"Shit! Get her off me!"

"We can't get close, there's too much chakra!"

"It burns!"

There were voices, too many voices, from within her head and from without. She didn't know which way was up, all she felt was burning agony, and fear. Her heart would surely burst from her chest.

She needed to get free so she could get away from the chakra that was consuming her.

"Oh god, Raido!"

"We have to get her off him, his skin is burning."

She heard a scream of agony, and then she was jarred into a state of awareness as she landed on the ground, shoulders and neck first. There was a pop and she felt all the air leave her at once.

"What's happening?" One voice asked

"I don't know, but Raido needs a doctor," Said another.

"She is a doctor," The first voice said again.

"Not right now, she isn't."

"Guys, just... one of you, run to the village for help. We're barely an hour away now."

The village? She couldn't go there. She knew she couldn't go there. She had to tell someone, but she couldn't breathe. Something was stopping her from getting enough air.

Focus, she told herself. You need to focus. It was easier said than done. She felt like her whole body was about to explode, she was unable to control any of it.

And she was gasping, desperately, for breath.

Despite all that, she had to focus or else her nightmares might become reality. She picked a spot and willed her eyes to pick out a detail, fighting valiantly against her body as it shook with pain.

Above her, the canopy of the trees slowly came into focus, tinted to the wrong color by the chakra that emanated from her.

She forced herself to sit upright, noting that her ribs were broken, and her right arm didn't work right. The pain was everywhere, it was all of her. Her heartbeat hammered and threatened to release all of this chakra at once.

Finally, she caught sight of the ninja she'd heard talking. They had Leaf village headbands, which was a welcome relief, but they were on their guard. Genma, who she recognized immediately, was holding a kunai, and watching her with wary eyes. He was standing over the prone form of another ninja she could not see the face of, but it was clear even from where Rin was propped up that he was injured.

She tried to speak, but the air left her and she found herself on her back again. Curiously, she brought her hand to her chest, feeling for the reason. And there it was. She had a collapsed lung. One of her ribs must have punctured it.

She forced herself back up, doing her best to ignore the horrible pain. When she was upright and stable enough not to topple back over, she signed to Genma using Konoha standard sign language.

Are you okay?

His eyebrows shot up. But he nodded at her. "What's happening to you? Why can't you talk?" He asked.

Injured. Seal. Chakra. Can't control. Rin wished there was a more complete form of communication, but the Konoha sign language had been developed for teams to communicate silently while in the field. A lot of words were missing.

"How do we stop it?" Genma asked.

Don't know. Hide? Rin frowned. She didn't know the word for suppress, if there was one, in sign Language.

"Hide?" Genma asked. "You want us to hide? Are you going to lose control completely."

Rin shook her head. Conceal, she signed.

Genma's eyes lit up with understanding. "We need to suppress it somehow."

Rin nodded. She grimaced, maintaining focus was so hard.

"We can do that back in the village," Genma said. "Can you control it long enough to get there?"

Terror shot through her, she shook her head frantically. With hands shaking she signed. Compromised. Trap.

"Great," Genma said. "Just great."

Rin closed her eyes and tried to force the chakra to settle, but she had no luck. It needed to dissipate, so that someone could figure out what was happening to her. If she was cloaked in chakra like this, nobody would be able to get near her.

She followed her chakra back to the source, desperate for a solution.

The chakra was focused from her heart, and was being circulated through her system violently with every beat of her heart. This is bad, Rin thought. She tried calming her chakra as it pulsed out of her, but it was like trying to drain an ocean with a bucket.

"Do you know how to make a chakra suppression seal?" Genma asked, bringing her back to the present. She saw he was holding up a blank piece of chakra paper. He had a scroll unrolled before him.

Rin shook her head. She didn't. But if she somehow lived through this, she would learn. Genma hung his head in defeat. Sorry, Rin signed.

She went back to meditating and trying to get a handle on her chakra. It was exhausting work, she felt like she was burning up from the inside out.

When she imagined she could take no more pain, Rin felt the chakra falter, and fizzle, and it began to fade. She didn't know if was her doing, or if her body was unable to maintain the chakra anymore. It felt like her whole body was shutting down. As it went, the burning of her nervous system faded, and was replaced by the hurt from her broken down body. She found air harder and harder to gulp down and she looked to Genma with wide eyes.

He was at her side in a second, and he caught her before she slumped to the ground.

Author's Note: You wanna do me a huge favor and leave a review? Or maybe even follow and favorite the story. I don't know if these calls to action work or not, but I hope so. While you're at it, why not tell me who your favorite Naruto character is, and who you'd like to see them fight. Maybe it will inspire me!