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Cold.
The first thing Rin noticed about her surroundings was how unbearably cold it was. She was floating with only her face above the ice cold water. Apart from the Naka River that flowed along the edges of Konoha, Rin never had much contact with bodies of water. Water was ever-changing. Water was uncertain, with one wrong slip you would fall under. Despite water being one of her two chakra natures, Rin was always told to stay away from it. But wherever she was right now, the water was unnaturally still. The last thing she remembered was the gloved hand of what she realizes now was a Kiri-nin. As Rin directed her chakra to her palms pull herself up, water clung to her clothes. Her body felt sore and heavy, like she'd been training for days on end.
-Little girl.
Then she saw the beast--the shell, the spikes, the muscle-like tissue underneath...
The three tailed beast looked at her with a single glowing red eye, and Rin was suddenly reminded of Kakashi. Rin didn't know what to expect one of the legendary tailed beasts to look like, but she didn't expect one to look so full of pain. What was it doing here?
-What is your name?
Her throat felt parched."Rin. Rin Nohara of Konoha"
The beast closes its eye.
-I am Isobu, The Three Tailed Giant Turtle.
As the gears in her head turned, Rin stomach dropped. She pulled up her shirt to look at the black markings across her stomach, extending all the way to her chest. Her index finger shakily traces the outer stokes of the seal.
"I'm not getting out of this alive, am I?"
The beast said nothing.
"What does Kiri want with me?" She asks, genuinely confused. "I'm a mid-level medical-nin at best. I come from a civilian family--I have no family lineage or Kekkei Genkai to speak of. I'm not like Kakashi or Minato-sensei or even Obito."
While Rin used to think about her placement in a team so full of talent with a certain bitterness, she had long since accepted her role as a support ninja. Combat ninja were a dime a dozen. And although she would marvel at the way Minato-sensei and Kakashi moved faster than the eye with a deadly precision, she also knew not many were willing to sit on the sidelines dealing with all the blood and pus leftover from battle. This was the role that best fit her strengths. Now she felt the first bubbles of anger rise up in her chest as she thought about how pointless her abilities had all been if it all came down to this.
Isobu opens his eye.
-They want you because you are nothing. They want you because they know you can't fight back.
Rin could only stare at the redness of his eye as her anger turned to desperation.
-Haven't you noticed the curse seal on your heart? You might be able to get out of this alive with that red-eyed friend of yours' help, but the two of you won't be able to to return to your village.
can't return to Konoha?- Rin's eyes widened.
"...They want me to return to Konoha so they can unleash you on my home...They've turned me into a ticking bomb..." Rin whispered. She couldn't place what was wrong until now, but she now that she knows what to look for she feels it--a thin line of chakra across the veins of her heart. Someone else's chakra.
Isobu regards her thoughtfully.
-You're smarter than my previous host. It's unfortunate that apart from that there's nothing exceptional about you.
The compliment (despite being laced with an insult) startles Rin out of her daze. Her intelligence was one of the few traits she liked about herself and it was something that others often overlooked. People often commented on her kindness towards her teammates, her strength in face of injured comrades, but the only people who praised her for her quick-thinking were her teammates. She thinks about Kakashi and wonders what he would do if he were in her situation--would he sacrifice himself for the village that took so much from him? Would he run away and be branded a traitor the same way his father was? She's not sure what's worse.
Perhaps its because they don't have much time as a bujuu-jinchuriki pair, but something about Isobu disarms Rin, makes her want to open up.
It's strange, Rin thinks. With his spiked tails down and claw-like jaw resting on the still water, he looks like a harmless sleeping turtle. She focuses on the feeling of curse seal. She knows intuitively what it'll do, how it'll unravel both of them, how it'll set them free.
"What happened to your last jinchuriki?" She asks suddenly.
Isobu doesn't answer for a moment and Rin wonders if she's asked the wrong question. He tilts his head away from her.
-He sacrificed himself for his village.
"His village? Not yours?"
-I don't to belong to a village or country. I've been here long before the formation of the hidden villages, and I will still be here long after you all massacre each other.
Rin doesn't know what to say to that. She thought all the tailed beasts were full of vitriol and hatred for their respective villages, but Isobu sounded so resigned.
"Does that mean you don't have any desire to see Kirigakure destroyed for what they've done to you...?"
-I did, once. Now I just want to rest.
"I could do it, y'know" Rin doesn't know if Isobu genuinely doesn't care about Kiri anymore, but what she does knows is that anger never really goes away. "If you stay put--here--with me, when the seal unfolds, I can destroy Kiri. I mean it. I'll become the greatest jinchuriki the shinobi world has ever known."
-You won't be able to control me.
"I won't have to. We'll be equals."
Isobu turns and his head lunges forward. On instinct, Rin flinches and falls on her back. One of the barbs on Isobu's jaw pushes hard against her chest. The water crashes against underneath its shell.
-You think you can manipulate me the same way the Kages and hidden villages do? Use me to do Konoha's bidding when they would throw a weak soldier like you away without a second thought?
When he doesn't pull away, Rin starts to feel her eyes well up. She tries to blink the tears away but that only causes them to fall down her cheeks embarrassingly. "I dont want to die." She says quietly. It's the truth. "I don't want to be weak anymore. I don't want to be as a means to an end."
Isobu looks like he's about to say something, but then--
RIN!
Kakashi's voice rings through her head like a mantra. (Rin, Rin, Rin)
-Looks like your friend's here to save you.
The water rises and Isobu pulls his head back, no longer furious but somewhat contemplative.
-The seal won't come off immediately, most likely. Forbidden seals like that are difficult to control you see.
Rin raises her her head and looks straight into Isobu's eye. He continues.
-If you can find a fuinjutsu expect to remove that seal...then...We'll see about you becoming 'the greatest jinchuriki the shinobi world has ever known'
As the water envelops her shoulders, Rin says, with something akin to hope but not quite, "Then I'll see soon."