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Everyone knew Rin came back wrong from that mission.
They were told she didn’t work as a field medic anymore. They saw how she always seemed to move as if she was stuck inside an invisible boundary, Anbu trailing closely behind her like she was a threat. It must have been a mental break, the rumors suggested.
As the sky darkened to a deeper blue, Rin leaned up against the bridge’s railing. The heel of one of her sandals was lifted slightly, a sign of the restlessness in her posture as she stared off over the edge.
Kakashi stood a few feet away from her.
There was a hollow familiarity about it. Their team always used to meet here on this bridge before training. Kakashi and Rin would arrive first and wait together in silence like this.
The quiet used to be peaceful, morning light washing over the bridge. Now, evening was approaching. The space between them was empty.
Obito was never coming home. Sensei was the Hokage now. And Rin was nothing more than a weapon placed under Kakashi’s watchful eye.
Rin hated that Kakashi was shackled to her, required to stay close by to fulfill his mission. He was ordered to keep the three tails tethered to the Leaf and hide her existence from enemy villages.
It hurt that Rin still found a hint of solace in his presence, even though he wasn’t here by choice.
Everything out here was divided like that, pulled apart by conflicting loyalties and motivations. They were stuck between the present and the distorted images of their childhood selves. She hoped Kakashi sometimes also felt like he was about to split in half. A static energy seemed to hint at that blurry boundary as they stood together in silence.
Rin’s current pastime was tossing various objects down off this bridge. It was cathartic to destroy her reflection on the stagnant water. She threw a stick, watching it flip in a downward arc, cutting a path through the thick air.
There was nothing better to do here. There were no seashells to collect, only muddy patches of grass and knotted roots. She could only pace around her prison, following the spiral pattern in and out until dizziness pounded in her forehead.
Her loyal Anbu guard always followed closely behind her. Some days they sat with their backs up against the cold metal of the memorial stone, knees curled up to their chests.
With a neutral expression, Rin threw a giant rock over the edge. The resulting splash reached a few feet in the air before falling down in a harsh shower of droplets.
It wasn’t enough. Rin wanted to see something ripple out farther, a ring of spreading concentric circles cascading and losing control. She balanced one foot on the railing, then pushed up and lifted her other foot onto the curved metal.
Perched on top of the guardrail, she stared ahead with growing impatience. The water lapped against the bridge’s pillars, far too quietly.
Rin felt nothing at all. The sky was crushing her, yet it refused to fall down in a violent rain. It wasn’t fair. She wanted either complete peace or complete destruction. Something clean cut, not this in-between haze keeping her stuck in place.
Just as a streetlamp turned on nearby, she pounced over the edge, brown hair fluttering in the rushing wind. The shockwave from her splash touched the bottom of the bridge. With a satisfied gasp, she reached her head above the water’s surface.
Kakashi couldn’t help but follow her. He gave Rin an unimpressed look from a few feet away, pulling his mask down, the fabric soaked wet.
“You know, you didn’t have to jump in with me,” Rin said, leaning back in the water. She swam under the bridge, its shadow passing over her drenched face.
“I know,” Kakashi answered.
Against her better judgment, Rin’s eyes caught on him for a moment. Moonlight always radiated from his skin just right, its glow sprayed across his cheekbones in a silver mist. In contrast to the dark water, he was like a koi fish, darting through the pond with shiny scales.
Still, Rin couldn’t help but notice the dark Anbu uniform stuck to his neck, bobbing up above the water. It looked just like a collar.
To Rin, Kakashi’s Anbu uniform showed that his loyalty would always be to Minato-Sensei first. Rin was the ticking time bomb, the Trojan horse, the suicide risk. Everyone called Kakashi the Fourth Hokage’s right-hand man.
She turned away. She couldn’t take this anymore, this warped version of her teammate. She used to find comfort in Kakashi because he was trustworthy and reliable. It was easy to predict his next move.
But then she miscalculated. He’d stopped the lightning in his hand in the split-second before it would’ve killed her. The chidori had grazed her shoulder in a bloody starburst of energy.
A moment of hesitation hovered between them. Rin treaded the water in lazy circles. She was not facing Kakashi, but she could feel his eyes fixed on her back.
Kakashi stayed perfectly still, water barely shifting around him. He eventually said, “It must be boring… If you want, we could train together sometime soon.”
Rin looked back at him over her shoulder. Her eyes were dull, half-lidded. From this angle, Kakashi looked like he was slightly nervous.
Slowly, she climbed onto the water’s surface. Pressing herself up onto her hands and knees, she readied her stance. There was a flicker of a taunting grin. “Okay then. Let’s go!”
---
The water shook as she sprinted away as fast as she could. It was freeing, beautiful to charge ahead without reservation, water droplets flying backwards off of her soaked clothes.
“Rin!” Kakashi yelled from behind her. “Where are you going?”
She knew he was faster, but she didn’t think he’d dare to restrain her. Kakashi wouldn’t want to just tackle her to the ground. Like her, what he really enjoyed was the chase. His specialty was pursuit.
Her heart pounded faster. He was right behind her, but she dodged every attempt he made to grab her hand.
The edge of Rin’s world was quickly approaching. The outermost curve of the spiral. The barrier between her prison and her freedom.
Kushina once tried to tell her something about this barrier being a helix. It was supposedly better than a spiral, but the symbolism of a helix as a source of comfort was lost on her.
In Rin’s worldview, a helix was only another way to jump from the top and fall all the way down, spinning.
“It’s the barrier! Rin!” Kakashi called out again, desperation bleeding into his voice.
She leaped, chakra pulsing sharply as the image of chains around her suddenly seemed to loosen. An anchor dragging her down had finally been lifted. There was something wilder in the way her eyes glimmered in the forest’s light.
Breathlessly, she called back, “Come and catch me, Kakashi!”
As always, Kakashi followed. She heard him sending a shadow clone back to the village. Would he report her to Sensei already? If he did, she would know there was nothing left between them at all anymore.
The pursuit continued for another five miles or so. They were in the surrounding forest now, still a familiar arrangement of trees, rope bridges, and trail markers. Rin diverted her path, hand clasped on a tree’s lower branch.
Her chakra was fluctuating in unstable, crashing waves, so she scaled the tree by hand, ascending its levels until she reached her destination. Finally, she dragged herself up over the edge and collapsed onto the weathered wooden planks of her favorite treehouse.
She waved down to Kakashi, who was watching her from the ground. “Are you coming or not?”
Kakashi climbed the tree silently, gracefully, in contrast to Rin’s mess of wild swinging and cracked bark. He landed next to her.
“So, did you tell on me?” Rin asked, her voice wavering into something slightly inhuman. She reached over and wiped Kakashi’s soaked bangs out of his eyes. Her nails were sharp against his soft skin, and they left a faint red mark.
“I told Sensei we were going on a date,” Kakashi murmured, “And not to bother us.”
Rin giggled, her sharp teeth visible in the light of the torches on the platform’s corners. “A date? Then you’d better be a little more romantic.”
Maybe it was pathetic, but she couldn’t help but feel slightly happy about this. It was proof that Kakashi would even lie to Sensei for her. At least she had something left.
---
The sky looked like an oncoming storm, and it wasn’t clear if they were contributing to its formation. Rin’s turtle summoned water in all forms, and Kakashi summoned bolts of lightning.
Kakashi reached over to pull Rin closer. His hand landed gently on her shoulder, and she leaned into his touch. The leaves rustled harshly overhead. Her chakra was beginning to feel heavy in the air, pulling them down together as if they were drowning.
“Rin?” Kakashi tapped her sandal with his, ignoring the ominous haze around them. “This is where you used to watch the sky, right?”
“Mhm,” Rin answered. She nudged him back, her sandal hitting the side of his shin.
A rumble of thunder shook the treehouse violently as the wind picked up. Their legs tangled together as they fell back on the wood, supporting ropes swinging back and forth in front of them. There was a chance that Rin’s seal might unravel here and kill them both.
To Rin’s surprise, Kakashi didn’t suggest that they should really be heading back now.
“Sensei taught Genma the Flying Raijin, you know.” Kakashi brushed his arm against the back of Rin’s neck, the wet fabric making her shiver slightly. “He was supposed to teach me.”
“So this is your rebellious phase?” Rin replied, amused. She watched the sky, trying to pick out a few constellations to reorient herself in this world as the swinging slowed. “Or do you resent being stuck here out here with me instead of standing in the Hokage’s Guard Platoon?”
He didn’t say anything in response to that. Rin was relieved. It was more fun to leave things up in the air sometimes, protecting the mystery of whether they were friends, enemies, or something else.
Kakashi turned over toward her, moving so close that she felt his wet hair drip onto her face. He was blocking her view of the moon now.
Lightning flashed somewhere in the distance. Rin pulled him down and kissed him. His lips were softer; hers were chapped and rough.
In a soft flutter, Kakashi’s eyelashes brushed against Rin’s cheek. They ignored the three tails’ chakra twisting angrily above her.
Still slippery from the water, Kakashi’s face slid down onto Rin’s neck. She felt his jagged breath against her, warmth reaching the underside of her chin. His lips traveled absently across the edges of her lightning-shaped scars.
They stayed together even as Rin’s chakra picked up into swirls of nightmares, obscuring the stars. She fell into her world of delusion. As usual, Kakashi followed without hesitation.
The setting around them was surreal, now. A storm merged with a whipping of tails and the spinning of turtle shells crashing down.
Maybe I’m supposed to fill my heart with love to calm this beast, Rin considered, basking in this all-encompassing fury of crashing waves, but I think this is much more interesting.
At the waves’ highest crest, Kakashi’s sharingan spun involuntarily and pulled them back into the real world. They stayed down, wet clothes stuck to the wood underneath them. Their hands were clasped together in a way that was painfully tight.
Neither of them moved for a while. They listened to each other’s breaths become steadier over time.
On their way back to the village, they walked side by side. It was dawn already when they returned. Rin winced as they crossed back into the barrier.
Kakashi bought her a cup of tea from a market stall, and she sipped it placidly. It burned her throat. Inside the village walls, it was much harder to forget the positions they were in. Did Kakashi actually care about her, or was this all just part of the mission to him?
With towels wrapped around their shoulders, they let the warm aroma of peppermint and lavender drift between them. Rin knew their alliance was tentative, a dark sky waiting to crash down on them both. This secret part of their lives was ready to shatter under pressure like a chipped seashell.
But which pair of hands will be responsible for destroying this? Rin couldn’t help but wonder.