Summary: Breathing used to come easy to Nohara Rin, but it no longer does. With a newfound companion inhabiting her body and lightning-shaped scars decorating it, nothing seemed to be the way as it once had been.
Against Rin’s chest, her heart beat rapidly, each thump feeling harsher than the one before did. With each deep breath, she took, the speed of the organ did not lessen by much and kept a similar pace, not even changing much as she breathed out steadily. Once or twice every few minutes, her breath hitched in her throat so the necessary air no longer flooded her lungs, and Rin felt like a fish would on dry land.
Just last week, breathing had come as easy to her as it had always been, a process she subconsciously has done before she had even been able to form memories of her own. Breathing had never been something Rin had put much thought into, never something she meticulously analyzed to understand the almost automatic process behind it. Save for the times she had assisted panicked breathing of friends, family and patients, helping them come down and earn their composure again, not much thought never went to overthink breathing.
Now, it was something she sublimely struggled to do as it became something intentional.
The change had come swift and sudden, totally unexpected. How could she have predicted her situation, after all? There had been no way for her to know, to see it coming.
Most importantly, however, it turned her life completely around. Nothing would ever be the same as it had been before, so Rin already knew.
Not even the memories of that day she could forget.
The sensation from mere days earlier remained engraved in her thoughts, stuck in her mind as a ghostly shiver coming to haunt her hour after each hour again. Against her chest, it brushed lightly, faintly caressing her skin before it vanished again. In the shape of lightning, the feeling moved across the mark left behind by the incident, the now scar burned into her skin underneath the layers of bandages. From one middle point, the lightning sprouted from the left side of her chest all the way toward the right side, decorating it in a more or less fascinating manner.
As intricate as the scar was, as much it burned against her skin day by day. An almost sickening reminder of what happened, what Rin had done to herself under pressure.
Never would she blame her silver-haired teammate for her own actions, for the choices she had made at that moment.
Rin could vividly remember how she had felt at that moment, she could still feel the exact emotions coursing through each inch of her body as she stood surrounded by the darkness, a foreign weight pressing against the inside of her body. When, approximately an hour earlier, she had come to, fear had been the first thing she had felt. An overwhelming amount of it had left her mind dizzy and sent her thoughts spiraling, promptly becoming indecipherable.
When beginning her studies to become a Shinobi, she would have never expected something like that to happen. Not to the girl she had been prior to the incident.
Now, Rin felt like a different person.
Shakily, the brunette breathed in deeply before releasing a steady breath. In the exact place where her scar lay, the memory of already experienced pain reawakened with a harsh sting, one that had her sucking in a breath immediately after.
The moment Kakashi’s fist sunken into her body, time had completely stopped for the brunette girl, and Rin would give anything to never have to relive the moment again.
Kakashi …
What she had done to him, the mental trauma she must have put him under hurt her to think about. He did not deserve the weight she brought down upon his shoulders, more for him to be burdened to carry on his own. Barely thirteen years old and Rin had been the one to bring such a strain upon him, for Kakashi to deal with yet another death of a teammate.
Had it been selfish of her? The thought lingered in her mind as a constant, left unanswered. She had been too afraid to speak it around anyone, to even mention it.
Was there even a clear answer to it?
At that moment, panic had taken her entirely over, and had left her limbs trembling before a determined expression blossomed on her dirtied features. Just the slightest bit her legs had shaken as she ran toward her teammate, his striking silver hair easily visible even among the chaos reigning. When he had awakened his signature jutsu and a thousand birds had begun chirping, she instantly knew.
Rin had whispered his name as his fist impaled her, going right through her skin, passing her muscles, and bones, and brushing past her heart before coming out on the other side of her. His skin must have been soaked in her blood, painted crimson as the cold air caressed it.
Kakashi … I’m sorry, she had meant to say, but the words had never come out.
The tears she had cried had entirely not been for herself. They had been for her best friend Obito, the first one of the team of three to die.
Next, she cried for Kakashi and for what she had done to the poor boy. What she did was not something one did for the boy the supposedly loved. It was entirely unfair of her to push him into an experience he did not ask for, to use him for her plan. It was unforgivable what she did, for her to force his fist into her body, to force him to aid her in her own death.
She cried for Minato-sensei to come to their aid, to please save her. Rin had deeply wished for a flash of yellow to appear on the battleground and to take out all enemy nin, to come to their rescue in the last moment before her eyes fell shut.
Kushina-san, Rin had wished for the woman to be there and speak uplifting words as she always did.
Yet, there had been no one but Kakashi and herself to suffer under her kidnapping and the actions resulting from it. So the tears streamed down her paling skin and the purple marking decorating her cheeks, leaving behind track upon track as evidence of her suffering.
Kakashi … I’m so sorry!
Death had been something she had chosen to accept and welcome, a fate she partially brought upon herself. At that moment, Rin had been convinced that next, she would fall into the open arms of death, that once the obsidian had fully enveloped her falling and invaded body that her eyes would flutter shut. Peace would wash over her and hold her close, until finally, her suffering would end.
All she wanted was to not be used as a weapon of mass destruction, one that was chosen to unleash one of the nine-tailed beasts upon her village, upon the place where she had grown up, her home.
Rin had fallen as a hero and awoken as a girl, no longer the sole inhabitant of her own body.
She was a Jinchuuriki now, the captor of the three-tails.
“My name is Isobu.” The tailed beast spoke up from within her, reminding her again of something it had already told her once.
Rin shut her eyes tightly and breathed in again, hoping to calm her erratic heartbeat down by at least a little. “Right,” She then spoke softly, her voice coming out as barely a whisper. “I’m sorry, Isobu, I forgot.”
Surprisingly enough to her, during their short amount of time spent together so far the tailed beast had been nothing but nice to her, if not a little timid to even reveal its name to her. After it had been sealed within her, the cry it let out did not sound angered by her being its host, but rather by the circumstance both of them had been forced into. For the duration of her suicide plan, it had not even made one comment, it had not dared to interrupt Rin in what she had been about to do.
Only when her world had turned black, Isobu had spoken to her.
“We are going to be alright.” With his words, a wave of tranquility washed over her and became the last thing she remembered before falling into a long slumber.
Then Rin had awoken in the hospital much to her surprise with tubes upon tubes stuck into her body to keep her alive, only the steady beeping of the heart rate monitor from beside her keeping her company. That had been at least until the tailed beast spoke up from inside her, its words coming out both timid and hesitant.
“I don’t understand,” Just as much as she had been confused, so had been the tailed beast apparently. “We died when you sacrificed yourself, did we not?”
How Rin had wished for the tailed beast, for Isobu, to have an answer to the question. Yet, it did not.
“I don’t understand either.” She had thought. Despite never speaking the words aloud, Isobu had heard.
With wordless communication between herself and the new inhabitant of her own body came another struggle: difficulty breathing.
When Rin had first awoken from her slumber, her throat had felt as dry as the desert of the Sunagakure. However, she had not even been able to as much as reach for the glass of water she spied on her bedside table as the next moment the flow of air cut off, leaving Rin struggling to even get in one breath. Immediately, her hands had come to claw at the already raw skin of her throat, scratching again and again while her face turned red as a result of the lack of oxygen. It was as though she had forgotten how to breathe, how the simplest of actions was executed.
Once, it had been so easy and natural and now, she struggled.
Bitterly, Rin had thought that that had been the moment she would die. Not when she had chosen the countless lives inhabiting the village above her own, but instead when she had survived said attempt and awoken in the hospital.
How pitiful, to say the least.
“Focus,” Came a slightly panicked voice from inside her. Isobu’s emotions seemed to almost entirely mirror her own. “Think. Stop panicking, you need to think about breathing, girl. Think!”
As Kushina had later explained to her, upon becoming a Jinchuuriki, Rin had taken on some of Isobu’s traits. “Since the three-tails and yourself-”
With a hoarse voice, Rin had been quick to correct: “Isobu. Its name is Isobu, so it told me.”
Kushina faltered in her explanation, but the continued on as though nothing had happened. “As Isobu’s Jinchuuriki, you, or more specifically your body, has adapted to some of Isobu’s traits. That could explain what you need to adapt to how you breathe, y’know.”
In the end, the two of them had settled on the explanation that Rin’s lungs had adjusted so much so, that most likely she now had the advantage of being able to stay longer underwater than the average human being could.
“That’s what I think, at least,” Kushina had said with a thoughtful tap of her finger against her chin. “It could be possible at least. According to one of the nurses, your lungs did undergo a change. Whether Kakashi’s chidori is the reason for it or Isobu, I can’t tell you.”
Kushina was not a medic, after all. Rin was, and yet, she felt so helpless in the situation.
“But what is the most important, Rin, is that you don’t let this entire situation overwhelm you, alright?” Kushina’s smile was so comforting, the girl thought. “I know that it can be a bit … much? What helped me through it was relying on those who I love, to not let it get to me as much as it probably should have. You are a strong girl, Rin, especially for making the decision that you did. So be strong, be as strong as you have always been and always will be.”
Rin wasn’t sure why her sensei’s wife was so optimistic about her recovery.
“Kushina-san-”
“-Kushina-nee, if you must.”
The small laugh Rin felt harsh against her throat, but came out lighter than she expected it to. It seemed as though there were things in her life that did not change, after all.
“I can’t do this alone,” Rin confessed in a timid tone. Within her, her newfound inhuman companion let out a hum in agreement. “I’m just, scared. What if I can’t do this?”
On top of her own smaller one, Kushina’s hands felt as though they would protect her from anything to come her way. “You can and you will, Rin. It’s a big change you have to get used to, being a Jinchuuriki is not easy, admittedly. But for every step along the way, I will be here for you. I won’t leave you to do this alone, y’know!” After a beat of silence, the redhead added, “Minato and Kakashi, too, they are your team. And if he were here, Obito would also support you. He would want you to not give up and live, Rin.”
Kushina was right, Obito would want her to keep fighting. He would cheer her on as he did time and time again, stand by her side through every challenge and obstacle that may come her way. The same she had always done for him, stand by his side through every harsh weather, through rain and thunderstorm to be there for her best friend, her other half she had already lost so young.
How Rin wished for Obito to be here.
The sob that pushed past her lips came out choked, “I miss him, Kushina-san. I miss him so much.”
How she wished that Obito had never died that day in the cave, his body crushed underneath rocks too for them to be lifted by mere children. She just wanted her best friend back.
Kushina was quick to lean forward from her position seated on the hospital bed, her arms coming to wrap around the body of the young girl, bringing her into an embrace. With a soothing voice, the woman spoke, “I know you do, I know.”
It was when Rin realized, that there was someone who understood how she felt, and the struggles she was facing. In this, she wasn’t alone.
She was quick to bury her face into the redhead’s shoulder as the tears cascaded down her cheeks, effectively soaking the woman’s dress. “Ku-Kushina-nee, pl-please don’t lea-leave.” Rin begged in a broken whisper, speaking the words against the material of the dress.
Kushina pulled the girl only closer. “I won’t, I promise you,” She whispered and pressed a small kiss to the top of the brunette’s head, before holding her closer again. “You have to breathe, Rin, can you do that for me?”
Rin was so scared and yet …
“You heard her, Rin, breathe. Calm yourself down, you can do it.” Isobu spoke up. His voice held comfort to it, one she found herself quickly succumbing to.
… she could do it, because she wasn’t alone in this.
Breathing may no longer come as easy to Nohara Rin as it used to, nothing would ever change the fact. But at the same time, she knew that as long as she held onto her remaining strength and fought against every obstacle standing in her way, one day she would get used to what her life had turned into.
Mona's and Yoshirou's relationship is kinda mentor/mother and son relationship. With Yoshirou being a little shit and all and Mona trying to walk him to the right path while also teaching him magic.
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Commission Info
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Name: Yoshirou
Gender: Male
Sexuality: Bisexual
Species: Kitsune
Final did with this! It was lots of fun practicing drawing a fox but my son finally got a reference sheet!
