Chapter Text
Most of Pain’s paths avoided Naruto’s wind shuriken directly and the sound of the fight echoed throughout the village ruins. Katsuyu informed everyone that Naruto didn’t want anyone interfering, afraid they’d only be hurt. Medical ninja were spread out, attempting to treat all of the wounded, while ninja still fought against their attackers. Everyone else just watched as Naruto’s battle continued below them, tensed and ready to help if called on.
Naruto pinned two of the paths down with another attack, but before he could give them the final blow he was thrown back by a gravitational push from the Deva Path. The three giant toads -Gamabunta, Gamaken and Gamahiro- began fighting Pain, giving Naruto some time to think and breathe. Naruto’s thoughts raced as he tried to come up with a plan to win the battle, but was interrupted by someone suddenly appearing in front him. He quickly stood, clutching a kunai, ready to fight the newcomer.
“What’s up?” She stood with Naruto on one side and his enemy on the other. Her eyes stayed on Pain, but her face was slightly turned toward Naruto and the two toad sages, allowing him to see the smirk on her cherry blossom lips. She was fairly small, almost a full foot shorter then him, and she wore all white on her muscular figure; The cut off sleeves of her shirt purposely fell off of her shoulders and gave her top a wide neckline, the bottom of the shirt exposed a sliver of her stomach, and her white, gray trimmed skirt reached her mid calves, but had slits all the way up her thighs on each side. She had on black shorts with a few white bandages wrapped underneath her kunai leg pouch, and she also had another gray pouch attached to her waistline. Her blonde, almost white, hair fell down to the middle of her back and fringed her pale face. She had a very thin white line that extended from ear to ear across her face and light, gray-blue eyes. The only thing very dark that she wore was the black ninja headband that had been loosely tied around her neck.
“Who are you?” Naruto asked defensively, eyes flicking from her and back to the paths.
“Rin, nice to meet you,” She said quickly, with underlying humor. “Can we talk later? I stole your little clone trick by the way, so let’s get rid of these guys before we chat, yeah?”
Naruto was confused, but knew that Pain was the main problem at that moment. If this girl was a threat, he hoped she would at least wait to attack after Pain was taken care of. All of the sudden a cloak appeared on her, it was much like the one Naruto wore, but opposite in colors; the main color being black, with the flame shaped detail in a deep red. Dark red rings also appeared around her now light green, toad-like eyes and the line across her face turned black. *Sage mode? But how?* Naruto thought silently. Fukasaku mumbled to himself, “Is it really her?” Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he looked at Naruto. “You can trust her Naruto-boy! Ma, lets try the genjutsu now,” The Deva path threw the three giant toads at that moment, startling everyone. Even in the panic Fukasaku tried to stay calm, saying, “The genjutsu takes a lot of nature energy to activate it. That means it’ll take a while before we can use it,”
“Aim for the five second interval after each of his attacks,” Naruto glanced at Rin. She nodded and Naruto continued to the toads, “Begin the genjutsu when you’ve gained enough chakra,”
“Remember Naruto-boy, you only have one more clone left with nature chakra and you’ve only got five more minutes of Sage Mode left,”
“Good thing I’m here then,” Rin remarked with a half hearted laugh.
With only two of Pain’s paths left, the battle seemed to have become more of a fair fight. Naruto and Rin attacked simultaneously, each aiming at one of the paths, but they still managed to dodge both of the ninja. Rin blinded the Preta path with a wall of flames before launching herself at him. Just as she was about to make contact, she was pulled away. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re of no use to me,” The Deva path spoke monotonously, easily throwing Rin across the battlefield and into the wall of the crater. Before Naruto could attack, the Deva path quickly pulled him and he was caught by the Preta path, who began absorbing his chakra. As his sage mode ran out, Naruto came up with a plan and utilized his moment of immobility against his captor, absorbing more nature energy then the Preta path could control. After turning the path into stone, Naruto broke free and prepared himself to confront, who he thought was, the final Pain. “These Pains are just puppets, there’s someone controlling them from behind the scene.” Katsuyu tells him from under his shirt collar.
Before he could learn any more, Fukasaku shouted, “Alright, we’re ready!” The Deva Path pulled Fukasaku toward him, stopping the genjutsu, and pierced through the elder toad with an iron rod, then threw the lifeless toads body at Naruto. The path used the distraction to pull in Naruto, then pinned him to the ground by stabbing a rod through his hands.
The aching hit her hard when she came to, but Rin knew she couldn’t let that stop her. *How long..?* She asked herself, hoping the battle hadn’t taken a turn for the worst. She forced her body to stand, ignoring it’s protests, and peered across the crater to where Naruto and Pain were, but they were no longer alone. “Damn it,” Rin coughed. A bloody Hinata knelt in front of the wounded Naruto, grasping the rod that held down his hands. In an instant the Deva Pain pushed her into the air, then slammed her body into the hard ground. Rin watched, unable to move quickly enough, as he walked to Hinata and shoved an iron rod through her chest.
She felt the immense chakra energy before she saw it explode around Naruto. “The Nine Tails,” Rin breathed, then ran towards him, already knowing it was too late; Naruto’s body transformed immediately, sprouting four tails at once, the shock wave throwing Rin away from him. Pieces of earth lifted around them and began flying through the air, causing the ground to rumble as if there was an earthquake.
Rin searched for Hinata among the chaos, finally finding her and carrying her away from immediate danger. Sakura ran over to them, a medical ninja in tow, gasping when she reached Hinata. Without saying a word, Rin softly laid her down and Sakura began healing her. “She’s badly injured. I-I don’t know if I can heal her,” Her eyes were pleading, looking at Rin and the medical ninja.
“Let me help then,” Rin held her hands over Hinata and began healing her with Sakura. “Can you wrap her injuries?” She asked the other ninja, who quickly began helping. After a few minutes, Hinata’s breathing became more regular and her heart beat stronger. “Think you can take it from here?” Rin asked, looking in the direction Naruto and the Pain had gone. She knew that Hinata's injuries were bad, but was sure of the Leaf's medical ninja's healing abilities, she also knew that Naruto could be in danger.
“Go, he may need you,” Sakura said as she turned away from her and motioned over more medical ninja.
“May I come with you?” The small white slug said from the ground at her feet.
-
Naruto was nowhere to be seen when Rin caught up to them outside of the village. A giant round mass was hovering in the sky with Pain standing below, arms extended controlling his jutsu- Planetary Devastation. Without warning the Nine Tails burst out of the rock, surprising Rin and the Pain. “He has eight tails already,” She gasped, automatically stepping backward. “No, nine?” Suddenly the fox disappeared and, in full Sage Mode, Naruto stood on the bottom of Pain’s creation. The rock began to break apart and Naruto only barely managed to keep himself from falling with the stones. Once on the ground Katsuyu moved back onto his shoulder, but Rin was too far away from them to hear anything.
“He says to stay away for now,” Katsuyu said from Rin’s shoulder.
“What? But why-” Rin started, but was cut off.
“He has a plan, just trust him,”
“I do, but I’m not going to let him get killed either,” She said crouching down, now reeling from her forgotten injuries.
“You’re hurt, let me heal you,” Katsuyu says, already searching for injuries.
“No, you use the Hokage’s chakra right? I’ll be fine, I can heal myself enough, let her help the others,”
Pain attacked Naruto, but Naruto was easily able to avoid him and break the pole in the Deva Pains hand. *What is he doing?* Rin wondered, watching as Naruto stabbed the pole into his arm. A smirk crossed his face for a moment as he threw the pole to the ground. He then created two shadow clones and a rasenshuriken, having his clones release smoke bombs to cover against his attack. Pain used the Almighty Push to protect himself as the jutsu appeared, but without knowing a second rasenshuriken had been hidden using shadow shuriken jutsu. Two clones appeared on each side of Pain, but he attacked them first and avoided the second Wind Shuriken. A confident look took place on his studded face as he landed in the pile of rubble behind him, but was quickly replaced by shock when the rubble transformed into more clones of Naruto, which began to attack him, hoping to make the interval. Pain narrowly escaped again as his power returned, sending his jutsu at Naruto with strong enough force to even push Rin.
Rin watched, forcing herself to stay put as Naruto’s clones disappeared while he was pushed back. Pain was surprised that Naruto had been able to stand his attack. He knelt from exhaustion, watching as Naruto created a rasengan, confident their distance would keep him safe. “Look, Pain, just give up on trying to make me give up!” Naruto shouted as his clones hurled him at Pain. The rasengan slammed into the Deva Path's body and threw him backwards through the air until he crashed into the boulders. Through the dust, Rin saw Naruto fall to the ground also and she allowed herself to run to him.
Naruto stood as Rin reached him, looking at her with a halfhearted smile. Together they walked to the downed Pain and knelt at his side. Naruto studied him, then pulled a rod out of the body. “These rods were how all of the Pains got their chakra,” He spoke softly, pulling more from the body. “If I take them out, he shouldn’t be able to move anymore,” His face was very solemn and he spoke almost as if no one else was there. After he pulled the last rod out he paused, then abruptly stabbed it into his palm. Pain and sadness and anxiety were the emotions Rin read as they crossed Naruto’s face in that moment.
He pulled the rod from his hand and stood, determination washing away all of the other emotions. “Are you going?” Katsuyu asked.
“Yeah,”
“Then you’ll need reinforcements,” She responded, distressed.
“No,” He looked up at Rin, who knew what he was going to say. “No one else, I’m going alone,” He looked away from her and toward the village.
Rin walked closer to him and took his wounded hand in hers, using her chakra to heal him. “I’ll go back to the village then, I’ll try to help there,” She stepped back and continued, “I’ll have Katsuyu keep me updated.” Naruto simply nodded and began running in the direction of the true Pain. Rin watched him for a moment, then turned on her heel and ran through the trees back to the village.
-
She used the clone she had created and entered Sage Mode, trying to sort through the people who were being attended to already. As she moved from person to person, two chakras -no, there was a faint third- drew her attention and she hurried to them. There were obvious signs of a previous fight as she got closer to the ninja. Choji was kneeling over his father, Choza, who was laying on his back unconscious, but not fatally injured. Rin swallowed hard, knowing the third of the chakras had disappeared long before she had arrived, she turned to see who’s it had been.
Kakashi was laying on his back, with his head turned away from her. As Sage Mode depleted, she took a deep breath and spoke, “Will you help me move him?” Choji’s head snapped up, not noticing her arrival, and followed her gesturing hand to Kakashi, then nodded and stood.
They laid him carefully beside Choza, who was regaining consciousness. “You feel it too, don’t you?” Katsuyu observed, moving nearer to her ear.
“Yes, I know,” Rin spoke quietly.
“He fought with two of the pains,” Choji started to explain. “The one could push and pull things,” *The one Naruto just faced,* Rin thought to herself. “The other could pull weapons from its body. Kakashi hit that one with his Lightning Blade, we thought he was dead after that, and he used his sharingan to trick the other one into believing he was dead so he left,” Choji spoke sadly to Rin as she knelt down beside his father to heal him. “He told me to tell the hokage, but the weapon one, he shot something that chased me and..” He stopped, sadness taking over his entire body. “and Kakashi used the last of his chakra to save me with his mangekyo sharingan.” Rin bowed her head for a moment in recognition to his words, then focused back on Choji’s father. “I pulled Kakashi out of the rocks, I hope I didn’t hurt him,” Rin clenched her jaw, and continued healing Choza. Once finished, she looked up at Choji, who was kneeling at his father’s feet. “Are you hurt anywhere?”
His brows slightly furrowed in confusion and he shook his head. “Don’t worry about me. Please help Kakashi,” Rin knew by the sound of his voice that he had already realized Kakashi couldn’t be healed, but she moved herself to his side anyway. She could feel Katsuyu’s chakra flowing down her arm, joining her own and flowing into Kakashi. There was no heartbeat, his chakra had been completely exhausted, there was nothing they could do for him and yet they tried regardless.
She hadn’t notice Choza sit up behind her, so when she felt his hand on her shoulder she jumped a little. His eyes were full of sorrow, but he spoke calmly. “Don’t push yourself,” She looked back at Kakashi, stopping her outward chakra flow and set her hands onto his chest. Her head dropped in defeat, tears of frustration pooled in her eyes. “You did all you could,” Choza finished, then stood and walked a few steps away. Choji stayed where he was, his head bowed.
Rin felt the air around them change and looked up, her tears drying before they spilled over. “What’s going on?” She breathed, watching as green beams of light scattered throughout the sky.
“People are,” Choza paused a moment, gathering his thoughts. “They’re coming back to life,” From his position he could see down into the village where fallen ninja were regaining their lost lives. Kakashi’s body began glowing only seconds later, followed by his eyes shooting open.
“Pa!” Choji gasped excitedly.
Choza turned around quickly as Kakashi sat up. “Kakashi too, huh?” He stated, running over to them.
“What happened?” Kakashi asked, seemingly out of breath. His eyes were wide and focused on the ground in front of him.
Choji began sobbing, overcome with emotion. “Thank goodness, I’m so glad, Kakashi-sensei!”
“I’ll explain everything as clearly as I can,” Katsuyu said comfortingly from atop Rin’s shoulder.
Katsuyu explained all Naruto had done after he turned into the Nine Tails and how the real Pain, Nagato, had set off a jutsu that revived everyone he had caused to die. She told them that everything was over now and that Naruto was heading back to the village, unharmed. “I see,” Kakashi nodded and easily stood up, his body healed by Rin. “I feel like I never even fought,”
“This girl here healed you. Even though she knew she couldn’t save you, she tried anyway,” Choza motioned to Rin who also stood, bowing slightly to Kakashi.
“She also fought alongside Naruto,” Katsuyu mentioned and Rin shushed her quickly.
“Thank you,” Kakashi sincerely said and bowed to Rin. She was slightly stunned and began slight protests, but he continued. “I’m going to find Naruto, he’s going to be exhausted. Who knows, he might stop for a nap,” He joked halfheartedly. “Come with me, he could need you to heal him,” Rin nodded and followed Kakashi to Naruto.
Rin stopped after they entered the trees near where Naruto was, letting Kakashi go ahead to meet him alone. As she waited she used the time to better heal her wounds from the Deva Path’s attack on her. “You silenced me earlier when I told them of your assistance to Naruto, may I ask why?” Katsuyu asked once Rin finished healing herself.
Rin leaned against a tree and looked up, watching the sky peak through the leaves. “I didn’t do anything but get myself hurt,”
Before Katsuyu could speak again, Rin straightened up and walked a few steps deeper into the trees. Kakashi was carrying a very worn out Naruto on his back when Rin met with them. The small smile on Naruto’s face was true and reached his tired eyes, making Rin smile as well. He weakly nodded to her as they met, unable to lift his head much off of Kakashi’s shoulder. “Let me heal you,” She didn’t let him answer before she had her hands hovering over his back.
“You’ve gotta be tired too,” He exclaimed sleepily, but let her continue.
“I am,” She chuckled, stepping away from him. “I’m done, you weren’t nearly as hurt as I was afraid you might be,” She smiled and the three began moving again.
As they stepped through the trees, cheers erupted from the crowd that had gathered, welcoming Naruto back. Naruto’s eyes widened in shock as he took in the voices and faces from the entire village that gathered in front of him. “They’ve all been waiting for you to return,” Kakashi spoke as they stopped to meet the crowd. “Naruto, you did well,” He proudly said as he let Naruto off of his back.
“Huh, what’s this?” Naruto’s voice was full of disbelief as he continued to stare into the crowd.
“I’ve already relayed to the others every detail of what transpired between you and Pain,” Katsuyu’s clone answered, poking out of Naruto’s shirt collar. Children ran up to him, excitedly gathering around him and speaking to him all at once. Rin stepped back, clasping her hands together and smiled at him as he was being mauled by enthusiastic children.
“Hinata, wait,” She heard someone’s voice say from her left, she whipped her head around to see Sakura and Hinata walking up to them. Sakura’s grip on Hinata’s arm was tight, but not halting, she was helping Hinata rather than stopping her. Rin quickly walked over to the two and stood in front of them.
“You shouldn’t be moving around,” Rin spoke softly with concern, but Hinata only smiled and shook her head.
“I wanted to see him,” Rin followed her gaze to Naruto, who was smiling and laughing, unaware of the three girls. Rin knew she couldn’t stop her, something in her voice, in her stare, urged her to help Hinata. Grabbing her other arm, Sakura and Rin helped Hinata walk to Naruto, but she collapsed to her knees once they reached him. Sakura and Rin carefully set her on the ground, laying her head in Sakura’s lap while Rin quickly ran her hands over Hinata in an attempt to heal her.
Naruto dropped to his knees next to Rin. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?” He asked frantically, looking from Rin to Sakura and back to Hinata.
“Naruto,” Hinata said softly, her voice breaking. Her eyes were closed, but she held a smile on her pale face. Rin could feel Katsuyu slide down her arm and onto Hinata, but both her and Rin knew they were powerless now. “Naruto,” She exhaled his name again, this time more calmly, continuing, “Thank you,” Rin slammed her fist into the ground at Hinata’s side. Without looking up she knew both Sakura and Naruto were crying.