QOTC: You want to save us both and you're willing to give up your life. That's not heroic. That's tragic.

- Young Kakashi to Obito

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Chapter 1: Rin's Legacy

*PLAY SONG*

Sakura stared unwittingly at the Uchiha standing before him as she found herself asking the same question twice.

"Y-you're Obito Uchiha," Sakura opened her mouth to fling the words in his face. You're dead. It couldn't be. There was no sound. It was one of those nightmares where she would scream and yell and nothing would occur to her. Nothing but a thin gasp.

Obito tried to reach for her, but he felt as if his touch was poison. Sakura stumbled backwards until she fell into the ground, her wrists bounded. Magic. Sakura wanted to protest, but when her tongue spoke, only a dry puff of air came from her mouth, the gasp of someone urging to scream with a cut throat.

The Elder Uchiha shook his head. "Don't bother to speak. I sealed your voice when you let me touch you. I wouldn't try to stand if I were you—your legs will cause you more pain." Sakura glared at him, trying to bore into him with her eyes, cut him with her hatred. But Obito took no notice. "Like I said, there's no going back. You and I, we've never had a casual conversation, have we? You must be wondering why I'm alive. Sorry to have you disappointed."

Now her stare went from fear to inexplicable, asking himself, how could they have a conversation when she couldn't even speak? She tried to force the words out, but it was no miracle.

Obito turned back to his altar, where he held the box containing the Rinnegan. Despite Sakura's gruesome dislike towards those things, the eyes gave off an aureate light, a sort of illuminating reverse—a reminder that it was somehow alive. "Truth be told, I've known you when you were barely a child." He was speaking to her, Sakura thought, in a way he would never had to someone else. His tone was calm, even conducting, but it wasn't that. "That was a couple of weeks after I unleashed the Kyuubi and Minato-sensei had sealed it inside of his boy." He said. "After I searched the great library, I've discovered something. They say history will repeat itself, and that doppolgangers shall will be born to witness the same fate of their ancestors."

You're lying, Sakura wanted so scream at him. But she wasn't so sure if he was. He sounded strange to her. Different. Maybe it's because he was telling the truth.

"After I fled from village to village, I searched for you in years, and when I did... Maybe that's when the most unexpectable thing happened." He said. "I've risked a death sentence on occasions sneaking in Konoha at night; just to kill you... Just so your memory would stop dancing in my mind." He shook his head, picturing himself as he craddled the little Haruno in his arms; fragile... And soft. "I had to come back. You were everything I've had, and everything I asked for. I told myself I'd come back for you when you're older. I thought maybe I could talk to you, I could make you see the reason." His voice tightened. "When I finally came back, I'd heard you've already become a genin, and rumors say you were placed under Kakashi's students. Rin's always adored him, cared for him, and I realized something then."

He was looking down at his hands. Sakura had thought they were shaking, but they were motionless as a corpse's. Very slowly, he closed them into fists.

"I realized," he said, "What's done is never done. It remains within us, the story we tell ourselves so we know who we are. The mark that we bore from our forefathers. A man sent to establish peace, the other one meant to destroy it. And a girl, either she mantains the balance or be the one to come in between them and ruin their bond. The children of the Sage of Six paths for the hand of Mito Uzumaki, so does the three Legendary Sannins, the Ame Orphans, then us Team Minato, and then you three."

Sakura turned her face away. If he was going to kill her, she did not want to see it coming.

"Sakura," said Obito. "Look at me."

No. She stared across the table. Far across the window she could see a tenebrous indigo light. She knew it was time to go home, to Konoha. Her parents were there, and Tsunade. Maybe it was fitting that they were together, nomatter she wasn't with them.

It'll all be gone any moment now, she thought, I'll keep looking at it even if it's the last thing I ever see.

"Sakura," Obito said again. "You look just like her, do you know that? Just like Rin."

There was a bitter taste in Sakura's mouth. I know why you're so obessed with her. Because she was your only shed of sanity left. You think you have control over her now that she's dead, and here you are risking everything to bring her back. You thought you owned her but you didn't. Here you are trying to do the same thing to me. She felt a sharp pain against her throat. It was the jutsu he had done to her, all gone. Trying to force her to turn her head toward him.

Sakura coughed, and she finally got her voice back. Obito said, "Look at me, Sakura."

She looked. She didn't want to—but the pain was too much—her head jerked to her side almost against her free will, and little by little, her unassertive demureness was slowly dwindling. "Now between the two of us girls, who would you have picked?"

Sakura was about to say something knowingly she was allowed to speak, then again she was left frustrated having nothing else to say.

"You know I've seen the way Naruto looked at you. Pathetic, isn't he? Kind of reminds me of myself. Because at the end of the day, when you truly love someone, it's their happiness that counts. Nomatter what it takes."

"Look at yourself," said Sakura. "You were given a chance to live a normal life, but you never came back. You made everyone believe you were dead. You've had years to learn, to grow and to start fresh. And somehow you've managed to throw it all away. Now you're alone. You whine about not finding love. The reason you don't find love, is because you don't deserve it."

"Oh, but you haven't heard the whole story yet, sweetheart. Was there a time where in Konoha did not brainwash you with lies? Did it ever occur to you how Itachi Uchiha died all for the village's sake yet they kept this from you? Or did you even wonder how Rin die a meaningless life?"

Again, Sakura was caught in a terrible enigma. She stared at Obito, because for some reason he was too beautiful to look at, and Sakura thought, was it difficult of loving someone else? Was love really that—baroque? And when realization hit her, came a rush of numbness—Obito was inlove her. So what was the whole point of hating him when he's just a man who's in the pursuit of happiness?

He kneeled in front of her, and cut her ropes. "Let me show you what you have to know."

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KISS ME OR KILL ME

"I won't leave you here. I promise."

Sakura watched, in a distance, as Rin held onto her dying comrade's hand and kissed it. They were in the middle of a mission and Young Obito was halfway trapped in a giant rock, and Rin watched as life slowly gets torn away from him like falling petals.

Sakura hasn't thought much of dying. She was too preoccupied with her life, too assidious to settle things for her future; but to die in the age of thirteen? She was well aware of how time flies and that people would come in each other's life for a reason, but to look back at the same grave and to freeze in that fleeting moment... "You have to," Obito said slowly, "it's the only way you can make it." Then the Uchiha would smile.

"Minato-sensei will be back soon. We'll get you out of here in no time," Kakashi stood up at the plateau, and Sakura stared at him in amazement. She wondered how someone so stoic turned out to be stubborn... And bratty. He's not going to cry. Sakura thought. He's Kakashi. He never does. "More are coming." Now Obito had been breathing heavily, "you've already risked everything. No one has to die because of me."

Sakura wanted to place her arms toward the young girl, to ask herself if maybe she was the same to Naruto. Heck, she was so obsessed with the Raven when she couldn't even lay a finger to help the knucklehead. Maybe if she was smart, she would have paid more attention to the person who made her his happiness, not to those who treated her like a nuisance. "You want to save us both and you're willing to give up your life." Said Kakashi, with a flick of irritation, "That's not heroic. That's tragic." Then Obito blinked, watched as twilight descended and the woods fell silent. Any moment now, he thought. He stared back at Rin, relieved. Then he reached for her beautiful face to wipe the tears away. "I'll be seeing you then..."

It all happened so fast. Before leaving Obito decided to give Kakashi a little parting present; a gift—a token for his gratittude. Obito then whispered something in Kakashi's ear, something about taking care of her and that both of them should do whatever it takes to survive. Rin had the Sharingan transplanted to Kakashi's left eye not long enough after Minato came into their rescue, leaving Sakura flabbergasted. Much to her dismay she wouldn't even recognize him if it weren't for his bangs that cropped his face, probably the only thing Naruto lacked to bear his resemblance. So this is what the Fourth Hokage looks like. She thought, then the scene broke apart in fragments, and as her vision faded, Sakura caught glimpse of images now familiar to the books she read—Madara, no longer a fine man yet looked like he was hundred-years of age—and young Obito, crawling into the ground with bandages all over his body. He looked despondent. "Rin! Kakashi! I'm alive!"

Madara shook his head, his chin resting into the crotch he was handling terribly. "There's no escape."

And they were gone. The scene showed a heavy downpour in Kirigakure, the same place Sakura knew was written on someone else's grave. An extensive number of Water Ninjas were in there; battling over a turtle-master... No; it was just a girl.

Rin stood there, possessed by the Isobu. She'd been slaughtering multiple ninjas simlutaniously, even the rescue team that was sent to retrieve her was halfway dead—no one else remained, no one except for Kakashi. He looked years older now, no longer a little boy. His hands were drained with blood, and to Sakura's guilty relief it shouldn't have come from his'. He approached Rin from behind with a groveling pereption. "Rin," He was expecting her to target him with her jinchuuriki potence, but he just stared inchoately like this was the first time she'd laid her eyes on someone else.

Kakashi, mollified and exhausted at once, dropped his kunai into the ground as he threw his arms around her. That's how comrades are supposed to act. Sakura thought, watching sympathetically.

"Thought I'd never see you again," Kakashi said, his chin resting into her head. He closed his eyes for a bit, thinking of the things he badly wanted to do with life and yet he felt like it was all accomplished now. But it all dropped in sight once Rin broke from the embrace, and the way she did it felt like they were doing something wrong. "Get away from me,"

She pushed him so hard that it made him too impossible to move. "You don't know me anymore, Kakashi." She said. "I'm not the same as before. I can't go back."

"You are. Even if I don't have to drag you to Konoha." Slowly the anger that dwell in her was constantly drifting, like the raging storm. "Even if you have to fight me??"

Kakashi turned to her, then he chuckled gently. "If that means I get to be with you, have children, grow old with you... If it means we'd die together, be buried together...then yes, I'd fight you." He offered a hand to her, as the sky thundered and the rain poured down. "Do you trust me?"

Sakura blinked, having heard of those words elsewhere.

But Rin shook her head, completely aware of the widening abyss sorrounding her. "I'm tired, Kakashi. H-he's dead... Obito's dead. I can't pass the village without seeing him in the crowd, and whenever I think of him it's killing me and it's insane and I know he's out there but no one would believe me!" After all, what was the point of living when you have no one else to live for? That was how Rin felt the moment she left her comrade in that bridge—when there wasn't even the slightest proof that he's dead and that they never found his body.

Seemingly Kakashi never doubted his exactitude, it was like he'd been slammed by the door upon her claim.

She grabbed the kunai and placed it into his hand, and that's when Kakashi could feel the Chakra increasing inside of her, feeding on her. "Kill me please before I hurt someone else."

"There she is!!" Commanded a Rogue-nin, "after her!"

Kakashi's eyes grew wide. "No don't shoot!!"

Rin shifted her head, rage forming inside of her in extreme sluggishness—and before she could do anything foolish, Kakashi sped in front of her in a blink, as he drove his Chidori into the girl's heart.

Rin's eyes flew from vicious to helpless. A look of disbelieving confusion paced over her and Sakura that her hands immediately cupped her mouth in shock.

"S-save me," She muttered.

"I'm sorry," Kakashi drew his hand back then, jerking his lightning blade out of Rin's chest the way he might have picked daisies with an unbearable guilt; as if it had been all that was holding her up, Rin went into her knees and her Leaf Headband slid from her forehead and hit the damp earth.

Everything after that seemed to Sakura happened very slowly, as if time were stretching itself out. He saw Kakashi looked at his hands in puzzlement, as if he had no idea how he had become capable of doing it, or why he had done it. Then he saw it; Kakashi's Sharingan swirling like a Shuriken, then he realized he wasn't the only one doing it.

Young Obito was screaming something from a distance, his Sharingan reversing as well. Then Kakashi fainted.

A torrential rainfall scared away most of the Kiri ninjas who have retreated. But Obito refused to let them go. He tamed them, pierced them with his meteors and strangled them to death. The rain that washed away the lifeless corpses have become a stream of blood; and everything happened in a tangible blur.

The terrible slowing of time expanded around Sakura like the ticking of a clock, while young Obito held Rin and brushed her bloody hair back to her forehead. Rin gasps lightly in glee at the sight of Obito, and when he thought she was about to say something, death was finally embracing her. "Shh.... Look up," When she did, she was fascinated by the dawn's clear light. "See that? It's beautiful, isn't it?" Sakura was crying by then. She saw young Obito sink to the ground and pull Rin into her lap as if Rin was still very small and could be easily held. The kind of image Sakura's pictured when he told her how he used to visit her at night... "Rin..." He drew her close and rocked her, and he lowered his face and pressed it against her forehead. He held Rin while she died, and light finally went out of her eyes. "I will create a world... Where you exist."

Sakura let out her breath in a sob. She was back in her own body, reeling on herfeet in the filthy and reeking room. Obito was silent, as she faced him with his back.

"When a man learns to love, he must bear the risk of hatred." Sakura panted behind him. There was nothing left she could say. He turned to her. "Rin died trying to protect Konoha.. But no one asked her to do it."

Sakura stared at him, puzzled. "And here you are wasting that sacrifice. You and Sasuke share a lot in common than looks."

"Pity. That's because Sasuke's grown too much full of himself that he's attached himself to many things; where in at some point, he thought the world was moving too fast that he'd rather catch up than be left behind. I, on the contrary, would like to pace back to the past to keep myself preoccupied."

"I've seen you write a list of dead people's name in the wall and scribble them letters. Was that how you keep yourself... Preoccupied?"

Obito glared at her. "Loneliness, Sakura. That's why I've preffered on memorializing my dead. There's this briefest of moments where you literally hold their live in your hands and then your rip them away and you're left with nothing. So gathering other peoples' letters or writing their names on a wall is a reminder that you are left infinitely and utterly alone."

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TRIVIA

References:

- TMI City of Glass, Valentine speaks to Clary for the first time

- TVD as Klaus tells Stefan why he used to write the names of the people he'd killed in the walls

8.30.13

Edited 4.15.14, Tues 12:42 P.M