The Worst Timeline AU

by JaimsJam

Summary:

Me: Ough ahhg Oughhh. Imagine imagine if Rin survived the Sanbi sealing not in a fix-it way but in a, “You’re not even allowed the escape of death” way. The thing inside you is too valuable for you to die.

My beloved mututal: literally surviving her suicide attempt amd getting dragged back to konoha is the MEANEST thing you could do to her. because of the denial of agency. and the lack of personhood. WORST TIMELINE FOR HER BY FAR. i think about it often and relish her suffering.

Notes:

*disclaimer* This is all predicated on the headcanon that Rin’s canon personality is a mask.

She makes Kakashi kill her and she’s alive to answer for it. She resents him for needing her, (“Why couldn’t you have just let me die!”) resents Minato for building an iron-tight seal, resents Kushina teaching her how to accept navigate the council’s demands. Her classmates don’t understand what happened, she avoids them so she doesn’t have to try and put on a mask that is broken.

Kiri wants their Tailed Beast back, crying about an imbalance of power. Kiri and Kumo band together and a new war begins. Rin is kept in the village to train while Kakashi fights, (“You’ll be safe here”) Minato works into the morning on seals to help a village that’s already taxed to the limit, and Kushina comes back with raw pink skin, fake cheer, and dead eyes.

A lull in the fighting as Kiri implodes into civil war and bloodline-purges. Kushina and Minato want a future to hope for. They want a child. But the Kyuubi breaks out. Konoha’s jinchuriki and Yellow Flash are dead and Kumo smells blood in the water.

Well.

(“Time to prove your worth.”)

A port city supplying the blockade starving eastern fire country. A standoff between two weapons of mass destruction, their operators with fingers on the trigger.

Despite itself, the Three-tails asks her to spare them. To refuse her orders and run away. It’s in no position to make demands, she says. And where could she hide where nobody would try and take what Konoha stole? At least she controls this power and not an enemy. She sees the signal, and goes out to meet the Two-Tails. 

And even if none of that were true, she stopped caring about who lived and who died a long time ago.

The Sanbi(Rin?) rages and wails at the cruelty of their captivity.

She comes out on top. With blood in her teeth and skin curling with steam. The ships eaten through with coral and chakra-burned bodies lie in the streets. She’s proven Konoha’s strength. No one will ever die because she was weak again.

It feels empty.

—

The war is over and the village needs money(It’s not over. It’s never over); and there are more than enough unruly militias and uppity weapons dealers to keep those in Anbu busy. Turtle and Hound silently pass each other in gray concrete tunnels until it’s one mission too many. They cling to each other because there is nothing and no one else. Kakashi grieves. Rin does not. Unless she remembers Kushina’s comfort or Minato teaching her his seals. They experiment getting drunk for the first time and wallow together in misery. They can never go back to the way they were, but at least they’re together and alive.

—

Life grows around the grief, and the anger cools. Rin never gets a genin team, the Sandaime learned his lesson with his own students. But Kakashi does, and he invites her to lurk on the edge of one of their training practices. She sees Minato in Naruto’s optimism and feels rage, she sees the determination she lost in Sakura and burns with jealousy. Sasuke never forgives and he never forgets and she silently screams with want.

—

The Akatsuki come for her. The insufferable idiot with the orange mask has the mokuton. He pins her, snarling, to the water-soaked ground. Until he takes off his mask and—

(“Obito?”)

Even with the passage of years she can recognize the face of her best friend.

(“Oh,” he says, cupping her cheek. “What have they done to you?”)

She cries.

Notes:

This is a summary/prologue to a much larger and more complicated AU where Rin is around for Naruto canon. However, I am not a fast or particularly skilled writer, so unfortunately I don't expect to post anything more. Or on the off-chance that I do, stories in this series will be disjointed one-shots. Nevertheless I hope you enjoyed the character-study/taste-test of this concept ^ ^

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of The Worst Timeline AU