AN: Soooo. Naruto OS. Plunny attacked me when I was thinking about how Jinchuuriki-Rin would have been amazing, and she - and Kakashi and Obito - deserved so much better. So there we are.

Warnings: Canon violence, mentions of suicide.

Pairings: None, but can be seen as pre-KakaObiRin OT3.

Enjoy !

Ready To Go

When Rin wakes up – she wakes up, how, she's dead, she's supposed to be dead – it's to the cool and humid night air, with the tang of salt, that she has grown used to on the Kiri front. There are stars above her head, and for a long moment she just stares at them, uncomprehending.

She's supposed to be dead.

The thought brings back the fight, the last time she woke up – captured by enemies, ink like lines of fire on the skin of her back, her movements only half hers, her heart hurting each time it beat, liquid fire in her veins, chakra so corrosive it might as well have been acid in her coils. She hadn't understood then either, but she'd had enough lucidity to understand the purpose, her purpose.

A time-bomb, a bijuu restrained barely by ink and skin, set to detonate the moment she set foot in Konoha. Her body hadn't been her own, because only half of what she did was what she intended, and something had kept pushing her forward, towards Konoha, towards her doom and the destruction of all she loved. Then Kakashi, barely registering in her mind, and the jutsu in his hand.

The half-coherent thought that if she died there, then, Konoha would be safe.

Kakashi's face, eyes wide and horrified, and the utter agony of getting ripped into by lightning around a fist.

Rin cringes, guilt suddenly surging inside of her like a tidal wave, because shit. Kakashi. She hadn't intended to use him this way, to use him at all, but she'd been barely lucid, and the only thought in her mind had been that she had to die.

Except, she's not dead.

She's not dead, there are stars above her, and salt in the air.

She brings a hand up, in contrast to the weak starlight, and marvels a little at the fact that she's fine. Oh, she aches and hurts in places she's not sure should, and her blood is still on fire, and there's still chakra – foreign and burning like acid – inside of her. But… But her body is hers, she can move freely, and her mind is finally completely lucid.

She should be dead, a hole in her heart, but she's not.

"Rin !" A voice calls, full of relief and of something else that she doesn't recognize.

She doesn't tilt her head to look – she can't, her body is hers but it feels heavy with fatigue and ache. It doesn't matter anyway, because suddenly there are two people in front of her, their faces filling her vision, and it's night, dark, but she thinks one of them is-

"Obito ?" She whispers, surprised, and then realizing. "Oh, so I am dead."

"No !" That's Kakashi, and he looks awful, blood matting his silver hair and bruises under his eyes. "No, Rin, you're alive. You're alive."

"And I'm alive too," Obito says, and it cracks halfway through in a familiar way – like he's going to cry. "We're all- fine. Alive. Fine."

But that's not possible, because Obito died. Crushed. And she's dead too. Using Kakashi as a weapon and that's-

"Sorry," she tells him, and it comes out pathetic and weak and too tired. "Kakashi. I'm sorry. Obito, too."

"You should be sorry," one of them say, she's not sure which. Then there are hands all over her face and shoulders, grounding and real. "What were you thinking ? Why would you even-"

"I wasn't thinking," she blurts, admits, feeling awful and guilty and even more awful still. "I- There's a seal and- I think there's a bijuu inside of me- Konoha- I needed to-"

She's babbling now, and her chest suddenly heaves and the words break, even as her vision goes blurry. She's crying, a part of her that isn't quite her, all detached, realizes. She's not the only one, either, because there are two damp patches on her – one in her neck, the other on her opposite shoulder, and when she raises her arms weakly, they close over her boys, tugging them closer.

There are hairs in her face, and simply breathing hurts, but she doesn't care.

She's alive, and Obito's alive, and Kakashi's alive. They're all here, all sobbing, together.

Her boys.

"I'm sorry !" She sobs again, and then she repeats it, expect maybe she doesn't. Maybe it's Kakashi, babbling about how he tried to stop himself but didn't manage to in time. Or maybe it's Obito, telling them with a weak, scratchy voice that he wanted to come home sooner, but he couldn't. "So sorry !"

All of them stay there for who knows how long, and at some point she falls asleep again.

It's not good sleep, despite the fact that she's safe, that she's got her boys with her finally whole. It's uneasy, and there's something growling and trashing in her mind, and her nightmares are filled with ink and liquid fire and explosions over salty bodies of water and the smell of lightning and blood.

Humans, a voice growls, deep and full of contempt, and it echoes all around her and haunts her dreams.

It's still echoing a little when she wakes up, but she blinks it away, along with the last vestiges of sleep. The sky is clear now, in a way that suggests it's early. It's not the same sky, though, because there are leaves in her vision.

"Hey, Rin," Obito – real, alive, not a dream – greets her, smiling awkwardly in the corner of her eye. "Feeling better ?"

"Yeah," she whispers. "How long ?"

"A few hours, nothing much," Obito replies, understanding her meaning immediately – like he always does. "Kakashi went to pick up some dry wood, and maybe find something to eat. He should be back soon."

"You didn't sleep ?" She asks, frowning.

Obito blinks at her, but before he can reply there's a rustle in the leaves, and he sends the bushes a sharp look. Rin forces herself up, forces her aching limbs to obey her, to ignore the burning in her veins, grasping for a kunai. In her state she won't be much help in the case of an attack, but she doesn't want to be caught helpless again.

Never again.

"Wind," Obito announces suddenly, relaxing, and she startles when she realizes his sharingan is still activated. She takes him at his word, relaxing a bit too, but not letting herself fall back. If she does, she'll be tempted to remain lying down. Obito looks at her. "And yeah, we slept. I took first watch, because Kakashi was exhausted, and woke him up for the second one. I just… didn't manage to sleep for long."

There's a slant to his lips that is foreign, and Rin suddenly wants to ask him where he's been, why he didn't come back sooner, what he's been doing. But she has a feeling it's not the time, and Obito looks like he might just fade away and become a ghost if she makes a wrong move, so she doesn't move at all.

They stay there, not moving, not talking, but in comfortable, if heavy silence. Kakashi comes back, looking barely better from her hazy recollections of last night. He's carrying a little wood, and one rabbit. For a moment he stares at her, then at Obito, before moving to make a fire.

Rin thinks that maybe she's not the only one thinking they might not be real.

They all gather around the small fire, all of them looking worse for wear. Obito is being extra careful with his right side – which, now that she's looking at what little she can see underneath the flowing clothes he has on, looks odd, all thin and white and with an odd texture. She's being careful with every limb, but especially with how she moves her back. Kakashi has his left eye closed, and moves with careful slowness as well, clearly still tired.

Sage, they're all a mess.

For a moment, Rin wishes for Konoha. For Minato-sensei, and the surety and safety of the chakra trees, of her tiny apartment, of the hospital.

Except her back still burns with ink, with a seal that she probably couldn't understand if she could see it, but that she can guess the purpose of anyway. She's a timebomb, and she can't go back home with it ready to explode.

"I don't know what to do," she says, and it's meant to be for her ears alone, but she says it loud enough that her boys turn sharply to look at her. She swallows, and for a moment keeps her eyes on the fire, before raising them and meeting two single mismatched eyes. "There's a seal on my back, and… I'm no expert, but from what I understand, it's meant to release the bijuu when I get to Konoha." She looks at Kakashi then, willing him to understand. "That's why I- did what I did. I wasn't in control, but I knew that if I did nothing, then Konoha would..."

She trails off, but Kakashi's expression is grim with realization, and Obito's single eye – sharingan still activated, she realizes – is fixed on her, a strange expression on his face.

"That's probably why you survived," he tells her, turning his eye away to look at the rabbit cooking over the flames. "Jinchuuriki… They are supposed to have superior healing, right ? You were unconscious for a long time. We didn't dare move you, but- it took days."

Rin nods, and suddenly the chakra in her system, the ache in her chest makes more sense. She opens her mouth to say something – probably to ask what she had missed, that first time, if they both killed all the enemy by themselves or not, and what did they do during those days she was out – but Kakashi takes both her and Obito by surprise.

"Is the seal still active ?" He asks, a bit sharply.

"Well, I'm no expert," she says again, slowly, uncertain, "But I think so, yeah. I think they didn't design the seal to fail, so much as to break when I go back to Konoha. It's in the seal that's keeping the bijuu in me."

Obito looks grim, and Kakashi doesn't react. He looks thoughtful, in a way that Rin has grown used to – it's an expression that he gets nowadays, ever since Obito didn't die, when he's thinking something stupid. Like that one time he wanted to get out of the village, to get Obito's body back. Or that other time he woke up in hysterics, saying he was seeing something from Obito's eye that wasn't there, and wanted to go find the second eye, to find Obito.

Most of the time, she's the one to talk him out of those stupid ideas, even if it hurts her.

This time, he doesn't give her the time to even guess what it might be.

"Then don't," he says.

Rin stares at him, not sure what he's talking about – not willing to understand, because he can't be suggesting… Obito frowns in confusion. It makes the scars on his face twist into something rather horrifying, but Rin doesn't dare stare, because that's rude.

"Don't what ?" He asks.

"Don't go back to Konoha," Kakashi says, as if it was this simple. He goes on, quickly, when both she and Obito stare at him in shock, "It's logic, really. If you go back, you die, Konoha is destroyed, we die. So don't go back." When there's only shocked silence in answer to his declaration, he huffs. "From what you say, the seal isn't time-dependent, as much as location-dependent. Not when the seal breaks, but where. So you just have to stay out of Konoha, and you'll be fine."

"I can't do that," she replies, and her voice falls flat. "Kakashi, that's- I'd be a missing nin."

"Except you don't have to be," Obito suddenly says, slow and thoughtful, and nodding along with Kakashi like he's not talking madness. "Look, I'm not a missing-nin, am I ? So I don't have to go back. I can stay with you." He looks at Kakashi. "Kakashi can go back to Konoha, and tell them you died. That he killed you. It'd even be the truth, somewhat."

Kakashi cringes, and Obito does too a second later, realizing that he might have been a bit callous. Rin cringes as well, and mutters another apology in her teammate's direction. He waves it away, looking uncomfortable, until he seems to gather his determination.

"Yeah," he finally breathes out. "Yeah, I can do that. I'll say I couldn't transport your body, so I burned it. And then-" he takes a deep breath, and goes on- "Then I'll leave the village, alone. Only one missing-nin, that way."

Rin stares at him him in shock, and Obito does the same, because that's Kakashi. Kakashi who, even if he got better, still sticks by the rules a bit too often. Kakashi who just suggested that he lie to Konoha about her, to prevent her from being hunted, but also that he become a missing-nin. A traitor.

And not just any missing-nin, but a jounin ranked one, the last Hatake, the son of the White Fang, the last 'living' student of the Yellow Flash and Yondaime of Konoha. Rin doesn't know where even to begin to explain how bad this idea is. That's...

"Why would you do that ?" Rin asks before she can stop herself.

"I'm not staying in Konoha alone," Kakashi tells her, and it's hurt and stubborn, and she almost flinches.

Because yes. If she stays out of Konoha, like she has to, Obito will stay with her. Kakashi will be alone in Konoha, all alone. Rin knows how terrible, how lonely it got, those past months, without Obito. Kakashi was a mess, she was a mess, and there are days where the both of them felt like they only had each other in the world.

It's maybe awful of her to say, but leaving Konoha behind wouldn't be as hard for her as it would have been once. Konoha was home but… but lately it had been only an empty place, full of grief. The memorial stone, the hospital, her apartment, the Uchiha compound, even Minato-sensei… All of them, reminders that Obito wasn't there any more. None of them fully understanding.

Oh, Minato-sensei understood, but not the way Kakashi did. Obito had been – was still, he's alive – the sunshine, the fire in them. Without Obito, the very foundation of their world felt like it was crumbling a little more every day, the colour leached from everything.

Rin doesn't want to imagine how it'd feel, if she had to go back home without either Obito or Kakashi, and stay there. Alone.

"No," she finally agrees, and she looks at him, understanding passing between them the way it does lately. They never had been close before, but now Kakashi is as important to her as Obito is, and she suspects the reverse is true. "No, you're not staying there on your own."

He nods, and there's relief in the lines of his face, in his shoulders. A tension she hadn't quite noticed before, seeping away. She suddenly wants to hit herself, more than ever before, because dear Sage. How would he have reacted, had she really died, had she really chosen to abandon him on his own, with only her cold corpse cooling on his fist ?

She doesn't want to know, and she hates herself just a little for having made a choice that very likely would have broken him.

Konoha would have been safe, but the price is one she doesn't want to pay. The village already got years of her life, and more. They've gotten everything she could give, and some things she couldn't but gave anyway - Obito, Kakashi, her own life.

This time, just this once, she wants to be selfish. She wants to keep her team, keep her life, keep them close and safe.

She looks at Obito, who dreamed about being Hokage. Looks at Kakashi, who wanted to be the best shinobi Konoha ever had and restore his clan's honour. She wonders what sort of terrible person that makes her, that she's ready to sacrifice their dreams for her selfish desires.

"Are you sure ?" She asks, because if they do this there's no going back, and there's too much on the line for second guessing.

"You're not getting rid of me," Kakashi mutters stubbornly.

"Me neither," Obito says, and then grins, a little crooked and making his scars twist. "We're a team ! It's together or nothing !"

Kakashi looks like he wants to object, just for the principle of the thing, but in the end remains silent. Rin wants to smile. Or cry - she's not sure which.

"So, then," Obito claps his left hand on his thigh, with forced cheer. "Let's plan our grand escape from the world at large !"

Rin can't quite restrain her giggle at the grand way he says it, with a large hand gesture, as if announcing a show. Kakashi rolls his eye, but whatever tension remained in his frame is gone now, and it makes something in her warm and soothe her aches a little.

They're alive, she thinks. They're alive.

They're going to be fine.

Minato stares blankly at the letter. The paper is crinkled, and torn on the edges, almost faded at some spots, where he has traced the words with his fingers one time too many. An arm closes around his shoulders, and he lets out a deep sigh, his hand rising to grasp at Kushina's. He squeezes her fingers, finding little comfort in the gesture.

"You shouldn't torture yourself like that," she murmurs, oddly quiet.

Minato snorts, but doesn't reply just yet. His eyes are still tracing the words, words that he knows by heart. He has read the letter so many times, he could almost see it with his eyes closed.

I'm sorry, sensei, it starts, Kakashi's handwriting rounder than usual, as if he had hesitated and written slowly, uncertainly. Uncharacteristic of Kakashi, but fitting of the context.

I can't do this any more. I can't stay here, when they aren't. I'm leaving to join them. Don't search for me.

Take care of yourself.

I'll be fine.

It's short, but to the point. As far as goodbye letters are concerned, it might be the most concise and yet clearest one he's ever read. Kakashi had splintered, when Obito died. When Rin followed, barely eight months later, he had broken. He had looked so lost, all the time, roaming the streets of Konoha as if he didn't know them.

Sometimes, his eyes had gotten this faraway look in them, as if he was seeing something completely different, as if he wasn't living in the same realm any more.

Really, Minato thinks to himself bitterly, he should have known. He should have seen the signs. The restlessness, the empty gazes, the way Kakashi always seemed to angle himself towards Kiri when he thought no one was watching, an expression so intense and deep on his covered face that Minato had felt like he was intruding on something private.

He had thought he was grieving. Had given him space, and time.

He should have known, should have given him support, should have been there-

"Minato," Kushina sighs, coming around the couch to sit next to him. "It's not your fault, you know."

For a long moment, he doesn't say anything, just holding her hand, and wondering what if. Then he closes his eyes.

"I've called off the search parties," he says, quietly.

Kushina jolts against his side. He looks at her, finding her expression a mix of sorrow, shock and anger. There's also a hint of relief and guilt, hidden away, but she pushes past those to demand answers.

"You did what ?" She says, loud and incredulous. "Why ?"

"It's been a year, and no one found anything," he answers – and it's still painful, that there's so trace of him, nowhere, as if he had simply vanished on the spot. "Not even a rumour, or a sighting. Kushina… Don't you think it's time ?"

She opens her mouth to retort, and Minato can see her anger in her face. But whatever she finds on his, it makes her falter, and then pause. She purses her lips. Then finally sighs.

"I think," she says, a bit sullenly, "that if he's somewhere, he won't be found unless he wants to. He'll come home when he's ready, you know ?"

Minato nods, even as his mind points out to him how unlikely that is. I'm leaving to join them, he's written, and it leaves little to the imagination. The only them that Kakashi would care to join were Obito and Rin, and perhaps his father. Given that his family's tanto are missing, along with a few more belongings, Minato knows all too well what has probably happened.

It hurts to think about it, to acknowledge it, but Kakashi… He's probably dead. Either in the manner of his father, or gone fighting until he couldn't any more. Either way, it's suicide, and Minato hates that he hasn't seen it coming when he should have.

"Yeah," he finally says, "He'll go home when he's ready."

Where home is, is another matter entirely.

I'm leaving to join them.

Minato closes his eyes again. Soon, he'll have to mark Kakashi as a missing-nin, even if he's no traitor, even if he's dead. The council will leave him no choice, and politics either. He can't even engrave his name in the stone, under Obito's and Rin's, where it belongs.

When he opens them again, Kushina is watching him with worry. He gives her a thin smile.

"It's okay," he says, and he forces a slightly bigger smile. "He said to take care of ourselves, didn't he ?"

"Yeah," she grins back, and it's a bit wan but more genuine. "He'll be fine."

I'll be fine.

Minato's smile goes soft for a second.

I'll be fine.

Who knew. Maybe, just maybe, he would be. Maybe he's just roaming the Elemental Nations, his tantô on his back, his summons by his side, trying to find the parts of himself he has lost along the way. Maybe he's better now, at peace.

Maybe he's fine.

It might be naive and stupid of him, but Sage he hopes so.

"Take care of yourself too, Kakashi," he murmurs.

Miles and miles away from there, a silver-haired teenager suddenly turns away from the path, to look back at the road behind. The wind is whispering around him and he frowns, hand grasping tightly at his biggest hound's fur for grounding.

For a moment, he thought he heard…

"Sensei ?" He murmurs.

A shout ahead of him, and the moment is broken. He startles, turning back around, only to find two figures walking a bit further ahead. One of them waves, brown hair wiping around her face in the wind, cloth mask – similar to his own – hiding the purple on her cheeks but not the shape of her smile.

"Oi, Bakashi ! Hurry up, old man !" The other calls, the words blunted by an edge of teasing.

"Yes, yes," he huffs, then louder, "If you're so eager to run, moron, then run !"

He gives a click of his tongue, and Bull gives a doggy grin before bounding forwards. Obito yelps, then starts to run away, Rin's giggles following him just as surely as the nin-dog. Kakashi catches up to her in time to see Obito leap in the trees, pursued by a persistent Bull.

"That was mean, Kakashi," she tells him, still giggling.

"Hm, I don't know," he hums, "He was asking for it."

She laughs, and he feels the slight melancholy that took him so by surprise fade, soothed by the sound.

"Bakashi !" Obito shrieks, from somewhere in the trees. "Call back your dog !"

He smiles, uncontrollably, then whistles for Bull.

Don't worry, sensei, he thinks to the wind, we're fine.

And so they got lost on the road of life.

So ! There. This is my take on '...But what if the whole 'can't set foot in Konoha without going Boom' thing was LITERAL'. Also known as 'Team Minato, back at it again with the stupid ideas BUT AT LEAST THEY ARE TOGETHER'.

Let's be honest, Rin could have been put at an out-of-village outpost, and Obito and Kakashi could have visited via Kamui. But nooo. They decided to take a road-trip with Kakashi as a wanted-criminal-sort-of, instead. But hey. Fun times ahead (That I won't be writing, no sir, because I have on-going fics and I hear the people coming for me already with pitchforks).

Not pictured: Kisame meeting those three odd nins and deciding to stick around for a while. Obito teaching Kakashi how to turn off the Sharingan. Kamui shenanigans. Rin being a badass Three-tails jinchuuriki, and Kiri-nins scratching their heads about their missing bijuu.

Please leave a review ! (Please don't ask for updates. If you want to write your own take on the Missing-nin Team Minato, then go ahead, be my guest, credit me and have fun ! But please, don't demand anything from me, damn it.)