The masked man dropped her abruptly onto a grey slab of earth, and she quickly scurried away as fast as her trembling legs could drag her. Rin pinched the fabric of her shirt shut as she warily eyed the man who took her, darting her eyes away momentarily to take in her new surroundings.

She was surrounded by tall, flat blocks of earth, somewhat resembling the Ame style of architecture, it was incredibly dark and she blinked rapidly in an attempt to adjust quickly. Rin stiffened as the man who took her let out a heavy sigh, messaging the sides of his temples in irritation as he eyed her coldly through his mask. His only visible eye took in her appearance one last time before his form… swirled away? She blinked, eyeing the place he once was and twisting to see if his form was nearby, but she couldn't seem to find him in plain sight.

Rin took that opportunity to rest, and by that she means collapsing of her shaking legs as they could no longer support her. While it seemed too soon to celebrate, she found herself minutely relaxing due to her solitude. She released a few trembling breaths before focusing inwards to speak with her partner.

'Isobu-san,' Her inner voice was filled with tentative relief. 'Are you alright?' She could visualize him shifting himself to face her, grumbling at her for interrupting his rest.

'Of course' Despite the trials that they had endured, he sounded confident. 'For how long, however, is a different story.' She pursued her lips as she propped herself onto her knees, using one arm to hold her shirt together and the other to lift her from her collapsed position on the concrete.

'We have to get out of here' She attempted to mimic the same confidence he possessed, but it came out lacking, instead highlighting her anxiety as she randomly picked a direction to walk. The landscape was quite uniform, and while the heights of the columns varied, the distance between them was identical and wasn't too overwhelming. It looked around three meters, which she could jump with a bit of a running start.

As far as she could see, there were only the towers of stone, but she'd be damned if she waited here helplessly until the man came back. He may have taken her away from the other men, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything good for her. She couldn't be there when he got back.

She jumped across towers, skidding past some suspicious brown stains staining the floor of the columns and resolutely didn't think about what the source was, and continued on her way. Squinting desperately and looking for any change in her uniform surroundings.

She must have been doing this for a while with no luck, when a familiar man swirled back into view and she squeaked in surprise, losing her balance and falling backwards onto her rear. He paid her pathetic form no mind and reached for her arm to heft her up before she could even provide resistance. She stumbled to catch her balance while simultaneously trying to yank herself from his iron-clad grip, before she felt the world rotate on itself once again and her stomach flipped from the strange feeling.

She was released immediately and she scrambled back once more, trying desperately not to vomit on the dusty road beneath her. Rin put her head between her knees and breathed through her nose heavily before she regained her barings once again. She cautiously looked up at the orange-masked man once again, her muscles clenching in anticipation of having to make a quick escape, but the man just turned away, looking down the road and gauging something before he faced her once more.

"A man with grey hair will pass through here. Go with him." His voice wasn't as venomous as it was earlier, but his deep voice was intimidating nonetheless. At this point, Rin was very much done with everything, and even if it could potentially be deadly, she couldn't hold in her annoyance at this point.

"Why the hell should I listen to you?" She glared at him and held the slips of her shirt together, curling in on herself. His posture faltered somewhat and his arm faded from view for a moment before it returned to visibility holding a black piece of fabric. Rin took half a step back in anticipation of some sort of retaliation from her insolence. The man held out his arm and she flinched, before she realized that he was offering her a… shirt?

The man looked awkward standing there while she hesitated, debating mentally if this was some sort of trick, but eventually, the damp early morning air broke her resolve and she hesitantly took the proffered fabric. She turned away from him in a useless show of modesty and tossed away her old shirt before shrugging on the new one.

He cleared his throat to regain her attention and she flinched under his attention, eyeing him warily, before he spoke once again.

"Go with the man." He awkwardly ran a hand through his hair, and he looked… nervous? "He'll protect you if he bothers to remember his promise." He seemed to give her one last evaluative look before he disappeared without a trace, leaving her alone on the dirt road.

Rin hesitated, wondering about the validity of the man's words, if she could even trust his words at this point, but… She looked around her. What else could she do? She didn't recognize anything around her and it's not as if there's anywhere to go home to- She cut herself off before she could spiral into self recriminations and looked resolutely at the direction the man indicated… before half an hour seemed to pass and she couldn't even see anyone in the horizon.

Annoyance warred with her at this point, the fear being replaced by her quickly souring mood. Rin crossed her arms and tapped her foot from her position in the middle of the path and wondered if the masked man was making a fool of her.

'Patience child, I can sense people approaching now.' She straightened and squinted at the horizon, seeing tiny dots approaching sluggishly. She straightened her spine and attempted to look presentable, adjusting her bangs and standing still.. for all of ten minutes, before she huffed and glared at the slightly larger silhouettes of… four figures.

"Isobu-san.." She lowered her head and peered through her bangs at the quartet. He ignored her whine and she could feel him turning away from her in clear dismissal. She huffed in annoyance and began tapping her foot once more.

Without the imminent threat of death, her utter exhaustion and bone deep ache in her muscles and feet made themselves known in a vengeance, bringing her normally passive self quick to temper. Her shoulder in particular annoyed her with the itch of dried blood crusting on her skin. She shifted the collar of the overly-large shirt and scratched at the dried mess with her fingernails. It flaked and burrowed under her nails, something she would certainly be annoyed with later, but for now, the itch was prevalent in her mind.

She settled in a single-minded determination, barely paying attention to the world around her as she waited for the four figures to approach her. Rin glanced up briefly, and was satisfied to see that they were significantly closer at this point. In fact, she could make out the barest details of the group as she squinted against the afternoon sun.

There was indeed a grey-haired man, and she assumed the man to be a ninja. His face was nearly completely covered, wearing a dark shirt and pants under a green vest. He was walking behind a group of three children, talking to them about something that made the three straighten and focus up the road in her direction.

The three children were all similar in height, the blond one the smallest of the group but standing out the most with his orange jumpsuit, followed by a girl with pink hair and a crimson dress. The last one was less noticeable, if only due to the lack of vibrant colors. He was dark-haired and dressed in a blue turtleneck and shorts, walking just a bit away from his two agemates.

They were all battered, but seemed to have no obvious injuries besides bruises, and as they walked closer, they slowly ambled into a triangular position with the grey-haired man taking up the rear.

Rin waited for their cautious approach, still scratching absent-minded at the blood on her shoulder, when they finally arrived.

She dropped her arm and went to speak, when she was interrupted by the blond boy.

"Hey, Lady! Who're you?" She clicked her teeth as she shut her mouth, her eyebrow twitching at his rudeness. Rin crossed her arms and focused a look onto the uncouth boy before her.

"It's not 'lady'," She flicked a gaze to the boy's hitai-ate. "ninja-san, it's Rin." She heard a hiss of air behind the trio, and focused on the older man.

The grey-haired man was wide-eyed and pale, looking as if he had just been struck and his jaw seemed to be working behind his black-clothed mask. As she looked closer, he was trembling, his shoulders hiking up and tense. Rin eyed him warily, wondering if her decision to stick around was a mistake. His single eye was scouring her face, taking in her form and whatever he was reading was obviously distressing him. She took a wary step back.

Before the tension could overwhelm her completely, the blond brought the attention back to himself, worming himself into her personal space and staring at her with a scrunched up nose and pursed lips, before looking back at the older man, and back at her. The other two seemed to be recognizing the tension as well, and were glancing between the two of them in confusion, but aghast with their blond agemate, yanking him away with the back of his jacket.

"Naruto-baka! Sensei told us to stay in formation!" The pink-haired one was eying her warily, one hand hovering above a pouch strapped to her thigh, before attention zeroed back onto the older man with his interruption.

"You can't be Rin." He seemed to be struggling to regain his composure, His single-eye boring into her own with a relentless intensity, but the absurdness of his words confused her.

"What?" Rin furrowed her brows at the man in utter confusion. "What are you talking about?"

The man was absently rubbing his right hand along his pants, paling further.

"You can't be her, because Rin is-dead." There was a slight pause to his words, as if he was forcing them out through gritted teeth and forced calmness.

The three children around her all reacted differently to his dramatic words: Naruto with a brash, overly loud exclamation, The pink-haired one with a small gasp, and the dark one with quirked brows and bloodless-lips. Rin herself, however, was just exasperated.

She was exhausted. Her family was probably dead; her kind, kind, grandparents who took her into the comfort of their home selflessly years ago probably murdered at the hands of those madmen and all she's ever known gone in an instant after those cloaked murderers invaded her home for her.

The stress of it was overwhelming, the grief reaching up and grabbing her by the throat, suffocating her with the knowledge that even if she didn't know why, her family was dead because of her, and here was this man, wasting her time.

"Child, calm down" She reached mindlessly for the burning chakra that Isobu had loaned her back then, but he kept a firm grip, coiling his tail defensively around him and denying her access.

But she was furious. She was angry and confused, and here she was, with nowhere to go and obeying the whims of some masked man, but what other choice did she have?

Her eyes itched as she felt the burning tears of grief and humilation welling and she gritted her teeth, blinking rapidly.

"Dead?" She gave a choked, bitter laugh and the man flinched as if struck. "You know who's dead? My family-" Her breath hitched and she took a shuddering breath, her entire form trembling with emotion. "my family is p-robably dead because some bastards invaded my home and kidnapped me-and, and they were going to kill me!"

The four before her seemed stunned beyond words, struck speechless by her confession, and the blond and pink-haired children seemed heartbroken along with her. The black-haired boy's face was blank, fists and jaw clenched in repressed emotion, but the older man looked like a light breeze could strike him down. His shoulders hunched in on himself, but she couldn't bring herself to care. Rin furiously wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her oversized shirt and took a shuddering breath before continuing.

"Then some masked asshole took me away and ditched me here, saying that you" She pointed at the older man rudely and he seemed to shrink from her attention. "would protect me if you remembered some promise!" The grey haired man took an involuntary step back, looking even paler if possible and taking a ragged breath.

"Who told you that?" His voice barely carried, merely a whisper. He looked as if he saw a ghost, his right hand still continuing to rub against his thigh, as if he was wiping something away.

She bared her teeth and fisted her new shirt, the loose fabric bunched in her trembling fist.

"The masked man who cut my shirt off!" Rin trembled with the remembered vulnerability, by squared her shoulders and surged on. "Now, apparently you have some obligation to protect me, but I don't even know you-" The lump in her throat constricted her breathing and she shuddered in on herself, squeezing her eyes shut and hunching in on herself defensively. She remained silent, but let out little gasps of air between her sobs and exhaustion brought her to her knees.

The anger was gone now, leaving only her grief and fear, and she could have drowned in it, would have if a small hand didn't interrupt her by gently tugging her sleeve.

Rin looked up, eyes swollen and red-rimmed, tears sticking her bangs to her wet cheeks, and overall, just looking miserable. The blond boy, Naruto, had a serious look to his face, looking at her with sympathy, while he gripped her sleeve. The other two were behind him, the girl had tears of her own trailing down her full cheeks, and the dark-haired boy was looking at her with a similar look of grief. The sympathy nearly sent her over the edge again, but god, if she wasn't pathetic for needing three children to comfort her.

"It's okay to grieve.." She closed her eyes from Isobu's words, taking in a deep breath before collecting herself.

'Not now.' Her lip trembled before she stilled it, gently removing Naruto's hand from her arm and standing.

She gave the boy a small thankful look before he focused back on the teacher. The man seemed to not have moved during her entire meltdown, frozen solid, before he visibly collected himself and fixed her a blank look, his form visually composed besides his trembling right hand.

"Rin-san, we will escort you back to Konoha." He was stiff turning back to his students. "Resume formation around the client, I will watch the perimeter." And his form disappeared in a swarm of leaves, leaving her alone with the children.

The journey was awkward between Rin and the three children. Conversation was stilted, and save from glances of silver in the trees, she would have thought them completely alone.

They all had managed to introduce themselves properly after a few hours of traveling in silence; while she had already known the blond's name, Naruto, she learned that the girl was Haruno Sakura, and the other boy was Uchiha Sasuke, and Uzumaki Naruto was the boy's full name.

Naruto managed to push away most of the uncomfortable atmosphere with an animated retelling of the mission they had evidently just completed, the other two teammates corrected him when he began to ramble about anything too outlandish. Even with their corrections, however, she couldn't help but wonder how any of them had even survived their mission.

From how they told it, it seems that they had assisted a village in an uprising and had been confronted by multiple missing nin. While she didn't know much about the life of a ninja, her grandfather had told her the basics whenever it had come up, and missing nin were dangerous if they were able to successfully evade capture from their native village. Even if the children-and these were children regardless of their status as ninja-had romanticized their encounter with Zabuza and Haku, they had been in serious danger. They had told her that their mission was mis-ranked, and what a dangerous and careless mistake on the Hokage's part. Not only that, but this had been their first mission outside the walls of their village!

Even with such short exposure to the trio, she felt herself growing close to them already. Naruto was animated and carefree, never seeming to run out of things to talk about before they would camp out for the night. He was so passionate and bright, ambitious already for his age with his dream to be Hokage, and had already wormed out a promise to tour Konoha with himself and his teammates. Sakura, the sweet girl, was very smart, with an obvious crush on their third teammate, but seemed to get aggravated very easily when Naruto would behave to bombastically. Sasuke was quiet and while a hidden sadness seemed to cling to him, he seemed to care deeply for his two teammates, even if he showed him affection quite.. oddly. His insults towards the blue-eyed boy would rile the boy up and in turn, provoke the wrath of the female member of their team. While their dynamic was a bit.. overwhelming at times, she could appreciate their close bond, and their antics would distract her from her grief, at least for a little while.

But when the sun went down and the now-stoic Hatake Kakashi returned to their group to set camp, she couldn't help but succumb to her grief in the night, as she lay in her borrowed bedroll.

They arrived in Konoha late in the afternoon on their second day of travel. Rin was weary despite the energy in the group around her, and she was flagging with exhaustion at this point. While she was used to physical labor on the farm, walking for miles was a different kind of exertion and she was struggling to not just collapse where she stood. The only thing that kept her standing at this point was her utter nervousness at facing the Hokage of this village. She had heard that he was the God of Shinobi, and no matter how kind Naruto insists his oji-san' is, he is still the leader of the village she was seeking sanctuary.

They approached the gate guards and while the four ninja had proffered their paperwork, she was suddenly struck with the fact that her papers her still in her home, tucked away in her desk drawer. She hunched her shoulders as the homesickness hit her, combining with her nervousness and just making her nauseous.

Her silence made the group turn back to her curiously, but it was Naruto who reached back and took her hand, giving her a reassuring smile and tugging her through the village gates. His gentle grip on her hand seemed to give her a bit of strength, and Rin straightened out of her hunch, and took in the village around her.

Naruto animatedly gestured to the village around them, pointing out the various buildings that they passed and filling her in on the best haunts to eat or to get good stuff for cheap, while Sakura hovered at her other side, her hands clasped behind her and smiling as she interrupted now and again, complaining that there was "better food than ramen" and chimed in her own opinions. Sasuke paced behind them a bit with his hands in him pockets, silent, but relaxed. Kakashi was ambling in front of them, stiff and blank-faced and she couldn't help her confused frustration at his total silence besides orders these past two days. He was completely blank and impossible to read, and judging by his student's concerned looks as well, they had just as much of an idea as she did of what's wrong with him.

Too soon, the five of them reached their destination, cheerily labeled as the 'Hokage Tower' by Naruto, and she steeled herself as they entered.