Scroll 4: The Third Uchiha [Naruto]

Chapter 30: Rin Uchiha [Shippuden]

**Authors note: The next chapters might be on the longer end, as I don't want to break up the action too much.

I think because I want to follow Rin more, the war might not be as many chapters as I thought? I'm just going with the flow right now to make my way to the ending as I mentioned on my message board without taking away from the story!

I hope you enjoy!

**

Itachi

There was a time Rin followed my path so closely that I thought I knew her better than I knew myself. I left this world with such confidence that she would choose the Leaf, that she would set aside her emotions and choose to protect them as I had done. That her light would shine so brightly it would save Sasuke as well, and she would be able to clean up the mess I had left behind. Prior to my resurrection, it felt that way. Even with Madara's gifted strength, Rin's light shone as bright as ever. She was a leader, confident in herself and her choices. She was everything I thought she would be and more.

"Rin" I called, but she didn't respond. Her legs crossed as she took slow breaths, meditating near the entrance of the shrine. I walked to her, eyeing the dark chakra circling down her arms as I extended my own chakra to mask hers. There was a shift after the resurrection, that apparent god seemed to linger until she returned to herself. I thought that was it. She had given her sacrifice, returned, and I was alive. She was exhausted but overall, the same. Then she began recovering, her dark chakra flaring at any peak in her emotions. A slow shift at first that was growing at an alarming rate.

"Rin," I said again, kneeling beside her. It wasn't normal, letting her emotions get the better of her. She had always done what was for the greater good. Yet now she spoke of vengeance like nothing. Well not nothing, but like Sasuke, like Father, and so many Uchiha before them. Her light wavering so briefly when she faced the Third Hokage.

"Rin" I shook her shoulder, and her eyes snapped open. She looked confused, blinking a few times as she looked at me then down at her hands.

"Did he call to you?" I asked.

"I need you to check something for me," She replied quietly. She pulled her hair over one shoulder and tugged aside the collar of her shirt. I knelt when she tilted her head, staring at the bend in her neck about to ask what exactly I was meant to be checking.

"Your curse mark is gone," I realized. Rin touched the spot it used to sit and let her hair fall. She lifted her shirt and vest, glancing down at her torso where the lines of a lightning attack were seared into her skin all coming from a point near her ribs.

"The scar is still here," She said slowly. Her lips pressed together as she let her shirt and vest fall back into place. She was trying to figure it out too, what the change the Jubi spoke of meant.

"Everything used to feel separate. The curse mark, regular chakra, dark chakra, and the Jubi. It's like they each took a different thought to use and now it all feels overwhelming," She tried to explain. I sighed as I took a seat next to her.

"Rin, what was that back there?" She seemed confused at my question.

"They threatened Sasuke. He's finally using his head, and thinking things through before lashing out and-and-"

"And you lashed out, this isn't like you" I interrupted. Rin stared down the street, her eyes moving upwards to the moon that was an unsettling shade of red.

"I knew I was out of line" She admitted.

"But it was like the reasonable part of me was watching this version of myself that I couldn't control" It made my stomach sink, the words of the First still echoing in my head.