Something Precious

Chapter Fourty Six

"Rin!" Obito cried in relief. The kunoichi was bound with her hands behind her at the back of the man-made cave. He wanted to run over to her and comfort her and apologize for letting her be taken, but before he could an enemy stood between them.

"Couldn't even take care of a couple of kids, pathetic." the enemy growled under his breath, but neither Obito nor Kakashi was listening.

"Her chakra is disrupted." Obito noticed with his sharingan that he had only awoken minutes before. "It's flowing in a strange pattern different from yours and mine." he informed.

Kakashi frowned. "She's probably under a genjutsu. Looks like the enemy was a little impatient." Obito scowled as the turned his blood red eyes to the man who stood before him. "I fought him before, he's fast, so be careful." Kakashi said as he recalled their encounter with the enemy right before they captured Rin.

Obito nodded but stayed focused. The Stone ninja suddenly lurched forward and was barreling towards them in a swift blur of motion, he had metal blades protruding from his forearms and he directed them straight at the Uchiha.

Together, Obito and Kakashi fought him off. Obito compensated for Kakashi's slight imbalance due to having his left eye being cut out by one of the enemy shinobi just outside the cave.

Kakashi used Obito almost as a spring board as he leaped over him with a blade drawn and directed at the enemy's heart, but the Stone shinobi had his blades as well. Obito took in the situation with his new eyes in a split second. He raised his legs and kick the enemy's arms outward and away from his teammate. Kakashi took the advantage and slashed downward with as much force as he could muster while in midair, his blade successfully cuting through the soft tissue of the older mans shoulder, and knocking him to the ground where he stayed.

The boys wasted little time untying Rin and releasing her from the genjutsu by disrupting the strange flow of her chakra and therefore breaking it.

"Obito. . . ? Kakashi?" he muttered groggily. She took in Kalashi's badaged eye and Obito's sharingan. She held back a squeak of surprise. What were they doing here? She wondered. Then it all came back to her - the fight with the enemy and her kidnapping. She felt a flood of guilt rush over her like an ocean current, powerful and unresistable. They had risked lives for her, because she was too weak, because she was unable to protect herself.

'You should never send a medical nin out on the battle field. They aren't as accustomed to outright battle as other shinobi.' that's what Naruto had said when they first met him. Until now, she hadn't found anything wrong or shameful about that, but now. . . now she realised that she would never be able to fight beside Obito and Kakashi as an equal, they would always be tasked with protecting her and she would become more of a hindrance than anything. Sure she could heal them, but that's all she could do.

"Rin! We have to go!" called Kakashi urgently, snapping her out of her rather dazed state. She nodded and began to stand.

"Not so fast." Kakashi cursed under his breath as the Stone ninja got back up. He put his hands together.

Almost cruelly he snarled, "Earth Style: Cave Collapse."

With those magic words the ground and walls started to shake violently, like an earthquake confined to that small area. Rocks of all sizes that varied from pebbles to huge stones the size of a horse, started raining down all around them. Adrenaline coursed through the veins of the three small shinobi. "Run!" Obito cried. He grabbed Rin's hand and booked it for the exit like the devil was on his tail. Kakashi was right behind him. He found his missing eye to be a slight challange, unable to dodge the falling rocks as easily as he should have. Some of them came so close that they scrapped at his clothes.