Of Turtles and Transformations (A Naruto Fanfiction)

Chapter 1: Awakening

Hello readers! 

This is a fanfic I've been working on for a while. It has a really unique idea, and I hope that you'll enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Feedback is greatly appreciated!

____________________________

The water lapped at her legs, and she groaned as she twisted in the sand, bringing her aching body to a sitting position. Rin put her head between her legs, feet still partially submerged. There was a burning sensation all over her body, probably from having been exposed to the sun for who-knows how long. Her head was pounding, and her entire body was throbbing from a feeling she identified as chakra exhaustion, something she was quite familiar with.

She opened her eyes open blearily, but was quickly forced to squint them as they were exposed to the bright sunlight reflecting off the surface of the water. It was sometime in the afternoon, and the sun was high in the sky, pounding down with all the force of a Konoha summer.

Rin frowned. Where exactly was she? Her memories of recent events seemed to be blurry at best. The last thing she could remember was-

She inhaled sharply, and brought her hands to her chest, reaching for the sound of birds and the crackle of lightning, a gaping hole through her chest and eyes frozen in shock. Her hands brushed flawless skin. She froze, and felt her heart begin to speed as all her memories flooded back.

A cave, Kiri shinobi, a stone lantern, a sealing, an explosion, the realisation, the feelings that had flooded through her as she realised the only way to save Konoha was to kill herself.
There was a hitched breath, and Rin stopped moving, eyes wide and glassy. She had realised the full implications of her kidnapping, had realised exactly what instructions the seal on her contained, and come to the answer that she had- that tossing herself to her own demise on the hand of her teammate was the only solution.

She stared down at her hands. They were shaking. She swallowed and looked up again. Despite the fact that she was a shinobi of Konoha, and was meant to lay down her life for the sake of her village, her sacrifice had been a split-second decision, and she realised with a terrible certainty that if she were to be put in that situation again, she would not repeat her actions. She felt like crap. She was selfish, uncaring, weak, a horrible shinobi- and yet, she knew that she never wanted to go through that horrible sense of powerlessness again. She never again wanted to feel like her life was only thing she could offer.

At that moment, she felt like the worst person in the world, and all she could imagine was Kakashi's horror-struck face, how Minato and Kushina would look when they thought she was dead, how Obito would have reacted if he knew she had given up, and she felt a tearing pain in her chest. She had to get back to the village. Minato could do something, could fix the seal! He was a fuinjutsu master, and Kushina was an Uzumaki, one of the few left who had intrinsic knowledge of all things fuinjutsu.

Rin stood shakily, and wiped furiously at her watering eyes. She was a kunoichi, and despite the fact that it was physically impossible for her to enter Konoha without unleashing a tailed beast upon it, if she could see Minato again, he could do something, fix her seal and allow her to see the village she loved again. She lowered her arms, and turned away from the lake, but almost fell to her knees as something inside her called for her not to leave the lake, not to go back to Konoha. She pushed it aside, and walked forwards with strides that grew continuously more confident. 

She paused as she reached the edge of the trees, and bit her lip. Tentatively, she placed her hand on the tree and channelled chakra through it. The tree groaned, and beneath her palm, the bark shattered, sending splinters flying. Wincing, she pulled her hand away, and examined it. Thankfully, there didn't seem to be any wood stuck in her palm, but the skin was shredded. As she watched, her skin began to regrow, and it was a morbid sense of fascination that kept her eyes focused as she regenerated. Her heart ached for all the wronged medic-nins in the world, but she was infinitely grateful for this, given that she doubted she would ever be able to form medical chakra again, all her hard work training her chakra control gone to waste.