Title: Duplicity

Rating: T

Summary: Her mission was supposed to easy. All she had to do was to eliminate the Hatake in the confusion of battle, then fake her death and return back to Kiri. If only he hadn't interfered. Or, undercover spy Rin Nohara falls hard for her weak, crybaby teammate, completely against her will.

Rin Nohara is a chunin-level kunoichi from Konohagakure, a sweet and friendly girl who cared deeply for her comrades and her village.

Please.

Rin Nohara was no more her true name than any other name she had had. In that way, it was also no less her true name than any other name she had had. She was Rin Nohara, the same way as she was Ikida Shoken, or Akane Matsumoto, or any other identity she had assumed in her life.

In truth, she had no idea what her name really was. But it had never really affected her work, so she had never really cared about the fact. Tools didn't need names.

She had stopped being a chunin when she was eight, when she killed the two teammates with whom she had spent the past four years. It wasn't hard. She, unlike her teammates, understood what it meant to be a shinobi.

Shinobi were tools. They did not have emotions, did not need to have opinions, and most importantly of all, did not have attachments. It was incredibly easy to overcome the brief camaraderie she had formed with her team. It must have been harder for them, because they flinched and refused to attack her, even when she was open.

That had made it easier to take them down. She had become a jonin of Kirigakure at the age of eight, stained with the blood of the only friends she had ever had.

There was a reason why her village was called 'the Bloody Mist', after all.

When she was ten, she was given a mission from the Mizukage himself.

War had erupted a few years earlier between two great powers- Konohagakure and Iwagakure- and it seemed that even her own village, Kirigakure, would find itself caught up in battle.

Her village was weak in comparison to the two main combatants, and they desperately needed any advantage they could get.

And so, she was given a long-term mission- infiltrate Konohagakure and remain as a sleeper agent within its ranks, and to await further instructions. She would be alone; her cover was to be an orphaned girl from one of the numerous battles of the war, and to have teammates would increase the risk of her being caught. And if she was interrogated, the Konoha nin will learn of Kiri's involvement- and declare war.

This was something Kirigakure could not afford.

She had accepted her mission without question. Of course, she couldn't have refused it even if she wanted to. The Mizukage's word was law.

And so she had bid her sensei- the only person she still remotely cared about- goodbye, and set on her mission. Her pale hair was dyed a light brown, her almost black eyes covered with brown contact lenses. The distinctive purple clan marks on her cheeks could not be disguised for fear of raising suspicion- but there were no other of her clan in her village, and so her ancestry would not raise alarm in the Konoha population.

She had always been a good actor.

With this talent, she had set up an identity of 'Rin Nohara', a young girl who was kind, friendly, and entered the Academy for the sole purpose of learning how to heal, how to save lives. She was not especially skilled; she was only average with weaponry, and only excelled in academics and medical training. Rin was from a civilian family torn apart by the horrors of war, and wanted nobody else to experience what she did. She was unassuming, innocent, and treated everyone she met with respect.

Rin was eight- as a result of malnutrition and disease, most children in Kirigakure were much smaller than those from other villages. She was no exception, and the fact allowed her to pass as a child two years younger than she actually was with ease.

Nobody suspected her, and she liked it that way.

It was in the Academy that Rin first learned about Kakashi Hatake. It was hard not to- the boy was, after all, a prodigy. He had became a genin at age five, and made chuunin only a year later. Now, he was the apprentice of the rising star Minato Namikaze, the Yellow Flash of Konoha. The progeny of the disgraced White Fang, Hatake definitely lived up to his father's reputation.

Despite herself, Rin was impressed. She had only been made jounin because of Kirigakure's very lax standards for promotion and her own ruthlessness. There was no doubt that Hatake had been promoted due to his own skill and ability.

Then she had met him, and he had fallen short of every expectation she had held about him.

The boy was an arrogant, immature brat. Despite his rapid ascension in ranks, he was childish and callous, showing a rude disregard to all those he deemed to be below him. Rin would love to have the opportunity to hoist him by his own petard.

But she remained civil and pretended to- of all things- have some puerile crush on the boy. Rin took every opportunity she had to tail him through the village and gain more information on his personality- his weaknesses. Even his sensei had fallen for her blushing, lovestricken act when she had asked him what Hatake would want as a birthday present and, in the process, was told the story of Hatake's father issues.

Rin knew that one day, she would be ordered to eliminate him. Despite his abrasive personality, Hatake was a rising star in Konoha's shinobi force. One day, he would pose a major threat. She would have to take care of him before then.

She knew her plans had come into fruition on the last day of the Academy, when the Academy instructor had read off the names for the new genin teams. Team 7 would be an unique case, he had announced, as two of the members will be Minato Namikaze and his apprenticed chuunin, Kakashi Hatake. The other two members will be selected from the ranks of graduating students.

Rin smiled to herself when he had called her name- and her expression turned upside down when the instructor announced the other member of her team.

Obito Uchiha.

Obito Uchiha.

She silently cursed whoever had decided the team assignments in the first place. Of all the people who could have been put on her team, it had to be him.

She didn't hate Obito. Quite the opposite, actually.

He had been in her class in the Academy. Rin's first impression of him had been... not good.

The boy had charged into class thirty minutes late wearing bright colors and orange goggles, panting and gasping from the exertion so hard that for a moment, she thought he was having an asthma attack. He had spent the next ten minutes making idiotic excuses for his tardiness, before the Academy instructor told him to pick a seat.

And Obito had picked the one behind her. Of course.

Rin had greeted him kindly, responding with the appropriate concern when he had told her the long story of why exactly he was late to class- an epic consisting of black cats, elderly women who had to cross the street, and somehow getting lost in the small red light district of the village. She hadn't expected him to mean more to her than a faceless classmate.

But he did.

Truth is, she had focused her attention on him because of his clan. The Uchiha's and their prized Sharingans were envied across the nations, and Konoha especially for being home to not one, but two extremely powerful doujutsu. Perhaps she could weasel clan secrets out of the boy. After all, he didn't seem particularly bright.

Logically, Rin should have directed her energies elsewhere after she realized that not only did Obito know absolutely nothing important about his clan, he was seen as the dead last, the weakling. He didn't pose a threat to her mission and he didn't know any information she needed. But he had... grown on her, and she had remained.

Now that she thought about it, it was a mistake.

She had gotten attached. Obito Uchiha might be an idiot, a failure shinobi who fell short of all expectations his clan put on him, but he was oddly endearing. He had been the first person in her life to treat her with kindness, to treat her as just another person. He didn't expect anything from her, didn't want to use her for anything. He was... sweet.

That was how Obito Uchiha became Rin Nohara's first, and for a long time, only real friend.

Then he started bringing her presents. First an oddly shaped rock that he had tried carving into a heart, then tidbits from his own lunch. And one day, he had left a bouquet of flowers on her desk. They were small and dull colored and the sloppiness of the wrapping made it clear that he had made it himself, while the tiny smudges of red made it obvious that Obito hadn't known the clip the thorns of the roses before using them.

Rin wasn't an idiot. She knew what was going on. But still, she pretended to be oblivious to his advances, thanking Obito for being such a great 'friend' whenever he presented her with a gift and seeing him wilt. It was not reasonable, but she hoped- desperately- that he would grow out of his childish crush and that she wouldn't have to reject him explicitly...

...Because she feared that if it ever got to that point, she couldn't bring herself to say no.

She thought the hapless infatuation would end after they graduate from the Academy, when they ended up on different teams and wouldn't see each other on a daily basis.

Unfortunately for her, that didn't happen.

Rin's team clashed in interesting ways. Obito and Kakashi had always held some degree of animosity for each other, even when the former was still in the Academy. Hatake was everything that Obito wanted to be and couldn't, an embodiment of everything he disliked- arrogant, rule-abiding, and dismissive. And... she knew that a large factor in the two's rivalry was because of her faked attraction to the Hatake.

Against her will, she began to get attached to her team.

Minato-sensei might be a cold-blooded killer on the battlefield, but with them, he was funny, kind, and genuinely caring. He didn't prod into her past- and perhaps that was a mistake- and talked to her privately whenever he felt that she needed one. Over the years, he became like the father she had never had.

She had grown to tolerate Kakashi, though she by no means liked him. His treatment of Obito definitely played a large part in her dislike, though she wouldn't admit it under sustained torture.

And Obito... she was getting too close. Much too close. Some times, she even entertained foolish dreams like- like ending contact with her village and changing her loyalties to stay, or maybe even getting him to run away with her to somewhere where none of her enemies could find her. She knew that he would agree if she asked- Obito had nothing left for him in the village except for a misplaced sense of loyalty and a few kind relations.

Maybe, just maybe- when Rin finally returned to her village, she could convince him to come with her. Her kage wouldn't be displeased- he was an Uchiha after all, no matter how lack luster of one he was. He would be important to Kirigakure.

But deep down, she knew she was entertaining foolish dreams. Obito might... love her, but he, like most of their fellow shinobi, was fiercely loyal to Konohagakure and the so-called "Will of Fire". And even if he went with her back to her village... she knew what her Mizukage did to people with useful bloodlines- kekkai genkai. She would let that happen to Obito over her dead body.

Then one day, she had gotten a message- heavily encrypted in a code that she had been forced to memorize before leaving on her mission, all those years ago.

It said simply, Eliminate Kakashi Hatake. Fake your death and return to the village.

The next day, Minato-sensei announced that they would be leaving on an important mission in Kisagakure the next day, to destroy an important pathway for supplies going to Iwagakure.

Kannabi Bridge.