Scratching Posts & Itchy Topics [Sachiko & Rin]
Backdated to uhm... late Jan :)
Rin had been told a while ago to keep up his strength and to stay off his work for a bit - cost of a series of tough missions. Whatever. He still had patients, and some of them were so uhm... unique, that nobody else would treat them. And some of them just weren't to be let loose on somebody without a jounin's qualifications. And knives.
Every village has one, the "crazy cat lady". Rin didn't think Midoriko-san was crazy, just had a degree of undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder and serious issues with humanity. Hence the three dozen cats she talked to most of the time instead. But Rin was a doctor, and Midoriko-san seemed to think him having a set of stripes made him enough like her tabbies to let him near her with a thermometer.
Unfortunately, once he was leaving her cheerfully shambolic little house, the cats decided as one to take issue of the fact he'd let Reiji sleep on his feet earlier in the day. He was trying not to scream or injure any of the cats and kittens swarming on his legs and leaping onto his back as he staggered out the door - all the while still calling instructions. "And --ow!-- remember, Midoriko-sa--ow! ow! bad kitty! ow!-- three times a day! Both bottles--ach!! ow!--okay--sayonaraow!"
Rin, Sachiko had been told by the hospital staff, was out doing house calls. It took some convincing to get them to give a little more information because of that whole doctor-patient confidentiality thing. In the end, Sachiko had to explain that she was looking for Rin for medical reasons herself, and that owing to the same clause they couldn't ask questions, either, since Rin had seen her as a patient.
She strolled down the street, hands in pockets, searching for the second place the staff had said he might be at only to stop dead when the man in question came stumbling out of a very-well-cared-for house wearing a writhing fur pelt that Sachiko needed a minute to realize was, in fact, a mass of cats. She schooled her face into a proper stoic expression (though she really really really wanted to grin at the spectacle) and approached without a word. Dark eyes couldn't contain the mirth at Rin's predicament even as she began the process of removing the felines from their living scratching post.
"All right, fuzzbutts, let's let go of Rin-san," she began as she caught the scruff of a tom's neck with one hand and used her other hand to unhook the claws from Rin's trouser leg. "(Rin-san, keep still or you'll just encourage them to hold on.) C'mon, buddy, off. Don't you hiss at me, you!" she admonished. The cat in question hissed again so Sachiko bared her teeth to respond in kind. The cat flattened its ears and stared, but stopped hissing. Sachiko petted and coaxed and crooned and continued to divest Rin of felines. "There, there, you don't want to claw him. You want to be back with momma where you can lounge in the sun or chase dust motes and the next one of you to bite me is getting bitten yourself." Indeed, she clamped her teeth down on the back of the neck of one particularly rambunctious youngster that wouldn't let go so she could use both hands to extract it. She ended up spitting out a mouthful of fur, but the kitten was no longer hanging off Rin's back.
After about five minutes of this, only cat fur still covered the hapless medic, and Sachiko just stood next to him with the bitten kitten purring like a motor in her arms as she stroked the soft fur. "I would ask what you did, but I expect it has to do with you smelling like dog if you came from Kakami-sensei's."
Of all the saviours Rin might have expected Sachiko was pretty far down the list. Fact was though, he hadn't expected anybody to rescue him, and given the mauling he'd taken before the Uchiha girl had shown up he was over the moon that anybody had rescued him before he lost his eyes or something. He looked down at Sachiko and the cat purring in her grip. The look both of them had on their faces was disturbingly similar, no wonder Sachiko was so good with felines. Rin swiped at a very thin trickle of blood on his forehead and started lighting his hands up to heal all the scratches. Ow!
"Thanks Sachiko," he said, quirking a smile at her. The cat in her arms gave him a look and he nearly stepped back. "You're good with them. They don't usually bite me... well, this much." Then he realized that Sachiko probably wouldn't have been walking out here without a point. And the point might be him. "Are you okay? You out here looking for me?"
Sachiko smirked a little. "Cats and I do tend to get along well. Right?" she asked the kitten. The kitten lifted his head and mewed cutely, purring non-stop. "Right."
She looked back to Rin and nodded. "I'm okay. I was just wondering if you had some time for what could be a lengthy talk? Since you're making housecalls and all. It's about doujutsu eyestrain, and I thought that since you're a medic and you have experience with Kakami-sensei's Sharingan, you might know some things. My eyes are fine," she added quickly.
Spooky. But appropriate, thought Rin as he watched the kitten love away at Sachiko. But he tore his eyes away and looked at Sachiko's, warm brown eyes instinctively examining her black ones. Her eyes did look fine. From this distance at least. And then it occurred to him... Sachiko actually wanted to speak to him? At length? That hadn't happened before... in fact, the last time they'd talked at length he'd pounded her and she'd pounded him right back. He blinked. "Of course I've got time." He rolled up his sleeve and healed a bite on his elbow, tipping his head down the road. "Want to walk?"
"Sure. We just need to bring this little guy back at some point," Sachiko replied, for she had no intention of putting him down any time soon. "They really did a number on you, didn't they." His clothes were full of tears and holes from teeth and claws. Unless someone could darn the holes expertly enough, he would probably have to toss this particular outfit. Sucked, but not her problem.
She took a few long strides to catch up with him as he began walking. "Before I begin, is it possible to have what I want to say fall under the umbrella of doctor-patient? I can name at least two people who would be ...upset... if I simply dove right in." A small pause to inhale, exhale. "It has to do a little with the last mission I was on, where I ended up in the hospital and you treated me because I electrocuted myself."
"Of course," Rin assurred her. "It's between us." And it was. Such assurances were never given lightly, because Rin knew himself well enough to understand he'd keep them to the grave. He had kept them under five years of torture, when interrogated for that kind of information by his captors. He would keep his word and his professional honour through anything - at least, he believed so. He healed down his forearm, rolling up his sleeve and wincing at the tiny claw marks. "You can tell me what you need to, Sachiko - and I'll try to give you answers."
Sachiko felt a weight lift, and she snuggled the kitten a little before speaking again. She needed the comfort of something small and soft and innocent. "That mission with Asuka, she split us up. Me and our third teammate heading north, her south. We... we ended up running across my sister. I didn't sense her partner, nor did Hoshigake ever show up, but she was probably around and just beyond my range." The kitten mewed as he picked up on Sachiko's distress and gently pawed at her face. She in turn leaned into the dry warm of paw pads on her cheek.
"She was wearing a blindfold, Rin-san. When she showed up. She and I, we're always able to find each other because we can feel each other. So while I was expecting her, I wasn't expecting the blindfold. She didn't take it off until after I'd attacked her and managed to actually wound her. The fight pretty much went downhill from there, but that's not important. What is important was that she had the blindfold. That's just... something you don't do. Unless it involves eyestrain, possibly from the doujutsu. But... she was the strongest, Rin-san. She said she liked to give herself a handicap, but... She would have been able to tell I wasn't alone. You don't give unknowns any edge unless you've already planned to compensate for it." Sachiko trailed off into silence. "I think there's something wrong with her eyes. And I think the Sharingan might have a significant chunk to do with it."
While Rin's pace didn't change in the slightest, he felt his teeth clench and his heart beat a little harder just at the mention of the Sharingan, never mind there being something wrong with it. He thought about what to say very carefully and took his time doing it. Around them the landscape kept creeping past them, though his eyes remained fixed unseeing on the track road they walked.
"Sachiko... there isn't a doubt in my mind that you know more about the history and trends of the Sharingan eyes than I do, or than I could. It's knowledge you've got a right to, and you probably should be seeking to learn all you can in the field - especially given Itae's motives, whatever they are." He paused, still chosing his words as carefully as he could, completely unmindful of anything but the Uchiha girl walking alongside him though he did not look at her. "I mention that because my familiarity with your clan's doujutsu and biology begins and ends with what happened to my teammates. It was a unique situation that should never have occurred, and it's still a very dangerous topic both inside the village and out."
He looked over and down to her now, and despite himself and despite everything else, all he saw was a kid looking scared and hugging a little kitten. It must have been a major ordeal for her to even tell him about seeing Itae... and his mind flickered to the look he'd last seen on her face back at the apartment.
Gods, all these years and all these times later and he still didn't know how to have a stony heart.
"If you want me to take a look at your eyes... I can. If you're worried about a family trait, or some kind of accumulating damage. But there are restrictions, both on my basis of comparison and on what I can tell you."
There were always restrictions. Fact of life. But at least Sachiko might find something. "That's fine," she said quietly. "I don't know if it's a family trait or if it's damage that's accumulated. Because..." She trailed off into a laugh. "Because there's no one to go to, to ask. The archives mention about how some people could over-use the Sharingan, so they liked to stay where it was dark for a while so as to rest their eyes. No light means no visual stimulus. But..." She shifted the kitten in her arms so she could rake one hand through her hair. It was becoming a nervous, frustrated gesture of hers, not that she cared at the moment.
How could she explain that she was acting solely on a hunch? Maybe it was simply just that Itae had been overusing the Sharingan and nothing more: Sachiko had no idea of how much Itae used or didn't use the Sharingan. Or maybe Itae really had just been giving herself a handicap despite the unknown of Sai. She was driven if nothing else. Always wanting... wanting what? Sachiko suddenly felt gutted; she realized she really knew next to nothing about her sister. The sister she had thought she'd known had been a fake, a doppelganger, an imposter. And it made the part of her that still loved cared about Itae hurt. Sachiko wanted to know about what was wrong with Itae for her own sake - she needed to know if overuse could lead to blindness (which was still possible, despite the lack of mention in the archives so far) and if so how to avoid it. But she also wanted that information because of some silly notion that if she could find a way to counteract whatever was wrong, and get that information to Itae (somehow), then maybe... then just maybe... maybe she might get a slight, warm smile and a pat on the head of thanks from the one person who'd always mattered the most.
Even as the feeling passed through her mind, she knew how stupid and childish it was to think that. The whole situation - the desired results - would never happen.
She stopped walking and shut her eyes hard enough to make her face make a grimace of pain. With a force of will she shoved the feelings of pain, hope, and fear away, her face slowly smoothing into a more neutral mask as she progressed. A little blankness lurked in her black eyes when she opened them again. She'd fallen a bit, mentally, and was in the process of pulling herself out--up again. Looking down at the purring soft in her arm, she saw the kitten's large green eyes looking back intently. She brought her hand up to pet the furrball, and the purring increased while the kitten tried to gnaw her fingers. She stroked the nose and forehead and cheeks of the kitten, which in turned squinched its eyes shut happily. Sachiko smiled a little. Pity this kitten was already spoken for.
"I wonder what actually qualifies as overuse," she said, almost picking up her thought right where she left off. "I've never had a problem, but I've also been careful about use mostly because I don't want my eyes to be a crutch. ...So maybe I'm simply overreacting." Except... the blindfold. And that Itae hadn't removed it until after Sachiko had wounded her. "Do you know if they might've kept any medical records in the hospital?" She maybe ought to go poke in the clinic that was in the compound. Even if she didn't understand the charts, surely she could find a medical reference library somewhere. Or maybe she could just bring them to Rin. Confidentiality was moot when you were dead. ...In this case, anyway. "Mine, I'm sure, is probably pretty thick, seeing how often I seem to end up there," she added with a sigh. The memory of the patient scrubs with the fan sigil sewn onto the back of the shirt came and went. "But we're the same blood. It couldn't hurt for you to look at my eyes."
A sudden thought flashed through her mind that caused her eyes to widen with realization, then narrow with concentration. Itae had the mangekyou. So did Kakami. And that was something Sachiko didn't have in common with her sister. She looked at Rin, a little more life showing now that she was distracted from her earlier thoughts. "How is Kakami-sensei's eye? Is she doing all right? No problems?"
Okay. So, that was epic. Rin had been so surprised by the fact that Sachiko just kept on talking that he hadn't even opened his mouth yet. She wasn't exactly verbose by nature, and talking to people she didn't know beyond a 'hn' struck Rin as a departure from the norm that merited his shutting up and paying attention. Which meant he heard quite clearly that there were a set of concerns being voiced, and he wasn't entitled to speak about them.
"I can't talk to you or anybody about your sensei's health, Sachiko," he reminded her not unkindly. "And I can't speak as to your sister's, but it might put your mind at ease to know that the documented doujutsu I've reasearched - including the Sharingan - don't tend to be on a bell curve within the clan. Everybody's eyes have the same properties and potentials by and large, so it becomes more likely that damage to them is the result of infection, strain or another outside factor. I can't get access to Itae's records to check for signs of those before she...left, but I can ask for it."
He paused, rolling down his sleeve, and sighed just a little bit inside. Gods, if Sachiko's mother could see what was about to happen she would probably kill him. The Uchiha had really, really, really hated the fact that Rin had had access to a Sharingan in Kakami - and here he was about to examine one in its native setting. So to speak.
"Come on, we'll take that little kitten back to Midoriko-san, then we'll stop by the optician's near Kakami's apartment. They have all the equipment there, and I know you don't like the hospital."
Sachiko nodded, grateful to not have to set foot in the white-halled hell and reluctant to give the kitten back. So she made the stop back by Midoriko-san's as painless as possible by crouching before she tossed the kitten through the opened front door, making sure the kitten didn't have far to travel before he landed on his feet before the door was quickly shut. The front of her shirt and her sleeves were snowed with cat hair that she knew already from past experience would take a few pieces of packing tape to dislodge.
She followed Rin to the optometrist's. Before they arrived, she wanted to know: "How come you can't get access to my sister's records? I understand the doctor-patient with Kakami-sensei, but seeing my sister is--is, I would have thought her file would've become... unprotected."
"It's got strong protections on it, given her past actions and current status. It's important to guard an enemy's secrets as well as your own. If they make the request - to a limited extent it's accessible to most Jounin level medics, Sachiko," Rin told her quietly, looking up to see the door there. "But none of it is accessible to me. Here we are."
He pushed open the door to let Sachiko in, squinting just a little at the drastic change of lighting. At least it was far warmer in here. Shinji-sensei was there with his wife Yumi, the walls lined with pairs of glasses and a door leading to the back room where the equipment for assessing the function of the eye stayed. Rin smiled and went over to bow and address his two elders, asking hopefully if he could borrow the exam room.
Of course, the first question out their mouths was how he'd broken his extremely well-crafted and very significant glasses this time. They inquired at volume too, making Rin blush just faintly and hope they didn't start in on the story of how he'd broken them the last time--
"You didn't break them being handsy with your girl again, did you Rin-kun?" demanded Yumi, smirkingly.
"I didn't break them!"
Ignoring her husband's tsking, the little old lady just snickered nostalgically. "And to think I remember when little Kakami-chan used to have to lead you in here by the hand because you'd--"
"Can we not, please?" Rin tried vainly not to beg. He wasn't sure why all the people over fifty in the village had adopted him, but the fact that they had made for trouble when he couldn't put a foot in the door without the proverbial baby-pictures coming out, or worse. He didn't dare turn round for what look might be on Sachiko's face. "Shinji-sensei, can Sachiko and I please borrow your exam room for a few minutes? As a favour?"
A glance past his shoulder to Sachiko, a small smile, and a nod. With that Rin just decided to escape, though he couldn't deny his hand was itching to clap itself over his face in embarrassment. Oh well. "C'mon Sachiko."
Sachiko only lifted an eyebrow behind Rin's back, deciding silence was the better course of action. Because in all honestly, she really, really didn't want to know. Insofar as Rin and Kakami were a unit, there were details of Kakami's life Sachiko could happily remain ignorant of for the rest of her days. She nodded politely to the older couple as she followed Rin.
Rin was very thankful of the dim lights in the exam room, because it somewhat hid the colour on his cheeks. Not that Sachiko couldn't tell it was there. "Okay, take a seat up on the exam chair and I'll just put on my unbroken glasses." That last part was said with a glance to the door, and as Sachiko took a seat Rin got the equipment ready to work.
"Okay, Sachiko. First off just lie back and look straight at the small white dot you can see out of your left eye. Close the right one. Ready?"
"Yeah," Sachiko said after doing what he instructed. So far this didn't seem too different from the usual eye exam she got yearly. She kept quiet and did what he instructed, all the while hoping everything would be okay.
It was okay, so far as Rin could see. With her sharingan activated and without, both her eyes seemed to be in pefect condition. There was none of the strain and stress that Kakami's sharingan had shown on and off throughout the years, and as he worked Rin realized how useful and oddly saddening it was to see a healthy and natural sharingan eye in an Uchiha's face. It was a beautiful evolution, he'd always thought so, for all the times he'd been utterly terrified of it... but it was frightening too in the same way.
He supposed he'd just seen it in action too many times, and once the exam was over he turned everything off and stored it carefully before switching on the overhead light and taking his glasses off so he could rub his own eyes. "Everything looks perfect, Sachiko. Both with your eyes in their natural state and when you initiate the sharingan - I've never actually seen such perfect tomoe proportions." He gave her a small smile. "Not that I've seen many. Anyway, you could see with as perfect a range of vision as the standard tests can measure and based on visual and reaction tests your eyes are fine."
Sachiko closed her eyes and sagged down in relief. Her eyes were okay. They were okay. "...Thank you, Rin-san," she said quietly. She felt glad to know for herself, and wished she might know about Kakami. It was entirely possible she could get Kakami in a discussion about the Sharingan and make sure Rin was around to hear it... And maybe there was a way to also kind of 'pass along' the information, discretely. Rin would talk to Kakami; of that Sachiko held no doubts.
"I think," she began after a spell of silence, "I think the... evolution of the--mangekyou might be a part of it. For my sister. Kakami-sensei... told me she had that Eye. If that Eye is a part of why my sister was wearing a blindfold, if indeed it was eyestrain... then maybe Kakami-sensei shouldn't use it." She lifted her head so she could look directly at Rin. "For whatever reason."
All of that had begun to occur to Rin, and so he sighed internally and nodded slightly - looking the young Uchiha girl in the eyes as he did. As if he wasn't worried enough about Kakami's sharingan, now there was this.
He had a lot more research to do. And experiments to run. And files to get access to whether he was allowed it or not.
But in the meantime, he had Sachiko... who'd clearly been scared out of her mind that there'd been a congenital defect in her eyes, and now knew the contrary was the case. He gave her an encouraging smile, then tipped his head at the door.
"I'll speak to her about it, Sachiko." Don't be scared. I'll take care of her. "C'mon, let's bail. I was gonna go grab some take-out, you hungry?"
Sachiko nodded, in reply to his spoken question as well as the unspoken promise. Rin would take care of Kakami, and Kakami would be okay. She didn't want to think otherwise, so she didn't let herself think otherwise.
"As long as it's not ramen," she said as she got to her feet. "Not that I've been eating as much as Naruko (far from it), but the constant smell from the vendors is a bit.. off-putting." She wasn't exactly sure of what to think of Rin in regards to herself, but... he was important to Kakami, so she'd try harder to maybe get to know him better.
Rin had been told a while ago to keep up his strength and to stay off his work for a bit - cost of a series of tough missions. Whatever. He still had patients, and some of them were so uhm... unique, that nobody else would treat them. And some of them just weren't to be let loose on somebody without a jounin's qualifications. And knives.
Every village has one, the "crazy cat lady". Rin didn't think Midoriko-san was crazy, just had a degree of undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder and serious issues with humanity. Hence the three dozen cats she talked to most of the time instead. But Rin was a doctor, and Midoriko-san seemed to think him having a set of stripes made him enough like her tabbies to let him near her with a thermometer.
Unfortunately, once he was leaving her cheerfully shambolic little house, the cats decided as one to take issue of the fact he'd let Reiji sleep on his feet earlier in the day. He was trying not to scream or injure any of the cats and kittens swarming on his legs and leaping onto his back as he staggered out the door - all the while still calling instructions. "And --ow!-- remember, Midoriko-sa--ow! ow! bad kitty! ow!-- three times a day! Both bottles--ach!! ow!--okay--sayonaraow!"
Rin, Sachiko had been told by the hospital staff, was out doing house calls. It took some convincing to get them to give a little more information because of that whole doctor-patient confidentiality thing. In the end, Sachiko had to explain that she was looking for Rin for medical reasons herself, and that owing to the same clause they couldn't ask questions, either, since Rin had seen her as a patient.
She strolled down the street, hands in pockets, searching for the second place the staff had said he might be at only to stop dead when the man in question came stumbling out of a very-well-cared-for house wearing a writhing fur pelt that Sachiko needed a minute to realize was, in fact, a mass of cats. She schooled her face into a proper stoic expression (though she really really really wanted to grin at the spectacle) and approached without a word. Dark eyes couldn't contain the mirth at Rin's predicament even as she began the process of removing the felines from their living scratching post.
"All right, fuzzbutts, let's let go of Rin-san," she began as she caught the scruff of a tom's neck with one hand and used her other hand to unhook the claws from Rin's trouser leg. "(Rin-san, keep still or you'll just encourage them to hold on.) C'mon, buddy, off. Don't you hiss at me, you!" she admonished. The cat in question hissed again so Sachiko bared her teeth to respond in kind. The cat flattened its ears and stared, but stopped hissing. Sachiko petted and coaxed and crooned and continued to divest Rin of felines. "There, there, you don't want to claw him. You want to be back with momma where you can lounge in the sun or chase dust motes and the next one of you to bite me is getting bitten yourself." Indeed, she clamped her teeth down on the back of the neck of one particularly rambunctious youngster that wouldn't let go so she could use both hands to extract it. She ended up spitting out a mouthful of fur, but the kitten was no longer hanging off Rin's back.
After about five minutes of this, only cat fur still covered the hapless medic, and Sachiko just stood next to him with the bitten kitten purring like a motor in her arms as she stroked the soft fur. "I would ask what you did, but I expect it has to do with you smelling like dog if you came from Kakami-sensei's."
Of all the saviours Rin might have expected Sachiko was pretty far down the list. Fact was though, he hadn't expected anybody to rescue him, and given the mauling he'd taken before the Uchiha girl had shown up he was over the moon that anybody had rescued him before he lost his eyes or something. He looked down at Sachiko and the cat purring in her grip. The look both of them had on their faces was disturbingly similar, no wonder Sachiko was so good with felines. Rin swiped at a very thin trickle of blood on his forehead and started lighting his hands up to heal all the scratches. Ow!
"Thanks Sachiko," he said, quirking a smile at her. The cat in her arms gave him a look and he nearly stepped back. "You're good with them. They don't usually bite me... well, this much." Then he realized that Sachiko probably wouldn't have been walking out here without a point. And the point might be him. "Are you okay? You out here looking for me?"
Sachiko smirked a little. "Cats and I do tend to get along well. Right?" she asked the kitten. The kitten lifted his head and mewed cutely, purring non-stop. "Right."
She looked back to Rin and nodded. "I'm okay. I was just wondering if you had some time for what could be a lengthy talk? Since you're making housecalls and all. It's about doujutsu eyestrain, and I thought that since you're a medic and you have experience with Kakami-sensei's Sharingan, you might know some things. My eyes are fine," she added quickly.
Spooky. But appropriate, thought Rin as he watched the kitten love away at Sachiko. But he tore his eyes away and looked at Sachiko's, warm brown eyes instinctively examining her black ones. Her eyes did look fine. From this distance at least. And then it occurred to him... Sachiko actually wanted to speak to him? At length? That hadn't happened before... in fact, the last time they'd talked at length he'd pounded her and she'd pounded him right back. He blinked. "Of course I've got time." He rolled up his sleeve and healed a bite on his elbow, tipping his head down the road. "Want to walk?"
"Sure. We just need to bring this little guy back at some point," Sachiko replied, for she had no intention of putting him down any time soon. "They really did a number on you, didn't they." His clothes were full of tears and holes from teeth and claws. Unless someone could darn the holes expertly enough, he would probably have to toss this particular outfit. Sucked, but not her problem.
She took a few long strides to catch up with him as he began walking. "Before I begin, is it possible to have what I want to say fall under the umbrella of doctor-patient? I can name at least two people who would be ...upset... if I simply dove right in." A small pause to inhale, exhale. "It has to do a little with the last mission I was on, where I ended up in the hospital and you treated me because I electrocuted myself."
"Of course," Rin assurred her. "It's between us." And it was. Such assurances were never given lightly, because Rin knew himself well enough to understand he'd keep them to the grave. He had kept them under five years of torture, when interrogated for that kind of information by his captors. He would keep his word and his professional honour through anything - at least, he believed so. He healed down his forearm, rolling up his sleeve and wincing at the tiny claw marks. "You can tell me what you need to, Sachiko - and I'll try to give you answers."
Sachiko felt a weight lift, and she snuggled the kitten a little before speaking again. She needed the comfort of something small and soft and innocent. "That mission with Asuka, she split us up. Me and our third teammate heading north, her south. We... we ended up running across my sister. I didn't sense her partner, nor did Hoshigake ever show up, but she was probably around and just beyond my range." The kitten mewed as he picked up on Sachiko's distress and gently pawed at her face. She in turn leaned into the dry warm of paw pads on her cheek.
"She was wearing a blindfold, Rin-san. When she showed up. She and I, we're always able to find each other because we can feel each other. So while I was expecting her, I wasn't expecting the blindfold. She didn't take it off until after I'd attacked her and managed to actually wound her. The fight pretty much went downhill from there, but that's not important. What is important was that she had the blindfold. That's just... something you don't do. Unless it involves eyestrain, possibly from the doujutsu. But... she was the strongest, Rin-san. She said she liked to give herself a handicap, but... She would have been able to tell I wasn't alone. You don't give unknowns any edge unless you've already planned to compensate for it." Sachiko trailed off into silence. "I think there's something wrong with her eyes. And I think the Sharingan might have a significant chunk to do with it."
While Rin's pace didn't change in the slightest, he felt his teeth clench and his heart beat a little harder just at the mention of the Sharingan, never mind there being something wrong with it. He thought about what to say very carefully and took his time doing it. Around them the landscape kept creeping past them, though his eyes remained fixed unseeing on the track road they walked.
"Sachiko... there isn't a doubt in my mind that you know more about the history and trends of the Sharingan eyes than I do, or than I could. It's knowledge you've got a right to, and you probably should be seeking to learn all you can in the field - especially given Itae's motives, whatever they are." He paused, still chosing his words as carefully as he could, completely unmindful of anything but the Uchiha girl walking alongside him though he did not look at her. "I mention that because my familiarity with your clan's doujutsu and biology begins and ends with what happened to my teammates. It was a unique situation that should never have occurred, and it's still a very dangerous topic both inside the village and out."
He looked over and down to her now, and despite himself and despite everything else, all he saw was a kid looking scared and hugging a little kitten. It must have been a major ordeal for her to even tell him about seeing Itae... and his mind flickered to the look he'd last seen on her face back at the apartment.
Gods, all these years and all these times later and he still didn't know how to have a stony heart.
"If you want me to take a look at your eyes... I can. If you're worried about a family trait, or some kind of accumulating damage. But there are restrictions, both on my basis of comparison and on what I can tell you."
There were always restrictions. Fact of life. But at least Sachiko might find something. "That's fine," she said quietly. "I don't know if it's a family trait or if it's damage that's accumulated. Because..." She trailed off into a laugh. "Because there's no one to go to, to ask. The archives mention about how some people could over-use the Sharingan, so they liked to stay where it was dark for a while so as to rest their eyes. No light means no visual stimulus. But..." She shifted the kitten in her arms so she could rake one hand through her hair. It was becoming a nervous, frustrated gesture of hers, not that she cared at the moment.
How could she explain that she was acting solely on a hunch? Maybe it was simply just that Itae had been overusing the Sharingan and nothing more: Sachiko had no idea of how much Itae used or didn't use the Sharingan. Or maybe Itae really had just been giving herself a handicap despite the unknown of Sai. She was driven if nothing else. Always wanting... wanting what? Sachiko suddenly felt gutted; she realized she really knew next to nothing about her sister. The sister she had thought she'd known had been a fake, a doppelganger, an imposter. And it made the part of her that still loved cared about Itae hurt. Sachiko wanted to know about what was wrong with Itae for her own sake - she needed to know if overuse could lead to blindness (which was still possible, despite the lack of mention in the archives so far) and if so how to avoid it. But she also wanted that information because of some silly notion that if she could find a way to counteract whatever was wrong, and get that information to Itae (somehow), then maybe... then just maybe... maybe she might get a slight, warm smile and a pat on the head of thanks from the one person who'd always mattered the most.
Even as the feeling passed through her mind, she knew how stupid and childish it was to think that. The whole situation - the desired results - would never happen.
She stopped walking and shut her eyes hard enough to make her face make a grimace of pain. With a force of will she shoved the feelings of pain, hope, and fear away, her face slowly smoothing into a more neutral mask as she progressed. A little blankness lurked in her black eyes when she opened them again. She'd fallen a bit, mentally, and was in the process of pulling herself out--up again. Looking down at the purring soft in her arm, she saw the kitten's large green eyes looking back intently. She brought her hand up to pet the furrball, and the purring increased while the kitten tried to gnaw her fingers. She stroked the nose and forehead and cheeks of the kitten, which in turned squinched its eyes shut happily. Sachiko smiled a little. Pity this kitten was already spoken for.
"I wonder what actually qualifies as overuse," she said, almost picking up her thought right where she left off. "I've never had a problem, but I've also been careful about use mostly because I don't want my eyes to be a crutch. ...So maybe I'm simply overreacting." Except... the blindfold. And that Itae hadn't removed it until after Sachiko had wounded her. "Do you know if they might've kept any medical records in the hospital?" She maybe ought to go poke in the clinic that was in the compound. Even if she didn't understand the charts, surely she could find a medical reference library somewhere. Or maybe she could just bring them to Rin. Confidentiality was moot when you were dead. ...In this case, anyway. "Mine, I'm sure, is probably pretty thick, seeing how often I seem to end up there," she added with a sigh. The memory of the patient scrubs with the fan sigil sewn onto the back of the shirt came and went. "But we're the same blood. It couldn't hurt for you to look at my eyes."
A sudden thought flashed through her mind that caused her eyes to widen with realization, then narrow with concentration. Itae had the mangekyou. So did Kakami. And that was something Sachiko didn't have in common with her sister. She looked at Rin, a little more life showing now that she was distracted from her earlier thoughts. "How is Kakami-sensei's eye? Is she doing all right? No problems?"
Okay. So, that was epic. Rin had been so surprised by the fact that Sachiko just kept on talking that he hadn't even opened his mouth yet. She wasn't exactly verbose by nature, and talking to people she didn't know beyond a 'hn' struck Rin as a departure from the norm that merited his shutting up and paying attention. Which meant he heard quite clearly that there were a set of concerns being voiced, and he wasn't entitled to speak about them.
"I can't talk to you or anybody about your sensei's health, Sachiko," he reminded her not unkindly. "And I can't speak as to your sister's, but it might put your mind at ease to know that the documented doujutsu I've reasearched - including the Sharingan - don't tend to be on a bell curve within the clan. Everybody's eyes have the same properties and potentials by and large, so it becomes more likely that damage to them is the result of infection, strain or another outside factor. I can't get access to Itae's records to check for signs of those before she...left, but I can ask for it."
He paused, rolling down his sleeve, and sighed just a little bit inside. Gods, if Sachiko's mother could see what was about to happen she would probably kill him. The Uchiha had really, really, really hated the fact that Rin had had access to a Sharingan in Kakami - and here he was about to examine one in its native setting. So to speak.
"Come on, we'll take that little kitten back to Midoriko-san, then we'll stop by the optician's near Kakami's apartment. They have all the equipment there, and I know you don't like the hospital."
Sachiko nodded, grateful to not have to set foot in the white-halled hell and reluctant to give the kitten back. So she made the stop back by Midoriko-san's as painless as possible by crouching before she tossed the kitten through the opened front door, making sure the kitten didn't have far to travel before he landed on his feet before the door was quickly shut. The front of her shirt and her sleeves were snowed with cat hair that she knew already from past experience would take a few pieces of packing tape to dislodge.
She followed Rin to the optometrist's. Before they arrived, she wanted to know: "How come you can't get access to my sister's records? I understand the doctor-patient with Kakami-sensei, but seeing my sister is--is, I would have thought her file would've become... unprotected."
"It's got strong protections on it, given her past actions and current status. It's important to guard an enemy's secrets as well as your own. If they make the request - to a limited extent it's accessible to most Jounin level medics, Sachiko," Rin told her quietly, looking up to see the door there. "But none of it is accessible to me. Here we are."
He pushed open the door to let Sachiko in, squinting just a little at the drastic change of lighting. At least it was far warmer in here. Shinji-sensei was there with his wife Yumi, the walls lined with pairs of glasses and a door leading to the back room where the equipment for assessing the function of the eye stayed. Rin smiled and went over to bow and address his two elders, asking hopefully if he could borrow the exam room.
Of course, the first question out their mouths was how he'd broken his extremely well-crafted and very significant glasses this time. They inquired at volume too, making Rin blush just faintly and hope they didn't start in on the story of how he'd broken them the last time--
"You didn't break them being handsy with your girl again, did you Rin-kun?" demanded Yumi, smirkingly.
"I didn't break them!"
Ignoring her husband's tsking, the little old lady just snickered nostalgically. "And to think I remember when little Kakami-chan used to have to lead you in here by the hand because you'd--"
"Can we not, please?" Rin tried vainly not to beg. He wasn't sure why all the people over fifty in the village had adopted him, but the fact that they had made for trouble when he couldn't put a foot in the door without the proverbial baby-pictures coming out, or worse. He didn't dare turn round for what look might be on Sachiko's face. "Shinji-sensei, can Sachiko and I please borrow your exam room for a few minutes? As a favour?"
A glance past his shoulder to Sachiko, a small smile, and a nod. With that Rin just decided to escape, though he couldn't deny his hand was itching to clap itself over his face in embarrassment. Oh well. "C'mon Sachiko."
Sachiko only lifted an eyebrow behind Rin's back, deciding silence was the better course of action. Because in all honestly, she really, really didn't want to know. Insofar as Rin and Kakami were a unit, there were details of Kakami's life Sachiko could happily remain ignorant of for the rest of her days. She nodded politely to the older couple as she followed Rin.
Rin was very thankful of the dim lights in the exam room, because it somewhat hid the colour on his cheeks. Not that Sachiko couldn't tell it was there. "Okay, take a seat up on the exam chair and I'll just put on my unbroken glasses." That last part was said with a glance to the door, and as Sachiko took a seat Rin got the equipment ready to work.
"Okay, Sachiko. First off just lie back and look straight at the small white dot you can see out of your left eye. Close the right one. Ready?"
"Yeah," Sachiko said after doing what he instructed. So far this didn't seem too different from the usual eye exam she got yearly. She kept quiet and did what he instructed, all the while hoping everything would be okay.
It was okay, so far as Rin could see. With her sharingan activated and without, both her eyes seemed to be in pefect condition. There was none of the strain and stress that Kakami's sharingan had shown on and off throughout the years, and as he worked Rin realized how useful and oddly saddening it was to see a healthy and natural sharingan eye in an Uchiha's face. It was a beautiful evolution, he'd always thought so, for all the times he'd been utterly terrified of it... but it was frightening too in the same way.
He supposed he'd just seen it in action too many times, and once the exam was over he turned everything off and stored it carefully before switching on the overhead light and taking his glasses off so he could rub his own eyes. "Everything looks perfect, Sachiko. Both with your eyes in their natural state and when you initiate the sharingan - I've never actually seen such perfect tomoe proportions." He gave her a small smile. "Not that I've seen many. Anyway, you could see with as perfect a range of vision as the standard tests can measure and based on visual and reaction tests your eyes are fine."
Sachiko closed her eyes and sagged down in relief. Her eyes were okay. They were okay. "...Thank you, Rin-san," she said quietly. She felt glad to know for herself, and wished she might know about Kakami. It was entirely possible she could get Kakami in a discussion about the Sharingan and make sure Rin was around to hear it... And maybe there was a way to also kind of 'pass along' the information, discretely. Rin would talk to Kakami; of that Sachiko held no doubts.
"I think," she began after a spell of silence, "I think the... evolution of the--mangekyou might be a part of it. For my sister. Kakami-sensei... told me she had that Eye. If that Eye is a part of why my sister was wearing a blindfold, if indeed it was eyestrain... then maybe Kakami-sensei shouldn't use it." She lifted her head so she could look directly at Rin. "For whatever reason."
All of that had begun to occur to Rin, and so he sighed internally and nodded slightly - looking the young Uchiha girl in the eyes as he did. As if he wasn't worried enough about Kakami's sharingan, now there was this.
He had a lot more research to do. And experiments to run. And files to get access to whether he was allowed it or not.
But in the meantime, he had Sachiko... who'd clearly been scared out of her mind that there'd been a congenital defect in her eyes, and now knew the contrary was the case. He gave her an encouraging smile, then tipped his head at the door.
"I'll speak to her about it, Sachiko." Don't be scared. I'll take care of her. "C'mon, let's bail. I was gonna go grab some take-out, you hungry?"
Sachiko nodded, in reply to his spoken question as well as the unspoken promise. Rin would take care of Kakami, and Kakami would be okay. She didn't want to think otherwise, so she didn't let herself think otherwise.
"As long as it's not ramen," she said as she got to her feet. "Not that I've been eating as much as Naruko (far from it), but the constant smell from the vendors is a bit.. off-putting." She wasn't exactly sure of what to think of Rin in regards to herself, but... he was important to Kakami, so she'd try harder to maybe get to know him better.