A sudden shift.
A tear.
A ripple.
The hourglass speeding up.
The time of Rin Nohara's awakening has been shortened.
.
.
.
Rin Maru awoke on a tree, confused, muddled, and tired. How did she get there? What had happened after she passed out.
She felt as if she knew the answers yet they slipped her mind. It was an oddity. An abnormality. An anomaly.
Those were the only words that she could describe it.
There was even a acrimonious bile that rose up in her throat. It tasted foul.
Slowly, she shimmied her way down the tree, hugging it for dear life. Her guess was sleepwalking, but just maybe... Just maybe she had a feeling that it wasn't.
Yawning, she arched her stiff back and tried to make it back to society from wherever she was. It was quite late into the afternoon and knew that her parents would be worried.
Finally stepping back into the outskirts of the village, a huge amount of weight was off her shoulders. She barely recognized the place but knew about which direction to be in.
"Look!" a voice sneered, "It's the loser!"
Rin froze, turning toward the voice. She knew who it was and hoped that it was just a trick of her mind, but it wasn't. Her bully was sitting upon a wall, a big, hideous smile on her face as her lackeys stood there.
She had come at the wrong time.
"Did you get lost?" they taunted, "You want to go back to your mommy and start crying?"
The main bully stepped forward, punching straight into her gut, "The hell do you think you're doing?! Missing school?! I need my personal punching bag everyday, you dimwit!"
A kick went to Rin's knee and she collapsed, taking in wheezing breaths. Never before had she complained about the bullying or retaliated, but now, she didn't want it.
The pain in her chest kicked in once more.
ℂ𝕙𝕚𝕕𝕠𝕣𝕚
However, the pain had suddenly stopped as if someone had pressed the pause button.
Getting back up, she was surprised to see her classmates' expressions as fearful. "What's wrong?"
"You!" one managed to grit out with a bit of horror, "You monster!"
Confused, she tilted her head, wanting to know more. She followed their gazes to herself and her breath stopped.
There was a gaping hole in her chest that literally went right through her. There was no blood though, nor any signs of damaged organs. "Wha... What is this?"
Rin could literally fit her whole fist through the hole in her body. Her head spun at the sight of it as she couldn't fully wrap her head around it.
She closed her eyes and slowly counted to ten, trying to fix her own rapid breathing.
𝕀'𝕞 𝕗𝕚𝕩𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕚𝕥.
After opening her eyes once more, she found that her bullies were gone and so was the hole. From the panic that coursed through her veins, she knew that it wasn't a dream. The hole was absolutely real.
Slowly, she curled up into a little ball, tears streaming down her cheeks. It had only been a couple days and that was how long it took for it to escalate.
Her shoulders heaved not for her bruises or cuts, but the insanity that seemed to plague her.
"I just... I just want to be normal again."
"Hokage-sama would like to see you now."