Raised in the war-torn nation of Amegakure, before shifting to konoha as refugee and eventually, serving as a shinobi in the said country's forces in the war, Tamaki Nohara had seen things .

To stand corrected, the harsh, cruel world had shown her terrible, horrible ,disgusting, queer, pitiful things.

And it was because she was a survivor.

Even as konoha claimed itself victorious in all the former wars, it was an unspoken acknowledgement that there could never be victors.

And she, like any shinobi worth their salt could attest to the fact that war could never leave victors.

Survivors, Madmen, Victims, Sacrifices, Legends.

But no Victors.

That being said, she was definitely not the only one.

It was in their eyes, as clear as day, for most of them that is.

After the eventual dissipation of the 2nd Great war, She would often try to locate the space of a person's suffering.

Especially the young ones, such as herself. After all, she was only 12 at that time.

But the more experienced shinobi masked their emotions rather well. The Sandaimine for example.

Never, did she ever find the slightest twitch of grief, or guilt, unlike many. Only wisdom, fearlessness.

Over the years, it became a speciality of sorts. So when soon after her daughter turned 12 and faced the reality of the ninja world on her own, she bought her team over for dinner.

She, by practice could immediately tell that her daughter's sensei without much doubt, was a legend in the making. His eyes for bizarre reasons, greatly resembled the sandaimine's.

The dark haired boy, Uchiha Obito if she recalled correctly, was unusually bright and spirited for an Uchiha. She vastly hoped that he did not und up like her, or worse, a sacrifice.

But Kakashi Hatake, was the one that intrigued her the most.

He statically continued to hold a blank, unreadable expression the whole dinner.

It greatly reminded her of the old Warhawk, Danzo.

It mildly scared her.

And as the the Third war continued to rage chaos through the world, she watched as slowly Team Minato became a miserable disaster.

One day, her daughter came home, she ran to her and steadily clasped her hands around her waist, and called her Mommy, shaking and in tears, when she looked in to her precious precious child's eyes, long gone were those chocolate orbs filled with innocence and hope, now replaced with hollow, soulless eyes filled with despair.

Her daughter, Rin Nohara, at the age of 12 had now become nothing less than a victim of the aforementioned war.

It was the other of her teammate, the uchiha, who had been crushed under a boulder when they came to rescue her, and unsurprisingly she blamed it on herself.

Now self-blame can be a dangerous exponent. She had seen it first hand.

Her daughter almost went down a self-destructive path, almost.

But then, call it plain ol' luck, or Yhprum's law, a Miracle.

On many a evenings, as she came to notice, her daughter did in fact spend time with her other teammate, the stotic silverhead.

The Miracle, unintentionally, was Kakashi Hatake.

They were just two wounded children, terrorised by war, who by the suggestion of their sensei and for the sake of the sanity of the other were pulled closer.

And they began healing each other, falling in the process.

With a sigh, as Tamaki strained tea leaves and stared at her reflection on the still surface of the tea, she blalantly mused reevaluating the current past.

She had known, they had fallen to a point of no return, weather obliviousness or denial the only obstructure remained unknown.

Of course, it was as obvious as noonday sun, that the REAL reason that the two ninja did not consider any romantic relations was the vexatious possibility that they would end up together leaving their dead teammate that saved their life in the dust of history, forgotten.

It was a very delicate situation, each the three willing to let their heart break to protect the others.

She carefully placed the five tea cups on the tray balancing them carefully before sakura politely offers to carry it to the table, leaving the quadragenarian to her own thoughts.

Circumstances were improving at a great speed for the potential couple, and as rumor had it they shared a date too. Perhaps both of them realised that Obito had kind of set them up, and wanted them to be happy, being the generous and kind boy he was at heart.

But as reality had to give it's cruel harsh reminder, Rin's first date would also be her last.

She came back, wrapped in a platic bag, after a week of searching.

She came home with a hole in her heart, quiet literally.

But she again, wasn't the only one.

Someone else she hadn't seen in quiet sometime was wounded in the heart too, and he did a good job of hiding it.

There was that look of self-blame, the highest she had seen in years, present again.

At that moment of grief, her own daughter's funeral, how she wanted to adopt that child ,tell him that she did not blame him, no one did, exept him himself that is.

But he did succesfully avoid her for a little more than a decade, and eventually she began forgetting about the 'triangle of tragedy', especially now that she was about to have another child.

But by pure coincidence, the very day in years she stopped mourning the loss of her daughter, knowing that she would want her to take care of her sibling, rather than brood around, was the day the new team 7, with the only surving member of the former one as the sensei, and their own dynamic 'love triangle' which was DEFINITELY going to cause serious problems, assigned to the mission request she had put in years.

As she rolled up her sleeves and did some old dishes in the sink, the corners of her mouth slightly curved upwards.

'Even after all these years, I was right about one thing' she thought.

"Kakashi was hopelessly inexplicably in love with Rin" She chuckled to herself.

A/N: Woohoo! Sorry I am late, my finals end on 29th and I will get a regular updating schedule for summer later.

This chapter was mostly a filler, but is quiet important because I want to give the story a gloomy build up, with lighter and humerous chapter by ch 4 or 5 or something.

On a side note, I entered this and my other book in the Naruto watty awards...

Any chance i'll make it!?!

This is a bit cringy I think...

Shout-out to sebtheowsum12 and Namaetrix for being such good people and voting on ALL my fics!!

And I was going to put this chapter in the morning, but I uploaded now because of PreyeEsarah546 XD

As PreyeEsarah546 and Kakarin123 voted for kakaRin...

Poll open till 15th April!!

KakaRin

Or

ObiRin

Stay tuned!

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