Trapped (Naruto and the Last Airbender fanfic)

Chapter 41: No Time

Naruto

"How, how did this happen?" Rin cried before me as we sat in the room she was staying in, "Shikamaru, Neji, the others taken as prisoners, this wasn't the plan." She rubbed her eyes. I could see and feel stress from her. I could tell she has a hard time dealing with people she loses, "How can we help others when we can't help ourselves?  Sasuke is against us, the Akatsuki are here.  We are literally trying to build up without a solid base. We are going to get ourselves killed."

"Everything is going to be okay, Rin." I tried to calm her down but she shook her head.

"We can't keep acting like we are okay. We need to be stable before we do anything else. TenTen, Temari, Ino, and Hinata. Have you seen them, and how they are? Can you take such broken souls into battle?" She sniffled, "This is too much."

"We've dealt with much more than this Rin. They aren't dead—"

"But Shikamaru and Neji are? Shikamaru promised you that they'd be okay because he knew you wouldn't leave their side.  He knows we need you and the truth hurts you so much, you'd even get yourself killed for it."

I looked down, "I trust Shikamaru's words."

"I don't." She shook her head still speaking in her hoarse voice, "Itachi, at this rate, we will die."

I looked at her with curiosity, "What's that suppose to mean? What did Itachi tell you?"

She raised her hand to her forehead and sighed, "I don't see how it matters anymore looking at the situation we are in. If Aang doesn't defeat the Firelord before the comet, we are all going to die."

My eyes widened at her, "Wait a minute, how can we even trust Itachi?!" I furrowed my eyebrows. For all we can do that idiot is playing us into his trap.

"I just know he's not lying. If you don't trust my word, we still shouldn't wait after the comet to find out."

"We have to tell the—"

She grabbed my hand, "Right now we can't."

"Why not?!"

She looked off to the side, "We are all grieving. If we tell everyone about it, it'll stress them out, they'd panic. When the moment's right, the truth will come out."

In my heart, I didn't care about how others felt about knowing or not knowing. They deserve to know when their potential death may come.
In my head, I knew that Rin was right.

"We can't kill off the little bits of themselves that hope. You are the only person I told. Please keep it to yourself Naruto." She looked in my eyes pleading.

Knowing this information wants me to urge everyone to feel well. Urge people to do it all. We can't sit and grieve. We don't have time to.

"...You have my word."

Rin

I raised an eyebrow at Naruto as yells from outside erupted. We both immediately got up to check. Aang, Toph, Katara, and Sokka were in defensive positions as across from them was, "Zuko."

He looked at me with a surprised look, "Rin?"

"You two know each other?!" Sokka spoke in disbelief, and I nodded, "Do you know what he's done to us?! He's tried to hunt us down and capture Aang ever since the moment we found him." Sokka rose his voice and looked at me with anger in his eyes. I looked back at Zuko who seemed quiet calm about being in front of them, and it seems like Appa likes him.

"I wanted to tell you about is that I've changed, and I, uhhh, I'm good now, and well I think I should join your group, oh, and I can teach firebending to you." Zuko referred to Aang and the whole group jumped shock, "See, I, uhhh..."