Alone No More

A Loyal Pack

Warning: Minor swearing

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"Obito, are you even listening!" Rin yelled at her dense teammate.

"Of course, I'm listening, I was still thinking!" Obito retorted as he stared into Rin's chocolate brown eyes.

"About what, all I said was 'look it's starting to snow again'!" Rin exclaimed dramatically holding her arms out referring to the little white flakes falling from the sky.

"Oh, yeah I guess it is," Obito drawled out looking up towards the sky as they made their way through the marketplace.

"You're thinking about Kakashi, aren't you?" The young medic stated sadly.

"What, why would be worried about that jerk!" Obito yelled dramatically folding his arms and turning his head away.

"I said thinking not worried, and it's okay to be worried about your friends, I'm worried too," Rin added after ticking Obito causing him to pout.

"Humph," the young Uchiha pouted, but his expression showed his frustration.

"Do you want to talk about it," Rin asked her emotional friend.

"I just want to know what wrong with Kakashi!" Obito answered loudly voice heavy with worried frustration.

"Something must have happened on that C rank mission, that when Kakashi started acting like this," Rin recalled holding her chin.

"Yeah, maybe we should just ask Minato-sensei again when we get to the training grounds," Obito responded with a large smile.

The two ten-year-olds continued their way through the busy market. While walking close to the buildings to avoid most of the noisy crowd, Obito thought he heard whimpering from the alleyway they just passed. The two teammates exchanged a look before following the soft cries.

The alley led to a dead end with nobody around only a few trash bins and a small soggy box next to them. The whimpering turned to a weird high-pitched barking scream coming for the dark and mottled box. Rin carefully opened the noisy folded up box revealing a tiny puppy laying on its belly with its little limbs sprawled out as it continued screaming.

"Aw you poor thing," Rin cooed carefully picking up the shivering puppy which caused the screaming to settle down to loud whines.

"What's wrong with it?" Obito asking unsure why the puppy is still crying out.

"I don't know, what should we do, I can't take him home my mom is allergic to dogs," Rin replied sadly knowing Obito's grandmother is the same.

"Let's ask Minato-sensei or Kakashi, I'm sure they'll know what to do!" Obito yelled heading back towards the street with a smirk as he stated, "come on you said you didn't want to be late, right?"

Rin smiled as she carefully carrying the puppy as she and the young Uchiha made their way to the training grounds. They ignored the curious looks that some of the villagers' sent their way as they continued dashing through the thin layer of snow. This was the perfect opportunity to get Kakashi talking again both ten-year-olds knew that their youngest teammate had a soft spot for dogs. But even though they were optimistic about the situation they were both worried the little puppy's survival.

Obito was running ahead of Rin by a few paces and called out, "Kakashi we need your help!" When he saw Minato-sensei talking to Kakashi, who was staring at the ground.

Kakashi looked up at his two panting teammates, waiting for them to inform him of what's wrong. Rin showed him the shivering puppy that had fallen silent during the run and spoke softly, "she needs help, and Obito and I can't keep her, so we thought that maybe she could join your ninken pack."