When she next woke, it was to the feeling of rough sheets under her bare legs, and some sort of strap over them. It felt much like the ones around her wrists. She tensed instantly, bewildered and frightened.
'What is going on—Where am I? Why am I tied down?'
"Aiko, are you up?" A female voice called out from somewhere behind her. Quick steps crossed what must be a hard floor. "I'll loosen those in just a minute. Sorry about that, but when Jounin last remember being in combat conditions and wake up to the sound of people moving around, the first reaction is hard on medics, to say it lightly. There's a lot of civilian nurses around helping and no one wants to get skewered."
'There's that name again,' she thought, mystified. Aiko, Aiko, Aiko. It didn't mean anything to her. That was supposed to be her name? At least it was inoffensive. She supposed it could belong to her.
The word Jounin, though, that was familiar. That was an upper-level ninja. She was an upper level ninja?
Funny. You'd think she'd remember a thing like that.
"We're actually in Otafuku Gai," the woman blathered on. Aiko cracked one eye open uncertainly to discover that a relatively young woman with short dark hair and a purple kimono was at her side. She flinched away, but all the woman did was reach out to tug on her restraints, fiddling with some type of buckle.
And god, she just wouldn't stop talking.
"Our hospital is in pretty poor condition, having been downtown. Tsunade-sama thinks that some of the lower level is salvageable, but it's obviously not anything approaching a sterile condition right now."
Did she ever get tired of hearing her own voice? If not, she could at least say something useful. Although that name was familiar. The grinning man had mentioned that name as well, before he'd gone tight-lipped and called for a medic. That had seemed like a good idea, until the split-second when she realized she was being put under with that irritating glowing palm technique.
"You'll be glad to know that there's very little in the way of casualties to speak of," the brunette chattered, pushing a bit of hair behind her ear as she finished freeing Aiko's hands. Aiko pushed herself into a seated position, warily keeping an eye on the older woman as she pulled a clipboard off the wall and settled down gracefully on a folding chair. "Nagato-san—oh right, you missed that part, but it turned out that the six Akatsuki were actually was one shinobi, Jiraiya-sama's old student Nagato-san from Ame."
'Well, that clears everything up,' Aiko thought dully. She was beginning to suspect that this woman wasn't going to be any help at all. At least she didn't seem dangerous, other than maybe dangerously crazy.
"Anyway, Nagato-san used a forbidden jutsu that brought back anyone who had died in the fighting, because he realized that destroying Konoha wasn't going to help matters. Tsunade-sama and Katsuya-sama did their best with the injuries, of course, because Nagato-san's technique didn't do anything for anyone who wasn't actually dead. There's… well there's one death." The chatty nurse- at least, she was probably a nurse- glanced down, looking a bit depressed.
Maybe she wasn't actually particularly talkative, Aiko judged. It could be that this nurse was going a bit stir-crazy from loneliness and was taking the chance to update someone as a break from work.
"How about the injured, then?" Aiko asked cautiously.
As she'd thought, the older woman seemed to need someone to talk to. Her face brightened a little, but she still looked more worn than her youth should have allowed. "For an invasion, it's without precedent," Chatty Nurse confided. "There's a lot of damage from smoke inhalation and broken bones, but other than that, the biggest problems we have are psychosomatic." She gave a sharp glance at Aiko's face that seemed to be searching for something, and her tone gentled slightly. "It's very traumatizing to remember losing a limb or dying."
Aiko nodded politely. That did sound traumatizing.
Something about her reaction must not have been what Chatty Nurse was looking for, because she frowned slightly and looked down at her clipboard. "How are you feeling? Any dizziness, aches, or disorientation?" she asked clinically.
She took a deep breath and brought her knees up to her chest, idly noting the ugly off-white hospital gown she was wearing. "I'm a little confused," Aiko admitted readily.
That was an understatement. She had no idea what the hell was going on and was feeling more than a little lost.
"Oh?" Chatty Nurse's eyes sharpened, and she looked up. "Do you not remember the fight, then? That's perfectly normal," she assured. "Sometimes, the brain protects itself by forgetting especially disturbing things."
'What, like my whole life?' Aiko thought bemusedly, not thinking much of this woman's analysis. Her skepticism must have shown, because a flicker of exasperation crossed the older woman's face.
"Jiraiya-sama said that you were disoriented. Do you remember that? I think he was the one who found you."
Aiko cocked her head to the side. "Who, the old man who gave me his coat?" she asked curiously.
The smile froze on the older woman's face. "Aiko-chan, do you know who I am?" When she slowly shook her head, Chatty Nurse took a moment to respond. "Alright then," she added lightly. The tenseness in her neck and the intensity in her eyes were completely at odds with her professional, warm tone. "Nothing to worry about. I'm Shizune, Tsunade-sama's first apprentice, and Sasuke-kun's senpai. As I said before, temporary memory loss is not an unheard-of side effect of encountering something a bit scary or overwhelming. Let me just run a few tests."
She didn't seem to have much choice. Aiko was beginning to feel more than a bit frightened, despite Shizune's assurances that things would work out. If that were true, she probably wouldn't keep repeating it.
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
That wasn't hard. Three. Thumbs aren't fingers.
Despite her cautious optimism at that victory, Shizune was surprisingly hard to read when Aiko tried to gauge her for clues. That seemed especially odd for someone who had initially seemed so bland and inoffensive. The other questions were harder. Aiko shook her head helplessly, feeling lost and confused when asked the year or the current Kazekage. Shizune's lips thinned ever so slightly. Then the tests she performed after that had more to do with running unnervingly chilly fingers over Aiko's scalp and talking about things that didn't make much sense.
Frankly, she had no idea why it would matter that the proportions of her spiritual and physical chakra weren't matching those of her old records. Shizune didn't seem to understand how that could happen. She seemed outright confused herself when her tests didn't show any signs of swelling or torn tissue in the brain or anywhere else.
"Don't worry," Shizune said unconvincingly. "Your chakra will probably stabilize itself given time. That might not be related, anyways. Retrograde amnesia isn't usually totally permanent." She fussed with the bedsheets, apparently very concerned that Aiko's feet might get cold. Aiko curled her toes in and tried to sink back into the bed. "If it doesn't come back on its own in a few days, then it can probably be triggered." She glanced up at Aiko with a reassuring smile that did nothing for the nerves roiling in her stomach. "Familiar people and things should help you start to remember."
Aiko made a noncommittal sound, biting the inside of her cheek.
'If that's true, why wouldn't I remember you? I'm seeing you now.'
That was paranoid. Wasn't it? Maybe. She didn't really have any reason to believe anything this woman said. She'd woken up in a place she didn't recognize after what had obviously been a fight… and then woken up again, tied down. That wasn't something you did to a person you trusted. What evidence indicated that she was who Shizune said she was? Maybe it was a mistake.
Or worse, maybe it wasn't. Aiko gave Chatty Nurse a queasy smile, feeling vaguely nauseous.
The older woman took some pity and left her alone for a while.
'A while' stretched into a day. The facility seemed quiet. It was apparently more of a clinic than a hospital—the civilian town she had been re-located to while unconscious wasn't prepared for mass injuries, apparently. A civilian nurse fed her and –mortifyingly- promised to help her bathe later despite protests that she didn't need to be supervised. But that was her only visitor and excitement in between Shizune's short visits. The older woman appeared busy and distracted, definitely not in a mood to indulge her questions.
It was terribly, coldly, horribly lonely.
That meant that she had an awful lot of time to do nothing but think. Try as she might, she didn't remember anything new. She was pretty used to her name now, but she didn't really feel a connection to it. None of the people that Shizune talked about –Tsunade, Jiraiya, Sasuke—jogged any connections. The scenery out her window was uninspired as well as unfamiliar.
'Is anyone looking for me?' She wasn't allowed to leave the room, but she couldn't stand to lie in bed all day. So she paced, feeling trapped and lost. Shizune had said she knew her. So someone would be coming for her. They would be familiar to her and things would be alright and she would know what was going on.
Even her body was foreign. Aiko spent hours staring at her hands once the cold from the tile floors seeped into her feet and forced her to curl up under blankets. She puzzled over why her hands seemed so odd to her. Carefully, she placed the tips of her fingers against her cheeks and rubbed, marveling at the sensation the movement elicited. They were ridiculously soft and smooth, with rounded nails and short fingers. Was that so strange?
'There's no callus,' she recognized, cataloguing an obvious deviation from the nurse's claim that she was a shinobi. Shouldn't she have callus if that were the case? The toes she wiggled were equally delicate-looking, but she couldn't find a trace of the scrape she remembered getting when she'd first woken up somewhere outside. So maybe she was just completely nuts and that was a false memory. She hoped not, and held onto it. It wasn't like she had many others.
The observation that she lacked callus was hardly a nail in the coffin of the story she'd been given, since she didn't fully trust her mind. Distrust in her perception was only fueled when she glanced at her upper arm in the shower, and had to blink twice at the pale skin. Once she realized that she had expected to see a tattoo, she knew her mind wasn't terribly reliable. Still, she'd scrubbed at the flesh as if hoping to uncover ink that would reinforce what her mind had expected. All she ended up with was sore, pink flesh and a loofah being gently pried out of her fingers.
She did have scars, which she counted as a point towards Shizune's story. When the light had been turned off and she was still alone and afraid, Aiko traced the curved imperfection below her ribcage curiously through the thin fabric of her hospital robe. She'd discovered that while in the shower but didn't have any more ideas about its origin than she did about the uglier, larger scar on her opposite hip.
Morning would bring answers. It had to.
But it didn't.
The side of her face was on fire. The skin was swelling and peeling open like a stepped-on grape and she knew her cheekbone would crack under the force and the pain was unimaginable, unbearable, unrealistic, rippling down to her lips and across her nose before she shattered entirely. And then Aiko woke up gasping.
She struggled for air, disoriented and still frightened. Until she realized that the dim red lights were from hospital machinery, and the slow tick outside in the distance was a hall clock.
"Just a dream," she whispered, curling her fingers into the messy sheets and resisting the urge to reassure herself by touching her face.
But what an odd dream. Where had her mind come up with the idea of her body bursting in slow motion? More than a little disturbed, Aiko slipped out of the covers and paced. She didn't dare turn on the light, knowing that there were probably nurses walking nearby on rounds. That meant that she stumbled and stubbed her toe in the dark, but it was better than getting scolded by some impersonal stranger.
As lonely and scary as it was to just wait for something to make sense or someone to come help her remember, she would have to be far more desperate for human company to intentionally coerce nurses for company. They didn't know her. They didn't want to spend time with her. They were doing a job. She wasn't that desperate.
'Not yet, anyway,' Aiko thought glumly. Maybe she would be not too long from now.
But no. 'I can't think like that. Shizune says she knows my friends. When I see her tomorrow, I'll ask. Maybe names will help.'
Still. She couldn't help but doubt. If someone cared she was here, where were they? Was the old man she'd seen when she had first woken up someone important to her? Aiko didn't remember feeling any connection to him. He'd definitely known her, though. Or he knew of her, at least. Maybe she should see if she could talk to Jiraiya.
Shizune didn't seem to think that was plausible when she came by.
"I'm sorry," she apologized, leaning over to adjust something on a machine that was totally foreign to Aiko. "He's with Tsunade-sama. I've been left in charge of the hospital affairs while they deal with Ame and coordinate restoration efforts. I already sent notification that you woke up, but I'm not sure he'll be able to come right away."
Shizune closed the door behind herself quietly, and tried not to feel guilty about lying. Jiraiya had met with her last night, actually, and taken back hospital reports to Konoha proper.
'He's not ready to actually talk to her,' she justified to herself. 'That's understandable. Jiraiya-sama has been throwing himself into his work, but he'll come around soon. Pressuring him to come too soon will just be a stressor for both of them."
~~~
There was nothing dignified about having his single remaining (and much diminished) path propel the wheeled chair that carried his body out of Fire Country. At this point, Nagato wasn't sure that he deserved dignity, but he was still quietly thankful that the Hokage hadn't cared enough to force him to bring his actual body into Konoha.
'It's a little hard to believe that's the woman that Jiraiya has been in love with since he was twelve,' Nagato mused. 'I had imagined someone a little less emotional and grudging.'
Not that she didn't have cause for upset, of course. He had done more than a bit of harm to her city and her people.
Bitterly, he laughed. It turned into a cough. Yahiko's lungs had been full of smoke and acid for a rather long time. 'Konoha hasn't been good to me either. I was wrong about their part in Yahiko's murder and our betrayal. But I'm sure they were the ones behind the rout in Ame.'
It hadn't been in terribly good faith of him since the surrender had been his own initiative, but he'd withheld information. When it had become clear that he couldn't have a true victory, he'd had to turn his thoughts to his responsibilities. Even if he had managed a pyrrhic victory, he would have left his followers to the meager mercies of Konoha's allies.
Nagato had overestimated himself. He had begun to believe in Pein on a literal level. It had seemed so straight-forward at the time. Konoha did not have any fighter of his caliber, so he had believed himself invincible.
'Foolish,' he cursed himself. 'A few shinobi who were as skilled as individual paths and a great deal more who were suicidally determined to stop me proved sufficient.'
That was why villages banded together, after all. Many weak worms could writhe in an ugly mass and accumulate the weight of a higher being.
Nagato tried not to frown when he caught on to the bitter tone of his thoughts.
'This childishness is below me.'
He thought that, but it didn't change that he had refrained from telling the Hokage anything about Uchiha Madara. That had been a bout of immaturity unworthy of him, but it was already done.
Konan would take care of matters. He was leaving everything to her.
"How long do you plan on watching me?" Nagato asked mildly. He hadn't been alone since he had passed out of Konoha's immediate border patrol route. If he were truthful, he was mildly surprised that his stalker had waited this long to show himself.
It wasn't possible to express a glower from behind a candy-colored mask. Somehow, Uchiha Madara accomplished it regardless. "Pein," he all but rumbled, clearly irritated.
"Nagato," he corrected mildly.
It was fairly obvious that Madara wouldn't care if he chose to call himself Princess Buttons.
Nagato repressed a sigh, having his path stop walking. Obediently, Yahiko's body stood silently and waited. He had known as soon as it became clear that he had failed that he had to die to open the way for Ame to forge a new path. It was the only way left that he could be of use.
He hadn't planned for that death to come at Madara's hands, but he was hardly surprised either.
~~~
Obito scowled, resisting the urge to shake the little bottle until the eyes inside pulped into jelly against the clear glass.
All those years of squirreling into Nagato's idiotic graces, manipulating the useless baka, and keeping him alive were wasted now. Nagato's only use had been that he had the one kekkai genkai that would make it possible for Madara to be raised from the dead to participate in the Eye of the Moon Plan. That was one of the most important steps.
Not for the first time, he thought longingly of forgoing the pretense that he was Madara's servant. He was an Uchiha too, and powerful in his own right. Obito could do it. The Rinnegan were powerful beyond all reason. In his hands, they would be far more fearsome than anything Pein could have dreamed up.
He couldn't get the job done alone, however. Obito would need help. His most dedicated helper, Zetsu, was only his ally because Obito was pretending to work towards Madara's interests. Without a chump to eventually play the role of the sacrifice (even if Obito never actually let matters deteriorate to that point) Zetsu would act against him.
The obvious answer was that Obito should find another disposable body to put the Rinnegan in. The disposable part was not a terribly difficult criterion. When he would be able to revive everyone with the ultimate genjutsu, there wasn't such a thing as a true loss. The more difficult conundrum was selecting the body. It was highly unlikely that he would actually let them raise Madara, but he had to act as though he would. That meant picking a viable target, someone who could actually use the Rinnegan properly.
Preferably, it would be someone he could easily control. Obito could use Sharingan mind control on anyone but another Uchiha, if matters became desperate.
It was a pity that the Rinnegan could only be wielded well by one of the sage's descendents. That ruled out the vast majority of the living population. Obito wouldn't have used Itachi in any case, petulant and paranoid as the boy was. He didn't need to be more powerful. But Sasuke would have been a reasonable substitute. Of course, he couldn't be reliably controlled with the Sharingan into compliance, and Obito couldn't afford another loose cannon with the Rinnegan. That lesson had been learned.
'Besides, I would have to pry him away from Senju Tsunade,' Obito noted with no small taste of amusement. No, thank you. That woman was more than a bit imposing.
She was another poor option, despite being the last of the Senju. Controlling a medic-nin renowned for her perfect chakra control and detail-oriented personality would be a risky proposition. That ruled out the two families directly descended from the Sage. Leaving only the family that Nagato had belonged to.
Obito left two mangled corpses and a broken metal chair on the road in favor of safely hiding away his newly acquired prizes. The Sharingan he had were valuable for both practical and sentimental reasons, but the Rinnegan were irreplaceable and one of a kind.
'Life goes on,' Obito thought wearily, not allowing himself to wallow.
~~~
Aiko sat up straight fast enough to make her a little woozy. She peered suspiciously at her closed door with pursed lips.
She smelled something that made her heartbeat speed up. It didn't even occur to her to wonder at the fact that she detected a change in the scent of the hallway a fair distance away, or even realize that her senses were far keener than they should be. Why shouldn't her senses be sharp? Of course, Aiko didn't know what she was smelling, either, so she was all-around clueless. Whatever it was, it was familiar somehow.
'Should I go look?' Uncertain, she lingered with her toes dangling to the floor for just a moment longer. That gave the man outside time to push her door open.
Her first look didn't give her any particular feeling. Not attachment or fondness or even the fear she had known at the sight of the last (and only other) man she remembered seeing. It was just a man—quite a bit taller than her, with fairly broad shoulders, dark hair, and a relieved look on his face.
She blinked, checking that her first impression had been right. Yes, it looked like relief.
"Aiko-chan," he breathed, one side of his mouth curling up ever so slightly. The other stayed stiff and still. "I suppose you don't remember me. How are you feeling?"
"Um, okay?" she half-asked, giving him a shy smile. Her first visitor! Shizune had said that someone would come. Relief bubbled up in her gut. She wasn't alone. No matter what the nurse had said, it had felt that way when no friends had conveniently welled up to greet her or take her home.
Honestly… She'd started to seriously consider that the woman had been lying. It begged disbelief that anyone and everyone who cared about her just happened to be absent from town for two whole days. Well. A day and a half, but still.
But here someone was, happy to see her and actually asking about her well-being. Besides, he obviously knew about her forgetfulness, and wasn't making her feel nervous or apologetic about it. He probably had answers for her.
"What's that?" Aiko asked curiously, pointing guilelessly at the paper that her new/old friend was clenching in his left hand. They were awfully wrinkled.
"Your medical information," he explained, oddly amused for some reason. "I didn't think it was a good idea to leave it here. We need to go."
At that, she paused. "Go where?" Aiko asked uncertainly. Could they really just check out? It seemed like something she would need Shizune's permission for. On the other hand, he seemed like he knew what he was talking about. That was probably how he got her information, come to think of it. He must have already talked to Shizune.
His eyelashes were long and pretty, she realized when he blinked slowly at her. Though there was something strangely asymmetrical about the way the skin on one side of his face moved when he smiled. "Do you trust me? There's a lot to tell you, but here isn't a good place to be."
That was an understatement, not that she knew it. He'd hypnotized Shizune in the nurse's station down the hall. Someone was going to notice that eventually, even if she didn't wake up on her own. Obito's hand shook imperceptibly as he slowly held it out, fingers splayed slightly.
The situation was perfect. Almost too perfect. Nervous energy had him nearly on the verge of fidgeting. Some kami had clearly sped his way. He'd been given a second chance to keep his plan on track, despite the loss of his decoy organization and most valuable chump. If he could just convince Aiko to trust him, he wouldn't have to genjutsu her into compliance. She would be an excellent decoy for his ambitions. She was the only option, really, and not only had she survived what appeared to have been a near-apocalypse in Konoha, but she was as vulnerable to a new worldview as a person could be.
He was doing an excellent job of not lingering on the guilty knowledge that Minato-sensei's children really deserved better. It was for a good purpose.
His eyes met hers, and Obito tried not to look too eager. He drowned out the sense that Madara was mocking him, ignored Tobi's chatter, and tried to look unintimidating. He all but sparkled with his obvious good mood, not a bit bothered by the blood on his sandals from his recent scuffle or the fact that he could sense a very familiar chakra signature far too close for comfort. All she had to do was say she trusted him.
Aiko took a deep breath, glanced down at her bare feet, and clearly struggled with indecision. But just for a moment. She peered up at him shyly and reached out one pale little hand to rest against his callused palm. Obito grinned.
"Hold on tight," he warned good-naturedly. "You don't like this technique much."
And then they were gone from the little trading town on the outskirts of Fire Country's foremost military power, only minutes before the alarm went off downstairs.
~~~