Chapter 1
Rain. I could hear the rain. It seemed to be resonating through my entire being, although I couldn't feel its stinging coldness or smell its unique fragrance. My body was numb and sore, as if I'd been frozen for a while and now the warmth was melting away the ice. Apart from that, I couldn't really find anything else uncomfortable enough to be mentioned. I was lying somewhere soft, though I had no idea where – I supposed I would know if I opened my eyes.
It hurt at first, when the light made its way through my lashes, but I blinked a few times and let myself accustom to its intensity. I couldn't see quite clearly. It was all just a big, luminous… nothing. I couldn't discern one damned thing. I moved my hand, although it hurt too, and tried to raise it in front of my half-blinded eyes, but it was all just a foggy mess and I let it fall limp to my side, ignoring the pain that shot through my arm up to my shoulder.
Just because my eyes rendered useless for the moment didn't mean my other senses had been affected the same way. I heard something – an opening door was my best guess – and steps echoed in the bright room, closer and closer, until I opened my eyes again and saw a slightly darker figure against the white background. I frowned, not knowing whether that person was a friend or a foe.
"Sasuke-kun…"
The feminine voice sounded comforting, despite its apologetic inflection. For a moment, I thought it sounded quite familiar, but the feeling vanished in an instant. I didn't know this woman. And… who was Sasuke?
"Where am I?" I asked.
My voice was hoarse and my throat hurt just like the rest of my body, but again, I ignored the pain and tried to catch her eyes somehow. I didn't know why – my efforts were futile, since I couldn't locate them. The woman moved and I felt the mattress bend as she sat next to me, her hip next to mine through the clean-smelling covers. She placed her hand on my forehead and sighed.
"You're at the hospital, in Konoha."
Konoha? My head throbed just a little before I realized I didn't remember anything before waking up there. I sat up suddenly, utterly confused, but she pushed me back gently, with a practiced patience. My vision flickered, oscillating between dim and clear. I managed to see that her hair was pink, cropped to the level of her chin, but then a stabbing pain forced me to close my eyes and I let a small gasp escape my lips.
"W-what happened to me?" I demanded, covering my eyes with my hand and refusing to remove it, even as she tried to take it away.
She paused, ceased her struggle and was quiet for a few moments.
"We were on a mission. You hit your head and it affected your memory and your vision. Now, please, let me look at your eyes. They're bleeding."
I reluctantly allowed her to push away my arm and waited as she wiped the warm blood from my cheeks with a wet cloth. I wondered where she had got that from. Another few minutes passed and the silence between us felt heavy like a rock on my chest. I had questions. I had thousands of questions. Who was I? Who was she? What had happened? When? …
"You don't remember anything… do you?" she asked carefully.
"No."
I felt her brush a few bangs from my forehead – an almost motherly gesture. She could be a doctor… or a nurse. Or… an old friend of mine? Did I even have any friends?
"Your name is Sasuke Uchiha." She said, and I could almost sense a smile in her soft voice. "You are a Konoha ANBU. We're on the same team. I'm a medic-nin."
"I don't remember anything."
"Tsunade-sama said you might never recover your memories." She added sadly.
"Tsunade?"
"Hokage-sama." The woman explained to me patiently. "She is the best medic-nin and one of the legendary sannin. If you get better soon, you will meet her. How are you feeling?"
"Sore." I concluded after a while.
She didn't say anything else and neither did I. I was tired. The blackness inside my head and the diffuse light in front of my eyes didn't help much, either. She got up from my bed and I heard her walk away only to come close again, on the other side of the hospital bed.
"Would you like some fresh air?" she asked. "It's raining outside, but it's not cold. You need it more than any medicine, trust me."
I agreed silently and soon, the smell of rain reached my nostrils and filled my lungs. I took a deep breath, as if it were my last, and closed my eyes. Rain. I liked the rain. It reminded me of…
Nothing.
"I want to be alone." I said abruptly, staring at the ceiling.
She didn't seem taken aback by my rudeness, rather saddened.
"Shall I leave the window open?"
"Yes."
The woman paced across the room toward the door and she had her hand on the knob when I spoke again, this time voicing an exercised statement that I'd been rehearsing since she had asked about the window. It seemed strange for me to choose my words so carefully.
"You haven't told me your name."
Genius, indeed…
It had the effect it was supposed to have nonetheless after more or less kicking her out of my ward.
"Sakura!" she replied, a sparkle of joy lighting up in her voice. "Sakura Haruno."
"Well then… thank you, Sakura." I said, letting the corners of my mouth curl upwards in a little smile.
For a moment it seemed to me that she wanted to say something, but she changed her mind and left the room, leaving me with the scent of absent memories. What was it about rain that irked me? I loved the smell of it. I wanted to feel it too. But something… something about it made me feel… uneasy. I was sure it was related to my past somehow – the past that was now buried in some deep corner of my mind where my consciousness alone was not enough to reach.
I tried to concentrate on the soft sound of it falling on the sill, on its perfume, trying to recall any fragment, any tiny bit of it in a different time and place. To no avail. My head started throbbing again, but aside from that, nothing. So what did I know at the moment? My name was Sasuke. Sasuke… something. It was slipping my mind just then, but I was sure I'd remember it later. I was an ANBU. I had a pink-haired friend and team-mate named Sakura. And I had lost my memory while on a mission.
Perhaps it would have been better if I'd never awaken at all from that unconsciousness. I wasn't the type of guy who liked to start everything all over again and it seemed that it was exactly what awaited for me patiently outside the borders of my unconsciousness. I wanted to go back to sleep. I needed to, at least for a little longer.