Chapter One: Awakening

A lance of pain through my head caused me to groan. Shoving my hands into my eyes in a hopeless attempt to rid myself of the pain caused nothing except those weird colors you see behind your eyelids sometimes. I was lying in a bed. That much I could tell. It wasn't the most comfortable thing I'd ever slept on. The blanket was way too scratchy and the pillow was limp. I dragged my hands slowly down my face and opened my eyes. Bad idea idiot. Everything was bright and blurry and I immediately had to wrench my eyes closed again. My head was drumming like a….drum….and I still couldn't see. So basically nothing had been accomplished. I tried once more to open my eyes. Slowly this time, and waited to adjust to the light. After a few long moments I noticed things really weren't improving. Thoroughly aggravated now I groaned again, filling the mostly silent room with a loud noise that disturbed the stillness. As I quieted back down, I could hear a soft beeping going at a steady pace. So….I was in a hospital? Keeping my eyes closed I used my hands to feel up my arms until I came across an IV. Frustrated with my continued lack of sight and the piercing throbs in my head, I (probably unintelligently) wrenched the needle out of my wrist, causing the machine next to my bed to start blaring WAY too loudly. The throbbing worsened as did my mood…

Why was I in a hospital? I…didn't remember being hurt…Actually…wait what? Uh…..what had I been doing at all? Where had I been? I must've been doing something with my family...

Who was my family? Where did I live? What were my parents' names? My siblings? Did I have siblings? It felt like I should have brothers, but I wasn't sure how many!

My name…..MY NAME!…..the blaring of the machine focused back into my ears and I remembered my headache…and GODDAMIT that was getting really irritating! Sitting up all the way in the bed I swung blindly in the direction of the noise. The side of my fist came in contact with something and I heard it crash over. Making a ton of noise. Which hurt my head. And it was still beeping….Fantastic.

A door slammed open, scaring the freaking crap out of me. Someone was calling out for help, a woman's voice. Footfalls of multiple people entered the room. Large hands grasped my shoulders and eased me back into the pillow. They were telling me to calm down and how everything was going to be just fine. But I couldn't see, my damn head felt like it was going to split in half, and the machine was still screaming at me. I'm sorry dammit! If I had known you'd be so freaking loud I wouldn't have taken the IV out you loud bastard! A pin-prick entered my wrist, and I started panicking again. Voices were frantically telling me to calm down once more, and I sort of sympathized with the doctors. I probably looked like a maniac. Drowsiness filled my being and I felt myself slip into unconsciousness.

When I woke up the second time, I could hear feet in the room with me. Remembering what happened last time I tried to open my eyes, I merely repeated what I had done last time and pressed my hands into my face and groaned. This time it was completely to let whoever was in the room with me let me know I was awake. Yeah, I'm cool like that. A short feminine gasp was my reward as the feet got closer to my bed. I tried to ask why I couldn't see, but it came out as most of one syllable before I went into a major coughing fit.

"OH! You must be SO thirsty! Give me three seconds!"

One.

Two.

Three.

Four…

Five…..

"Here you go," she leaned me up off the bed and gently pressed a cup to my lips, "drink this. Please."

Sorry lady, but you were two seconds too slow. Hahaha, who was I kidding! I blindly grasped for the cup, spilling half of the water on my face and getting half in my mouth. Holy crap that hit just the spot. Feeling what felt like days' worth of throat crud get washed down, I felt confident enough to try to speak once more.

"Cough cough….Excuse me miss…..but I tried to open my eyes, and…and I can't see too well…." The hell? I couldn't remember exactly what my voice should sound like, but for some reason I was expecting something deeper. The voice I spoke with was too high, and soft, almost fragile. I decided I hated it.

"Here, you need your glasses."

Glasses? That….didn't feel right either. But as she softly slid what I assumed to be MY glasses onto my face, I felt both a sense of rightness and wrongness. Weird? Yes. But I was too busy being excited to see to truly explore this train of thought. Carefully fluttering my eyes open, I almost flinched as my body expected to be assaulted by the same blurry light, but I was surprised to clearly see a plain room before me. The blinds were closed and only a dim over-head light was on. The woman who had brought me the water was wearing a traditional nurse's uniform, had light-brown hair done up in a loose bun, and had a soft but overall plain face. She looked at me with a mixture of both uncertainty and sadness. Looking like she realized she had forgotten something she widened her eyes.

"Hold on stay right here! I've gotta go get your doctor!" I snorted. Where was I going to go? But I didn't say anything mean. She seemed genuinely worried about me, and had gotten me the water AND the glasses. She was already in my good books. The room being empty for a few moments helped me to notice that my headache was mostly gone. The IV and the beeping were still there….of course….but I tried to ignore them as I concentrated on my glasses.

They were heavy on my face and felt unnatural for some reason. I had amnesia, that much even I wasn't stupid enough to not tell, but that shouldn't make glasses that apparently belonged to me feel weird. Well maybe it did. What the hell did I know about memory loss? But. It seemed I remembered small useless things. Like the fact that I had slept on more comfortable beds before. That I recognized what a traditional nurse's outfit should look like. Small casual stuff. Any attempt to remember my name caused my headache to attack again with a stick and rock so I left that alone for now.

The nurse reentered the room followed by an older looking gentleman, probably in his fifties. He looked like a doctor should, lab coat and all. His sleeves were rolled up and his hair was white and in a crew-cut. He came across as kinda harsh, and I couldn't resist the urge to flinch when he made eye contact with me. Most of my anxiety left however at his smile. I could feel my mouth shoot him a small smile back in return. He seemed quite pleased with himself.

"Shriou-chan, how are you feeling?" Uhhhh no? I couldn't tell what was wrong exactly with that name. But it felt weird being directed at me. I also got the feeling that maybe I knew a Shirou from somewhere else. But like all my other memories it eluded me.

His smile didn't really reach his eyes when he greeted me. He looked kinda lost in my opinion.

"You've uh, been through quite the ordeal. Can you tell me if you're experiencing any physical pain? How's your head? You had a large laceration in your skull when you were admitted in here." At my confused look he chucked lightly before telling me I had simply had a large wound on my head.

"The first time I woke up it hurt pretty bad, but now I think it's fading….I can't remember anything." No point in hiding it really. It hadn't actually crossed my mind to try and hide it. There was no point. It'd be revealed the first time anyone asked me….well anything. Yeah best to just get it out in the open.

"You mean about that night? Or you can't remember anything at all?"

"I don't know who I am. Or why I'm in the hospital. In fact I didn't even know I needed glasses," I sheepishly scratched the back of my head, "And is Shirou really my name? That kinda sucks, hahaha." My attempt at a joke didn't really have the effect I had intended. The nurse and the man just kind of looked at each other with the "oh shit" look.

"Ahem, that's…a serious problem Shirou. Is there anything at all you can recall? Any small details you can remember. Don't think anything is insignificant. Something small may help you remember something else."

So I told him everything I thought I might remember. Which mostly just included things I felt familiar with, like the itchy bed, or the nurse uniform. Expectation turned to disappointment when I steered into how weird the glasses and my name felt. Apparently that wasn't good. My name was Shirou Uchiha, they told me. A stupid name. I lived in Konoha. Which I admitted to them DID in fact sound familiar, which they perked up to. Once they learned that Konoha was something I was vaguely aware of at some level, they started prattling off random facts that honestly just sounded like nonsense to me.

I was six years old. A student at the civilian school. Belonged to a famous clan of ninjas, of all things. And apparently I had and older brother, who used to be a ninja before his death. When they hesitantly told me this part, I probably relieved and worried them with my lack of reaction. I had and lost a brother in about ten seconds. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to feel, so I decided to ignore a throb in my chest and move on. I was a little upset that I wasn't good enough to be one of these so-called ninjas, but I didn't voice it to these people. They might think I'm focusing on the completely wrong thing. Which was kind of true but whatever.

When nothing besides Konoha clicked in my brain, the doctor, who had revealed his name was Hagoshi-san, dropped the bombshell. Get this, the head wound I had suffered was from an attacker. An attacker who had killed the entire Uchiha family sans myself and one other. An attacker who was, himself, an Uchiha. It's safe to say my head spun with this new information. I felt a distant sadness for the loss of a family that I didn't know, but it's hard to feel anything for people I couldn't remember. Which sucked major ass. This guy hadn't just killed a family, but a clan of almost a five hundred by himself…..What kind of fucked up mother did you have to be to do that? I, and Hagoshi and the nurse, were surprised to see tears start to fall down my face. I didn't feel sad, but apparently some part of me was destroyed. It made me glad. Maybe, just maybe, I was still in here somewhere. I just had to find it.

The two of them left a few minutes later after some more questions. I wouldn't be surprised if they were skeptical. I mean, amnesia is the biggest cliché in the book, right? I'm not sure how I knew that, but I did damnit! It was one more thing to grasp onto. I had to readjust the glasses on my face to keep the straight. Which irritated me. Needing glasses sucked. I wanted to be in a better mood now that things finally seemed to be happening, but knowing that you just survived a bloodbath and had severe amnesia…could bring a lot of people down. I attempted to reach for the positive. At least ninja were a thing! That was cool right? Too bad I wasn't one. Which killed my mood all over again…..Yippee.

Over the next few days, people brought me my food, which was awful, but I didn't have any other choices and was starving. I also was allowed to get out of the bed to go to the bathroom. Seeing myself in the mirror was super weird. Try imagining seeing yourself for the first time ever! I honestly expected to look cooler. My hair was black and wavy and covered my ears and almost went over my glasses. My eyes were an uninteresting dark-ass brown, almost black. And finally my skin was too pale, but maybe that was because I'd been through a trauma…Or I was pale….damn!

It was also unnatural that I was SO short! It was strange that I expected to be older, but this person looking back at me, this Shiiiiirrrrouuuu, looks like a dweeb. I'm not sure what a dweeb is but I definitely looked like one. Finally my attire consisted of the typical hospital shirt and pants.

That Hagoshi guy came in a few more times to check on me and ask how I was doing, but overall nothing noteworthy really happened until…

A crash outside my door jerked me out of my dream. It had been about colorful ponies and magic and friendship and UGH! Hopefully I had short-term memory loss as well because I most certainly wanted forget whoever the fuck rainbow dash was. Trying to move on, I reached for my glasses in time to see a small kid about my age bust into the room, frantic doctors right on his tail as he tried to close the door in their faces. The kid looked haggard, worn-out, skinny, and generally unhealthy looking. His attempt at closing the door was unsuccessful as the doctors chasing him opened the door and grabbed his shoulders, steering him out. Looking at me seemed enough to calm him down. The boy looked beyond relieved. The last thing I heard as they 'escorted' him out sent shivers down my spine.

"…..I'm not alone…."

Hagoshi came back to my room an hour later. That was the other survivor, he told me. Poor kid, I thought. He looked so destroyed! I asked him why they couldn't just let the guy in, and he told me that Sasuke had just woken up. He had been out almost a week longer than I had. It was a blessing in disguise that I had amnesia, because that kid looked messed up. I imagined if your entire family was killed all at once, then just the small hope that their was another survivor at all had probably come as earth shaking news to him. It struck me again that it was MY family that had been killed. It bothered me that I didn't feel much sadness. That wasn't normal. Ugh.

I asked Hagoshi if Sasuke and I had been close, and he admitted to not knowing, but probably not. Sasuke was a first year at the ninja academy and the son of the now deceased clan leader. My father was apparently a civilian my ninja mother had married to after her first husband died. He died fairly shortly after my birth, and mom didn't remarry again. It still bothered me that my half-brother was a full fledged ninja by the time he died and I had been sent to the civilian school. Maybe my mom hadn't wanted anyone else to die…

Another week passed before the leader of Konoha waltzed into my room followed by Hagoshi and a blonde man. I of course being an amnesia afflicted six year old, didn't realize this until after I had said, "What's up old man?"

It had just slipped out oh so naturally. I saw the triangular hat, the red and white robs, and his goatee, and just knew that he should be called old man. It was like a tingling on the back of my brain that was supplying knee-jerk reactions. I had the decency to look a little embarrassed as Hagoshi hastily whispered to me that this was the Hokage. Which I needed him to further elaborate to village leader. Which surprisingly didn't surprise me. I knew this man. I KNEW THIS MAN!

A look of shock passed the Hokage's face before a small chuckle. "I guess I AM getting up there in the years, hohoho."

"Um, have we met before? I KNOW you! You're the first person I've seen that clicks!"

The Old man looked at me critically for a moment before sighing, "No Shirou-chan. I'm afraid that we've never made acquaintance. You probably have seen me before though. As much as I hate to brag, I AM a little famous."

I groaned and pressed my hands into my eyes under my glasses, which was quickly becoming a bad habit when I was frustrated.

"This is a good thing however," The Hokage continued before I could get too dejected, "The man I've brought with me is Inoichi Yamanaka. His talents include those of the mind. I was hoping that maybe he could browse your mind in an attempt to regain your memories?"

This dude was a freaking mind reader?! What kind of ninjas could read minds? What about being a ninja let people read minds? Could anyone do it? The question I chose to ask was, "Uhhhhh, it doesn't hurt does it?"

Inoichi chuckled lightly before stepping forward, "No Shirou-kun. As long as you remain willing to the technique, it will be completely painless." When I asked him what it would be like, he said that he would go into where my memories where supposed to be. Genuinely curious, I asked him what it was like to see other people's thoughts and memories. He told me that it was different for every person. The mind created a kind of separate room that held memories, and Inoichi could go in and see them. I asked him if I could see this place too. I needed to see these memories for myself…..And I'd be lying if I said I didn't just want to see a cool ninja trick. The blonde turned to the old man asking for permission and the Hokage merely nodded.

Inoichi explained what he was going to do and I did my best to not tense up or resist when he placed his hand on my head in fear of the pain that might occur if I messed up. He was right when he said it was completely painless. In fact there wasn't any real feeling. One minute I had been sitting in my hospital room and the next I was in a bland white room with no windows and one door. It oddly enough was shaped exactly like my hospital room sans the beds, technology, and windows. In their place was a small filing cabinet sitting on the floor. Inoichi and I looked around for a few seconds taking in the underwhelming environment. This was what was inside my head? That's….embarrassing. Does this mean my personality is as bland as a hospital room? Ugh, I didn't want to think about it.

Inoichi crouched in front of the filing cabinet and turned to me, "May I?" as if he needed my permission. Well maybe he did? It was my mind. Maybe it was easier with consent? At my nod the man opened the top drawer and went through the documents inside. When I asked what he saw, he chuckled and pulled out a paper that had a crude drawing of a black haired child holding hands with a man and a woman wearing a doctor's uniform and a nurse's uniform respectfully. It was also drawn in crayon, in case you were curious. You sick bastard. At my grimace and look of surprise, Inoichi outright laughed, and told me it was very common of children's memories. I didn't voice my real curiosity of how many children this guy had actually read the minds off, but I tried not to worry about it too much.

What we did find out, was the only thing the cabinet held was memories of the last two weeks in the hospital. There were crayon drawings of Hagoshi and the nurse, Sasuke, and even the Hokage. The most surprising thing was when he pulled out a paper that was still be drawn as he held it. It was the two of us, sitting in front of a filing cabinet and holding up papers. Huh…meta. Hehe.

"It's shouldn't be that shocking that your mind is still writing down your memories." He chuckled and put the papers he held back where they came from. When he was done, he stood and approached the only door in the room. He tried to turn the handle only to find out it was locked. When he attempted to give the door a hard jerk, my head split into two, blood hit the floor, I screamed…

Inoichi snatched his hand off of my head as I stumbled back. Quickly I pressed both my hands to the side of my head in an attempt to keep my brain from hitting the floor. Only to realize there was no split. I was fine. I did have a headache again. Shit. I glanced up at the nice blonde to see he was holding his head too. I felt oddly glad, at least these guys knew how I was feeling now. Ugh no he's nice, I should feel bad. The Hokage hadn't even flinched as we had our small panic attack. He stood straight, patiently waiting to hear what we had seen. Inoichi spoke up first.

"We saw what you might expect. Memories from the last two weeks in a mostly empty room that resembled this one. It's no surprise considering this room is the most Shirou-kun has know since he woke up. The strange thing Hokage-sama, was a locked door, that attacked both Shirou-kun and myself when I attempted to enter."

"…Attacked?"

"Yes Hokage-sama, it's the best that I can describe it. I've seen similar mind blocks in experienced shinobi, but they always attacked whoever was intruding. I've never seen a block that was just as painful for both parties. It's likely that maybe Shirou-kun accidentally sealed away all of his memories after the attack. Like his mind was trying to protect itself from the trauma. But that wouldn't explain why this block would be so antagonistic towards everyone."

I digested all of this as best I could. So my mind might have been too traumatized by the massacre and just decided to forget it? Man, my mind is a coward. Which meant I was a coward, I thought internally while clenching my fists. This was stupid.

The Hokage nodded like it was expected. Then he turned to me and asked, "Would you like to Sasuke-chan?"

Surprised by the abrupt change of topic, I numbly nodded and tried to forget about my headache. The Hokage smiled down at me and said, "Well then, let's head on out shall we?"

Sasuke's room was actually pretty close to mine, which explained how he'd found my room so quickly that first week. Thinking about that visit made me nervous. He was clearly more effected by our family's death than I was. Which, made sense, but still scared me. What if he got angry that I wasn't sad enough? What if we had hated each other before? What if he was an ass-hat? Ugh, I rubbed my eyes trying to shut my head up. When the old man asked if I was ready I nodded, and he opened the door.

Sasuke was just putting his slippers on when we opened the door. His eyes snapped to us one at a time before landing on me. Eyes widening in surprise, Sasuke launched foreword and grabbed me by the shoulders. He took a few seconds of staring at my face before he sighed in relief and said in a softer voice than I expected, "…you're ok."

"Uh…yeah." Crap. I had been hoping that he'd be a talker. I haven't had enough practice yet. No one really wanted to have a full length conversation with me for some reason. Doctors and whoever came to see me were perfectly polite, but they seemed distant or evasive. Like they were afraid if they talked to me they'd break me or something. The point I'm trying to make is that the longest I've talked to a person was Inoichi in my mind. And I'm still not sure if that actually happened of not.

Sasuke looked at me for a few more moments before sighing, "Hn. You're memories are gone." It wasn't a question. Someone had given him a heads up, which was good, because I wasn't sure I could tell him.

Trying to make a good (new) first impression, I attempted to talk, "Hmm, yeah that's what it looks like…So I've been wondering, was I a jerk? No one will tell me….." I trailed off as Sasuke just kind of stared at me like I'd grown a second head. Like he couldn't believe I'd try and make a joke right now. And I could barely believe myself either. This kid's whole world had just crumbled around him, and here I was, some ass who knew nothing trying to break the ice. Sasuke just made that "Hn." noise he'd made before and shrugged. He mumbled, "We didn't really know each other."

Oh. Hmmm. Now what? Ugh crap old man! Help me! Noticing me look desperately at him, the Hokage spoke, "Sasuke, it's been decided that both you and Shirou are fit to leave the hospital. You have a few options. As children, you need a place to live." While I nodded, Sasuke's back stiffened straight. Ah, home would be empty wouldn't it? No way a traumatized six year would want to go back to the scene of the

"I want to go home."

…The old man and I both turned to look at Sasuke as he spoke up. He was staring defiantly up at the Hokage, like maybe he'd have to fight his way home. However that wouldn't be necessary as the old man merely nodded solemnly.

"I understand. Shriou? Do you have any…"

"He's coming with me." Sasuke rudely interrupted the Hokage and spoke for myself. I must have looked startled because Sasuke's eyes met mine and he grimaced. "I mean if you want to."

It's not like I had any other plans. It's just that I hadn't expected Sasuke to really want me around. I didn't remember our family, I was a civilian, and overall a waste of space. The fact that this boy had spoken up for me, made me feel happy.

"Yes, I-I want to go with Sasuke." I didn't think I'd seen a more relieved looking face in the last two weeks.

It took an hour to get everything arranged and taken care of. Now Sasuke and I were both officially checked out of the hospital. The Hokage had left the two of us with what was known as a Chunin as an escort. When I whispered my question to Sasuke he looked surprised for a second before a look of realization crossed his face. He proceeded to talk longer than I'd expected him to. He explained the shinobi system in Konoha to me. Genin, Chunin, Jounin, and other things. Our Chunin escort silently led us through the village, and honestly I had trouble multi-tasking. I was listening to Sasuke whisper to my right, watching out to make sure not to run into anything, and marveling at the village. I'd seen it from the windows in my room, but walking among it now was so completely different. There were so many people. And the vast majority of them were looking at me. Us. Sasuke and me. Staring. Whispering. Ugh. I pressed my hands to my eyes and fought a headache.

The clothes our Chunin escort brought us matched. A black shirt with a large symbol on the back of a fan and white shorts. It's liked our watchers wanted to announce that we were Uchiha to the whole world. It sucked. The hospital had had admirable air conditioning, but no one had told me we lived in the hottest place on earth! Ok maybe I was exaggerating. But this long sleeve black shirt was NOT helping! Damn.

When the three of us finally made it to what Sasuke told me was the Uchiha district, I got worried. Honestly I had hoped that at the very least I would recognize my home. But I was getting nothing. Ugh. The Chunin led us through the eerily quiet district, until we reached a large house. The Chunin whose name I embarrassedly had never asked for asked the two of us if we needed anything. Sasuke looked away towards the house so I said, "We probably need food?" I said it more as a question to Sasuke. He looked surprised before nodding numbly. He wasn't all there right now. So I should be.

The Chunin nodded before disappearing. Which freaked me out. But Sasuke didn't seem too bothered as he opened the door and took off his sandals. I followed his example and silently followed him through the unfamiliar new location. Even if it was new, I still preferred it to my hospital room. I think Sasuke forgot I was here. I expected him to go through the house, looking around and inspecting the area. Except he walked straight to what I figured was his room, opened the door, and walked inside. He'd seemed ok on the walk over, but now that he was in this big empty house now, he seemed lost. Acting on instinct only. I felt for him. But I needed food, and a place to sleep. It probably wouldn't be smart to take any of his family's rooms, especially since they were so recently gone. So after exploring the entire house and finding a spare futon, I laid it out in what I figured was the living room. Going to the kitchen, I found that everything was spoiled, and that I needed to climb on the counters to check every cabinet. There were some miscellaneous ingredients, but any cooking skills I might have had before this were nonexistent. Eventually giving up, I made my way back to the spare futon I had found and fell asleep. Whatever would happen tomorrow I'd deal with tomorrow. Right now felt like a great time to forget everything and just sleep.