"Wake up, honey. It's 8:00."
With a moan, a raven haired teen opened his obsidian eyes to meet another pair of black eyes, glinting in warm-heartedness.
"Morning, Mom," Sasuke greeted, yawning and sitting up to stretch his muscles. "Did we get any calls?"
"Nope. Call free," she smiled. "Although your brother came by this morning. He said he wanted to talk to you about something. I think it had something to do with your jobs."
"Ok, thanks, Mom." She left the room and he got ready, showering quickly and changing into his normal clothes, a dark blue t-shirt and a black jacket with dark jeans. After styling his hair just the way he liked it, Sasuke went downstairs to find his family already eating breakfast.
"Morning Father, Itachi," the teen said, bowing to his father. They both nodded to him and continued eating. Quickly scarfing down his French toast and scrambled eggs with sausage, Sasuke put his plates away and followed his brother into the living room.
"What's wrong?" Sasuke asked, skipping all small talk. Itachi did the same.
"I've been feeling a presence here since late, late last night. It doesn't seem dangerous, but I don't want to take any chances. I wanted you to call everyone else while I try to find – "
"AHH!"
The elder Uchiha was interrupted by a female scream. A scream that sounded suspiciously like his mother. With a glance, the both ran to the kitchen only to come to a halt the sight before them.
Mikoto was trembling in terror, hiding behind Fugaku, who was standing in front of his wife with a knife in his hand. Across from them was a translucent teenage girl with long dark purple hair and a white baggy t-shirt with grey sweats. Crimson liquid streamed down the side of her face from a bullet hole in her right temple. Her pearl eyes were wide in surprise and her hands were raised in a non-threating gesture. Fugaku kept his tense stance. When the two brothers burst in, three heads simultaneously turned in their direction. The room was filled with deafening silence and it was apparent that none of the Uchiha's were going to talk first, so the ghost decided to go first.
"P-Please, I need your h-help. My name is H-Hinata and I'm looking for my f-friend. Me and a few others were d-driven out of our h-home, the old house a few r-roads from here, by another g-ghost. He really scared our friend and she ran before w-we could do anything. We've t-tried looking for her for about a w-week, but no luck. Then we saw s-something about the Poltergeist Detectives and decided to give it a try. Please, h-help us."
There was still quiet, everyone trying to digest that information, until Itachi broke the silence, "Where are your other friends?"
Hinata jerked slightly, obviously not expecting him to speak so soon and nervously began to push her two pointer fingers together, an old habit, "W-Well, Tenten is at the H-Hyuuga house and Ino's at the Uzumaki's." Even dead and see-through, she still managed to blush furiously. Itachi raised an eyebrow at this and tucked it away into the back of his brain. However, something about her seemed to trigger a memory. Itachi was sure he had seen her before, but now wasn't the time to track that memory down. Wherever he had remembered her from could wait.
"Ok," he said, "Come with me and we'll try to help you. Sasuke," Itachi turned slightly to his younger brother, "Go call everyone else and get Mother and Father into another room. I don't want any distractions while I interrogate," here, Hinata squeaked in fear, "the ghost."
'Why couldn't I have gone somewhere else?' Hinata thought sadly, 'I never remembered that people could be so . . . scary.'
"Come here," Itachi beckoned. The ghost timidly drifted toward him, trembling slightly when he turned his onyx eyes on her. "Stop shaking," he ordered. "You're supposed to be the scary one here."
She blinked her pearl eyes in surprise. Huh. She had spent so much time with other ghosts that she forgot that the living were scared of them. Or supposed to be at least, "Then why aren't y-you scared?" She asked curiously.
"Hn, I've seen many ghosts over the years. You're harmless, weak even," the tall Uchiha replied, not even looking at her.
Hinata froze when she heard those words, triggering a forgotten memory.
"No! Dad, stop it! Please, stop it, stop it! Please!"
"Why?! You're just a pathetic excuse for a daughter! Weak! Weak!"
"AH! No, Stoppit, Daddy, stoppit! Ahhh!"
"Hinata!"
"Ah! Don't hurt me!" The purple haired ghost screamed and raised her arms up in a protective gesture over her face, which was twisted in an expression of severe terror. Itachi stopped moving and stood still.
'She . . . she thought I was going to hurt her?' He thought in confusion. The teen was still whimpering in fear, full out shaking so bad he thought that she was having a seizure if she could. The Uchiha slowly pulled his hand away from where he had been waving it in front of her face when she was unresponsive to his voice. 'She must have been having a memory recall,' he thought in surprise.
Memory recall in a ghost happens when the ghost died a violent death, either emotionally or physically, and in an automatic self-defense mechanism, they forget the trauma of their past life so they can have a second chance. Certain words can trigger certain memories, be the words happy or sad or devastating. It was hard to tell for Hinata. She was obviously feeling terror from something, but since ghosts harbor no wounds except the killing one, it was hard to tell if she had been abused as a child, as the brilliant Uchiha suspected from her reaction. But for now, he had to get her mind off of her old memories. They do no good now and she could cause some potential damage in her distressed state.
"Hinata, calm down. It's Uchiha Itachi, not whoever you're thinking of. Calm down," Itachi stated as soothingly as he could. It seemed to work as she lowered her arms and her shaking calmed slightly, opening one pearl eye slowly.
She then seemed to realize what she had done right in front of him and she blushed fifteen different shades of transparent red, "U-Uchiha-san! I'm so s-sorry! I don't know what h-happened."
"I do. But you're not here to talk about that, right?" She nodded her affirmative, "Alright then, tell me what your friend's name is?" Itachi asked.
"S-Sakura. She has p-pink hair and bright green eyes. She's wearing a dark red t-shirt and dark r-red sweats."
The black haired man nodded, his pen making the only noise in the room as it scribbled quickly the information she had just told him. He glanced up again when she said nothing else and then felt a little awkward. She was crying, the tears mingling with the blood on her face. Itachi shifted slightly, unsure as to what to do. He had never dealt with a crying woman before. He was about to say something when his brother, Sasuke, walked into the living room.
"Itachi, I found something I think you should see. Just him," he added when Hinata looked up hopefully.
"Stay here," the elder Uchiha ordered to the girl. She nodded and began to wipe away her tears. The brothers began walking down the long hallway and into the TV room, "What is it, Sasuke?" He asked.
"You know how mother always records every Amber Alert so that even if she sees something years later, she has a video to go by?" Itachi nodded, already guessing as to where his little brother was going with this. "Well, she remembered something and began to dig through her old videos from about fifteen years ago. She found something." Sasuke walked to the TV and pressed play. What the older brother saw nearly made his blood run cold.
"Police have been searching non-stop for sixteen year old Hyuuga Hinata for three days. Only just a few hours ago, they found her in an abandoned house a few streets over, shot in the temple and a gun found in her hand. Nothing confirmed yet, but police suspect suicide. A note was found with her, reading 'He'll Never Find Me Alive! ' Police suspect her father abused her, but nothing confirmed yet. The investigation is still on-going. In other ne – ".
With a click of the power button, Itachi set the remote down with a stony face, "I already suspected this," he murmured. "But this just confirms it. She had a memory recall earlier."
Sasuke's eyes widened and then he nodded, "I called the dobe and he met Ino last night. Scared the crap outta Uzumaki-san, too, from what he told me. He's coming over here with the other ghost. I called Neji, and he hasn't seen Tenten yet. His house is the farthest away, so it would take longer for a ghost to get there, especially in the daytime." He then paused and reached for another DVD, "I found other Amber Alert tapes for Yamanaka Ino and Tottori Tenten. Whaddya want to do, aniki?"
Itachi picked up the DVD labeled 'Amber Alert: Tottori Tenten' and asked, "Nothing on Sakura?"
The obsidian eyed boy shook his head, "No, nothing on her. I looked back as far as I could, but nothing."
"Ok," the ponytailed teen said, "We'll watch these with the rest of the Detectives. Did you call them?"
"I got Naruto and Neji. Kisame told me that he would call the rest of the Akatsuki for me. They should be here soon."
"Good. Where are Mother and Father?" Itachi asked.
Sasuke replied, "In their bedroom. Mom's pretty shaken; Dad's trying to comfort her."
"Hn," just then, they both heard the door open and heard the sound of two people arguing. One was obviously Naruto while the other one, while just as loud, was unidentifiable.
"You call THAT driving?! Kami, what has the world come to?"
"Hey, you're just jealous of my bad-ass driving skills. It got us here in half the time that YOU probably would have taken!"
"You don't know that! Besides, I would have gotten us here in the same time as you WITHOUT running exactly twelve stop signs and five red lights! It's a wonder that you didn't get pulled over."
"I got friends in the police department and my dad is an important government official. They wouldn't pull me over."
"I wish they would. If I could die again, I would have died from a heart attack already!"
"Well, it was your decision to ride with me in the first place!"
"I can't just waltz out of your house in broad daylight by myself! I need another ghost and I usually go with Sakura!"
"Then stop complaining!"
"Then stop with the reckless driving!"
Walking and floating in the doorway, was Naruto and a ghost who was glaring at the blonde, and vice versa. Sasuke snorted in distain, "Dobe, shut up. You're annoying."
Said ramen loving teen whirled around to face his best friend, "Teme, what do you want with this," he hissed the last word out, pointing blatantly at Ino. Her baleful glare intensified tenfold.
"Hey! I have a name, you know," she snarled out in anger. Her nerves were already on edge and this idiot was only making it worse.
"Oh, sorry, pig." Unfortunately, that idiot seemed to live up to his name a little too well.
With a sudden shrill scream of fury, she launched herself at him, only to be held back by the sudden appearance of Hinata, who was struggling to hold back the furious blonde.
"You can't call me that, you turd! Only Sakura's allowed to call me that!" Her shriek made all the males wince slightly in pain.
"I-Ino, Ino, c-calm down, p-please," Hinata begged, still struggling to hold back the furious bloodied ghost from attacking in blind anger. Her white eyes glanced at Naruto, who was looking slightly scared, and tried again, "I-I'm sure h-he didn't m-mean it. H-He knows n-nothing a-about us." At these words, the blonde calmed down slightly, no longer struggling and the Hyuuga let her go hesitatingly. But she kept on glaring at the Uzumaki, who looked wary of her.
"Naruto, I think you should leave. I'll talk to Ino-san and Hinata-san," Itachi dared to break the tense silence first, giving the blonde teen a look that had him nearly racing out the room. The Uchiha turned and whispered quietly into his younger brother's ear, and then he nodded and left in the footsteps of his best friend.
With a noise of simmering anger, Ino sat herself down in a chair while Hinata reminded standing, glancing around nervously. Whether for better or worse, they had found the Poltergeist Detectives. Well, most of them, anyways.
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