Disclaimer time – yeah, yeah, obviously I don't owe the Naruto, Hinata or any characters or places you might recognize, so please don't sue me, I have nothing but debts anyway. Warning time – the idea behind this story was inspired by a challenge off an LJ community anichallenge, so it's going to be AU. Also, this is my first foray into the Naruto fandom, so if anyone is interested in beta-reading, I would more than appreciate it, as well as any and all criticism. Lastly, if you missed it, this story is definitely going to be Naruhina, possible other pairings – I haven't made up my mind on that score yet.
I've just gotten a beta-reader, Chelsea, so this is the updated/corrected chapter. Thanks so much Chelsea this story wouldn't be nearly as well written without her help.
Chapter 2 - Vertigo
He was in that void of darkness again, searching for something . . . someone that he couldn't, for the life of him, remember, but he knew it was the most important thing. And then he heard it.
"Run away . . . little fox . . . run away fast . . . the hunters are on your trail."
Naruto's blue eyes sprung open, as he jackknifed to awareness, his hands instinctively seeking out a weapon of some sort. Suddenly and now truly awake, he relaxed back down, looking over at the girl still peacefully sleeping and curled up next to him. Unfortunately for him, he remembered little more than he did the night before. Stealthily sneaking out of the bed, he prowled around the room, searching for some clue or something - anything that made sense. He couldn't get over the bizarre sensation of looking at pictures of himself that he couldn't remember having been taken.
As much as he would have liked to write this all off as one extremely long and realistic dream, he knew that to be nothing more than wishful thinking. It was too painfully real, and then there was that voice he kept hearing every time he closed his eyes. Something was definitely wrong, but he just couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. Walking around, he picked up one framed photograph and he felt his frustration with this situation building up again. It appeared to be an intimate shot of him and Hinata. He had one hand around her waist, pulling her in tighter and the other cupped her face, while she echoed his stance, one hand on his face and the other just touching his arm and they were about to kiss.
Naruto deeply inhaled, a rush of unfamiliar emotions rising within him at the sight of it. On one level, he felt almost violated by whoever took the picture - this was an obviously private moment, not meant for anyone else's eyes - but at the same time he was grateful beyond belief for being able to see it. More than anything, he wished that he could remember this kiss, or maybe it was a near kiss. Most people, even those he was close to, overlooked or discounted him and honestly he was growing accustomed to it. Yeah, it still sucked, but it was something that he had almost grown used to. Hinata just had this certain look in her eyes that he had never believed anyone would ever feel about him, no one had EVER looked at him like that, in his life.
"That was always one of my favorite pictures of us." Her soft voice interrupted his musings, and he carefully placed the picture in its spot on the dresser, before turning slightly to face her.
"When was it taken?"
Her gentle smile fell and she bit her lip a moment, running a hand through sleep tousled raven blue-black hair. "Well, that answers one question, I guess. You really don't remember, do you?" She paused, searching his expression for some hint that this was some elaborate practical joke, while he steadily met her gaze. Hinata closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "That picture was taken three years ago, just before you invited me to move into the apartment with you." She lowered her head just enough to allow her shoulder length hair to fall in front of her face, obscuring her from his sight and he heard a soft hiccup as though her breath had been caught in her throat.
Naruto felt awkward, knowing he was the cause of her pain, but helpless as to how he could stop it. Part of him desperately wanted to cross the few feet of distance that separated them and try to comfort her, but the rest of him realized that this was wrong and until he could figure out what was going on, it would be best not to do anything. He continued to watch her in a painful silence, punctuated only by what he suspected were her choked back sobs, and guilt sliced through him. Before he even knew what was happening, one leg involuntarily swung out and then the other, as he jerkily began moving towards her. Nearly a foot away, one hand already reaching out to her, her head suddenly rose and he froze as he looked her in her eyes, dry but slightly tinged with red and suspiciously bright.
"I'm sorry, we need to try and learn what happened last night on your mission and here I am wasting precious time. We need to get going and find the others and the Fifth. Hopefully they'll know what to do and you'll recover your memory and then all this," she waved one arm towards the dresser, dropping her eyes to the floor, "will be forgotten and we can get back to our lives, ok?" Without waiting for a response from him, she quickly stood up and slid past him, walking towards the closet.
Still feeling ill at ease, he looked at the now empty bed, abruptly pulling his arm back to his side. He could hear her behind him, walking into the bathroom and immediately turning the water on, which drowned out any further noise. Sitting down, he leaned back, lying crossways across the still warm bed, feeling strangely abandoned by her sudden departure. It was odd; logically he knew that she was just in the other room, but still he missed her familiar presence. This was his apartment, he'd recognize that crack in the ceiling anywhere, but without her, it all seemed alien in an almost sinister sort of way.
Staring up at the crack in the ceiling that he had long ago given up trying to fix, he blinked and rubbed his eyes. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him, but the crack seemed to be . . . growing – longer and wider. He continued idly watching it, with a mixed sense of curiosity and unease. His fingers splayed out as he attempted to push himself up and off the bed, but he felt a slight tremor of weakness run through his arms, before they fell limply back down. Blue eyes widened as the crack continued to grow larger, revealing a vast darkness hiding behind it and he realized that he couldn't look away. It was as if he was suddenly mesmerized by it and he began feeling disturbingly disoriented, as if he was suffering from vertigo and about to fall into the darkness.
"Little fox . . . little fox . . . . the hunters come in search of you."
The feral growl that emanated from the blackness seemed to begin to encompass the room. Naruto forced himself to ignore the instinctive rush of panic that coursed through him and instead he tried to focus on evaluating the situation, because this time it wasn't just his sanity at stake. If this was real, if this was actually happening, he reminded himself that Hinata was in the next room. She could walk in at anytime and would be completely unprepared for whatever the fuck was going on. He had to do something and he had to do it now, before whatever was waiting for him got out and put her in danger as well. Suddenly he heard the water come to a stop, his eyes fastened to the door, waiting for it to open and praying that it wouldn't.
"Little fox . . . little fox . . . your time grows shorter."
"Sonovabitch . . ." He cursed inaudibly, unable to even warn her of the danger she was about to walk into. His eyes flickered back up the sea of black that had taken over the entire ceiling and was creeping steadily down the walls around him, and then back to the door, watching the doorknob slowly turn as the door began to open. He knew it was now or never and grinding his teeth, he dug his fingers into the sheets and frantically attempted to push himself up to his feet.
A clawed arm began descending from above him even as he heard, "Naruto-kun, the shower is free, if you –" His eyes darted toward the doorway, awaiting her horrified expression, only to be confused as she stood in front of him relaxed and calm as she towel-dried her hair. "Naruto . . . are you ok?" Hinata pulled the towel free and ran one hand through her still damp tresses, as she cocked her head to the side and watched him curiously. Blinking, his eyes flew up, expecting to see the darkness, but only saw the old crack in the ceiling. He hesitantly pushed himself into a seated position and then immediately stood up.
Shaking his head as if to clear it, he realized that Hinata was still waiting for him to answer and was growing concerned by his lack of a response. He ran his hand through his hair, rapidly making his decision. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just . . .sort of dozed off a bit. No big deal," and he turned around, not wanting to look her in the eye as he lied to her. If his worst fears were true, if he was crazy he – well, he didn't really know what he was going to do, but there was no point in scaring her until he had a reason to. "Let's just get going, ok?" Naruto tried to make his voice as causal as possible, completely missing the way she intently watched him, her eyes darkening slightly as she recognized the evasion in his words, but decided to let it pass for now anyway.
Waiting around for Tsunade, Hinata refused to twiddle her fingers or pace impatiently around the room despite the constant impulse to do so. She was trying to project a confident façade to Naruto that belied her internal fear and confusion. In all her study to become a medic-nin, she had never heard a condition similar to what he seemed to be suffering from. As much as she wanted to believe that it was some form of amnesia, other than the memory loss, the symptoms didn't match up. There was no head trauma she could see that would have induced it and his behavior last night, before they went to sleep, was perfectly normal until he woke up from that dream. In fact, the only outward sign of her distress was the biting of her bottom lip, which she was completely unaware of.
Naruto, on the other hand, leaned up against the far wall, arms crossed in front of his chest and blue eyes open a mere sliver as he watched her fidget under his steady gaze. She resisted the urge to run her fingers through her hair, holding them tightly against her sides instead. Closing her eyes, she could still feel him watching her and it was disconcerting as hell. Some part of her felt like pulling out a kunai, holding it to his throat and demanding the return of her Naruto-kun, because she didn't recognize the stranger who stood before her so quiet and still. But at the same time, she wanted nothing more than to cross the room, walk into his arms and know that everything was going to go back to normal.
The door they had waited for suddenly swung open, and she gave a sigh of relief. If anyone could make this right, then it would be the Fifth. She had to. Tsunade strolled out the door, rubbing her eyes wearily. "Don't you people sleep? You are aware that it is only . . . "
"Nine thirty in the morning? Sorry, wasn't aware you were up late last night drinking."
Hinata's head whipped around in horror. She never imagined the Hokage would be sleeping in late this morning, and she couldn't believe the complete disrespect showed to her by Naruto. She calculated the distance between her and Naruto, wondering if she had time and the ability to rush across the room and gag him. As if he was reading her thoughts he abruptly pushed himself off the wall, adopting a loose and ready stance that she was disturbingly wary to provoke. Instead she merely moved to stand in front of him, hands raised in a conciliatory gesture. "Ano . . . . Hokage-sama, we both apologize for our early arrival - "
"Hinata for the last time, call me Tsunade, will you? And as far as you, Naruto, well, it's too early to get into an argument, so I'll deal with you later." She held the door open for them to enter. "Now I assume that Naruto is here to debrief from the mission, but I'm not entirely sure why you're here, Hinata. You should know by now that these are confidential, despite whatever a certain person might tell you." The older woman gave the tall blonde the hairy eyeball, before turning back to Hinata and sighing.
With a slight tinge of red, Hinata dropped her eyes to the ground, allowing a wave of blue-black hair to fall in front of her face. "Sorry, Tsunade, but the mission is why we're both here. Something," she paused stressing the word, "happened on that mission and we need to know so we can begin to correct it."
Tsunade cocked her head to the side. She had a rough idea of what went down on the mission from what Kakashi had told her about their encounter with the rogue group of missing nins that included the traitor Uchiha, and while he and Naruto fought, the traitors managed to escape nonetheless. But as far as she had understood, all the members of the Leaf, including Naruto, were unharmed. "What are you talking about, Hinata?"
She turned back, tilting her head up to see Naruto staring back at her, and despite how he had been acting this morning, she could see the confusion and the slightest hint of panic in his eyes, and she felt a tightness in her chest. Discreetly slipping a hand behind her, she found his and gave him a quick smile, squeezing his hand lightly, before she turned back to the Fifth. "Perhaps this is something we should talk about in private?"
"If you'd like." She moved aside to let them in, closing the door behind them.
Rubbing her forehead, Tsunadecould feel a migraine building, as she mentally reviewed everything they had told her. To say that she was shocked was an understatement in the least. Times like this, she wanted to smack Kaskashi-baka in the head for not warning her. Hinata was anxiously sitting so far on the edge of her seat that the older woman was amazed she hadn't fallen off yet, while Naruto leaned back in his, a sullen and almost belligerent expression on his face that eerily reminded of her of when she first met him. She didn't miss the way he was acting as if this entire discussion was irrelevant, but held onto his girlfriend as if she was his only lifeline, idly noting that if he clenched any tighter, he might actually break the younger woman's hand. As disturbed as she was by this apparent situation, she was more than curious about whatever it was that Naruto was holding back, and wondered if Hinata's presence was inhibiting him in some way. He had barely said anything and that concerned her more than anything else, because of course that was almost unheard of for Konoha's loudest ninja.
Obaachan said all the right things, all right, but Naruto couldn't bring himself to believe a word of them. She might have convinced Hinata, and he gave the younger girl a quick sidelong glance, but that was more because she wanted to believe and allowed herself to be convinced. But he could tell that Tsunade didn't have a clue what was going on with him and as Shikamaru would say, that was troublesome. He also was aware that she knew he wasn't telling her everything, but he decided right then and there not to tell anyone unless it was absolutely necessary. The last thing he needed was for everyone to know that he was losing his mind. His delusions thus far seemed only dangerous to him and until that changed, he was just going to have to learn to ignore them. Gods knew he had been forced to ignore a helluva lot in his life already just to become a shinobi, how hard could it really be?
As far as talking, he was more than content to let Hinata speak for him at the moment, going on the theory that the least he said, the least likely he'd be to screw something up or give any proof that he was holding something back. Maybe it was suspicious and would possibly backfire on him at some point, but it's not like he had a better plan in mind. Feeling a slight brush of a thumb on the back of his hand, he looked over again at Hinata, who was deep in conversation with the Fifth. He tuned out what they were saying to watch her, as she continued impassionedly demanding something, likely information if he had to guess. She was waving her free hand slightly as if to punctuate her words, never letting on for one moment that she was trying to comfort him even as she, the shyest kunoichi in the village, was arguing with the Hokage on his behalf. This disparity, given what he remembered of Hinata and especially the picture he had seen this morning, endeared her all the more to him and he fondly smiled at her.
After a few more minutes of back and forth between the two women, while he watched on silently, Tsunadeannounced that she needed more information to figure out what was going on and summoned his teammates Kakashi, Shikamaru, Shino and Tenten. Until they were there, there was nothing to do but wait. The old hag had wanted to speak to him privately, but he begged off, claiming he was hungry, and Hinata quickly backed him up. So the Fifth reluctantly let them leave with an admonition that they would return within the hour.
Walking back from the Ichiraku, Naruto felt the villager's eyes on the two of them disapprovingly and in a fit of piquet, reached out to hold Hinata's smaller hand in his own, almost waiting for her to pull away. He was pleasantly surprised when she didn't, and at the same time he felt slightly ashamed at the thought that she might. For the first time since he woke up last night, he felt moderately relaxed; a few bowels of ramen with Hinata for company seemed to do the trick for him. She didn't ask any awkward questions or put any pressure on him, more than content to eat and simply talk about the old times that he could remember.
However, as they approached Tsunade's office, he could feel the tension begin to come back. When they walked in and he saw his friends now all either Jounin or Anbu gathered around watching them curiously, he wanted nothing more than to turn and flee, taking Hinata with him. Unfortunately, he was realistic enough to know that no matter how attractive that idea might be, it would never work, so he took a moment to steel himself and continued further into the room, ignoring the stares he was receiving. Hinata began rubbing her thumb against the back of his hand in an effort to soothe him and despite himself, he could feel it beginning to take effect.
"Oi, what are we all doing here?" Shikamaru asked impatiently. He had just gotten back from a mission and wanted nothing more than to stare at the clouds, before Ino found him and dragged him off somewhere.
"You're here because I told you to be." Tsunaderetorted, scanning around the collective group, clearly annoyed. "And will someone please tell me where the hell Kakashi is?"
"Yo!" The silver haired Copy-nin lazily lifted one hand up, as everyone turned around to stare at the perpetually late Jounin just strolling through the door. "Well, I was on the road of life, and –"
"Don't even start with me this morning. We have a serious problem and I need you," the Hokage waved an arm encompassing the room, "to tell me exactly what happened to Naruto on your mission." Everyone in the room with the exception of Naruto, Hinata and Tsuande exchanged blank glances, clueless as to why she would even ask such a question.
Arching one eyebrow, Kakashi shrugged his shoulders. "You'll have to be more specific because I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Damnit". She sighed again. "I was really hoping that you wouldn't say that." Sitting down, she began explaining the situation for the second time that day. When she finished, everyone had gone dead silent for a long moment, trying to glance over at Naruto without being obvious. They needn't have bothered with the subterfuge, because he was busy staring at the opposite wall, determined to defiantly ignore them all. He didn't want or need their pity.
"Well, that is troublesome."
Shikamaru was promptly smacked in the arm by Tenten, as if she was suddenly stepping up to take Ino's place in the other girl's absence from this meeting. Rubbing his arm and muttered something under his breath about bossy women, he rolled his eyes, adding, "Well, as expected we found the missing nin that were harassing the Wave country, and then we all broke off, taking them on one by one. Naruto wandered off out of my line of sight and went after someone that looked like Sasuke. When he returned, a little worse for wear, he seemed fine, pissed off, but fine. He admitted that it was Sasuke, but that the bastard had gotten away again with a little help from one of his new friends. Other than being angry about not capturing him, Naruto seemed perfectly normal, exhibiting none of this apparent memory loss."
Looking around, Tsunadesaw agreement on everyone else's faces. In her experience, she had never come across a technique that that could simply wipe a segment of someone's memory and wasn't sure exactly how to proceed. "Until we can figure out what is going on, Naruto, I'm sorry but I have no other choice than to take you off active duty. At this point, it's just too dangerous and this village has too much invested in you to lose you now. Although I have to say the timing on this really sucks." She stood up, not bothering to elaborate on her last statement, Naruto was intrigued, but decided to wait until they were alone to question Hinata.
Everyone got up and began milling around, most left, but Naruto noted that Kakashi got up and walked over to Tsunade and they began an intensely quiet conversation that he knew was about him. He distantly heard both his and Sasuke's names mentioned and saw more than one furtive glance over to him. But as interesting as listening in on that conversation might have been, he had other things on his mind. He wanted to know exactly what he had missed in the past few years, what was going on, why Sasuke was still apparently running loose, where the hell were the rest of his friends – details that he intended to get out of Hinata.
TBC
Ok So that was the second chapter, hopefully you liked it and are intrigued enough to want some more, if so please review. If you hated it, well let me that too and why. I've only recently discovered Naruto and I'm depending on you to let me know if they're OOC, or off in any other way.
As far as Naruto teammates, it seemed there was a bit of confusion, which will hopefully be cleared up in this chapter – Tsuande was not on his team, lol. Hinata suggested talking to her since she is the Hokage, but also renowned for her medical knowledge. Kakashi was on his team, along with a few of Naruto's contemporaries, but only because he is one of my favorite characters, sorry if that disappoints anyone. And, yes, I'm aware that the plotline is a bit confusing, don't expect it to make sense yet. I would have added mystery as a third category, but I'm only allowed two. No one is entirely able to explain Naruto's memory loss, if I did that would be the end of the story, but don't worry I will explain it all before I'm through. Trust your fanfic author a bit, ok? shrugging my shoulders I also hate this chapter title, but I'm want to post it, so whatever . . . .