Hello and welcome back! Thank you so much to SSSRHA for the review and PM guidance (you saved me!) and Wolffox101 for the review and encouragement about commas! Glad to know there are people out there with the same comma addiction. ;D

Underlined words, if not used for emphasis, are hereby English words or words pronounced with an English accent instead of Japanese. For example, if Muttsuri says, "I like to eat french fries," the words "french fries" are in English, while the rest is in Japanese. Or at least, the basically Japanese that the Naruto world uses in my head.

I do not own the story of Naruto, though I lay claim to typing up this particular aped fanfiction of it.

Enjoy!

Muttsuri remembers. She remembers bits of a story about heroes and exciting battles and sadness and friendship and smiling despite it all, and she aches to realize that that story is here, and wherever she was with the story is there, now. Where she was is no longer where she is, like so many stories she's read before.

She doesn't remember everything, definitely not all of it, but she is beginning to piece it together a little. She remembers the house on the hill in wintertime and carrying something important in her hands, and screaming and getting hit in the head. She was called Charlie, then. A nickname, but one she used for her own anyway.

She remembers many nights spent staring at the ceiling in the house, thinking about how much she wanted to meet the characters of the story she is now in.

She rubs her metaphorical hands. 'Cause y'know. Deeze hands.

But anyway-

I'm gonna getcha, oooh I'm gonna getcha good.

Muttsuri opens her eyes to find herself in her hospital bed and it is quiet. Nagi is for once asleep in the white chair, propped up by her glaive and an elbow on the desk, head on a shoulder and dark hair from her ponytail splayed over it. Muttsuri can't remember a time when she's ever seen Nagi sleep; she has always been awake and at Muttsuri's side when she wakes up.

Nagi's face is as serene as it always is, but her hands are clenched tightly on her glaive, even in sleep. Muttsuri's companion has a trusted companion of her own.

Tears well in Muttsuri's eyes, and she lifts her "hands" to her shoulder so she can cover her face with her elbow. She takes a shuddering breath in, and out. That blackout brought pieces of memories of the family she had before she was Muttsuri, and she feels the loss of them keenly. On top of missing them, it's been very lonely with only Nagi as a companion, who always seems to keep Muttsuri at arm's length.

Muttsuri lets herself sink into her feelings for a moment. How much she wants to go back to where her family was and all comforting familiarity. If only there was anything she could do, maybe dying again would—? No. She tells herself that she will not go down that path. To walk that path would leave something twisted in her, and if she never succeeded, she would have lived with her face turned to the dark, denying joy or fulfillment from this life. To take her life would be to dismiss the life she has now, all in the hope she might achieve something she doesn't even know is possible.

This is the life she has now, and by all that's good, she will try to live it. Even if it's very hard and dark right now, she will hold onto the hope that it will be better eventually. Maybe not now, maybe not soon, but it will happen. I will make it so.

A good start would be to get out of this hospital, the white on white rooms and white-coated people is starting to get to her. She rubs her face against her elbow, taking a deep breath again.

She lowers her elbow to find Nagi looking at her with an unreadable expression. "Nagi?"

Nagi dips her head in greeting, "Muttsuri-sama."

Muttsuri swallows, quickly gathering the courage to say her next words. She's terrified of what the answer will be. "Nagi, where is my family? Don't I have a mother and a father? Do they… not want me?" Because of my deformity went unsaid.

The woman shows a fleeting expression of remembered loss, for once showing clear emotion on her face. "Muttsuri-sama… I'm sorry, your mother has passed on from this world. But she loved you very much, Muttsuri-sama, never doubt that. She fell extremely ill due to complications with your… hands, and died giving birth to you. She looked forward to meeting you so much; she would practice her first greeting to you with me as we traveled. She was very precious to me, so please believe me when I say that her love would not have been lessened whatsoever by your hands."

"As for your father…" She looks down and runs her hands over a nick in her glaive, "I cannot pretend to understand the master, but know that he carried you in his arms during the travel to this hospital, after the last refused to treat you, and demanded this one treat you. He has visited you over the years as you slept, though his visits have been growing less frequent. I had hoped that since you had awoken, the message I sent would see him back quickly…" She says the last part to herself and trails off, looking past Muttsuri to the window.

It is quiet for a moment, as Muttsuri digests this and Nagi is lost in thought. She can't help but feel hurt at her father's absence, and she mourns the loss of a mother she never knew. Neither parents of this life could ever replace those from the last, but Muttsuri believes that one can never have too much love and support, or too many mothers and fathers.

Muttsuri sits up and leans back into her pillows. "How long was I asleep for this time?" She asks tiredly, changing the subject.

"It has been three months, Muttsuri-sama."

Muttsuri internally winces. Two months will have put her back pretty far in her physical therapy. Not to mention the medical professionals refuse to run diagnostics on her while she is in a blackout, something about the readings being messed up, Nagi had said. They had seemed to be getting close to deciding on a way to free her hands the last time she had been awake, but who knows how long it will take with her semi-frequent blackouts.

Nagi stands up. "I will call the nurse now, Muttsuri-sama. They wanted to question you about what happened on the roof."

The trip to the roof had been shoved to a corner of her mind while she was processing her memories, completely forgotten. "Yes, thank you Nagi."

Nagi leaves, one hand firmly on her glaive as she opens the door.

When she returns, she is followed not only by Muttsuri's regular nurse but also the pretty man that fell on Muttsuri when she woke up the second time in this world. Nagi has what might be a frustrated look on her face, but it's only in a slight furrowing of her brow and a slight dip to the corners of her mouth. Muttsuri probably wouldn't be able to tell if she hadn't spent so much time since waking up exclusively in Nagi's company.

The nurse, Iko, steps forward with a smile for Muttsuri. "Muttsuri-chan, how are you feeling? It's been quite a while since you were awake last."

"I feel fine, thank you. No headache or anything else."

"And how did it feel to go on the roof?"

"It was very nice, I enjoyed being outside very much. The roof had a lovely view."

Iko leans forward a little. "When did you begin to feel like you were going to pass out? Was it sudden or did you feel it coming? Was there anything in particular that stood out to you?"

Muttsuri remembers that the hospital had been against her going outside in the first place, and that Nagi had promised them to bring her in at the first sign of trouble, thereby assuring that minimal damage would happen. Minimal damage obviously hadn't happened. Muttsuri needs to convince Iko that her blackout hadn't been because of going outside and just happened on its own. She really doesn't want to be trapped inside forever. "No, there wasn't any warning, we got all the way to the edge of the roof and it just happened. Nagi made sure that I was okay before going too far out," she earnestly says with wide eyes.

Iko hums and pats Muttsuri's arm, "Okay, Muttsuri-chan. Next time you want to go to the roof, ask for me or one of the other nurses to go with you, alright? That way we can be absolutely certain it's okay for you. We want to minimize any blackouts."

Relief sweeps through Muttsuri, and she smiles and nods her head. "I will."

"If there's nothing you want or need, I'll be back tomorrow for our regular physical therapy. Welcome back, Muttsuri-chan."

"Thank you, I'm fine. See you tomorrow Iko-san!"

The pretty man doesn't follow Iko through the door, and he steps forward when the door closes. "Hello, Muttsuri-chan, I'm Yamanaka Inomaru, a friend of Nagi-chan's," Nagi presses her lips in a line, "and I just wanted to introduce myself and let you know that if you need anything, I'm just downstairs in the psychology department. Advice, counseling, or just someone to talk to, my door's always open."

The name Yamanaka and the way his hair is swept up into a high ponytail brings to mind a girl named Ino, someone she places as a character from the Naruto story with an internal wince at the headache. She doesn't remember much about Ino, other than she was bossy and fierce and sure of herself and something about being a mind reader? Muttsuri thinks maybe it was a clan thing. She could try to remember more but her head's killing her now.

"Nice to meet you, Yamanaka-san. I'm glad Nagi has more than just her glaive and me for company." She says with a smile.

Inomaru's brows draw together and he looks to Nagi, who ignores him and looks to Muttsuri. "Muttsuri-chan, what did you just say?" He asks, turning back.

"I said it's nice to meet you and I'm glad Nagi has more friends than just me and her glaive?"

"Muttsuri-chan, this is called a naginata, not a… whatever it is you said." Inomaru says.

Oh crap. Oh no, that was English. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought that was what it was called," she says quickly, sweating internally.

"It's alright, Muttsuri-chan."

Inomaru stays and makes small talk for a while (How're you finding the hospital? Fine. How's Nagi teaching you to speak going? All right), but Nagi acts particularly frigid and Muttsuri is too distracted by her headache to really engage. He leaves shortly and Nagi goes to study at her desk and Muttsuri looks out the window.

Muttsuri is beginning to piece together a theory on her situation, besides the obvious "lived another life, been reincarnated". She lived a previous life as Charlie, died under uncertain circumstances, and was reborn as Muttsuri. The rebirth process locked away all of her memories, and in order to access a memory, she has to break down the "door" to its prison in order to free it. Smaller memories have smaller, more easily broken doors while larger ones have very sturdy doors. Breaking down any door causes a headache for Muttsuri, but the smallest, least complicated memories cause small pains while the largest cause her to pass out, sometime for months.

For example, her previous blackout seems to have given her the general memory of the story of Naruto plus the sketchy memory of her death as Charlie with a few small background memories thrown in. Like her family's faces and voices and bits of something called "fanfiction". (She's a little confused about the last one because all she remembers of fanfiction seems to be contradictory with itself and with Naruto itself.)

What she doesn't understand is why she is able to remember. She assumes that other reincarnated people never remembered their previous life. At least, she doesn't have any obvious memories of that being the norm from when she was Charlie, and she doesn't want to dig around and inadvertently put herself into a coma just now. But why does she remember?

She has a feeling it may have something to do with the condition her hands are in, but she doesn't see how. The memory she recovered of her death is very garbled and unclear—she doesn't know why—but she knows with certainty that what she was holding was very important. But was its importance derived from an ability to make a dead person remember their past life? Muttsuri has no clue.

She tests out her theory of breaking down "memory doors" a few times in the following week of recuperation and it seems to be sound. She tests out a small memory (what was her favorite color? Green.), and gets barely a passing pain. As she's about to go to bed she tries to remember Charlie's neighborhood around the house on the hill, so that if she passes out it will look normal and not arouse concern. It works out perfectly; the next thing she knows it is the morning of the next day. With a couple other tests, she allows herself to stop poking at her memory to give her poor head a rest.

She can't help the random day-to-day spurts of memory retrieving, though. Sometimes she's thinking normally and she tries to catch a stray thought and then her head hurts from the recollection of the memory.

She does notice that sometimes she will come back to herself after remembering in not quite the position she was in before, like she turned her head and was staring at Nagi once, though she started out looking at the tree outside her window. She had to give a quick excuse that she was lost in thought—well, she kind of was but not in the regular way—and apologize for her rudeness.

After a week she journeys to the roof again with Nagi and the nurse in tow with the former carrying her bridal style once again. It goes without a hitch and Muttsuri is struck again by all the color of the real world. Going back to her hospital room is almost like going to prison, she thinks, and she almost hates the room as she re-enters it. Sure, she has the window to the tree and a bit of sky, but she doesn't really have vibrance or life inside. It even smells dead without any trace of life, with all the antibacterial scrubs the hospital uses.

She asks Nagi if it would be possible to get something colorful for the room (she's stuck in hospital clothes for the time being, with her frequent blackout the doctors want to be able to treat her with the least complications so even her clothes are white) thinking a candle or something would help, and Nagi dips her head and says ambiguously, "I will see what I can do, Muttsuri-sama."

She was expecting Nagi to get something small, if anything, so she is honestly surprised when the next day Nagi brings in a sizeable potted carnation plant. She thumps it on Muttsuri's bedside table with a frown on her face, and when she glances over to Muttsuri her face clears and she dips her head slightly, "Forgive me, Muttsuri-sama, I had a bit of a hassle in buying this, that is all. I did not mean to disturb you."

Muttsuri quickly shakes her head, "No, it's fine!" She scooches over to the edge of the bed nearest the plant and leans over to sniff the flowers. Green and growing and alive meets her nose, and she happily laughs. "Thank you so much! I wasn't expecting something so nice, this is very wonderful of you." She says, looking up at Nagi.

Nagi's cheeks have a faint pink tinge when she says, "It was nothing, I am pleased my duty has been performed well. I also brought something else," she continues, pulling out a small scroll from a pocket, "that I hope will please you just as much, and that I am not overstepping my boundaries in bringing."

She does something with her hands and there's a puff of smoke—oh wow is she a ninja?—and out pops a tree branch into Nagi's hands. She holds it out to Muttsuri who suddenly wants to cry and clutch at the branch, a pine tree branch, but she doesn't have the hands to do so, so she looks up to Nagi with tears in her eyes and says, "Thank you, Nagi. Thank you so much." Pine trees mean home to her, the smell and the feel and the color of the needles remind her of her home and family as Charlie, but not only that, the fact that Nagi remembered their conversation and didn't write it off is very touching, and she promises herself she won't forget this. She will make sure Nagi is paid back, somehow.

Nagi dips her head again, "I am pleased that you are pleased." She looks up, "If I may, I would hang this from your headboard."

Muttsuri sniffs and rubs at an eye with her shoulder, "Yes, please. That would be great," she says, trying to rein her emotions in.

The pine bough hangs proudly above her head when Nagi is finished, and Muttsuri is overwhelmed with gratefulness for Nagi. She may be cold and distant most of the time, but maybe she's not completely uncaring.

"Nagi, thank you for being here with me."

Nagi gives a small, rare smile and bows her head.

With the week of recovery the doctors are ready to continue figuring out a way to free her hands. Since they were getting close to being ready before her blackout, and despite her fears of delays, it isn't too long before Muttsuri is told that they are ready to try a test run on her left pinky. They want her to be awake for the operation, since "odd" things happen when they work on her hands when she's under.

She's been told they're still operating under the assumption that her hands are some kind of first generation kekkei genkai and not a very odd birth defect. The way the mass of flesh reacts to interference is nothing like normal flesh's reactions.

But really, other than the odd reactions and Muttsuri's maturity despite being in a coma for the beginning of her life, there's no sign of anything significant from her hands. Compared to the great kekkei genkai in the ninja world, her hands are abnormally weak and kind of useless. Actually, it has hamstringed her in multiple ways. There's a hope that once they're able to separate the thing between her hands her kekkei genkai will prove to be not as horrible.

She doesn't know of any kekkei genkai like hers from the general story of Naruto that she remembered. It's strange that a kekkei genkai would so obviously hamstring its user and require outside manipulation in order to be unleashed. But the doctors probably know best, and other than the vague feeling it has to something to do with her death as Charlie, she can't think of a better explanation.

The day of the test operation dawns cloudy outside her window and she is nervous. Not only is she nervous of the outcome—what if something goes wrong oh no what if they have to cut off my arms and then they get infected and I die oh noooo—but she's also nervous to be awake during an operation. That's just freaky, and she keeps psyching herself out as she and Nagi wait for her to be brought to the operation room. She tries to take deep breaths and let the smell of pine coming from the bough at her head calm her, but it doesn't help as much as she wishes.

Nagi looks calm and collected mostly, but she's fingering her glaive—naginata more than she normally does.

A nurse she hasn't seen before comes to lead Muttsuri and Nagi to the surgery wing. She doesn't really interact with them, unlike Iko who always has time to talk and a smile for Muttsuri. She appreciates Iko's chatter much more than the almost-rude briskness in which the new nurse talks to them.

When they pass a waiting room, the nurse pauses and says, "Wait here during the operation, Nagi-san. It should only take a half hour, and then you may see Muttsuri-chan when she is in recovery."

Nagi looks to the waiting room, then back to the nurse. "No, nurse-san. I will wait outside the operating room. You have no need to worry about my interference in the operation, and I cannot be far from Muttsuri's side. It was part of my master's agreement with this hospital."

The nurse holds Nagi's eyes for a moment, then flicks them away from Nagi and says, "I was not told of such an arrangement," she huffs, "The doctors will probably require you to leave before they operate, but come along."

Nagi makes a neutral noise in the back of her throat, and they continue.

The nurse brings them to a room a little bigger than Muttsuri's, with a bunch of machines and trays bearing surgical utensils around a bed in the center. Muttsuri starts to feel like her heart has turned into a small fluttering bird in her chest, like it's trying to escape the trial she's about to face.

There are a couple unidentifiable people in scrubs and surgical masks working around the room, one of which the nurse goes to. She talks in a low tone to it, but the figure shakes its head and says clearly, "It's fine."

The nurse returns to them and says to Nagi, "Alright, Nagi-san. I will bring you a chair while you wait, if you would follow me out."

The poor bird in Muttsuri's chest increases its efforts to be free as Nagi leaves with one last look over her shoulder and a, "It will be alright, Muttsuri-sama."

A masked figure detaches itself from anonymity as he approaches Muttsuri, and she is surprised to find she recognizes the twinkling eyes and the voice that says, "Very reassuring, our Nagi-chan."

"Inomaru-san?" Muttsuri asks incredulously, "What are you doing here? I thought you worked in the psychology department." She adds.

"Well, normally, yes, but it was decided with your special case and the fact that you needed to be awake that you should have someone to accompany you through the operation."

"I see," She pauses, "Why wasn't Nagi allowed, then?"

Inomaru shrugs, "Not hospital staff. I'm sure she'd do fine, but it's hospital policy."

"Oh…" At least Inomaru seems like he will be good at distracting her, though it would have been nice to have Nagi's calming presence next to her, Muttsuri thinks.

"Alright, Muttsuri-chan," Inomaru places a comforting hand on her shoulder, "Let's get you up onto the princess bed so that the daimyo's court can see what they can do for your hands."

Muttsuri giggles as he helps her up onto the bed, and she settles in as he helps position a curtain to fall over her chest, blocking her view of her hands. "Now, I don't want to promise any miracles, but I've been told that our staff here at Kanoha General are some of the best in the land, so I wouldn't be surprised if they even manage to paint your nails before you seem them, eh?"

He continues to talk to Muttsuri during the whole operation, sometimes even startling more giggles out of her. He somehow manages to make the operation fly by. Before she knows it the curtain is raised and she has a little gauze-wrapped bundle sticking out from her conjoined hands. One of the masked people not involved with putting things away says to her, "We were able to use chakra to heal most of the skin over, but please leave it wrapped for two days to fully heal. There are some stitches on your finger just in case, be sure not to pick at them. Your regular nurse will help you unwrap it and move it around, okay?"

Muttsuri nods and Inomaru helps her get down from the bed, then gently claps her on the shoulder, "See, it went okay! Nothing to worry about. Soon you won't have to ask someone to itch your nose, won't that be something?" He grins.

Muttsuri smiles too; that has been a bother, not being able to itch when she really needs to, especially when Nagi needs to use the restroom or run errands. "Yes, I'm looking forward to it! And thank you very much for taking me through the operation, Inomaru-san."

Inomaru's grin gets a little more gentle before he says, "Not a problem. I'm glad that after all our time waiting, we finally get to meet you and you get to grow and experience the world soon. A bright kid like you shouldn't spend her whole life in some dreary hospital."

Nagi comes in and walks straight to them, naginata on her back. The few remaining staff give the weapon weird looks, but then continue what they're doing. "How are you feeling, Muttsuri-sama?" She asks. "I have been told that the operation went well."

"I feel okay. I can't really feel my pinky yet, so we'll need to wait to see what happens, but everything else feels fine."

"That is good." Nagi bows her head slightly, shoulders slumping maybe a fraction of an inch before they rise again and she turns to Inomaru. "Thank you for being with Muttsuri during her operation, Inomaru-san."

"It was my pleasure, Nagi-chan." He says with an eye-closing smile.

Nagi bows her head a little to him, and then the nurse from before comes in to take them away.

Muttsuri waggles her elbow to Inomaru in goodbye from her spot behind the two women as they leave, and Inomaru smiles and waves back.

In two days her pinky is unwrapped, a trail of fine stitches lining the inside of the finger, and Muttsuri is delighted to find that the doctors somehow managed to find a nail underneath all the skin so she really can itch the itches she hasn't been able to before. Well, at least on her face and the front of her body. It requires some careful maneuvering of her bulky "hands" but she can get to most of the itches.

Okay so it's like a drop of water to a starving man because wow does having one finger free bring to the forefront that she should have all of them free and this is actually pretty crappy, she's still connected to this absolutely horrid thing joining her two hands and she's excited to be able to itch her face and though she's just gained the ability to do that, she still needs a nurse or Nagi to do literally everything else including wiping herself after she uses the bathroom.

The thought leaves her breathing heavily in her bed at night in one of the rare moments that Nagi steps out, presumably to see to necessities that she actually has the hands to take care of. It's been the norm for Muttsuri to promise that she won't leave the room while Nagi is in the bathroom, but Muttsuri finds she really needs to take a walk by herself, just a short one and she'll be back before Nagi is out, just to clear her head a little.

She swings her legs over the side of the bed and pads quietly to the door where she listens for anyone in the hall. She doesn't want anyone to catch her without Nagi, at least in this wing, because most of the staff know she's not allowed outside her room without her. Hearing nothing, she opens the door a crack, then a little further and she slides out.

She turns right, away from the physical therapy wing and towards the main area of the hospital. At first it is a little scary being in the quiet corridors by herself, but it slowly grows to be more calming and freeing. This is the first time in this life that she has been able to walk somewhere of her own choice, to choose a destination of her own choice.

She starts picking directions at random after she gets a ways away from her room, and starts walking faster and faster, choosing the most winding path she can. She can't keep the grin off her face, loving the ability to just walk without any attachments or goals.

Eventually she gets tired, panting a little for each breath, so she slows down and finds that she has wandered into a section she has never been to; the nin-ward. Though technically not its own ward, it is the area of the hospital that caters to ninja personnel, and is equipped to handle ninja politics and eccentricities. It is also the area that tends to have the highest density of medic ninja, with the civilian wards having about a third of that of the nin-ward.

It makes sense; ninja in general get into much more trouble than the civilians.

Muttsuri glances into a couple rooms with open doors as she passes them, feeling the surreality of the moment. These people are from a story, inhabitants of a fake world and just two-dimensional drawings on a page, but they're also real flesh and blood people, going about their lives as real people do. She hears laughter from one open door, and snoring from another as she passes them.

She peeks through the next door into a dark room, its inhabitant asleep and attached to beeping machines. She halts in her tracks.

Oh.

She had forgotten him.

She walks to the entrance of the room, pulled by an invisible string.

She hesitates momentarily at the entrance, and ends up just a step into the room leaning against the wall, tears springing to her eyes as she bites her lip to keep it in, all of her emotions. He sleeps on in the bed, out cold.

He was small and insignificant in the greater story of it all, but he left echoes in the people that knew him. He was kind and good, and tried so very hard to do what was right.

This one, this good one, is destined to die, Muttsuri thinks as she slides down the wall, resting her head against her knees as it starts to pound from the memories. Her tears fall onto her thighs as she holds in a whimper. The ache in her head mixes with the ache in her heart (She wants to scream at the cruelty of the end of his life).

The room is dark and quiet save for his light breathing and the beeping machines, and the only light comes from the door Muttsuri left cracked behind her. She lets the quiet seep into her as she squeezes her knees with her arms, absorbing it and calming herself.

She lifts her head to look at him. She isn't a good judge of age, but he seems to be much younger than he would be at the time of his death. He has time to live and grow yet.

She gets lost just looking at him. His eyes are even more beautiful than she would have imagined they could be in reality and not as ink on a page. His nose is broad and his hair flops every which way like it's too lazy to lie in any uniformity. But his eyes…

He mumbles, tearing her from her contemplation, and his brows scrunch as he frowns. His sleep is troubled.

Muttsuri gets up from the floor, feeling a little achy and chilled from the hard linoleum, and dithers with herself. She's been a little creepy just staring at a sleeping almost-child, but there's something she wants to get and bring back. Leaving it would probably be even creepier than just watching him sleep, but she wants to leave some token of comfort for him, and something to mark that she was there. It doesn't matter if it is overlooked or thrown away or anything else, she wants to give it anyway.

If she hurries, she might be able to run her errand before Nagi comes back, she thinks to herself as she makes her decision.

Muttsuri nudges open the door, taking one lingering look at him as she listens for anyone passing in the hall. Satisfied no one's around after a quick look through the crack, she hurries out and down the corridor.

She wends her way through the halls, retracing her steps at a trot now that she's rested a bit. She could take a shorter route, but she wouldn't be familiar with it and her sense of direction is terrible as it is, so she sticks to her longer route.

In her haste she passes a couple nameless staff on her way, but thankfully no one she knows. When she gets to her room, she carefully opens the door, praying she won't see Nagi back early and waiting on the other side.

The room is empty, and she breathes a sigh in relief.

She walks to her bed and clambers up (it's a little hard without help or hands and with her small body) and pauses on her knees at the head of the bed, trying to figure out how to do this.

Uhh… maybe if I… use my mouth along with my pinky?

Mm, this is going to taste so good.

She manages to tear off a minor branch with a couple clusters of needles using her teeth and her pinky, and at the end her mouth tastes like, well, tree, and her pinky aches and there may or may not be spit on one end, but she's got it.

She travels across the hospital a third time carrying it with her pinky, and she finds his room just as she left it, beeps marking time in the dim room.

She sidles into the room, and then hesitantly up to the side of his bed. Again, she is overwhelmed by how much she loves this human being if he is any ounce like how he was written, and how much she wants to protect his eyes from their fate.

She gently places the pine branch on the corner of the mattress by his head, and fervently hopes that the clean crisp smell will clear his thoughts and smooth his frown. She bows her head over his arm on the mattress, offering up a prayer that his way might somehow be easier than it was in the story.

On her way to the door she stops and bows Uchiha Shisui. She knows it's really creepy but it just feels like the right thing to do.

As she straightens, a thought occurs to her and she nods to herself.

She needs to look into nets. Large nets.

~~Read on for a bonus from Iko's view, from when she first met Muttsuri and Nagi~~

Iko, physical therapy nurse-in-training extraordinaire, nervously turns the doorknob to the hospital room. Even though she's training to be a physical therapy nurse, her friend thought it would be a good idea of Iko subbed for her as a regular nurse when she got sick. This is the friend of Iko's that liked to complain about the creepiness of a particular patient of her's. From what little she's sorted from the dramatics, Iko doesn't really understand how a child in a coma could be so active and hard to handle, but her friend's warnings got to her anyway and now her hand shakes as she pushes the door open.

She steps inside with a smile plastered on her face and takes a deep breath. "Hello-" she begins, only to be interrupted by the mumbling of a little girl, a toddler, really, crouched on the bed with something in her hands. Her head is tilted at an angle, short dark hair lining her head that looks like it grew out after it was shaved. When the door creaks the child's head turns towards it, but her icy gray-brown eyes are unfocused and she's mumbling something to herself.

A million things race through Iko's head; she thought this was a coma patient, what has she done wrong, what is the protocol for this, what if she's permanently brain-damaged the poor child, oh why didn't she grille her friend for more information about her job before agreeing to fill in?!

Outside of Iko's head, the child tips over onto her side, no longer mumbling but still staring blankly. A woman Iko didn't notice when she opened the door gets up from the chair in the corner and goes to girl, lifting her up and gently tucking her under the covers. She shoots over her shoulder a chilly "Yes?" She has dark circles under her eyes, marring her pale skin and outlining dark eyes that seem like voids that see Iko for all her faults. She wears dark grey clothing with arm and shin guards, a naginata strapped to her back with a dull leather harness.

She clears her throat, finding it suddenly dry. "I'm here to fill in for your regular nurse, who has caught the flu and will be out for a few days." She says in reply, wielding it like the shield against this woman's scrutiny that it is.

The wraith of a woman wordlessly steps back from the bed, leaving room for Iko to step up to it.

Iko steps forward, feeling the weight of the woman's regard as she bends down to fiddle with the machines and make sure everything is as it should be. "I'm Iko, by the way. Pleasure to meet you."

"I am Nagi," is all the woman says.

Towards the end of the procedure, as Iko rests her wrist against the girl's forehead for a preliminary test of temperature, the most gentle smile Iko has ever seen pushes up the girl's round cheeks, and she says something softly before her eyes drifts shut and she seems to sigh and sink into herself, apparently falling asleep.

Iko presses a fist to her heart, a blush on her own cheeks. This is the cutest child she's ever seen! Despite her peculiarities, the child has just found a place into Iko's heart. She has a huge weakness for cute things. She goes back to her work with a lighter heart, humming under her breath.

"You may tell your superior that I am pleased with your work, and if possible, I request that you replace Muttsuri-sama's regular nurse." She's starteled by Nagi saying. She may be imagining it, but the woman's voice seems to have warmed a fraction of a degree.

"Oh! Um, thank you, but I'm just a nurse in training and the regular nurse is really much more qualified than I am, I couldn't dream of replacing her."

The woman dips her head. "Regardless, if possible I would have you be assigned regularly to Muttsuri-sama."

Iko's brows scrunch and she says uncertainly, "Well, I'll see what I can do. Just don't get your hopes up."

And that was how Iko became the permanent nurse for little Muttsuri, even though she was just a lowly nurse-in-training at the time, and for physical therapy no less, not regular patient care. It became a special case for the hospital, and one that brightened Iko's shifts.

Yes yes, come watch as my reincarnation obsesses a little too much over Uchiha Shisui.

Fun fact: Shisui's eyes are Pure Art and he is a Good Kid, fight me.

Yes, the carnations were from a certain Yamanaka shop, suggested by Inomaru himself. He may or may not have walked Nagi there, and that's why she was in a bad mood. More elaboration about their acquaintance to come, probably at an end of chapter point of view, like Iko's in this chapter.

If you were a little confused by Muttsuri's explanation behind her memories, here is another more fleshed out way to look at it:

It took five years for Muttsuri's body to "download" Charlie. The base personality and reasoning are there, but most memories are not. Only ones that you would be able to remember without any thought were "downloaded" and the rest require further "downloading" in order to be accessed. Kind of like she woke up with a very very limited base game, but every other memory is a DLC that needs a lot of open processors to be downloaded.

For an explanation of the "base game" or "program", it's a little like how you don't need memories to find something funny, or know right from wrong in your day-to-day life. Those personality traits were grown from your experiences and are influenced by how you remember those experiences, but you don't actively need them in order to act on them. A lot of things we don't precisely recall where we learned them, but we do them anyway. For example, I don't remember exactly where or who taught me that sneezing in someone's face is rude, but I can honestly say I don't have to think about it before forming my opinion on it. Make sense?

This also extended to bodily functions, of course, but a new body messes up with the translation. Everyone's body and muscles are connected slightly differently and move a little differently, so I would imagine it would be very hard to move in a coordinated fashion right after getting a new body. However, for the sake of this story I'm going to say that it was taken care of in Muttsuri's physical therapy, and any uncoordination on Muttsuri's part was written of as "well, she's pretty much literally a baby, it's amazing that she not acting like it as it is so whatever. Kekkei genkai magic." Jazz hands. Yes, Muttsuri would be weak, but if she was in Charlie's body she would have been up and about in a much shorter time.

Question for reviewers: who do you feel deserves the title Good Kid in the Naruto universe? There can be more than one! I'm interested to see who will come up. :D