Nanashi remembered only Ryo. Ryo only knew Nanashi. Their past began together. Partners and elite swords-for-hire in the country of Rain. But what happens when their past as Haruno Sakura and Hyuuga Neji returns?

Disclaimer: All rights belong to someone else, though my OCs are my original creations.

A/N: I always wanted to try an amnesia fic. Next will be time travel, I think. Sakura-centric, of course. I don't think I've ever written anything else for Naruto. This story will be short. Probably. Please don't kill me for putting this up. It's been written for a while and I really work better if I have several projects ongoing at once.

Memorium for the Rain

Chapter One

The Edge of the World

The fighting conditions had been unfavorable. That was a given as ninja in foreign territory. Rain country was even more unwelcoming than most. It was cliff country, the rivers having eaten deep canyons into the soft limestone an age ago, with little to no cover on the flatlands. Rain country also had a dense shinobi population.

It had been recipe for disaster. A team from the Village Hidden in the Leaves had been gathered for the mission: Yamanaka Ino, Suzuki Tenten, Haruno Sakura, Inuzuka Kiba, Abarame Shino, and Hyuuga Neji. In and out. A-class, barely. Scroll retrieval.

The enemy shinobi had been using a specialized poison and outnumbered them five to one. Not bad odds for a member of the young elite. But they'd targeted the medic-nin assigned for the mission, Haruno Sakura. Overwhelmed, she'd been pushed back to the edge of a canyon. Most of her combat abilities relied on chakra-enhanced strength-the kind that in any other situation would have let her create her own canyon and bury her enemies alive in it.

The time-limit for her antidote's abilities to break down the poison into harmless proteins was reached. There was a shout for help from Yamanaka Ino. A small hypodermic capsule had been tossed, just enough of a distraction for Haruno Sakura to take a lucky blow from an enemy ninja. Apparently unconscious, she'd begun to fall, but Hyuuga Neji managed to retrieve her. His one-handed grip on the canyon wall was secure. There was little to no danger. It would only be a moment's work for the prodigy to pull them to safety.

He'd managed that, bringing himself back onto the edge of the flatland, Haruno Sakura's body tucked close to his. They were still surrounded, but Hyuuga Neji was the equal and better of the two enemy ninja who'd been waiting for them to reappear.

But then there'd been a scream. Suzuki Tenten had been ambushed by three shinobi and the other members of the team were occupied with their own battles. Hyuuga Neji had a moment to decide. Should he save the life of his teammate or concentrate on his own safety and that of the dazed medic-nin dangling in his hold? It was an easy decision. His thrown kunai killed two of the three ambushers and Suzuki Tenten was able to dispose of the last. An enemy ninja's sword drew a red stroke diagonally from waist to shoulder, unbalancing him.

Hyuuga Neji and Haruno Sakura plunged out of sight soundlessly. The only screams were those of their teammates. After the enemy shinobi were dispatched, the team spent a further two days scouring the surrounding area for any traces of their companions or their bodies. They found nothing. When the team returned to the Village Hidden in the Leaves, they were declared missing-in-action. A year later Haruno Sakura and Hyuuga Neji were declared dead and their names added to the memorial stone. The Hokage wept.

-X-X-

Matsuoka Isamu was a farmer, but he hadn't always been. So when he saw the filthy girl hovering worriedly over another equally filthy human form he wanted to walk away. Three things stopped him.

The first was the echo of his wife's nagging in his head, if he somehow slipped and mentioned he'd walked away later. That was the one that decided him.

The second was that the boy on the ground was obviously dying. And nowadays Isamu believed that every human being deserved to die with a little dignity. In the mud, clothed in rags, far from anyone or anything was not it.

The third was the peculiar, unfocused way that the girl was trying to care for her companion. She was blind.

The girl, who had slimy, mud-caked hair that might once have been red, started like a scared rabbit when he spoke to her. Keeping his voice low and soothing, like he was herding a nervous cow that might bolt at any time, he managed to secure her permission to approach her companion.

Still murmuring nonsense to her, he hefted her tall companion over his shoulders, grabbing her hand and having her take hold of his shirt so she could follow them back. He wasn't going to hold her hand.

As he expected, Nozomi fussed over them like a hen with chicks. Infection and blood loss was what she pronounced was killing the young man. His fever was dangerously high and Isamu grumbled as he was sent to fetch ingredients for poultices and remedies. He had cows that needed milked, chickens that needed to be let out to range, and sheep to move before they destroyed the grass.

The girl was herded into a corner, watching with lost, blank eyes as her companion was treated. Nozomi looked her over with equal concern when she'd applied the first of her treatments to the boy. She discovered the likely cause of her blindness-she'd struck something hard, leaving a long and vicious gash down the back of her head. His wife worried that the skull beneath was fractured, but they didn't have the ability to treat it whether it was or wasn't.

She sent him out to get hair from one of their horses' tails, which she soaked in a dish of sake to sterilize. Performing a similar ritual with one of her sewing needles, she stitched the torn skin back together with the thick hair. The girl whimpered but didn't move or cry out, which Isamu approved of.

There were other injuries that revealed themselves as his wife gently sponged the girl clean in their old wooden tub. Isamu had grumbled as he'd been forced to carry and heat water for that too. Nozomi had said they'd probably been caught in a flash flood from the bruising and the confused description she'd managed to get from the girl. It was a common enough occurrence.

What made Isamu grumble more was the discovery that the girl remembered nothing from before the water and neither did the boy, according to what she said. They'd wandered for several days before Isamu had stumbled onto them, which would have given plenty of time for the boy's infection to set in.

He'd been forced to help Nozomi wash the boy while the girl ate. At least he'd had normal colored hair, not the pink mop that had appeared when the mud had been washed from the girl's hair. It was his eyes that were strange. They were pupiless and very nearly white. He also had a strange tattoo on his forehead. All this had set Isamu's mouth into a firm, stern line, but he didn't say anything to his wife. Even if they had been shinobi once, they weren't any longer.

-X-X-

The girl remembered the shocking coldness, swallowing water and struggling to breathe, then a sudden pain in the back of her head that confused the memories more. A boy's desperate voice, his reaching hands.

Him protecting her with his body, the pained gasp and sickly crack of bone against something hard. He'd been there when they struggled from the water together hours or minutes later, his grip tight enough to bruise. His long, calloused fingers as they ran across her cheekbones as he murmured he was sorry, he couldn't remember why, but he was so sorry.

The girl couldn't remember why they had been in the water to begin with. She only remembered the boy, the pain, the hunger, the fear, and then the man-Isamu. He'd taken the boy after he'd collapsed. She didn't know what had been wrong with him. He'd never said anything, but she'd noticed how his palms had been sticky with sweat when he held her hand and how his voice had weakened as the days passed.

The boy should have told her. She would have-the girl flinched with pain. The brief but intense headache passed. She didn't know what it meant.

The man's wife, Nozomi, clucked with her tongue as she pulled a comb through the girl's tangled hair. "Such a pretty color," she told her softly. Though the girl couldn't see, she thought Nozomi must be a stout older woman, the kind who still wore an apron. She also didn't know what the woman was talking about. Her hair?

"We can't keep calling you 'girl.' There's no one here but me and Isamu, but we've still got manners," she said.

"Then call her Nanashi," the gruff voice that the girl identified with Isamu grumbled from the far side of the room.

"That's just cruel," his wife chided.

"It's fine," the girl said, desperate to keep in Isamu's good favor. He'd saved the boy and that was all that mattered.

"Oh, you poor dear," Nozomi said. Her voice sounded thick, like she was near tears. "Then we'll at least call the boy something more hopeful. Ryo," she said fondly.

"Tch," the man snorted. "Don't get all weepy-eyed with me, woman. If you want to coddle him like he's the son you never had, that's your business. I have chores to do."

There were footsteps, then an opening and shutting of doors that Nanashi assumed meant he'd left.

"Pay no mind to him," the woman said, gently moving hair away from her eyes. "He's just an old grump."

"Will the boy, Ryo, be alright?" Nanashi asked.

The weight of the woman's hand descended on her head. "Of course. We'll give it our best and kami-sama will do the rest. Now, be a good girl and sit here. I have to go and check on Ryo."

Nanashi nodded. If Ryo would be alright, then anything would be worth it. Ryo was all she had.

-X-X-

It would take a long time for the boy to recover. More than a season, if Isamu knew anything about wounds. He wouldn't take him into town for better care. If he recovered, he would do it here. It gave Nozomi something to do, even when he was out of the woods. If she managed to fight the infection, she'd have to deal with relapses, then small fevers once those were done. His muscles would be weak for a long time, not only from the time he'd spent in bed.

It was the girl that was the problem. Nanashi. Nameless. She'd insisted she wanted to help. Not with Ryo, he was too delicate to risk being nursed by the newly blind, but she kept trying to help with small chores around the house.

She really just made more of a mess, which frustrated her, but Nozomi would only cluck softly with her tongue and tell her she could try again, that she would learn. Nanashi didn't even remember if she'd been blind before-if the wound in her head was only that and not the cause of her blindness. The girl had a sense of pride that wouldn't just accept the help-she felt she had to pay the couple back.

Isamu approved of that. What he didn't approve of was Nozomi's suggestion.

"Train her," she'd told him. "I know you quit that life for me, but one day you'll regret that you weren't able to pass your skills on. It will help her adapt."

"No," he told her with finality. "I wouldn't train a girl in any case. Let alone one with pink hair."

It was Nozomi's turn to press her lips together in displeasure, but she nodded and accepted his decision. It was only later, when the shinobi from Rain came looking for foreign ninja that matched their descriptions that he began to reconsider. They didn't say where Nanashi and Ryo were from or what they'd done to be hunted, but it was clear that his first impression had been right.

So he went to Nozomi. "She's too noticeable," he told his wife bluntly. "Before I let her leave the farm, she'll have to dye her hair. Until then, have her tie her hair up in a topknot and dress her in my old clothes. I won't train her as a girl."

Nodding slowly, Nozomi moved into the spare bedroom where they were treating Ryo and Nanashi spent most of her time.

Isamu went outside and into the root cellar. There, wrapped in some old straw raincoats that had holes from age, were the only remnants of his old life. Life before Nozomi, when he'd been whispered of as the Blade of the West Wind. Not shinobi, the Red Sea had been closer to ronin samurai. Dangerous swords-for-hire that didn't have either loyalty to a Kage or the strict code of honor of bushido to reign in their activities, Isamu had spilled the blood of anyone he'd been given coin enough to kill and some he hadn't.

He covered his face with his hand at the memory. When he'd fallen in love with Nozomi, he'd known he would have to change. So the Red Sea had gone to war with itself. Those who lived went their separate ways, carrying the swords of their fallen comrades with them as a reminder.

Like they would ever be able to forget.

Removing his hand, Isamu considered. Nanashi was perhaps thirteen or fourteen. Even as a female she had a few good years of growth left. His hand almost picked up one of the swords, but then he hesitated. If he was going to do this, he would do it as Nozomi wanted it. As a member of the Red Sea, he knew perhaps seven disciplines of swordsmanship well enough to pass them on in a complete form.

But his own personal style was build around speed rather than brute strength. Any idiot could lift enough weights to be able to swing a club, which was what bigger, broader swords amounted to. They didn't have the flexibility and maneuverability offered by shorter blades.

No, he wouldn't give the swords of one of his comrades to Nanashi. He'd give her his own swords. Reaching beneath the blades, his rough hands came into contact with a silk-wrapped bundle. White silk, for mourning. That day, Shigeru had died and Isamu had been born.

He felt no nostalgia as he unwrapped the set. There was no accompanying wakizashi for the two katana. Honor had been something he'd been willing to sell for a price and he'd never felt the need to extend his hypocrisy that far. Light and fast, his two-sword style had been called the Fell Wings of the West.

The paired katana's fittings were elegant and luxurious. Wrapped with rayskin that had been left its natural color, a smoky grey, they'd then been wrapped with deep blue cloth. He'd need to switch out the sheathes, what with their golden tengu. They were swords meant arouse avarice and envy in anyone that saw them. The legend had been he'd killed a hundred men to pay the swordsmith who'd created them. Isamu remembered only fifteen, but it had been a long time ago.

He'd then killed the talented swordsmith with the katana so he could never make another blade. That part of the legend was true.

First he'd get her over the infernal clumsiness about her blindness that Nanashi displayed, then he'd start her on live steel. If she didn't have any fingers left by the end of it, that was her problem. Rewrapping the set, he pulled out another dully serviceable blade that had belonged to the last man he'd killed as a member of Red Sea. It was what he would use during their training.

Because he knew Nozomi would get the notion in her head once the boy was better, he took the only nodachi in his collection into the house with him. That the hilt was wrapped in silvery-white leather, which he'd thought at the time was stupid and still did, would be appropriate.

As she heard him come in Nozomi herded her charge into the main room. His old clothes were too big, he thought bluntly. But given time, Nozomi could take them in properly. The girl hadn't had much of a figure to begin with, so the loose fabric of the haori and hakama concealed all her curves.

"Nozomi tell you what's going to happen?" he asked.

The girl was hesitant in answering. Once she'd begun to recover from the shock she'd revealed herself to be quite the chatterbox. He'd have to fix that. "Yes, some of it." she said.

"Lesson two, start referring to yourself using masculine pronouns. I don't care if you're polite about it or not. While you're training with me, you won't think of yourself as a girl, not even in your head."

Namashi nodded slowly. "What's lesson one?" she asked.

"Shut up," Isamu said harshly. "Don't speak. While you speak you cannot listen, and if you can't hear, you won't be able to see. I'll teach you to move better than if you could see, but only if you can keep your mouth shut. Think you can do that?"

There was a long pause, then Nanashi answered with a short, decisive nod.

"Good," Isamu said. "Let's go outside and see if I can't teach you to listen."

-X-X-

Nanashi knelt by Ryo's bedside, leaning over to retrieve the drying cloth from his forehead, rinsing it and wringing the excess water off into the bowl that sat beside her. She'd relearned his face by touch, taking Nozomi's word that his hair was the color of dark coffee and his eyes were as unblemished by black as the finest freshwater pearls.

What Nanashi knew was that Ryo's lips were dry and cracked by his fever, but his lashes felt luxuriously thick and his hair when freshly washed was silky. There were no sharp angles to his face or his frame, but his body was firm where her's was soft. His hands were calloused but not rough and hard like Isamu-sensei's hands, which could be cast in steel.

She heard the change in his breathing as she spread the cloth across his forehead. "Where?" he asked.

"A farmstead in Rain. Isamu-sensei took us in. This is the first time you've woken in over two weeks," she told him.

Nanashi imagined she could hear his lashes flutter together like butterfly wings as he blinked at her. "Why can't I remember?"

"Nozomi, Isamu-sensei's wife, said we were most likely caught in a flash flood and washed downriver. Between the shock, trauma, and the rocks, Isamu-sensei says it's a wonder we lived."

Ryo was quiet. "I can't even remember my name."

"Nozomi named you Ryo."

"And what did they call you?" he asked quietly. "You can't remember who we were either, can you?"

"They named me Nanashi," she said. "No, I can't. Shinobi came looking for us after we came here, but they wouldn't tell our names or where we came from."

"But if we did things bad enough to be wanted by ninja...," his voice trailed off. Ryo was trying to put the pieces together, but it was as if he was working on an incomplete puzzle. He was worried, but he was also happy that his companion looked better than the last time he'd seen her before he collapsed. He'd been worried, because she looked so frail and lost with her blind eyes trying to focus on him.

Now she was clean, though dressed in men's clothing, her hair pulled up. She'd stopped trying to focus on him with her eyes, instead seeming to tilt her head slightly when he spoke. They'd called her Nanashi, but he tried searching the blank fog that was his memory for her real name. Perhaps something having to do with flowers? But the harder he tried to focus on it, the more out of reach it seemed.

"So the people who took us in were farmers?" he asked. Something else occurred to him a moment later. "Why are you using masculine pronouns in your speech?"

Nanashi seemed to hesitate before she answered him. "I'm trying to pay them back for their care. I've been doing chores, but Isamu-sensei has been teaching me to handle a sword. He wouldn't train me as a girl. I may be able to find work in the nearby towns."

Ryo noticed how she was cradling her hands in her lap and reached over and pulled them closer, awkwardly sitting up. He couldn't remember, but surely he'd never been this weak. It took an enormous amount of energy to hold himself up, but he ignored it to turn Nanashi's clumsily bandaged hands palm-side up. She winced as he unwrapped the makeshift bandages.

He frowned when the skin beneath was revealed. What wasn't scraped or bruised was blistered and two of the fingernails had been smashed, the quick black and purple. "Have you been taking care of these?"

Before she could answer a stout, grandmotherly woman with powder white hair bustled into the room. "Ryo, you're awake," she said warmly, coming to kneel next to his futon. Glancing down, she frowned even more deeply than he had when she caught sight of Nanashi's hands. "Isamu is a hard man, but he's not been asking that you not take care of yourself. Why haven't you had me look at those?"

Nanashi's lips formed an unhappy line. "I didn't want anyone to know I'd been...clumsy."

"You've been worried about Ryo and ignored them," Nozomi corrected her. "It will only get worse if you don't take care of your hands properly. Go get some warm, soapy water, something to disinfect them, and new bandages. Ryo can help you clean them, since he's given you such a scare."

"It'll be good exercise for him," she said when Nanashi was about to protest. "Now shoo," she commanded.

Nanashi rose and went to fetch the requested items. Her footsteps were soft but deliberate. She didn't hesitate or feel her way to the door. Nozomi followed his gaze. "My Isamu has been teaching her. Soon it'll be like she's not blind at all." She took his hands in her wrinkled but warm ones, massaging them.

"You're still weak, but it will be good for you to help Nanashi. You're all she remembers. She says you saved her during the flood." She helped him to move so that the wall took most of his weight.

Ryo cast his memory back, but that too was foggy. "I can't remember," he said unhappily. "But she's all I remember as well. Her sword training..."

Nozomi understood his concern. "Isamu would never tell her himself, but he says she's a natural. Her movements are very controlled once she forgets she's blind."

"I don't want her to get hurt," Ryo admitted. That was a lingering feeling that seemed to come from their shared, hidden past.

Nozomi patted his hands. "She needs to be hurt to grow."

He was about to make an answer to that when Nanashi returned to the room. Setting the supplies down on the floor, she awkwardly proffered her hands. With Nozomi's instructions, Ryo cleaned them, casting worried glances at Nanashi to gauge her pain. She made several faces that expressed her discomfort, but she didn't say anything. When he'd bandaged them, he watched as she flexed her hands.

"Good job, both of you," Nozomi congratulated them as Ryo couldn't find the words to say to Nanashi and her eyes stared at the wall some four inches to the left of Ryo's shoulder.

"Thank you," she told him. "I'm glad you're getting better. I have to go help Isamu-sensei."

Ryo watched her hasty retreat with bewilderment.

"She's going to go cry and she can't do that in front of you," Nozomi said, gathering the abandoned supplies. "Girl's got her pride. So rest up and stop worrying her."

His strength only returned slowly, but once Nanashi overcame the initial barrier of her blindness she gained skills at a rapid rate. The bond between Isamu and Nanashi as master and student only strengthened as time passed, he inspired to pass onto her skills outside the one that had been his original intention. The summer turned to fall and Nanashi helped outside with the harvest, while Ryo helped inside with the preserving. He still needed to sit and rest occasionally.

Besides learning how to pickle, Nanashi taught him her herbcraft so he could patch up Nanashi's injuries on his own. Despite how quickly she was learning in a controlled environment like sparring, the farm was a dangerous place for someone who couldn't see. But it gave them both things to do as the harvest ended and the heavy snows of winter began.

Nanashi's hair grew out and she intended to cut it because it was more difficult for her to arrange on her own. She felt she was imposing on Nozomi, asking for help so often, but the older woman insisted she grow it out. Even if she wore men's clothes, Nozomi said the long hair would remind her she was still a girl on the inside. Isamu didn't say anything, not even when Nozomi insisted that Ryo be the one to brush Nanashi's hair out each morning.

Ryo did it without complaint. His hair was even longer than Nanashi's and he found it soothing for her to kneel in front of a chair as he worked the wide-toothed comb through her pink locks. It gave them a chance to speak before a day of fighting with Isamu made her silent and watchful.

Now that Nozomi was satisfied that he was not ill enough to need complete silence and rest he shared the spare room with Nanashi, who'd been sleeping in the main room.

There was a soft rustle from the kitchen that proved Nozomi was awake and preparing breakfast as they began their morning ritual, Ryo patiently brushing Nanashi's hair one hundred strokes before he would pull it into a topknot.

"In the spring, Isamu-sensei says I can go into town with him and see if I can find work."

Ryo didn't hesitate, but he frowned. "The farm is self-sufficient. I think Isamu would prefer if you repaid him in labor rather than money."

"It's not all for him. I'll save some of it. I want to know who we were, but we won't find that here."

"If you wait until I'm stronger, I could help," Ryo said as he gathered her thick hair.

Nanashi started to shake her head but stopped when he pulled gently to remind her he was still working on it. "No. The ninja were looking for both of us. If I dye my hair and go as a boy, they won't recognize me. But if your eyes are as distinctive as Nozomi says, they'll be harder to hide."

Ryo couldn't argue her point, but he didn't like it. "Besides," she said, "if I do go to work in town, someone will need to help Isamu. If you have your strength back in time for the spring planting, it will take some of the burden off them both."

"If you go into town, be careful," Ryo said at last, both of them understanding he'd given his consent to her plan.

"What do you think we were like, before?" Nanashi asked.

Finished with her hair, Ryo played with the cheap wooden comb. "We could have been anything," he said at last. "Perhaps someone who loved us was paying the ninja to find us or we could have been criminals whose escape didn't go well."

In an uncharacteristically vulnerable gesture Nanashi drew her legs up to her chest. "So do you think that there were people who cared for us?"

"Even Isamu has Nozomi. Surely there was someone. After all, we were found together, so we had each other at the least."

"We could have been enemies," Nanashi said, but her tone said she was unconvinced.

Ryo doubted it. There was too strong an impulse to protect each other between them. "They're probably worried for us. But the river runs a long way before it comes to the delta. Who knows how far upriver we came from."

"It will take a long time for us to gather money to travel. But if I can make something of a reputation, we can take jobs as we go. And someday, surely, we'll find our way home again."

They both sat for a moment in silence, trying to imagine a place other than the farm as home.

"It will take a long time," Ryo finally said at last.

"Nozomi will cry," Nanashi said into her knees.

"Hmm," Ryo agreed deep in his throat. "Don't worry," he comforted her. "Isamu won't."

They both shared soft laughter at the thought of the hardened and gruff old man ever shedding tears over anything.