The Next Day

"Shikamaru please hear me out."

"Sakura no, I already made up my mind it's too dangerous."

I spent the last hours convincing Shikamaru to allow Kato to look at the picture in the envelope. He was against the idea which I completely understood. However, once I told him my idea he was on board with it all.

He was the only one who didn't want Kato to look at the photos, which was completely fair. Naruto, Sasuke, and I had a different point of view. We all knew how Kato was, we knew deep down that he'd never hurt us. Honestly, I was far from scared.

"There's a 50/50 chance that Kato could use his abilities on us but if we do the surgery without any knowledge on the stone then we're at a disadvantage. Maybe if we unlock Kato's memories we can see the true meaning behind the stone and be prepared when we take it out of his neck. Who's to say that this stone is radioactive."

With a little push from Ino and I, Shikamaru decided to get the show on the road, he decided to have the surgery tomorrow night. Ino only agreed with me because she wanted to pick around Kato's mind, I was just as eager as her.

Ever since we told Kato he was adopted he was ecstatic, that was until Ino came around with pictures of the decomposed man's body who we assume was Kato's biological father.

"Uhhh I don't know who this man is?"

We are currently in the guest room of our home, Ino had placed the photos in front of Kato. Not only did Kato observe them but we only observed them as well. I wanted Naruto, Sasuke, and Shikamaru to be focused on the pictures as well. They were the only three who were actually in the Rain Village.

Ino sighed, "What do you mean? This is your father right?"

"Well I don't know, nothing is triggering my memories." Kato began to rub the side of his temples ferociously. He was sitting in a small chair with the photos in front of him. We all sat back waiting for just a hint of something to resurface.

Shikamaru dug around in the folder again, he pulled out a similar photo and placed it in front of Kato, "Try looking at this age regression photo, this may trigger your memories."

Kato glanced at the photo, we were all hovering over him looking at the male on the photo. He had similar features to Kato, they looked sort of alike but they were different at the same time. He looked more like Tezo than anything but a bit bulkier in the face.

"I think I remember something," Kato shouted.

"What is it?"

Kato stayed quiet for a minute, he squinted his eyes hard making his eyebrows come together. We all waited quietly for him to say something, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. "Uhhh, I remember my old house a little. I also remember that we had a swing too."

"Is it the house where we found you?" Naruto interjected, I smacked him lightly on the arm. I knew exactly where he was going with this.

"Yes, that was my old home," Kato said excitedly, The smile on Naruto's face instantly fell. He placed his hands over his face letting a long dreadful sigh. "Well, he would obviously remember that because that's where we found him." He said, throwing his hands in the air. I quickly grabbed his hands, placing them back to his side. "Stop it," I muttered out, Ino shot a glare at Naruto, he quickly stopped with his sarcastic comment. I scowled at his sarcastic comment, we'd get nowhere with that type of behavior.

She glanced back down at Kato with a smile. "Anything else?"

"No, that's about it."

I tapped his shoulder lightly, bringing his attention towards me, "What about your mom, do you remember anything about your mom?"

"I only remember the things that happened over the past few weeks with my mom. Like living in the house with her, running to find food, and things like that. There was no food for us to eat so I would have to find plastic, leaves, or even old clothing. I also remember my swing."

"Do you like this particular swing?"

"Yeah, I don't remember anything else."

"Are you sure Kato, try to think hard about it?"

"No, I only remember those two things. I still don't know who my dad is." He pointed down at the picture, "This man is a creep."

"Holy shit." Naruto jumped up from his chair near us, the sudden outburst gained our attention, "Sakura-chan do you still have that photo of us from the day we took that picture in front of the swing at the academy."

"Yeah, it should still be on my desk."

"I'm so confused here.' Ino said.

Shikamaru began to gather the photos from the table, he looked back at Ino with a small smile on his face. "He has an emotional attachment to this particular swing, maybe if he sees a swing he'll remember more things."

All of our eyes lit up in the room. I didn't think of that, we were trying to force the picture to trigger his memories but it was the swing all along. That's weird. Why does he have an emotional attachment to a swing but not to his dad? I thought to myself, I began to question the theory more and more in my head. I didn't dare to say it out loud, it'll be something I ask Ino later.

Naruto comes back with the pictures shoving them into Kato's face, "Kato look at this swing."

Kato gasped, "I had a swing just like this!"

"Really!?"

Naruto and Kato both began to jump around. They were both screaming, We had finally unlocked one part of his brain. Naruto stuck his tongue out at Shikamaru, he would tease how he was the one to come up with the idea and not him.

After a while, Sasuke smacked both of them on their head making them both stop their antics.

"Ino I think it's working, try to go into his head now," Sasuke muttered, he picked Kato up placing him on the table so Ino could reach his head.

"Can you put his memories in our head?" I asked, There was nothing more that I wanted to do other than to see what was in Kato's head. I have been dying to know since Akane told me the things about him in the scroll.

"Yeah."

Ino placed her hands on his head, we all closed our eyes for minutes trying to remain calm. At first, we saw nothing, our headspaces were blank, then there was a faint light. We saw a hill and up the hill was a tree with a swing. The same swing Kato told is about, two boys were playing on the swings, they were both laughing and smiling. Turning around down the hill there was a small blue cottage house in an open field.

"Kato tell your brother that it's time for lunch." A woman called out, she was Akane but a bit younger and healthier. Both of the small boys came running down the hill, "Aito run faster," Kato yelled out, the boy who was named Aito ran faster. He was a bit older than Kato, he had the same resemblance as him as well.

Akane was sitting at the bottom of the hill with food laid out on a blanket. An older gentleman soon followed the boys on the blanket. They were all laughing and eating food. Kato, who was four years old at the time, found his way into the older man's arms.

"Kuzo, you're spoiling him. Stop it." Akane laughed lightly, "He's my baby boy. Of course, I'm going to spoil him."

That was the last thing we saw before our minds went blank again. We opened our eyes to the bright bedroom. Ino apologized, she didn't have enough chakra stored to keep going. It was fine though, I know the feeling of bearing a child and having to lose so much chakra.

Kato finally came back to his senses, We all stared at Kato patiently waiting for him to say something. He didn't look back up to us though, he held his head low while playing with his fingers. When Sasuke lifted his head, he avoided eye contact with everyone in the room.

"I remember that…" he said softly, my nerves began to get the best of me. I was so anxious to know what was going on inside of his brain. I wanted to know if his memories were flooding into his brain.

"Kato, what else do you remember."

"That was the day they were killed...I killed my brother and my dad."

This wasn't the first time I heard this however it still made me sick to my stomach. I just felt so disgusted, not with Kato but by the people who forced him to do that.

The room fell silent, the expression that Ino was giving him made me realize that she never knew that he killed his dad and brother. Kato looked devastated, this was one of the many reasons I didn't want to go peeking through his brain but it had to be done.

"I think that's enough for today. I don't want him triggering any of his abilities." I interjected, he didn't show any signs that he had them. Plus we still had that 50/50 chance, the last thing we needed was for Kato to go off on the deep end. I wasn't scared of him, not the least but I was scared of the things that he could do to other people. Maybe he would go out and try to murder Tezo, it would be a bad idea, but we want this characteristic of his to die out.

Kato found his way into Ino's side, his head placed on her hip. She was softly running her hands through his hair, she gently looked down at him with a sweet smile on her face, "Okay, Kato are you going to be okay."

"I think so, do I have to remember the day that they were murdered?" He looked back up at her with a worried face. The room grew quiet, we all looked at one another for an answer but no one could give him a fair answer. We did not know what Kakashi sensei wanted us to do with this information.

I nudged Shikamaru with my elbow, he looked at me with a confused face. I shifted my eyes towards Kato hoping that he'd get the message. "Umm" Shikamaru grew quiet for a second, he finally composed himself from thinking then continued. "We're not sure yet. Maybe we'll talk to the Hokage and see what he has to say."

Kato looked around the room, "I remember something else, I don't want to say it out loud."

"Okay, that's fine," Ino said.

Kato eyed everyone in the room. They all caught the drift to leave the room. Naruto was hesitant at first, Kato noticed this and gave him a shove, making him go outside of the room.

He began to play with his fingers, I reached down and placed him in mine, he nodded his head slowly from the reassurance I was giving him. "Okay, I'm not supposed to say anything Sakura-san but I am because we're family now."

"Right."

"I'm starting to remember a lot. I can't remember my abilities but I can remember my family."

"Really! Kato, that's good."

"No, it's not good." He cried out, it completely caught me off guard. I thought he would have been happy to remember his family, "I remember my family killed people for fun. My dad would take me places and force me to kill people. I remember slaughtering an entire family while they were asleep. It's so scary, it's scary how I can murder someone in a blink of an eye."

"Kato...were your family assassins." Nothing was honestly making sense to me, in his memories, it seemed like he lived a good life. Akane herself told me that Kato loved his dad, why does he hate his family so much? Tezo is understandable but his dad is a different story.

"I don't know, but I do know that I would get tortured for hours if I didn't kill them. They'd even torture me if I kill someone in a humane way."

"Who tortured you, Kato?" I asked frantically, I tried my best to keep my composer but it felt like rocks were being thrown on top of my body. I wanted to be there for him as much as I could, I was happy that he came to me to talk about this but this was too much. I can't handle the thought of someone touting Kato, he was my everything, he was my baby.

How could someone torture someone as sweet as Kato? I tried my best to pull myself from the thought, I wiped the stray tears away from my face trying to get myself together. It was hard, the more tears I saw running down his face, caused more on my face.

"Everyone, my dad, my uncles, even my grandma. Kaa-san would try to stop them but my dad would hit her. I would use my abilities to heal her, she would tell me to stop because if I didn't my dad would beat me." He cried out, he used the back of his sleeves to wipe his tears. I tried to reach out to him but he jumped away from me and that broke me into a million pieces.

Does he think I'll hurt him? My chest began to ache, all I wanted to do was hold him and tell him that was not like his old family.

"How come we didn't see that in your memories." I quietly, my answers were slowly being answered only in the most gruesome ways.

Kato was hiccuping and sniffing, his bottom lip was quivering from it. His tiny arms were wrapped around him like he was protecting himself from me. Up and down his chest would go, he was heaving out air barely able to catch his breath. I couldn't bear to look at him, I slowly began to hate myself for doing this to him. If only I would have listened to Shikamaru.

He looked up at me with his bloodshot eyes, they were swollen. His cheeks were rosy from the tear streaks. He sniffled, "I try to think of the rare good times we'd have but most of the time I was out killing people or being tortured. They beat me on my back with sticks, my dad would punch me in the stomach until my ribs cracked. Sometimes he would drag me down to the lower half of our house and beat me until I was unconscious." He choked out, more tears began to flow out of his eyes.

"I'm so sorry baby, I'm so sorry Kato," I whispered softly.

"I'm scared." He sobbed out, his little body began to shake. "You're safe here, no one is going to hurt you here." I pulled him into my embrace, I could see his body breakdown in my arms. He allied me to touch him, he opened up his arms for me to hug him. I smiled through my tears, I kissed him on his plushy cheek."I promised your mom that I would take care of you."

After Kato's incident he went down for a nap, it was quite weird because Kato was never the one to go down for a nap. He has been sleeping since, I woke him up around six to ask if he wanted any dinner but he told me no. Ino told me that it was common for people to feel drained once she picks through their memories. I knew it was because of his episode from earlier today, he was mentally exhausted. I decided not to push him anymore and allow him to be. Kato was sleeping on the mini couch in our room. Sasuke was out for night duty so Kato was having a sleepover in our room.

Naruto was spending time with Shinachiku, although Shinachiku spent most of his days sleeping. We were no longer sleeping in the bunker, Naruto said that it was fine for us to sleep in our new bedroom now.

"Hey, how are things looking?" Naruto asked, currently I was looking over some books for the surgery tomorrow. I was a bit nervous about doing it. However, if anyone had to do it, it had to be me. I

"Ehh it could be better. I've never had to do surgery on a six-year-old neck." I laughed dryly, I don't think I have ever done surgery on a child at all. I have healed them and maybe stitched them up but I know for a fact that I have never cut into them. To make matters worse it was the neck.

Not only that but it was Kato after all. After everything he told me, I didn't want to do it. I was against cutting into his neck. I don't want to put him through any more things.

"I don't want you to stress it too much Sakura-chan."

"I won't be Naruto."

"Question, how do I bathe him?"

I laughed, "He's only 3 days old, Naruto. Just take a washcloth and wipe him down."

"So no bathwater?"

"No, but you can save the bathwater for me."

Naruto nodded his head, and went back into the bathroom in our room. He's been so good, I've been so consumed with this work that I couldn't multitask Shinachiku and study. The surgery was tomorrow night, the full moon was the day after tomorrow. We only had a limited amount of time and the pressure was on. Everyone was counting on me to remove this stone safely, Kato was counting on me to make sure he wakes up after it.

I sighed out, I placed the book on the shelf. I was feeling a headache come on. I had finally got rid of the headache from crying earlier and now another was coming on. I needed that hot bath that Naruto ran. I got off of the bed, my pelvic bone was starting to heal even more. It was only the third day but it wasn't as bad as it once was. Naruto got me a cane to walk on, it was better this way. I didn't have to put as much pressure on it as I used to.

Once in the bathroom, I saw Naruto and Shinachiku sitting on the chair in the bathroom. He was brushing his thick golden hair, he definitely got his hair from his dad. My hair was not as thick as Naruto's and it makes me quite jealous sometimes. After the pregnancy with Shinachiku, I was left with thin hair, I even had to cut some length off. Not as nearly as much as I did when I was much younger. It was still down my back but thin. I was still a bit insecure about it though.

Naruto was quite focused on brushing Shinachiku's hair, he even had his tongue sticking out with his brows furrowed. They both look so similar, I could tell Shinachiku was relaxed from the way his eyes would close and open.

"Is the water still warm?" He snapped his head around to me, he had the biggest grin on his face, "Yeah, I even put bubbles in there."

"Thank you," I began to strip out of my clothes, I watched myself in the mirror as I did. I was hesitant to do it, it would be the first time I saw myself after pregnancy.

First came the pajama pants, there was bruising all over my legs. My hips were purple from the bruising of my pelvic bone being broken. My legs were thinner than normal, all of the muscle I once had was completely gone. It was replaced with the outline of my bones. I tried my best to ignore it all, I carefully pulled my shirt from over my upper body. My ribs were still a bit sore but not how they were on the first night. I didn't want to look in the mirror but I forced myself to. I first noticed my ribs, the discoloration of my skin. Not only was my skin purple but you could see the outline of all 12 of my ribs. Glancing downwards the scar of where Naruto cut me, it is still there, four lines with stitches in them. I stopped myself from looking at it, I didn't like it. I fixed my vision to my arms. They were skinny as well, they matched my legs.

I just looked at myself, everything on my body disgusted me. Nothing about it made me happy about being pregnant. I ran my hand through my hair, it was still falling out. I could see Naruto staring at me from the corner of my eye. I quickly grabbed the towel to cover myself up.

"Sakura-chan."

"Don't." I cried out, tears began to fall down my eyes. I didn't realize how much my body has changed until now. "I hate myself."

He placed Shinachiku back in his movable bassinet, he walked up to me but I only pushed him away. I didn't want him to see me like this.

"Don't be like that. I still think you're sexy." He laughed but I didn't. I didn't think I looked sexy at all, I looked horrible.

"You're just saying that because you're my fiance."

"I think you're beautiful, even when your granny's age I'll think you're beautiful. Here take my eyeballs so you can see what I see." He reached for his eyes making it seem like he was taking out his eyeballs. A smile giggle escaped my lips, He placed his hands on my face, he squished my cheeks kissing me on the lips.

"So you won't leave me?" I asked hesitantly.

"But you're my Sakura-chan and I'd never replace my Sakura-chan. Plus you're a milf now."

"Naruto!" I gasped, out of all of the comforting things he could have said he chose the word milf. This man was so unpredictable.

"A hot one at that, might I add." He winked at me, I placed my hands over my face to keep him from seeing me blush.

"Eww, that's disgusting. Isn't that something that your kid's friends are supposed to say about you?"

His hands were now on his hips, one of them found its way to his chin as he thought about it."Uhhh I don't know, but I know in pervy sage loves milfs."

"You're disturbing." I shired out, I couldn't believe the things I was hearing. He needed some soap to wash his filthy mouth out.

"I know as long as I made you feel better." He wrapped his arms around my lower back bringing me into a hug. I kissed him gently on his shoulder quietly thanking him.

"A little but I'm still a bit insecure," I mumbled out on his shoulder.

"Okay." He kissed me gently on the top of my head. He pulled me back so now I was looking at him eye to eye. "We'll figure out how to make you not insecure. Anything that you want to do I'm here for it."

"I love you, thank you for loving me. I'm so happy that you're so understanding."

"I should be saying that you know but I'll let you have your moment." I giggled lightly in his chest, "you're welcome Sakura-chan, I love you more than anything in this world. However, I love Shinachiku a bit more than you, just a pinch."

I shoved him lightly away, "You ass."

"I said I loved you."

We both stayed quiet for a few minutes, I was just coming to terms with everything that was said. Although I was still hurt Naruto made me feel a little better about myself. It will just have to take some time and healing.

"I'm going to put Shinachiku down."

"Okay." I released him from my grip allowing him to go back to Shinachiku.

"Are you sure you'll be fine alone?"

"I'll be fine."

"Okay baby."

Naruto left, it was just me and my thoughts alone. I thought my thoughts would leave once Shinachiku was gone but boy was I wrong. I was trapped in my mind and I didn't know how to get out. Everything from today was weighing down on me. Not only that but I kept thinking about Kato, it only made me feel worse about everything.

I stepped into the pool letting the warm water engulf me, the steam of the water rushed in my nostrils making me feel a tad bit better. I slid down because my nose was the only thing that was above the surface. I stayed there for a minute, I was too mentally exhausted to even move a muscle. My mind had painted a perfect picture of my body for me to see and I was struggling so hard to cope with it. More tears were falling down my face, I couldn't keep wiping them so I just let them fall into the soapy water.

"Come on...we got this." I kept saying this out loud to myself, it was the only way I could force myself to actually look down to wash.

HI! I'm back! i missed you guys :(