He woke up with the feeling of pain. His head hurt, his whole body hurt and he could not focus his mind on anything. Then he heard someone come by and felt a shot in his arm the pain went away and so did his consciousness.
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The next time he woke up he felt pain, but less invading. The air was warm, and there was a faint smell of antiseptics in the air. It must have been a hospital of some kind. He tried to open his eyes but his head was all covered in bandages, he tried moving his hand to remove the blindfold, but his hand hurt with every move. He gave up and went back to sleep.
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The third time he woke up he felt almost no pain, he was still tied up and in bandages, but those from his eyes had been removed. He saw white, a white clean surface above his head. He tried to move his head to the side but it began to hurt him again. Soon he heard a voice of a man reaching his consciousness.
"How are you feeling?" the man asked.
"I don't know, it hurts a bit, and I feel very uncomfortable." He replied "Where am I?"
"You are in the hospital" came an answer.
"In what hospital?" he asked again.
"You are currently in the capital of the Country of Fire."
"Country of Fire? Where is that?"
"Can you tell me your name?" the man wanted to know.
"My name?... my name? I don't know!" he looked terrified and lost. Soon he felt a shot in his arm and feel back to sleep.
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"His condition is slowly improving, but it seems he lost his memory. It might be a temporary result of the injuries he suffered, his head was badly damaged." Said one voice.
"The x-ray shows that there is no internal damage to his brain so it must be a temporary lost. I'm glad we managed to save his eyes, the injuries around them seemed to be threatening but it is all going ok now" said the second voice.
"We need to tell Lord Kinto that he has awaken, he was the one to find him and to pay for his treatment." Said a third voice.
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The forth time we woke up there was a man sitting next to him.
"So you finally decided to talk to me?" he laughed at the injured man. "How are you feeling today?"
"Good morning, I'm ok, It doesn't hurt much"
"It doesn't hurt much? And you say that after many weeks of coma and heavy wounds?" the man laughed again "You indeed are someone extraordinary, the doctors are surprised you survived at all."
"My name is Lord Ryu Kinto, and I found you on my journey home to the capital. It was me who brought you here." He smiled at the young man "Can you remember you name?"
"No I cannot, why did you save me?" the young man asked.
"Call it a weakness of heart, all my friends keep laughing that I always spend too much money and time on people who are less fortunate then I am. I saw you were suffering so I decided to help. That's all. I could tell by your uniform that you are a ninja from one of the hidden villages, but unfortunately your headband was lost, so I can't tell you from which one."
"Did any of my belongings survive?" the injured man asked.
"Yes, all the things I found on you should be somewhere here at the hospital, I asked them to keep them for you just in case you finally wake up." Lord Ryu explained.
"Finally? How long was I in a coma?" the young man asked quietly.
"Almost 12 weeks." Came the response. "I will go and ask a nurse to bring you your belongings, you still have to rest but I think they will let you take a look at them. I must be going now I have many duties to attend to" He said and walked out of the room.
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Soon a nurse came in holding a bag with some clothes in it. She sat next to him and began to take out things that were found on him. Then she left him saying she would be back soon to collect them again. There was simple white and black uniform, some bandages, nothing special. While looking carefully at the uniform he noticed a piece of paper in one of the pockets. He slowly took it out, it was a short note written in a nice feminine style which somehow seemed familiar to him. It was short. "Neji, when you get this note my team will already be on our way. Sorry for not staying longer I wish I could stay here forever with you but that's not possible. Promise me you will be careful during your mission, I will be awaiting your return. Hinata" Those words brought back a simple image of a little girl with dark blue hair picking flowers in a huge garden. "Hinata, what a beautiful name." he thought. And my name is Neji it somehow seemed right. He put the note away and noticed one more piece of paper, this time it was a photo of a family. There was a tall man, with long dark hair, next to him there were two girls, one of which he had just recalled. "Hinata" he whispered again. She was much older, her hair was long and more blue then in his memory, she was smiling but deep in her eyes he could see sadness. The other girl was a lot alike to the man, she had long black hair, she was much younger then Hinata and she seemed totally different. He could see in her eye that she must have been very stubborn and lively. A complete opposite of her sister. Yes he thought they were sisters. He smiled to himself for finally solving one more clue. He hid both treasures under his pillow and soon he fell asleep because of the drugs that were injected by the coming back nurse.
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The next he woke up there was a doctor at his bed.
"How are you feeling today?" he asked.
"Better, thank you." Neji answered.
The doctor took out a small flash light and started shinning it into his eyes trying to see something and checking his reactions to the light.
"Strange, I never seen eyes like these before. I will give you a mirror and can you try to remember if you had eyes like these all your life." He handed Neji the mirror.
Neji looked in surprise it was the first time he had seen himself since waking up, first he noticed he had very long chocolate hair, then he noticed what the doctor was talking about, his eyes where white, pupil less, with a light shade of violet. While his stay in the hospital he did not think much about how he looked, but now he realized how strange he must have looked to them. Then he recalled the photo, all the people in it had eyes like these. He slowing extended his hand to retrieve his treasure. He showed the photo to the doctor.
"I see, so this must be your family, you have the same eyes and you are very alike to them as well. It must be some genetical fault passed down from generation to generation." The doctor concluded.
"So this is not a common thing?" Neji asked.
"No, it is not. I have never seen eyes like that before, and I have never heard about people who had such eyes, sorry but I can't be of any help to tell you more about your origin. But there is one very particular thing about you that might also be of some help. Once we take off you bandages you'll notice it as well. Now I suggest you go back to sleep, the more you sleep the better the treatment is." The doctor explained and gave the nurse an order, soon he got one more shot in his arm and fell quickly asleep.
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Two weeks later his treatment was finally coming to an end. They still forced him to rest and sleep a lot, but most the bandages where removed and most of his wounds had healed. He still had his head covered with bandages but that was also about to change. He was sitting up on the bed, and the nurse was slowly unwrapping the white tape. The doctor was just next carefully observing his head. When the last bandage was taken off the doctor came and carefully examined Neji's head.
"You need to be very careful, any injury now and the consequences are unpredictable. Now take a look at this, does this remind you of anything?" He handed Neji a mirror.
He carefully looked at himself, he cognized the hair, the eyes, but under the bandages there were strange marking on his forehead. Suddenly he felt a pain, the mark hurt him, then came a memory he could see the man for the photo and a second man just like him, the latter laying on the ground holding his forehead in pain. It was his father. He had the same mark. Strange none of the people on the photo had these markings, they wore their foreheads bare as if proud of the fact that they were bare. One thought struck him, having such markings made him inferior in his own family. He could remember the rage and anger he used to feel, he could remember that that part of the family really hurt him. He could not grasp the reason, but the feeling was rooted deep in his mind.
"So do you know what it is?" the doctor demanded.
"Yes I do, it is a curse mark." Neji replied faintly.
"A curse mark? Are you talking about some nonsense magic stuff?" the doctor kept asking.
"Yes, something like that. It is a symbol of my family." He did not say anything more. He kept glancing as his own face and he kept thinking about how similar he looked to that girl and man on the photo, he looked more like a son and brother to them, then did Hinata look like a sister and daughter as she really was to them. Only those strange eyes were the same.
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Two days later he left the hospital and moved into the house of Lord Kinto, at first he objected to use his hospitality, but he simply had no where else to go, and he still needed time to recover. Finally in weeks he could go out, get some fresh air, and could normally eat, and he could sleep and live without being stuffed with drugs all the time. He stayed in a lesser part of the house, away for the Lord's family and all the noise Kinto's grandchildren made all the time. He felt comfortable in his simple room, with white walls. The view on the garden was beautiful and peace and quiet was all he needed for now.
His first night he fell asleep fast, but instead of sleeping calmly images slowly came to his mind. He could see Hinata again, as a little girl, as a teenager, as a young woman. He saw her smiling, crying, blushing and looking away. Then he saw a large room, a lot of people gathered there, and she was standing in front of him.
"Prepare to defend yourself my brother!" she told him. Then he could see flashbacks of their battle, soon she was on the ground bleeding badly. Soon they were taking her away saying that her heart had stopped. He wanted to yell at everyone asking what happened and why they were fighting but that very moment he woke up.
"Why did she call me brother? I don't get it. Am I her brother? If yes then why I am branded and why are they not? If yes then why do I keep thinking of her as of my girl and not my sister? Why do I feel that there is much more between us?" instead of going back to sleep he decided to walk around the garden it was getting bright again, and his instincts told him he had something to do. Soon he found himself a nice thick tree and started punching it as if it was his normal thing to do in the morning. His body remembered all the moves it needed to do, all his training, and he felt the need to comply.