Prompt: "Someone from team 8, but find a way to make them turn on the village and fight Naruto and others".
"Are you with us or still floating somewhere up there with bones and bitches, Kiba?"
Kiba. Yes, now that sounded familiar. Just like the man saying these words, tall, blonde with blue eyes. He could always tell people apart by their smell, but somehow, this man smelled of an entire village.
"I am quite conscious."
And he was. He was aware of all kinds of pain he felt in his body, but also of the weird feeling of numbness indicating that the real pain was probably being held back by a rather potent cocktail of drugs.
"You said that the last time as well."
He wanted to agree or disagree, but the matter of fact was that he did not really remember any 'last time'. And well, not remembering was not something new to him unfortunately.
He reached out with one of his hands towards the top of his head, where he noticed another feeling of discomfort to be originating and which he had hard time identifying, only to recognise a tightly pulled headband on his forehead.
"That's so that you do not again forget where you belong, moron.", he heard a female voice say from behind him. Despite the fact that the words were harsh, there was a certain kindness and sympathy in them. He wanted to turn to face her, but it was clear that the condition of his neck would not allow that movement still for some time to come.
The woman seemed to have understood his intention and walked from behind to his field of view instead. Pink hair, green eyes, smell like lavender. Again, familiar.
He was so done with all of this. Everyone around him seemed to have known much more than him, and even much more about him than him, and it all just made him feel extremely vulnerable. He just wanted to go away from wherever he was right now and have some time to collect his thoughts and figure out what the goddamn hell was going on, but considering his physical state, he understood that this was not an option.
"Let Shino and Hinata speak to him.", the pink-haired woman said to the blonde guy.
Shino and Hinata. He felt something warm spreading in his chest after hearing those two names.
He so wanted to believe that all these people were his friends. But then again, he had the same wish the last time he was around people who put him back together and somehow he ended up half-dead and alone again. He was pretty sure that there must have been people in his life even before then. But if these people indeed were his friends, then where had they been the entire time, for the last - God, who even knows how long it has been?
His eyes shut without his permission and when they opened up again, he saw two other figures standing next to his bed. Now these were smells he knew he should recognise.
"Kiba.", the blonde said to get his attention again. He should perhaps get used to just being called this, at least for the time being. It's not a name he minded, and somehow it felt right.
"These are Hinata and Shino, two people you spent your teenage years with as a ninja. You were in a genin team together.", the pink-haired woman stated.
He took the information at face value because really, there was no way he could check any of this right now. She did not smell of deception.
"Kiba-kun… we were so worried…", the woman with dark hair added. The air around her changed as she did and he figured that he did not have the energy to play any games.
"You lie."
The eyes of both women widened and the jaw of the blond man dropped. The medic especially did not take his comment well.
"No need to be so mean, Kiba! Of course Hinata was worried-"
"No, she was not.", the man with a green coat, introduced to him as Shino, interrupted. Finally Kiba felt like he was not in this mess alone, at least maybe not completely.
"Shino, what the hell?"
The man just shot the angry pink-haired medic a strict look.
"Kiba, none of us were worried. Why? It was not because we did not care, it was because we believed that you were long dead."
Refreshing honesty, at least so he hoped and felt.
"Thank you."
"So you trust Shino but not Hinata?!", now apparently it was the blonde's turn to get offended. He was getting so goddamn tired of all of this.
"It is not a matter of trust." the half-covered man, Shino, started replying. And good that he did, because he himself was not going to react and give out the last pieces of information about him to these people who already seemed to have known way too much.
"It is a matter of the hormones that he can sense."
And alright, this man surely knew much about him - too much actually - as well. At least the other three occupants of the room calmed down a little and accepted that he was just being wary. Because what was left for him to do anyway?
Maybe he could at least try to trust these people since in his current condition, it's not like he could pick anyway. They were apparently trying to make him feel better. Maybe learning all the names would be a good first step.
"Alright, so apparently, I am Kiba, you are Shino and Hinata. I accept that. What about you two?", he turned to the blonde and the pink-haired woman.
The former replied. "This is Sakura, our chief medic. And I am Naruto, the Hokage of Konoha."
The Hokage? He felt like his brain was flushed with pictures and thoughts from the past. Was this the man he was supposed to assault? Some of the memories were coming up, but he could not tell whether it was reality or just his brain trauma playing with him. Well, if he indeed decided to trust these people, he could as well just ask.
"I tried to kill you, do I remember that correctly?", he offered.
"Yes, and almost succeeded.", the presumably-Hokage replied, way too calmly.
"Then why am I not locked up in a prison?"
The blonde man raised his eyebrows and smiled back at his question. He did not know whether this man was just being too nice, or mocking him or being a very good actor with his intentions completely elsewhere. Or maybe all of it at once.
"Kiba, you were- no, you are one of my closest friends. I will not charge you for something that you are clearly not responsible for. Thanks to that head injury, you don't even know who I am right now."
He didn't even know who he himself was right now, and he actually found that much more problematic.
He closed his eyes. This was getting very frustrating.
"Is there a way to fix this?" he asked, sounding resigned and pointing at his head.
"Fix… what exactly? You will still need a few weeks before you can walk around.", Sakura, as the Hokage called her, replied.
"No, I mean the brain trauma. Memory… stuff. I just want to know what happened."
He saw her diverting her eyes down to the ground and sensed her getting uneasy.
"You are uncomfortable about answering. If there is no way to repair it, I would prefer it if you were honest and direct about it."
Her scent changed from uneasy to annoyed and somehow that made him feel a bit more unworried. It felt more… normal.
"You…-! Really, was it always this way? Was it always this easy for you to tell how people feel?! You just never told us that for fun?!", she shouted back, ostensibly angry but underneath that facade he could discern she meant well through her tone and judging from the smirk she was trying to hide. Obviously, in his current condition this was not something he could answer. But it did give him a bit more confidence that indeed, these people were his childhood friends.
"Yes.", Shino replied for him. That left the Hokage and Sakura speechless for a bit and the dark haired woman, Hinata?, giggled as a result. At least finally the atmosphere relaxed a bit.
"Anyway, I think what Sakura wanted to propose was to use the techniques of the Yamanaka clan.", Shino added.
"We could also try to bring in more people, like for example your mum and sister… but if you do not remember Shino or Hinata, I don't think there is too much of a point. I think Ino could do the job more efficiently."
"The… job?", he hesitated to ask.
"Yes. If there is anything to be retrieved in your memory, she can help you to retrieve it. It is her clan specialty."
Clan specialty. He wondered if he also had a clan, but those questions could probably come later. His memory - or lack thereof - was the priority.
"She will be able to… invade my memory? My consciousness?"
"And your subconsciousness. But if you are not comfortable with it, we can search for other ways.", the medic Sakura smiled.
He could have laughed.
"Look, let's not pretend that I am not completely left to your mercy right now. But if there is anything that could help me figure out what the hell is going on, even if it is very invasive and uncomfortable, I don't mind at this point."
The Hokage nodded. "We will call Ino, then. But first, maybe get some more sleep."
He didn't need further persuasion.