She awoke to the sound of people muttering in monotone voices. Her eyes fluttered open, but she shut them quickly. Her head was pounding, and she didn't know why.
She kept her eyes closed as she focused on her other senses. Wherever she was, it was cold. Not breezy cold like outdoors, but cold like a fridge. What was a fridge? she wondered. The air smelled slightly musty, which made her even surer that she wasn't outside.
Next, she focused on what she could feel. She was lying on something cold and hard. Her wrists and ankles had more of the cold, hard thing wrapped around it. Probably metal. she thought. She could hear people muttering, and occasionally she picked up a faint swishing sound, like a piece of fabric rustling. There were strange probably-metal things sticking out of her arms. They didn't hurt her unless she moved her arms slightly. She could feel her hair, stopping just above her shoulders. It covered her forehead too.
Where was she? She tried to think back. How did she get here? Why was she unconscious?
She came up blank.
She began to panic slightly. Who were these people? Did she know them? Should she know them?
Blank.
What age was she? What was her name? What did she look like?
Blank.
Who was she?
Again, she came up blank.
She tried to stop panicking, but it was hard. Maybe if she opened her eyes and looked around, it would trigger something.
Slowly, she opened her eyes. She kept them half-shut so that it wouldn't be so obvious that she was awake. She couldn't trust anyone until she remembered who she was.
She looked straight down, to see what she looked like. She was short, probably around four to six years old. She was wearing a long-sleeved beige top, with a sleeve-less brown jacket over it. The words to describe her clothes popped into her head, without her remembering how she knew these things. She just did. Her trousers were grey, and her shoes-sandals her mind corrected- were brown. She had no idea what her face looked like, and she didn't dare move her head to see her hair.
Her eyes drifted upwards to stare at the ceiling. It was made of stone, and there was a small light coming from somewhere she couldn't see. It was too dark to make out the distinct colour of the ceiling.
Her eyes looked to the right. There was nothing there but a dark, stone wall. Her hand was bound to the metal board she was on, and there were needles with tubes in them coming out of her skin. There was a light blue sludgy liquid in some of the tubes, while others had red liquid in them. Chakra and blood, her mind informed her. Blood was an easy word, she knew what it meant. Chakra was harder, she wasn't sure what it was, and thinking about it made her headache worse.
She strained her eyes to the right, where the voices were coming from. There were a lot of shadows, but she could vaguely make out three shapes. Two looked like people, and one looked like… she didn't know the right word to describe it.
One of the people-shaped figures shifted slightly, and some of the shadows disappeared. She was able to see a black cloak, with a red shape on it. She squinted harder. It looked like… a cloud.
She froze suddenly. She didn't know why but she knew that red clouds were bad. They meant danger, and they made her panic. She needed to escape, to get away as quickly as she could. She began thrashing wildly, trying to break the metal straps pinning her wrists and ankles down.
The three shapes noticed her at once. They moved closer, which made her struggle harder. She didn't want them any closer to her.
"She's awake." the small shape that didn't look like a person spoke. Its voice was gruff and it growled every word out.
She turned her head fully now, to look at these shapes. The one who had spoken was closest. Its body was short and hunched, and its cloak covered its legs, so she didn't know how much legs and arms it had. Its head was bald, except for a few greasy strands that were slicked back against its head. Something told her that this person wasn't normal looking. Its head seemed fine-human, her mind told her- but it's body was strange. A new word popped into her head-Monster.
Her eyes travelled up the cloak of the one beside it. This one had orange hair and was definitely a man, although it looked a bit like a monster too. It had lots of metal sticking out of its body, and its eyes were creepy. They were ringed and purple, and they gazed at her with no emotion. Still, something about this man radiated power and fear. She quickly turned to glance at the third cloak. This one was a woman, and didn't look at all like a monster. It wore the same cloak as the other two, and its only piercing that she could see was on its chin. Its (she still wasn't sure if they were human) eyes weren't as cold as the purple ones, but they were also empty of emotion. When it spoke, its voice was a monotone.
"What should we do with her?" it asked. She wasn't sure which one of the other two it was addressing, but the answer became clear when the one with the purple eyes spoke.
"Release her." it said.
She felt the restraints loosen, and she rolled over off the board and onto the ground. She looked around wildly for something she could use to defend herself. Her eye fell on a black dagger lying discarded on the ground. The edges didn't look too sharp but the tip was very pointy. There was a ring attached to the pommel. Her mind bombarded her with various uses for this weapon, but the main thing that she got was its name. A kunai.
She darted over and grabbed it, before swivelling around to face the… What were they? She decided that the woman and the orange-haired man were human, and the other one was a possible human. There was something off about the two men, but she didn't have time to think about that.
She analysed them quickly. They were all much bigger and stronger than her. She didn't know how to feel about the woman. The man with the purple eyes was definitely the most powerful of the three. She just knew it. If she wanted to win this fight, she should attack him first.
But then her eyes drifted to the short one and suddenly she knew that she was going to attack him first. She didn't know why, but her instincts were screaming at her that he needed to go. She ran straight at him, kunai in hand. Holding it felt natural, the proper grip came to her without any need to think about it. Her mind told her to hit him on the head, and that he would shatter. She had no time to wonder about this information because a tail flicked out from his rear. It was a long tail, as quick as a scorpion's. She didn't know how she managed to dodge it in time, but she did it anyway. She saw the shock in his eyes when he realised that he hadn't stopped her. She got closer and drew back her hand, forming a fist. She could feel a strange sort of energy running through her, and focused it into her fist.
Just as she was about to punch him in the head, something slammed into her like a wall of pure force.
"Shinra Tensei."
Her body was pressed against the cold stone wall, and no matter how much she struggled, she couldn't move. She looked at the orange-haired man. His hand was extended, and pulsing waves of power were coming out of his palm. As long as he kept doing that, she didn't have a chance.
She let her body go limp, watching fearfully as the man drew closer. He stared at her with his cold purple eyes.
"That was… impressive." he said, his voice as monotonous as the woman's.
Behind him, she heard the small man growl.
"It wasn't that impressive. The brat's got moves but my spies say that the Uchiha-"
"She was one second away from shattering your puppet body, Sasori. Tell me how many people you know that can do that? And don't tell me that she caught you by surprise, you puppeteers are supposed to have brilliant reflexes." the woman left no room for argument.
She looked at the small one again. So his name was Sasori. No wonder he looked so strange, he was a puppet! A small shiver went down her spine. For some reason, she knew that she didn't like puppets.
The purple eyed man was still staring at her, and she realised that his eyes didn't blink.
"Who are you?" he said coldly. "Where are you from? How did you get those skills?"
"I don't know!" she squeaked, surprised at how shrill her voice was.
His expression didn't change, but suddenly the pressure increased. She squirmed slightly, but it only made the pressure worse.
"Tell me. Now."
She began to cry. Now that she was completely at their mercy, she was terrified. They were scaring her, and she didn't like to be scared. She wanted to leave. She wanted to pretend that it was all a bad dream and that she would wake up and remember who she was. But the crushing pain as the man increased the pressure assured her that this was real.
"I don't know!" she screamed. "Please! Stop hurting me! I'm sorry for attacking you, but I don't know who you are! I don't know how I got here and I don't know who I am!"
The pressure lessened.
"What do you remember?" the woman asked.
She screwed up her face, aware that if the man wasn't satisfied, he could hurt her again. She tried desperately to think, but the only thing she could remember was waking up here.
"All I remember is waking up here and seeing those needles in my arm." she said, sniffling slightly. "I looked over and saw your cloaks, and they made me want to run away. I don't know why I didn't like them, they just scared me. That's why I tried to attack you; I was trying to get away."
"To go home?" the woman asked.
She shook her head.
"I don't have a home. I can't remember one. I don't have a name either, or a family. I don't really have anything."
The woman frowned slightly, but said nothing. It was the purple eyed man who spoke.
"I do believe that she is telling the truth about her amnesia. Perhaps her village made it so that she would remember everything when they met her again. That means that she is most likely a spy."
She knew that being a spy was a bad thing, and that spies got in trouble if they were caught. If she really was a spy, and she was caught, then these people would be angry with her. The man didn't look angry though, and she didn't remember anything about being a spy, so she spoke up.
"I don't think I'm a spy." she said, trying not to whimper when they all stared at her, "I don't remember anything about being a spy. But I don't really remember anything at all, so maybe I am and I just don't know it. But I think I'd be a stupid spy, because I don't know who I'm spying for."
They kept staring at her, and she waited for the man to increase the pressure. Instead, he let it go and she dropped to the ground. She didn't try and get back up and fight, because she knew that she would lose. It would only make them angry at her.
She looked down at her arm. She had scraped it against the wall, and it was bleeding. It hurt, and she wanted it to stop. She brought her hand up to clutch at the wound. At first, she just held it tightly, but then it started to burn. She needed to cool it down.
She felt the energy flow through her again, except it was colder this time, not bubbly and fiery. She let it seep out of her hand and cover the cut. The pain eased as the energy soothed it. She smiled slightly. Somehow, she knew exactly what to do. She could feel the skin knit back together and the blood cells created a covering to stop the flow of blood. She knew that she was the one doing it; she just didn't know how she was doing it, or why she could do it. Maybe these people could do it too?
One look at their faces convinced her that no, healing wasn't something that everyone could do.
"Konan," the leader spoke again, although there was a strained edge to his voice that made her worry. "Interrogate her about this. I don't want to see her again until I have all the information. Sasori, let's get back to the others. Once we know more about her we shall decide what to do with her."
She didn't like the way he phrased that last part, but she didn't understand what she was doing wrong. Everything was so confusing. Her head hurt, and these people scared her, and she didn't know what she was supposed to do. The question that kept ringing through her head was: Who are you? She wasn't sure if she was asking these people who they were, or asking herself who she was. Either way, she wasn't getting an answer.
The men filed out of the room, leaving the woman alone with her. For a brief second, she thought about making a run for the door. But one look at the woman's face convinced her to stay put. The woman-Konan- didn't have the same aura of fear that the other two had, but Konan had her own way of scaring you. Somehow, she knew that Konan wouldn't hesitate to kill her if the leader ordered. Perhaps Konan would regret it later, but she would still do it.
"Let's start with the basics." Konan said. "What's your name?"
She frowned in confusion. Hadn't she already been asked this?
"I don't know." she said sadly. "I don't even know what my face looks like."
Her hair! She could see her hair now! Slowly, she pulled a strand of hair out in front of her eyes.
Pink? She had pink hair? Was that normal? Konan had bright blue hair, and the leader had orange hair, so maybe pink hair was normal. Maybe she came from a place where everyone had pink hair. Either way, pink was a nice colour, she decided.
She remembered that she was being interrogated, and focused back on what Konan was saying.
"I'll get you a mirror and let you see for yourself what you look like. Maybe it'll trigger something. Hope that it will, because Nagato won't be happy if he doesn't find out anything about you."
"'I'm not a spy." she whispered. The more she thought about it, the surer she was that she wasn't here to cause trouble for these people. They were all too strong for her, and there was a good chance she would die. She almost cried at that, because even though she had no memories past five minutes ago, she didn't want to die. At the very least, she wanted to discover why she was like this before they killed her.
She realised something else.
"Who's Nagato?" she asked, but Konan had already left to get a mirror.
Once again, she considered making a run for it. No one was watching her, and she could probably escape out the door. But she had no idea where she was, and no idea what was outside that door. Besides, where would she go? She didn't have anywhere to escape to.
By the time she had finished debating the pros and cons of attempting an escape, Konan had already returned with the mirror. It was plonked down in front of her, and then Konan stepped back.
"There." she said, "Take a good look. See if you can remember anything."
She looked hard. She was short, only going up to Konan's thigh. Her pink hair was messy, stopping just before the bottom of her neck. It also covered her forehead. Her eyes were big and green, and her skin was white-ish. Pale her brain informed her. That was another thing that kept confusing her: the way her brain kept spewing out big fancy words. But she went with it for now. Her clothes were plain, all in dull colours like brown and grey. She was glad for that-she was already too bright.
She finished looking at herself and looked up at Konan curiously. Konan looked back at her expectantly.
"Well?" she asked, "Do you remember?"
She shook her head sadly. She was scared what they would do to her for not remembering, but she was also sad because she herself really wanted to remember. At the very least, she wanted a name.
"Nothing's happening." she said. "It's like I'm seeing myself for the first time. Which, in a way, I am."
Konan sighed. She pulled the mirror away and sat down on the ground, indicating to her to do the same.
"For now, I'm going to call you Pink. It'll make this thing easier until you remember your name."
She nodded. Pink. She would be Pink.
Konan started the interrogation.
"So you have no memories about your life past when you woke up, correct?"
She nodded.
"I don't remember anything. My brain keeps giving me information, like where to hit that puppet, or what that dagger is called, but I don't know where I'm getting it from. When my brain tells me something, it does it through words, not images. Most of the time, I know what the words mean, but sometimes they don't click. The word chakra didn't click at first."
Konan listened intently as she explained. She didn't say a word until Pink was finished.
"Let's talk about that fight. You rolled off that bed and the first thing you did was reach for a kunai. Why was that?"
She answered quickly.
"To protect myself. I was scared of you."
"Why? We haven't done anything to you. We were just talking."
"I saw your cloaks, and they scared me. But not the scared where you want to run away, the scared where you want to fight until the scary thing can't hurt you anymore."
"Why did our cloaks scare you?"
"Because… I don't know. They just did. I saw them and it was like when my brain tells me big words, except this time it didn't tell me, it made me feel it."
Konan nodded as if everything she had said had made perfect sense. Pink knew that she wasn't explaining everything properly, but she was still adjusting to waking up in this world without any previous memories. She was going by instincts and messages from her brain alone.
"So how did you manage to push a ton of chakra into your hand? It takes a lot of skill to have that much control, do you have any idea how you did it?"
She shook her head.
"Not really. I just felt the energy buzzing inside me. I wanted to make the punch stronger, so I focused on pushing the energy into my hand. It sounds fancy but it was really instinct."
Konan gave a small sigh, which made Pink worry. People sighed when things went wrong, or when they were sad. This much she knew.
Konan looked at her, as if she was trying to figure out if Pink was lying. Pink knew that lying wasn't the right thing to do around these people. They were too scary.
"What about your medical ninjutsu? I'm no expert, but you have to know what the parts of your body are if you want to heal them."
Pink nodded quickly.
"I didn't know how to heal it until I wanted it to stop hurting. The minute that green energy came out I suddenly knew how to heal the cut. I can still sort of remember it, but not as clearly as I did at that moment."
Konan's face never lost its blank expression. Pink wished that Konan would smile or frown, so that she would know if she was answering right.
"So you're saying that you didn't know any medical jargon until you began to heal your arm? Then it all popped into your head, right?"
Pink nodded, relieved that she had been understood.
Konan looked at her thoughtfully.
"Tell me, how would you fix a broken bone in, say, your finger?"
Pink blinked. Maybe she hadn't been understood after all.
"I don't know. I don't even know what the bones in my fingers are called."
Konan nodded again, and Pink knew that she had been expecting that answer. For some reason, this scared her.
Quick as a flash, Konan reached forward and snapped Pink's right index finger. One second of shock was all she had before her finger exploded with pain. She screamed and pulled her finger back, before curling into a ball and sobbing. This pain burnt much, much worse than the small cut. This pain throbbed, and it made her want to scream and scream.
Konan watched her scream without showing a single emotion. She just stared at Pink, waiting for her to calm down.
Eventually, Pink adjusted slightly to the pain in her finger. It hurt just as bad as five minutes ago, but she was now able to function slightly without the pain overwhelming everything. She looked up at Konan through her tears, wondering why she had done that. Konan stared back at her blankly.
"Fix it." she said. "Fix your finger."
"I don't know how!" Pink screamed. She sobbed once and clutched her finger harder. Konan began to look slightly uncomfortable with the sobbing child.
"Just use your instinct. Make the pain go away."
Pink knew that Konan was trying to help, so she focused on the bubbly energy centred in her stomach. Once she connected with it, it was easy to push it into her left hand. The green glow surrounded her hand and finger, and the pain began to ease. This time it was harder than the cut, because her head hurt more from all the directions her brain was giving.
"What are you doing?"
She snapped her head up to look at Konan. She was staring down at Pink impatiently. The question registered a second after her mouth opened.
"I'm clotting the blood cells from the burst vessels into a fracture hematoma to stabilize the bone and keep both pieces lined up for mending. I've finished that, so now I'm-"
She clapped her hands over her mouth after realising what she was saying.
"I'm sorry! I swear! I didn't know what to do five seconds ago! It just popped into my brain when I started healing. Please, I'm not lying!"
"I believe you." Konan said wearily. "Just stop screaming. I expected this result, so you're not in trouble."
Once that danger was out of the way, Pink became curious.
"Do you know how it works? Are there other people who have words suddenly pop into their heads?"
Konan shook her head.
"As far as we know, you are the only one. My main theory would be that you possessed this information before you lost your memory. Now you can access it, but don't know why you have it. This would make sense, except for your age."
She saw Pink's puzzled look and continued.
"You are phenomenally strong for a five year old. No child this young, no matter how talented, should have as much power as you do. You are at the level of an adult jonin. Normally, I would think that someone had used some insane jutsu to pump you full of chakra, but that too doesn't add up. If you had been given all this chakra from an outside source, then you wouldn't have much control. Instead, your chakra control is the best I've ever seen, and the tests show that your chakra pathways have been regularly active."
She noticed Pink's blank face and sighed, realizing that the child hadn't understood half of what she had said.
"Basically, your special and we don't know why. So we're trying to figure it out, but so far…"
"I'm sorry." Pink stammered at once.
She was still terrified by these people, even as she got to know a bit about them. Every time she felt slightly at ease around Konan, she would notice the cloak and her fear would come back. Konan didn't seem to care. To be honest, she didn't seem to care about anything. Pink wondered why she was with these people in the first place.
"What do I do now?" she asked.
Konan's forehead creased slightly, the only indication of how she was feeling.
"I'm not sure." she admitted, "All the evidence points to you either being an undercover spy, or a member of an elite group of shinobi who lost her memory in an accident."
"Isn't there any way for me to get my memories back?"
Konan shrugged slightly, and Pink got the impression that if the orange-haired man hadn't ordered her to, Konan wouldn't be helping her at all. None of these people seemed to care about her; all they were worried about was if she was a threat. She couldn't trust any of them.
Konan stared at her for a minute or two, until Pink started to feel uncomfortable. She opened her mouth to say something, but Konan interrupted her.
"Look child, if I can't prove that you're not a spy than Nagato will most likely kill you. So try thinking of something that will prove you're not an enemy."
"Is Nagato the other man that was in the room?"
Konan nodded, and for a second her eyes showed a slight bit of emotion. But it disappeared before Pink could understand it.
"Yes, but I'm the only one who is allowed call him that. His official name is Pein, but don't call him that either. If you meet anyone in a black cloak with red clouds, call him sir. Got it?"
Pink nodded quickly. This was all making her more nervous. It seemed like if she made one wrong move, it would make one of these cloaked strangers kill her.
"Now," said Konan "I think I have a way to prove that you're not a spy. If you were sent here to infiltrate the organisation, but don't have any memories, whoever sent you would have to leave a trigger on your body, so when you meet with them again they can give you your memories back. Otherwise, there would be no way to make you go back to them, short of breaking into our village and stealing you from under our noses."
"What kind of trigger?" Pink asked.
"I'm not completely sure, but it's probably a seal of some sort. It could be hidden anywhere on your body, which means that I'll have to search you. If we find a seal, perhaps we can find some way to destroy it, and if we don't find a seal then the chances of you being a spy decreases. It should be enough to satisfy Nagato."
Pink nodded. If it would improve her chances of staying alive, she would gladly allow herself to be searched.
Konan stared down at her emotionlessly.
"You need to take all your clothes off so that I can look everywhere. You might feel uncomfortable but it's either this or death."
Pink frowned. Should she feel uncomfortable? Seeing her naked clearly wasn't a big thing for Konan, so why should it bother her either? Maybe it was another thing that most people wouldn't consider normal, but Pink couldn't remember any of her interactions with other people, so she had no idea what the world thought about these things. So far, her world consisted of this room, Konan, Sasori and Nagato.
It took fifteen minutes for Konan to search her, but the result was positive. There were no seals or possible triggers hidden on her body. Pink relaxed slightly after hearing that. For the moment, she was safer than she had been since waking up.
"What happens now?" she asked.
Konan faced her coldly. There was no harshness to her words, but there was no comfort either.
"I'll tell Nagato what I've uncovered. It should be enough to keep you alive. I don't know what he'll decide to do with you now, but I doubt he'll kill you. You stay here and don't leave this room. There's a bathroom over there, but that's the only place you're allowed go. If you don't want to die don't try and escape."
With that, she turned and left the room, leaving Pink with nothing to do but worry about her fate.