Volume 2. To the Right!

Chapter 7: Mirror, Mirror

The girl leaned back and rubbed at her eyes. "What?"

The word had come out in English; Sis was more of a nickname than anything else, I guess.

I stared at the girl in front of me. Sharp features, thin eyebrows, which I'd recognised. Wide blue eyes where I expected brown. They were similar, at least. I had no way of telling if this was what Sis might have looked like when she was twelve; she'd already been fifteen when I was born.

The girl knocked a hand gently against my forehead. "Hey, do you even remember me? I'm Ino. Your best friend. Well, and rival," she chattered on, the tears slowly subsiding. "Dad told me everything."

"Who's your dad?" Though her name rang a bell.

"Inoichi Yamanaka. He was the first person who..." She trailed off. "You don't remember me at all, do you?" Her lip started to tremble.

I scrunched up my brows. "Ino-Pig..." I said experimentally. It felt right. It shouldn't have felt right; 'Pig' was the sign I always used on my sister when I was annoyed at her, a pun on her real name.

And my mind knew in Japanese, Ino meant boar.

My eyes started to sting; I rubbed my knuckles against my face. "I'm so confused."

The hug she wrapped me in next was far more gentle. "I can tell," her voice was shaky. "If you'd cut your hair like that." She snorted. "Are you trying to give Sasuke to me, or what?"

I returned her hug now, staring sightlessly at the house behind her. "What's he got to do with it?"

Ino sighed and released her hold on me. "Let's go inside, we've got to talk." Her eyes were still watering.

I shuffled anxiously. "I can… make you tea?" Even though I was as bad off as she was, I still never quite knew what to do with crying people.

"That's just like you," she laughed. "Thinking a tea party will make me feel better."

I stared at her.

[That is you, Fat-Brain!], my sister signed through tears and laughter. I'd found her slouched over the dining room table, beer bottle in hand, crying over her latest breakup. I didn't know what to do, so I made a cup of tea and put it in front of her. [See problem, give tea!]

"Yeah," I said, voice cracking. "That's me, alright."

It wasn't long before we were seated at the kitchen table, tea in hand.

"You really have forgotten everything, haven't you?" Ino asked, looking far more composed. She held a formal posture and sipped at her tea daintily; she wasn't kidding when she called it a 'tea party'.

"Yeah, I'm sorry." I rubbed at my hair. "Uh, as for Sasuke, I remember liking him, but he seems like a bratty kid to me, so." I waved my hand vaguely. "Have at it? You seem nice, so I'm not interested in being rivals with you. I just wish I remembered having a best friend."

Of course, there was no way in hell I was going to tell her how much she reminded me of my sister.

Ino scoffed, the sound a strange juxtaposition against her formal way of holding herself. "How pathetic do you think I am? I'm not taking advantage of my friend having amnesia. You'll remember soon and we can fight for real." She sipped her tea. "In the meantime, you're better off having me watch out for you. You can be pretty hopeless sometimes. Like that hair." She gave me a scandalised expression.

"What's wrong with my hair?" I asked. "We're ninja, long hair would get in the way. Lots of girls have pixie-cuts."

Ino huffed. "It's not that, even if you managed to make it a lot more even than I would expect from you." She looked me over. "And I see you made the fashionable choice of tying your Konoha headband around your waist like me. But that hair," She rolled her eyes. "There's no way you're going to impress Sasuke-kun with that. At least give me a real challenge!"

"He's a twelve-year-old emotionally unavailable dweeb who thinks he's an Avenger!" I whined. "I really, seriously don't care!" I paused. "Uh, not to be mean. He's been helpful with training. But seriously, Ino."

She squinted at me. "You really are hopeless."

"Ino-chan! What a surprise!" Mebuki came through the door. "We didn't expect you! Were you the one who left the flowers at the hospital for Sakura-chan? Did they come from your shop? Oh, they were beautiful," she gushed.

Ino's antagonistic expression melted away into something softer, more sheepish. "Yes, well. Dad told me she had an accident and couldn't remember anything, so I thought I'd bring her some daffodils. They've always been her favourite. They wouldn't let me in so I made dad take them in for me."

I stared at her. I vaguely remembered that there had been a bunch of flowers on the bedside table when I'd woken up in the hospital.

I swallowed thickly. Daffodils were my favourite too. They were the first flowers that bloomed after winter and were my reminder that spring would come soon. Why couldn't I have remembered someone like Ino? She must have been someone precious to me.

It was the first time I'd genuinely thought of myself as possibly being Sakura. Maybe that's why she reminds me of Sis.

"Thanks, Ino. I appreciate it." My voice came out in a mumble.

"Well, don't let me get in the way of you girls," Mebuki said. "I'm sure you have plenty of catching up to do!"

Ino's face fell in an instant. "No, you should stay here, Obachan." Her voice was flat. It was unnerving. "I didn't just come here to visit. There's something you need to know."

I felt goosebumps rise along my arms. That did not sound good at all.

Ino looked down at her tea. "My dad told me what happened because we're friends. I'm not supposed to mention it to anyone. I wasn't even supposed to tell you I knew." She looked up. "I didn't know why until earlier today… I wasn't supposed to find out, but we had one of the elders visit our house this afternoon."

"One of the elders?" Mebuki asked weakly.

Ino sighed. "Dad works with T&I, you know… Torture and Interrogation. And he's part of Jounin Command." Her eyes hardened. "I wasn't supposed to hear, but it was too fishy to pass up. I did a Mind-Body Switch with a squirrel I'd seen outside my window."

"Mind-Body Switch?"

She nodded. "It's part of my family's Blood Limit. We can take over the minds of other people. Or animals, in this case; genjutsu techniques work on anything with a brain. It's risky in combat because our real bodies are vulnerable, but I was in my room so..."

She took a sip of tea. "But that's not important. I listened to everything. I don't know which elder it was, but he was telling dad that having an enemy attacking like this, especially having the first victim being a genin right out of the academy- it makes Konoha look weak." Her expression was sharp. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

My mouth felt dry. "They don't want me telling people what happened."

Ino nodded. "Or anybody else you've talked to spreading it around. You'll probably get a visit from someone tonight. I wanted to warn you." She looked down. "If you need to tell someone you lost your memories, tell them it was a training accident. Those are common enough. They'll assume it was a concussion, or that you had a mind-related ability like mine and something went wrong."

I let out a slow breath. Who knew so far? Kakashi, of course, and the boys. My parents. I hadn't told anyone else yet, had I? It didn't come up when we were eating ramen, I don't think we mentioned it in front of anyone.

I told her as much. Her shoulders sagged in relief.

"Good. Keep it that way. They probably had people tailing you, so that brings down the number of people they're going to have to follow up with." She frowned. "I didn't sense anyone around when we were talking outside though, so they might have stopped by now."

Yikes.

She shook her head. "They're all freaking out, you know. Security has gone up. Not just in Konoha, but in all of the outposts as well. They're having Intel people checking on anyone who's had memory problems in the last month… and with ninja being what they are, that's a lot."

I winced. "Concussions. Yeah, that sounds about right."

Mebuki put a hand to her chest. "Thank you for telling us, Ino-chan. Fortunately, her father and I haven't brought up the details with our friends yet… we were hoping it might wear off." She smiled at me apologetically and ran her fingers through my hair.

Ino sighed. "Good." She drained the last of her tea and stood up. "I'd better get going. If anyone is coming back to watch you and I'm here for longer than a get-well visit..." Her smile looked forced.

"Oh, yes of course." I scrambled up, and we met each other in a hug.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"Be good," she muttered back.

As she was walking out the front door, she called back loudly, "And don't forget, Sasuke is mine!"

"We'll see about that!" I yelled, playing along.

As the door closed, Mebuki and I looked at each other.

"Can you..?"

"I'll talk to your father," she said. "Why don't you go have a rest while I get some dinner ready."

I nodded blankly and took her advice; all the energy I'd had during the day was flushed out of me. I wasn't tired enough to sleep, but I couldn't find the focus to read, either. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling.

It wasn't fair. I hadn't done anything wrong, and just having this happen to me was messing up the lives of everyone I came in contact with. Not just them, but everyone in the village. Being interrogated because of me.

I rolled over to face the wall. The worst part was… I didn't even know what happened. I still felt like me, but as more time went on, the less convincing that felt. I had mistaken Ino for my sister and had seen my brother in Naruto. If I really was Sakura and had a jutsu cast on me, isn't that what they'd do? Trick me into thinking the people I knew were someone else?

That would explain why Naruto and Ino were familiar; I had someone close enough to compare them to in the life I had. Maybe I hadn't had enough adults around to compare to parents or Kakashi.

I flung an arm over my face as I felt my thoughts fall into the familiar spiral.

I knew I should stop blaming myself, stop making myself anxious. I should find something to make myself feel better, more in control, like my therapists always said.

But while the energy this body gave me wasn't gone, I still had my own mind. My body wasn't going into fight-or-flight; I didn't feel too heavy to sit up. But that didn't stop me from feeling hopeless.

"What's the point of all of this?" I asked the empty room. What am I supposed to do? I don't even know who I am anymore.

Even amid misfortune, my good luck streak started back up in the form of a knock at my door. "Sakura-chan?"

I took a deep breath and walked over to the door, trying to school my face into something that looked more sleepy than distressed. Maybe I could convince her I was napping.

When I opened the door, I found Mebuki standing with a relieved smile. "We have a visitor," she said. "Inoichi-san has come for a visit."

Oh.

Oh my God. I seriously lucked out. I kept owing the Yamanaka family more and more.

My shoulders dropped as her relief reflected into me. "That's awesome. Is he staying for dinner?"

She waved me along as we trooped downstairs. "We'll have to ask him."

Inoichi Yamanaka had the kind of face that seemed like it could look right through you. As he took in our expressions, a slow grin spread across his face. "Hello, Sakura-chan. It's good to see you looking so well."

"Hello, Yamanaka-san." I bowed. "It's good to see you! Will you be staying for dinner?"

His smile turned apologetic. "I would love to, but I'm afraid I only have time for a quick visit. I simply wanted to check in on you and talk with you and your parents for a moment."

"That's good of you!" Kizashi called; he must have come home while I'd been sulking. He walked into the kitchen and slung an arm around my shoulder. "Her memory is still gone, but she's been working hard as always."

"And Ino-chan was kind enough to visit," Mebuki chimed in. "It was sweet to see them teasing each other like always," she continued blithely.

I didn't look at her. Man, she's a smooth operator. Inoichi should be offering her a job.

Inoichi smiled. "So I heard. She's been fussing over visiting you all day." He scratched his head. "I'm glad you girls are, uh, still getting along."

"So what did you need to talk about?" Kizashi cut in. "Does she need to see more of those head-doctors of yours? She's always been a head-case!"

"Kizashi!" Mebuki rebuked.

"Well, yes," Inoichi smiled. I blinked, taken aback, but he continued, "Her doctors at Konoha Hospital have suggested she visit with a psychologist when she makes her chakra-scan appointments. She's welcome to go more often if she chooses, but they want to keep up with her at least monthly as she becomes reacquainted with her daily life."

"Oh. Sure, I guess I can do that. I mean, being a ninja can be dangerous, so it's probably a good idea anyway..."

Inoichi nodded gravely. "Quite so. But I also wanted to talk to you three about something else."

I stiffened. "… Bad?" I echoed one of our earlier conversations.

He raised his eyebrows and the serious look lifted from his face. "Not that bad, I assure you," he said. "But as we believe your injury may have been an attack, there is an investigation ongoing. I was sent to ask that you not let on the source of your amnesia."

"Why not?" Kizashi asked.

"We don't want the wrong person to find out we know, if it's an infiltrator." He looked at me. "So be very careful whom you tell. I'm assuming you've already told your team?"

I nodded.

He sighed. "We thought that may be the case. I'll talk to them. Your sensei already knows," he said, tone leaning toward sharpness.

I pursed my lips to fight back a grin. Sensei was probably making it a point to randomly appear around Inoichi again.

Glad he doesn't only do it to me.

The visit ended shortly after as Inoichi left to badger my teammates. Dinner was a quiet affair, but not a strained one. If it weren't for Ino's earlier visit, we'd never have known how serious the situation was. And nobody was in the mood to bring that up.

Later, after a long shower, as I tried to scrub away my aches and pains, I found myself sitting on my bed, staring blankly at the bookshelf.

I wrung my hands together, took a deep breath, and walked over to grab a book on chakra control exercises.

I read all night until I fell asleep with the book in my hands.

Extra Special Trivia Part 8: Thank you for the well-wishes on my recovery. Enjoy a conversation with my brother's girlfriend:

Me: You know how you're used to dealing with helpless idiots? [Glance flicks to big brother]

Her: … I honestly don't know how I should answer that.

Me: Help? [Gestures haplessly at bandage I'd only half-cut off my arm]

Her: Uh, not with THOSE scissors. Let me use some bandage scissors. [Digs around coat pocket]

Me: … You carry around bandage scissors in your- you know what? Helpless idiots. Forget I asked.