Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Eve of the Spiders ❯ Apparently ( Chapter 3 )

Chapter #2

Apparently

 

 

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and Co.

 

Yay, new chapter! Like I said, biweekly updates, maybe some spontaneous updating if I hit writing streak.

 

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“Morning, Shino-kun,” Sakura waved absently over her stack of paperwork. She didn't need to look up to know it was him because more often than not one of his bugs would show up just before his arrival. Not that anyone from the Aburame clan showed up at the hospital that often.

 

“Tsunade-sama said you had an assignment for me?” he responded, voice as stoic as ever.

 

“Hai,” Sakura pushed her paperwork aside and brought out a hospital file. “That girl you brought in last night - the one that drowned in the river - is sleeping in recovery now. She had no identification on her, so we still don't know who she is. All we can tell is that she is probably a civilian because she had no weapons and her build is too slight. Her body hasn't undergone any sort of shinobi training.”

 

Shino remained silent, automatically assuming there was some kind of catch.

 

“There was one thing I found a little odd… Ever since she arrived she's been healing at an incredible rate. From the state of her injuries when she arrived, she shouldn't be able to go into recovery so quickly. You said she looked like she washed down from way upriver, but she doesn't have a single broken bone and she barely has a concussion.”

 

`She was dead when I found her,' Shino's brow drew together slightly, `icy skin, water filled lungs, no pulse … it's almost as though she came back from the dead.'

 

“Anyway,” Sakura continued, “she should be awake by the end of today, and we need someone to profile her. Get her name, where she is from, etc, etc. With your bugs on her you can tell if she is lying easily.”

 

Shino nodded.

 

“Leave! Down! HEAL! SOMETHING! DAMNIT TO HELL!”

 

Both Jounin glanced to the door listening to the footsteps rushing past the door, or rather a couple of sets of footsteps.

 

Sakura got to her feet and hesitantly swung the door open, “Whoever the hell that was … they aren't going far, it's a dead end down that hallway…”

 

The moment the door opened and Shino stepped out someone slammed into him. Shino barely moved - though he was surprised he didn't see it coming - but whoever bumped into him toppled to the floor with a loud thud and a lot of cursing.

 

Shino looked down at the girl on the floor. She was dressed in the light pink hospital gown with matching off-white leggings, and any skin that should have been visible was covered in bandages. Her face was shielded by a mop cut of dark reddish brown hair that was unkempt and sticking out at awkward angles in short spikes that hung over a pair of large round glasses.

 

`It's her,' Shino almost felt as though he'd been struck dumb, `The girl I pulled from the river.'

 

Pushing the hair out of her face with one hand, she looked up at him curiously. She had amber eyes, the colour of the highlights in her hair from the fluorescent lighting. They were bright eyes, very lively, expressive and full of energy. She was the furthest thing from dead. She was running around the hospital when she should still be in recovery.

 

“Oomph!” she lurched forward. Something crawled up her back, making her squirm around to try and get it off. “Get it off me!”

 

A spider crawled over her shoulder and settled itself on her lap like a well trained pet. Shino was slightly surprised by the sight, but Sakura - who he assumed had spider issues like some people did - took one giant leap back at the sight of the oversized arachnid.

 

“The both of you can see the spider too, right?” she asked hesitantly.

 

Nod.

 

“Right, then I am not just hallucinating. That's a good thing … I guess.” She paused, fingering a ball of crumpled paper in her fist before speaking again. “Would either of you know where I can find someone named `Yuuki' by any chance, would you?”

 

Head shake.

 

“Right, well, one more question then,” she stated in a slightly dejected voice, “where the heck am I anyway?”

 

000

 

“Alright, just follow the light with your eyes please,” instructed Sakura, “…and please tell the spider to stop trying to tip over the scalpel tray?”

 

“If she actually listened to me then she wouldn't still be following me.”

 

“She?”

 

“Apparently.”

 

The spider tapped the shiny tray on the table next to the bed and watched the metal instruments inside it rattle. Out of amusement she tapped it a little harder, tipping the entire thing over and sending sharp blades tumbling to the linoleum floor with a loud crash. She jumped at the disturbance and ran back onto its `master's' lap.

 

Sakura's skin erupted in goosebumps when then spider suddenly got so close, “S-so what is your name anyway?”

 

“Uh … Saori,” the girl responded, “…I think.”

 

“You think?”

 

“It was the name on the note Seaka gave me, so apparently my name is Saori.”

 

“Let me rephrase that,” Sakura sighed, “Do you remember anything?”

 

“I … well … uh,” Saori rubbed the back of her head sheepishly, “… apparently not.”

 

“Oh dear…”

 

Saori smiled sheepishly once more, “So - if it's not too much to ask - exactly how did I get here? Was I hurt? Where am I?”

 

Shino watched the conversation from his own little corner of the room and - surprisingly - he was rather interested. Saori seemed pretty aloof for someone who couldn't even remember her own name or even the fact that she very nearly drowned. It didn't look like she was going to give them much information about herself and that would make things very complicated because the village would have to put out a notice about her and find her a place to stay until further notice.

 

“You're in Konohagakure, do you remember the name?” asked Sakura.

 

“I guess it sounds familiar,” Saori thought for a moment, “it is a shinobi village isn't it?”

 

“That's strange, you can remember the name of the village but nothing about yourself,” said Sakura.

 

Saori shrugged, “If it helps I do kind of remember someone calling me four-eyes-chan…”

 

“…”

 

There was a spark of amusement behind Shino's glasses. Saori's glasses were probably more noticeable than Shino's since the large circular frames took up a lot of her face, but somehow it seemed to suit her.

 

“Hey … wait no! I mean that it sounded like that person knew me really well. Don't ask me how I know, their just was something in the tone that suggested familiarity.” Saori added quickly. “And is it just me or are you guys avoiding telling me how I got here?”

 

“That will have to wait until later, until after I've given you a full examination,” stated Sakura - sounding a bit more authoritative since `Seaka' went off in search of something else to amuse herself with.

 

Shino remained `off on his own', merely observing Sakura and Saori talking. Sakura was doing her job, she was giving her a complete medical examination, but she was fishing for any usable information the entire time. She and Shino both knew that they couldn't tell her anything until they figured out the extent of the damage.

 

Completely out of nowhere Sakura jumped and gave a short - loud - scream, “Where the heck did all these spiders come from?”

 

There was quite a few of them - five or six - crawling across the examination table and settling on Saori's lap where Seaka used to be.

 

`Maybe it is not just a coincidence that there were so many spiders around here and down by the river when I found her,' Shino sent a couple kikaichuu out to monitor the room and when they returned they reported that there were at least ten smaller spiders in the room and several more in the hallway. Every arachnid nearby was being drawn to Saori like hundreds of tiny magnets. `It looks like she's forgotten a lot more than just her name.'

 

Saori scooped a few of them off her lap and allowed them to sit on her hand. They didn't appear that they minded the disturbance at all, the spiders simply sat calmly on her hand.

 

“I guess Seaka isn't the only one that isn't going to leave me alone,” Saori mumbled under her breath.

 

000

 

It was time for Shino to head back to his house since he'd already helped Sakura finish the evaluation and paperwork for `Saori'. All things considering, it did not take that long, the diagnosis was obvious when she admitted she couldn't remember anything before waking up.

 

“She has traumatic amnesia, which it was caused during her fall down the river. The part of her brain that took the most damage contained all of her long term memory, so everything in her past is gone. She is healing incredibly fast though - faster than she should be - so it's not clear whether her memory loss will be temporary or permanent.”

 

Saori would be given a small loan from the village and an apartment a few blocks from the hospital while she recovered. She would be given a job - most likely doing paperwork for the hospital - and she would go back to the hospital regularly to get a quick check up from a nurse. Her name and face were already posted and waiting for a corresponding missing persons ad.

 

With that it marked the end of Shino's involvement in the matter. Case closed. He didn't have to think about it anymore.

 

There was only one thing that was still bothering him, `I wonder what those spiders were all about…'

 

That night Shino did what he always did when he didn't have much else to do. He sat in his father's study reading all the books passed down in his clan. It was a large room lined with tall shelves and filled with thick volumes on anything any Aburame would ever need to know. There were hundreds of books and it would take Shino most of his life to get through them all, but for still being a teenager he wasn't doing half bad.

 

He'd really gotten into a particularly thick collection of scrolls when someone knocked on the door, which was odd because, well, no one in the Aburame family were particularly social so there were generally few visitors unless there was a mission.

 

“Shino, are you there? Its Sakura, I need to talk to you for a second,” a female voice called from the other side of the door.

 

Shino opened the door and stepped out. He didn't have to say anything, his barely visible expression said `speak now or go away' … Shino was never a particularly social guy.

 

“Saori is missing,” she stated quickly, “I told her to stay overnight for observation, but when the orderly went to her room to bring her supper she wasn't there. She also borrowed some clothes from the laundry room.”

 

The only way Shino really knew Sakura was through Hinata - who were good friends - but he didn't have to know her well to be able to tell she caught on quick.

 

Sakura sighed, “I know it is late, but do you mind lending a hand? She'll be easy to find since you planted a bug on her.”