Chapter 1

The feeling of falling asleep was often comforting to many people. Waking up depended on the person. Some people were built for the mornings, while others dreaded their eventual rise and shine. Yet, no matter who you are, waking up when you don’t remember falling asleep was scary. Even more so when the gentle beeps and drips of medical equipment were the only sounds around you, pain wracked your entire body, and you couldn’t move a muscle.

No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t even open her eyes. Not that they felt heavy; it was like she physically couldn’t open them. A disconnect between mind and body, one that made the mind run on pure paranoia and terror.

Not a single wiggle of a toe, a twitch of the finger, a shift to a more comfortable position. Nothing. She couldn’t even move her eyes from behind their lids, staring into the black curtains that refused to move, budge, or acknowledge her wants.

Panic set in within mere moments, and even the panic itself perpetuated because panicking without moving was another source of terror.

Sleep Paralysis came to mind, but she’d had no run-ins with it before, and the pain felt out of place.

Her body hurt, not in the way muscles felt in the aftermath of a strenuous workout, but in the instinctual ‘you need to go to the hospital, something is deeply wrong’ sort of way. There weren’t words to describe it. It wasn’t a mind-numbing, tortuous, unable to function type of pain. It wasn’t even an aching, cramping, burning, sharp, shooting, stabbing, throbbing, tingling, or stinging pain, it was the pain of a sixth sense. Something foreign.

She laid there for what felt like hours, listening to the droning sounds of medical equipment as her mind ran a mile a minute, trying to understand her situation. Did she get into an accident? What sort of accident could cause… whatever this was she felt? Whatever situation she was in?

Eventually, a new, familiar sound broke the monotony of the room. The sound of a door opening, footsteps, and shuffling paper. It was off to her right side, but she couldn’t get a gist of how far away it was. For the next minute, she waited and prayed for help. There wasn’t much else to do other than that.

Every few minutes, the sound would grow closer, repeating, until they came to her side. There must have been papers next to her, as she heard whoever it was pick them up to begin flipping through them. Her heart rate skyrocketed in hope, and she felt the gentle caress of a warm hand grab her wrist, feeling around for what must have been her pulse.

She felt the moment her visitor felt something wrong, her heart rate must have been in the stratosphere, and they noticed.

They noticed.

The hand let go. She felt her cushioned bed sink with some added weight, then she could see.

It was a man, dark brown hair, brown eyes… fairly average looking in the grand scheme of things. He held her eyelid open before shining a bright light into her eyes, swishing it back and forth.

With all her will, might, perseverance, and adrenaline, she managed the most subtle of shifts. Her eyes twitched, something she had been trying with all effort for the past… whatever time had passed. It was all she could manage, but yet it was enough.

It had to be enough.

The light was gone, and she could see the man once again, face full of uncertainty and confusion, like he stared at something that should not be.

“Aburame-chan?” He muttered, unsure of himself.

That wasn’t her name, but she would not let this opportunity slip through her fingers. She twitched her eyes once more and saw the flood of relief mixed with confusion and panic set into the man’s visage.

“Aburame-chan!?” He nearly screeched, before reaching away, tapping something out of view. His hand returned down to grab hers for comfort, both for her and for himself, it seemed like. She let it happen. It wasn’t as if she could do anything about it, and it sure as shit worked to make her inner turmoil bend to relief and hope.

Moments later, the sound of the door opening once again announced another person. “Kisaragi-san? You called?” A woman’s voice drifted through the room.

She could hear the man swallow, wetting his throat before he shakily answered. “Ab—Aburame-chan is awake.”

————–

The next hour flew by in a cacophony of motion. Dozens of people came into the room, checking what must have been her charts. They felt her pulse, checked her eyes, and sat her up in her bed. Whatever they put into her IV had helped as well, as over the hour, she could twitch her fingers, toes, look around, and slowly open and close her eyes. She felt exhausted, even though she was pretty sure she had been in a coma and slept for gods knows how long.

The first thing she noticed once she could properly roam her eyes around, and what also caused the surrounding nurses to fly into a near panic because of her heart rate skyrocketing, was that everything was wrong. This wasn’t her body.

First, she was supposed to have long, curly, blonde hair. Not black. Not to mention that she was also an adult, not a fucking scar riddled child. Instead of 22, she looked… 8? Everyone also kept calling her Aburame-chan, like she was in Japan or an anime. Her actual name was… was—She couldn’t remember, but it sure as shit wasn’t Aburame.

She also couldn’t fucking speak. Through mountainous effort, she could only exhale air, and make the P, T, and S sounds. One nurse, noticing her effort, sat down next to her with a solemn smile—a very much ‘I’m about to drop bad news’ smile.

“Aburame-chan…” The nurse paused, waiting to ensure she had her focus. “Your Kikaichu are gone. As well as your voice… You will never speak again. You have been in a coma, unable to control your chakra. So, your Kikaichu had to be removed before further harm could be done. It was for your own safety.”

The nurse had said it like it should have upset her, even going so far as to wait for her outburst that never came. Oh, she felt like crying and a pit opened up in her stomach. Not being able to talk was going to be an adjustment, to say the least, but she had more pressing concerns. So, she just kinda… stared, confusedly. Kikaichu? Chakra?

The door to her, and what seemed to be many other coma patients’ room, nearly broke off its hinges as it was forcefully thrust open. Following was a man who was obviously not a nurse, judging by his attire—a dark grey trench coat with a tall collar that covered his lower face and a pair of goggles on his forehead. He had shaggy brownish-black hair, messy and done up with a back bun. He strode in on a mission.

She watched on with a side eye as the man talked with one nurse who blocked his path, most likely filling him in on her condition. Although she didn’t know who it was, it was obviously someone that knew her—as in her body. She wasn’t a complete idiot. She wasn’t who she was. Looked completely different, had a different name, wasn’t the right age. People were doing weird shit around her, and she woke from a coma. All roads led to her being where she wasn’t supposed to be. And if she wasn’t who she was supposed to be, then the question was whose body was this?

Who did she take over?

As she watched the man in the trench coat, a separate nurse—the original man who’d discovered her awake, Kisaragi—put his palm on her head. Suddenly, a gentle coat of green… energy? Mana? encompassed his hand, and a surge of warmth suffused her being.

It felt… nice. Almost like sunbathing; a warming, relaxing feeling. That’s not to say she actually relaxed, as this man was casting some sort of real life fucking magic on her! She may have freaked out—at least to the best of her abilities—wiggling her head and neck, arms and legs in a futile struggle to get away from whatever the man was doing. He noticed, but ignored her, as anything she tried was ineffective.

He watched her feeble struggles as he continued using magic. “It’s the Mystical Palm. I am scanning you for any further injuries.”

He said it like it should have made sense, like she should have known what the Mystical Palm was.

She didn’t.

“Sano.” A deep, brisk, and worried voice rang out, followed by a comforting grip on her shoulder. It was the trench coat man. Kisaragi finished up with his magic, then bid them both a nod before leaving them alone.

The trench coat man sat next to her, hand still lying comfortably on her shoulder. After a few seconds, he seemed to have composed himself. He leaned in, resting his forehead against hers in what would normally be a very sweet, caring gesture. She didn’t know this man, yet he knew her. It was obvious.

After a few seconds, the man leaned back, and looked into her eyes, searching for something within her being; emotions that she wasn’t feeling. “Sano. Toiba and Sachi are dead.”

He had said it with such weight, yet she didn’t know who either of those people were. Apparently, from context clues, her name was Sano. Going by what she remembered from Japan, Aburame must be her last name—or Surname.

Sano Aburame… Could be worse. It could have been like her… Like her—

“Hizashi-sensei passed away because of his injuries. I am sorry.” The man finished, yet she still couldn’t feel what he obviously was waiting for her to feel. It wasn’t hard to guess that these people were close to her‌—her, as in whose body this was—She should have felt something for them, and he was waiting for it.

She didn’t.

He scanned her face for what felt like ten silent seconds before deciding on what to say. “You don’t remember them, do you?”

Slowly, she shook her head, eyes not leaving the man before her… Not that she could have shaken it fast, or anything.

“Do you know who I am?” He asked next, earning another shake.

“… I see.” He ran his thumb over her collarbone, head dipped in contemplation, hiding his face. He finished their talk by giving her a firm squeeze of comfort and standing, stepping aside to chat with a nurse or doctor, probably about her memory.

Which was fine. Her memory, baring her name… was fine. It just wasn’t whose memory they thought it was.

—————–

Sano must have fallen asleep after her talk with the trench coat man, as the next thing she knew, she was waking up in a completely unfamiliar room. There was another person in the room, a patient. A boy, a kid, barely a teen. One of his legs was missing, cut off above the knee, and he simply stared at the ceiling with vacant eyes.

“Awake?” The familiar voice of the trench coat guy jolted her out of her stare, a feat easier than it had been previously by leaps and bounds. Trench coat was sat in a simple wooden chair, likely those used for visitors.

He stood and made his way over, reaching out to grip her hand for comfort. She didn’t pull away, but didn’t feel anything towards the stranger before her. For a while, he just stood there, and his attire did her little favor for showcasing his feelings, face hidden behind the thick fabric as it was. “I am Jogan Aburame, your uncle.”

He waited a beat, not focusing on her, yet paying attention to her reaction. She nodded her understanding. “You are in Konohagakure, The Village Hidden in the Leaves.”

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Sano waited for him to continue, but he appeared to be struggling to find what to say. This was a man who had most likely thought his niece was a vegetable, one who couldn’t remember him. It would be surprising if the man wasn’t a hurricane of emotions. She would give him some time.

The man released his hold, picking up a few loose sheafs of paper, a glass of ink, and a brush, placing them on her lap, before dragging his chair over to sit beside her. “Can you write what you remember?”

Sano picked up a paper, finding that it was just the backside of a paper that had already been written on. She flipped it, eyes landing on… what she could only guess to be some sort of medical chart. The language was foreign. Perhaps it was Japanese? They had two different alphabets… She remembered that.