Blue. Her eyes were blue, a blue she felt she was drowning in, like a lake her father used to take her swimming in. She couldn't remember anymore, what color her eyes were, and she had to look in the mirror in the mornings, stare at her eyes, blue. Blue.
She couldn't remember a good many things. Small things, that didn't really matter, but in a way, it scared her. She'd never been scared, not for herself, in all her life. She'd been scared for Chouji, and for Shikamaru. She used to sit up at nights, terrified for her father, waiting for him to come home. But not for herself, never for herself. Then she started to forget things.
She forgot all kinds of things. There wasn't a pattern, or a system, that she could figure out, or if there was one, she forgot it. She forgot Shikamaru's seventeenth birthday, and she forgot Chouji's favorite color. If she still had a favorite color, she forgot that, too. She forgot the chuunin exam, and the party for when she made jounin. She forgot how many things she forgot. She wasn't sure if things were memories anymore, or if everything was gone, because her mind was being erased like a slate, piece by piece by fucking piece.
Then, she forgot her name.
"Tell me my name!" she screamed at Shikamaru, grabbing his glass and hurling it across the room. It shattered, pieces falling apart like she was, and Shikamaru stared up at her. "Tell me, tell me, tell me!"
"Ino," he said quickly, standing up from the chair. "You're Ino. Yamanaka Ino. Just calm down, tell me what's wrong-"
Ino. It tasted strange on her tongue when she tried to say it, and it wouldn't roll off the tip. Ino. Good enough, good enough. She existed, she was Ino. Yamanaka Ino.
"Shikamaru," she said shortly, and it wasn't gentle like she wanted. "Sorry."
Shikamaru went to Tsunade, made them take Ino out of the ANBU. It didn't matter much to Ino, except that the ANBU was the only thing she remembered. She could remember every mission, perfectly. Every day she was on a mission was in her head, like a calendar with only the red days saved.
"Can I swim?" she asked one day, when Chouji came to see her. She was sitting on the couch with him, and she was dressed in pajamas she didn't know she owned.
"Yeah, your dad taught us all," Chouji said, in that calm, slow way he always had around her. Ino wondered if he spoke any other way. "We used to go skinny-dipping, back before-"
Before you fucked up, was the ending no one ever said. Ino wasn't sure what she'd done, but she could always hear the silent words that made the room feel cold.
Ino nodded, looked down at the pattern of kittens on pale blue. Silk, soft against her skin. "Who are you?"
"God," Chouji whimpered. "Ino, I'm Chouji. Chouji, Akimichi Chouji."
"No, not that," she said airily, and it hurt somewhere in her heart. "I meant, why do I love you? Did we ever..." She trailed off, staring at her knees. "I remember you when we were kids."
"I've got to go," Chouji said, and his voice sounded strained. He leaned forward, kissed Ino on the cheek, like he did every time he came to see her. "I'll be back soon."
A few weeks later Ino talked her way back into the ANBU. They needed her, they couldn't do without, and she was still perfect, even if she was a little broken in the head. Three missions later she found herself sitting in the hospital, her clothes being taken off and folded to be set on the only hard chair in the room. She held out her arms as a nurse slipped a hospital gown on her, then kicked her feet. She could still hear Shikamaru screaming in the hallway.
"She couldn't find her way home! She's sick, she can't go out on your damn missions, she'll get killed-"
"She took the mask voluntarily-"
"She was lost! Ino never gets lost! She couldn't remember where Konoha was, she couldn't remember what Konoha was!"
She watched as the nurse set the mask on top of the clothes. "What's my name?" she asked softly.
"Yamanaka Ino."
"What's yours?"
"Haruno Sakura."
"Sakura? Pretty. I like your hair, Sakura." Ino tucked her hair, blonde, behind her ear. She could see her hair, see the white-blonde, and she wondered what color her eyes were. "Sakura," she asked, staring at the split ends in her hair, "what color are my eyes?"
"Blue," pretty Sakura with the pink hair Ino was jealous over said. "Blue enough to drown in."