AN: Why yes, I am starting another story. Will I finish this one? I doubt it, but I'm gonna try. ^_^

I adore Kakashi. He's one cool cat. And I just happen to think it hilarious when he's in the hospital, so I'm putting him back in it. This will be a romance. Probably incredibly cliche and will, at some points, make you want to throw up with its cheesy, lovey-dovey-ness. But I'll try to make it as bearable as possible.

So, we cool?

Awesome sauce.

She was good at what she did. In fact, she was the best. She had quickly climbed the ranks and been recognized for her talents. She had never thought twice about it before. Her work was routine. It was always the same old same old; get in, play with the toy until it broke, record its squeals, and get out. Simple. Easy. She never thought of them as people. They were criminals, enemies. They deserved what she did to them. But recently, the whispers of the people had finally reached her ears and she had begun questioning her upbringing and her superiors. Was this truly right? Were the people she tortured really deserving of it? Did her blind loyalty to the unit make her a monster?

And now... Now she was charged with extracting information out of a child by any means. Surely a mere child wasn't deserving of torture. It was wrong; she felt it in the way her gut rolled. She didn't want to do this. She didn't-

"Master Kiy-"

She cut off her assistant's sentence with a single look. She then approached the metal chair in the center of the room and stared at the young girl strapped to it. She was a beautiful little thing; red hair that had been mirthlessly hacked away, brown eyes with ugly blue bruises circling them and tears streaming endlessly from their corners, pink lips that were so dry and cracked that they bled... Yes, she certainly was beautiful.

The torture master bent down and grasped the light blue crystal resting in the center of her bosom. The girl flinched in fear, eyes growing wide. She very much resembled a cornered deer, the master thought as she removed the tiny cork from the crystal's top and held the rock by her subject's lip. She took her other hand and caressed the girl's cheek. Her heart told her it was wrong to perform her art on a child, but her superiors commanded her otherwise. Her earlier objection had earned her an hour in that same cold metal chair yesterday. She still felt the dull ache from her punishment and wasn't about to disobey again.

"Now now, little one," she whispered, drawing even closer. Her lips brushed the girl's ear. Her voice was tender, motherly. "this can all be over in the blink of an eye." Her hand snaked around the girl's head and tangled itself in what remained of her once-soft, long locks. Without warning, the master pulled the girl's head back forcefully. She cried out in pain. "Just tell me what you know."

"I-I don't know anything! I told you!" she shouted, eyes shut tight against the pain. "I swear!"

The master let go just as suddenly as she had pulled. The movement had caused the girl to bite down on her lip, sending a fresh trail of blood slipping from its cracks. A single drop fell right into the mouth of the crystal's hollow center, turning its light blue hue to a soft lavender. The woman placed the cork back over the opening and let it drop, allowing its leather cord to catch it and pull it back to its resting place between her breasts once again.

"Tsk, tsk," she drawled, stepping back. This was wrong, her moral compass shouted, but she couldn't deny the fact that she was enjoying it. She always had. "Guess I'll have to resort to the grown-up methods." She smiled wickedly. "Consider it your reward for being such a brave little girl."

In truth, her subject wasn't all that little. Her file had said that she was fourteen. That was the same age the woman had been when she was given the title of "master" and officially incorporated into the ranks of the information extraction unit. And now, just four short years later, here she was torturing a child. It felt wrong.

She quelled her uneasiness and instead focused on her hand movements. It had taken nearly a year to perfect her jutsu and she still wasn't entirely confident in its execution. Fingers snapping to the last position, she held her stance for a few tense moments, allowing it to take affect. She reassured herself that by using this method, the girl wouldn't have to endure any further physical harm: Her chances of survival and release would be much higher.

Slowly, she let her hands drop to her sides and switched her gaze to her assistant. He was a wisp of a man, thin and cowardly. He was shaking nearly as terribly as the girl, not used to the intensity of a true master's sessions. The woman rolled her eyes. Pathetic.

"Let's start off slowly and see where we can go from there," she said to him.

That was his cue to flinch. "Of-of course, Master."

He walked towards her hesitantly, rolling the metal table with all her favorite instruments on it. She looked at the gleaming steel pieces in the weak lamplight of the small room. Here they were; her toys, her paintbrushes. With these, she could truly perform her art—carving and painting and molding her subjects' fragile bodies and minds. A delighted chill ran up her spine. She chose a slim knife and picked it from the table with nimble fingers. Licking her lips in anticipation, she positioned the blade over the underside of her arm, just above her wrist. Drawing in a deep breath, she sliced upward. The blood instantly charged forth from the self-inflicted wound and she grimaced. She shouldn't be doing this—not to a child—but assured herself that she was simply causing pain to extract information, nothing more. The girl would be released after they got what they wanted.

The assistant looked between the master and her subject, not quite believing what he was seeing. Oh, he had heard the rumors of her special jutsu, but he had thought it a mere lie bred out of fear of the ruthless woman. This was his first time witnessing the truth firsthand and he was in absolute shock.

The girl was writhing in the chair and struggling with the straps that held her limbs in place. She cried and begged for the pain to stop, but her pleas seemed to only encourage her tormentor. The woman changed the knife's course with a flick of her wrist and carved a jagged path downward. It ended at the tip of her index finger where a steady stream of crimson dribbled to the concrete floor. The girl was still screaming, but no damage had been inflicted to her. It was as though whatever pain came from the master's injuries were felt by the girl instead.

"Will you tell me where he is now?" the woman asked of the girl. She gripped her subject's chin in her blood-drenched hand and forced her fear-stricken eyes to look into her own. There was so much pure innocence in her gaze that the woman almost had to look away. She was horrified, that much was clear.

"P-p-please make it stop." Fresh tears fell from the swollen orbs. "Make the pain stop.

"I can't do that, dear," the master replied without emotion. "Not until you tell me what I want to hear."

"But- but I don't know where my father is!"

The woman could see that she was lying. She knew where that slimy bastard was currently cowering while his daughter was held captive by the enemy. He wouldn't lift a finger to help his own child, and yet she was still trying to protect him. It enraged the torture master, who gave a frustrated shout and slammed her knife into her own thigh. The girl gave a head-splitting shriek. Barely flinching, the master wrenched the knife from her leg and cut clean zigzags down her calf. She smiled faintly as she continued slicing her own flesh. There was something beautiful in the way her skin parted, something almost addicting.

"You," the woman commanded suddenly, looking over her shoulder at her assistant. "Bring me the fourth instrument from the left."

"But, Master, what about your wounds? You'll bleed out."

She glanced down at her hand and leg, appraising what she had done to herself. A small pool was forming at her feet. She sighed, silently confessing that she had been a bit overzealous and cut too deep. She was simply eager to see blood after her session yesterday. Hobbling over to the table, she dropped her knife and it clattered with the other sinister instruments. She then grabbed a roll of gauze and hastily wrapped up the gashes. She did a terrible job bandaging herself up, but she had only wanted to staunch the bleeding. There would be time for proper treatment later.

"I don't think flesh wounds will be enough," she commented dryly.

The assistant gulped and watched the woman with weary eyes as she picked up the tool she had asked him to bring. It was a gruesome-looking clamp. She secured it around her pinky finger and turned her attention back to the girl.

"I need to know where he is. Tell me where your father is hiding." She annunciated each word carefully, her tone dangerously low.

The girl kept her lips shut and her eyes closed. Her vicious shaking and twitching portrayed the fear and agony she was feeling. Sweat glistened on her forehead and dripped down her neck. The master shook her head and gripped the handles of the clamp until her knuckles turned white. She then did something the assistant wasn't expecting and twisted. The bones of her finger snapped with a sickening crunch. Another screech issued from the girl's mouth but the woman didn't pause. She moved to the other finger and broke it just as swiftly. She continued in that pattern until all five fingers of her left hand were mutilated and hanging at awkward angles.

"The human body has two hundred and six bones," the woman said, voice rising over the girl's whimpering. "I will continue to break each one until it is physically impossible for me to continue. Now, will you tell me what I want to know?"

"I don't know." The statement was a whisper, barely audible. The girl was sitting slumped in her chair, no longer having the energy to even hold her head up.

The muscles in the master's stomach clenched at the sight of the broken girl. She had been raised for the purpose of torturing criminals and enemies, but never children. She could reduce the toughest, most courageous of men to screaming, weeping fools in a matter of minutes. She could drive anyone stark raving mad given hours. She could waste someone away to a shell of what they had once been given days. She could do all this without hesitation. Never before had she felt so conflicted about an assignment.

The girl was close to breaking her silence, that much was easy to tell. But at the rate things were going, many more bones would have to be broken and the master simply didn't have the time to spend in recovery. This had to end quickly so she could put the whole thing behind her. Once the girl revealed her father's location, she would be released and all would be well. There was only one solution to a swift end.

"Call in Ginjiro."

"W-w-what?" the assistant spluttered, not believing his ears.

"Ginjiro. Get him in here. Now."

He didn't hesitate a second time and hastily left to retrieve the poison specialist. While waiting for him to return, the woman leaned on the table for support. Though she couldn't feel the pain of her injuries, she could still feel the exhaustion from maintaining her jutsu—another reason to end the session soon. She looked up and studied the girl, who was staring at her in fear of her next action.

"Why?"

The woman's eyes widened at the sound of the small, cracking voice. Was the girl actually speaking?

"Why do you do this? Have you no compassion? No humanity?"

She didn't respond and instead continued to stand there, astonished that her subject was talking. Normally the people in that chair would be sobbing or screaming or begging for their lives at this point. No one had ever asked her those questions so calmly, so simply before. She didn't want to admit the crushing affect it had on her conscience.

"You look a lot like her, you know; my mother. Same eyes."

"I, uh-"

"She was so kind, so caring. I loved her..."

Ah, that explained it. Her eyes were slowly becoming unfocused and her face was taking on a dreamy quality. She was no longer coherent. Her mind was attempting to draw her into herself, taking away her consciousness so she could feel no more pain. If she slipped into the slumber, it would only prolong the entire ordeal. But the poison would take care of that, the woman was sure.

Just as the thought entered her mind, the door to the chamber swung open and two men walked in, one of them being her assistant. The other could be mistaken for no one else but Ginjiro the poison master. He was no older than herself, having been in the same group of infants that were experimented on by the research unit eighteen years ago. However, even though, like her, he had survived the tests, his body hadn't agreed quite as well. His spine had curved at an impossible angle, making him appear half his actual height. His skin was blotched and discolored with a sickly yellow hue. The right side of his face hung limp from a bad reaction to one of the drugs administered to him. It had permanently severed the control of the muscles in that area. He was truly a gruesome sight.

"Ah, my lovely Kiy-"

"Cut the theatrics, Ginjiro," the woman commanded as he took her hand in his and brought it to his lips. She couldn't help the bumps that rose on her flesh at his touch. Her skin crawled as he looked up at her with admiration in his eyes. He had always been this way with her. Even more so since he had been murdered.

"Of course, of course," Ginjiro agreed, taking a step back. "What ever do you desire from me?"

Her lip curled in a sneer of disgust at his tone. "You've been working on a new mixture, correct?"

"Yes, but I haven't quite worked out the-"

"Good, mix me a dose," she demanded, not letting him finish. She didn't care if it was fully completed yet. She had heard rumors that it was a special poison; one created to cause unimaginable pain to the one who consumed it but wasn't fatal. She'd been told that the test subjects all reported that it had been the worse thing they'd ever experienced—worse even than her own torture. As much as she hated to admit it, she needed his help. She needed his poison.

"Yes, my love," he conceded, drawing a vial from his robes. He gave a devious chuckle. "I have one already mixed."

He offered it to her and she snatched it from his grasp. "Thank you," she said sarcastically, unstopping the container and draining the black liquid inside in one gulp.

"Ah," Ginjiro began, holding out his hand halfheartedly as if to stop her. "You aren't using the pain transfer jutsu, are you?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I am. Why?"

He glanced to the girl sitting in the chair apprehensively. "You took a full dose intended for a well-fed, average-sized adult, not a malnourished child. There's no telling what kind of effect it will have on the poor, poor thing." He gave another laugh as if delighted by the situation.

The woman's head whipped around to look at the girl. She was convulsing in the chair violently. Oh no, what had she done? She sprung into action and quickly undid the restraints, pulling the girl from the chair and laying her on her back on the concrete floor. While trying to avoid flailing limbs, she took her small head into her hands and forced it straight. There was a small bit of foam forming at the corners of her mouth and her eyes had rolled back into her head. Choking noises and distressed grunts were issuing from her throat as she struggled.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no," the woman repeated as the girl stopped breathing. She started pushing on her chest, trying to get her lungs to start working again. The girl's body stopped twitching and her head lolled to the side. "Please, please..."

"What are you so worried about?" Ginjiro asked, standing over her and watching her fruitless efforts with amused curiosity. "Did you fail to squeeze the information out of her? Is that why you're so upset?" He placed a hand on her should and she shook it off. "Come now, she wasn't that important. I'm sure the captain-"

"Shut up! Just shut up!" she screamed. This was her fault. The girl was dying because of her.

The woman continued pumping for a few moments more and gave up. She let her hands fall, faintly noticing the blood dripping from her blood-soaked bandages. She was panting slightly from her efforts and her breath caught on a sob stuck in her throat. This wasn't supposed to happen. Her jutsu had been developed so she wouldn't kill anyone again. Pain—that was it: Only pain to subjects; no wounds, no blood, no death. And now she had killed a child.

She wasn't supposed to die.

AN: How's that for a prologue? Nothing like torture to really set the mood for the story. Besides all the mushy stuff I mentioned earlier, this will have some dark undertones to really accent it. :D