Dark places
The damp cell is claustrophobic, and Genma is losing his mind. How long has he been there? A week? Two? Day and night are indiscernible in the darkness. His only indication that time passes at all, is the scraping sound of the slot at the bottom of the metal door opening, and the arrival of a small piece of stale bread.
He is alone, always, thinking of death and duty, waiting in uncertainty of what awaits him. The darkness weighs on his chest like an anvil, unyielding and cold and heavy. Genma cloaks himself in his Will of Fire, and imagines that it seeps into his pores and solidifies like an invisible coat of armor under his skin. I will not break.
The phantom whispers outside his cell starts sometime during the first few days of confinement. He knows they're not real, but he scrambles desperately to the door either way, ears straining to hear what was being said, just in case.
He hears the voices like his ears are full of water; garbled and distant. Sometimes, they are like a hundred hushed whispers inside a bubble. Other times there's only one, and when he hears the familiar angry lilt of her voice, he shifts, pressing his ear even further into the cold metal of the door with his breath stuck in his throat. He sees blonde hair spilling over delicate shoulders and eyes the color of a stormy sea.
That's when he knows it´s truly a figment of his imagination, and he claws at his skin, half hoping to find solid metal underneath. There´s not, and he leaves bloody tracks behind. But it´s ok. I will not break.
Genma paces to fill the minutes, hours, days in the darkness trying to shake the restless twitching in his naked limbs. They will come, they must know by now, he assures himself. Raido wouldn't give up on him, never. And with Kakashi´s ninken there was no possible way to miss the scent of his blood coating a mossy forest floor. He thinks of cheesy one-liners from movies that could suit the moment they bust down the door and finds him in his birthday suit. What do you say we blow this joint and then each other?
Her voice starts to drift through the massive metal door, little by little, like reaching tendrils chipping at his armor, testing it. Angry at times, but lately she sounds as sweet and warm as a summer breeze on bare skin. She whispers his name, over and over again, like a prayer, and he stops listening at the door to pace instead. His training tells him to detach, but it gets increasingly difficult not to listen to his bleeding heart when she rattles at the door trying to break in. He sees blonde hair spattered in scarlet and eyes the color of spilt milk.
Endure. If he can only endure, they will find him. The Will of Fire churns deep and hot in his stomach, and he reinforces his chipped armor. I will not break.
It´s almost a relief when the interrogation begins, and he gets to leave her behind in his cell. Genma knows she will be waiting for him when he gets back, but in those glorious moments strapped to a chair with pins stuffed under his fingernails, blood filling his mouth, and pain lacing his body, he is free. When he taunts and when he spits and curses, he knows what to expect, and he is glad. They can not touch him.
Genma retreats back into his mind, and sees green forests and stone faces and he knows; I will not break.
His torturer is a lanky man, skinny and angular, with hollow cheeks, thin lips, and eyes as black as coal. The other one is the muscle, as short as he is broad and bulky. He escorts Genma to and from his cell, and during the interrogation he is the one that touches Genma with closed fists instead of steel.
"Ach, you'd think he´d he be softer after two months in the hole," the bulky one grumbles one day, "let's just toss him back in and let him stew for a little longer, eh?"
Genma forces himself to relax despite the dread clawing its way up his spine. Two months? It didn't feel like more than two weeks, but when he looks down on his frail body and takes in the withered muscles of his thighs and his sunken stomach, he knows it's true. His head spins at the realization.
"Now, now,don't be afraid of a little challenge, Mitako-kun. The toughest nut to crack are usually the most rewarding in my experience."
Mitako scoffs. "Always full of wisdom, aren't you?" He sizes up Genma like a challenge. "Tell me, then, if he is so rewarding, why hasn't anyone come for him yet?"
Genma wonders this as well, and hides his despair with a laugh that leaves his worn lungs in wheezing, raspy breaths. "They always come for me, Mitako-kun," Genma says smirking, full of false bravado and wiggles bloody fingers, "always."
"Always ready with the jokes, huh? It's getting annoying." Genma saw the fist coming from miles away, and welcomed it unflinchingly. I will not break.
It gets worse. His days fill with steel and blood and pain, and the nights with terror. She waits for him in the corner of his eyes, elusive, skirting around the edges of his vision until he scrunches his eyes together and lies very, very still. Every day he is returned to the darkness a fraction more broken, and every day she is there, tormenting him with sweet whispers and cold caresses far crueler than fists and steel. He can't bear it - he screams and spits and begs her to leave, but she draws strength from his despair and solidifies little by little as he unravels until she is finally whole. Terrifyingly beautiful, she stands before him and Genma has to remind himself to breathe. His Will of Fire is slowly burning out and his armor is coming apart at the seams.
Genma doesn't know how, or when it happens, but he reaches a point where he no longer fears coming back to his cell. She becomes a blessing rather than a curse, and he reaches out for her in the darkness and can't relax until her cold fingers close around his warm ones. She reminds him of grass under bare feet, and the sun on his face, she tells him about a love deeper and vaster than the ocean. Genma yearns for her so violently that it consumes him. In the moments they are apart he feels a loss so deep it touches his spine, and the minute they're together he forgets every searing pain in his breaking body.
He doesn't know how much time passes until his captors realize that he won't talk. All he knows is that he gets dragged back to his cell, and is left there with his festering wounds and the ghost of her touch. They don't come back for him.
After tormenting him to the bone, slashing, beating and prodding, all that is left of him is his gaping armor coated in crimson. There's no part of his body that doesn't ache, and the air becomes too heavy to breathe. His heart beats unnaturally fast, and he feels like his broken body crystallizes on the mouldy mattress. Tethering on the brink of life and death, unable to move or resist, he feels the ghost of her hand tracing his wounds, and the phantom kisses on his shattered fingers. He waits for deliverance,thinking of death and duty. Mostly he thinks about the smell of wildflowers, and the sound of his name on her lips. I'm here, Genma.
He almost gives in; he longs to escape into darkness, to be there, always, with her. Together, finally, unconcerned with earthly matters and undisturbed in eternal sleep, he can tell her what has been lingering on his tongue since the first time she took him to her bed; I love you, I love you, I love you.
Eyes slipping shut, he feels the darkness seep under his armor, through his gashes and tears, reaching for his heart. Genma yearns for her with his whole being, his soul reaching out for hers. It strains against his insides in agonizing waves, all consuming and never ending. Her presence surrounds his broken body, gently, patiently, lovingly she devours him, and he surrenders.
His bleeding heart has never felt so full, and he calls out her name in broken gasps until his tongue stiffens. Mercifully, she steals his breath, then, like she did so many times in the past. Only this time, her lips are cold and chaste, and Genma shivers in anticipation of its finality.