title: Antihero
summary: He was no hero. But she could tell how much he struggled playing the villain. —SasukeSakura. AU.
disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
rating: T
General Uchiha Sasuke never understood the necessity of torture.
It was a waste of time and neither he nor his men had any taste for it. He refused to conjure up rational explanations of its use like his brother and he received no comfort in the screams of prisoners as they begged at his feet like his uncle.
It was lowly and repugnant and if he had his way, it would be banned.
Sasuke had always offered prisoners an ultimatum. They can either choose to speak or they can choose to die. It was simple and his men wouldn't have to dirty their hands or plague their minds with the shrieks of prisoners.
But Madara only scoffed at his nephew's naiveté. "Sasuke," the head general drawled, "torture is how you save them. Torture is how you give them a way out. When you take that away, you let them die with honor."
Sasuke kept a stoic face. "And when did dying with honor become a bad thing?"
Madara chuckled while his eyes belittled his nephew. "They die with honor and all you're left with is the title of murderer." The older man rose from the lavish chair carved from white oak that had no place in the dungeon. It was paired with a much shabbier table sprawled with several folders, which Madara collected indifferently. As he stepped out of the cell, he turned back to Sasuke with bored eyes. "Extract information from the girl as you wish, but do not offer her your childish ultimatum, nephew. If this one dies, she becomes a martyr and we will have another troublesome clan to deal with."
"Who is she?" Sasuke inquired, staring into the darkness of the cell and making out the thin outline of a woman.
"She is a general with loyalties to the Hyuuga clan. My men have tried for days to extract information from her and they're getting bored. I would let you do away with her if your efforts were fruitless, however," for a split second, he saw the ends of Madara's lips twist up, his red eyes flickering with amusement, "she just so happens to be Uzumaki Naruto's fiancée—"
Sasuke opened his mouth in an attempt to protest.
"—and we don't need to have the Hyuuga clan take on the Uzumaki clan as their ally."
Sasuke was angry, but he kept his voice leveled. "Then you shouldn't have captured her at all. She's a risk to our men and our clan. How could you do this uncle?" Sasuke inquired, his brows knitted. "How can you jeopardize our victory by dragging in a girl that would shift the entire direction of this war?"
Madara remained unaffected, despite sensing his nephew's defiance. He flipped through his folders and pulled out a piece of paper with messy writing. "Because she knows where the Kyuubi is," he explained slowly, as if to a child. "And if we can get her to tell us where it is, we will have the knowledge to capture the nine-tailed beast." Sasuke saw the hideous sneer that coated over his uncle's face. "With the power of the Kyuubi, we will not only win this little squabble with the Hyuuga clan, but we will have the power to rule the entire Fire Country."
Madara laid the paper on the table. "I am giving you an opportunity to get ahead of your brother, Sasuke. An opportunity to secure the position of clan head for yourself." The lead general smirked. "For how long are you going to lose to Itachi before you're satisfied?"
Sasuke grunted. His beliefs had always fallen short of his own ambition.
"When do I begin?"
The deep emerald eyes that met him when they opened were startling. Her rosette locks dripped with the gallon of water that had been poured over her. With a dry voice, scratchy from dehydration, she greeted him. "Madara's getting sloppy, sending a pretty boy to do the work of a man."
Sasuke smirked, intrigued by the quickness of her tongue to bite out insults. "You can say what you want, General Haruno," he stated unaffectedly, "but I would change the tune of your song if I were you." Sasuke reached toward her and gently tucked a lose strand of hair behind her left ear. "You wouldn't want to make me do something that you'd regret. After all, I believe the Uzumaki clan doesn't readily accept damaged goods."
A scoff rang from her throat as she moved away from his touch. "If Madara's plans are dependent upon my marriage to Uzumaki Naruto, then tell him he's screwed. Marrying into the Uzumaki clan is the last thing on my mind."
Sasuke kept a composed face.
Did Madara put him up to this knowing that the marriage meant nothing to her? Or was she trying to get him to believe that the marriage meant nothing so that he wouldn't be able to use it against her? Sasuke decided to play this carefully. Madara wouldn't lay out such a risky plan based on careless assumption. Furthermore, General Haruno may be smarter and more calculating than her file reveals.
And on the off-chance that she was telling the truth, then he could just kill her.
"I'm not lying to you," she offered. "I have no interest in playing distressed captive and I won't give you information on the Kyuubi. You're at a stalemate General Uchiha, and you don't look like the type that's into torture," she added thoughtfully, her words ringing as a compliment. "So you should just kill me," she ended, her eyes clear and her face calm. "This is such a waste of time for the both of us."
For the first time, Sasuke examined her.
General Haruno was held up by a series of shackles and chains. The rough metal closed around her wrists and was pulled till her arms were raised above her head. Apparently she had given Madara's men a hard time and they pulled the chains tighter so that she was levitating a good seven inches from the ground. Another tactic of torture, but Sasuke recognized the action to be executed out of spite. The shackles tore the skin on her wrists, while the black bands circling her ankles were larger and heavier, meant to keep her from kicking. General Haruno had quite the reputation concerning close combat.
Before Madara left yesterday, he had handed Sasuke the folders for some "light reading" before he was allowed to conduct his own torture. It was essentially a compiled background of what their spies had gathered about her, a history of her military schooling, the number of victories she's pulled against the generals under the Uchiha clan—an impressive six battles won, the tactics she used, the casualties on both sides—and a lengthy report submitted by his older brother who had been responsible for her capture. Itachi had included the little information he extracted from her men, he own detailed investigation of her, and also an odd list of seemingly useless information.
Things like, 'She doesn't like to be called by her first name, Sakura,' and, 'The feature she likes the most about herself are her eyes.'
Nevertheless, Sasuke had treated the list with special attention because Itachi was hardly one to do things without purpose. The list must have some deeper meaning that exceeded its trivial appearance.
Sasuke recalled the last line on the list which he had disregarded because of how ridiculous it sounded.
'She responds to intimacy.'
Sasuke decided it would be worth testing later on.
Aside from holding interrogations with prisoners, Sasuke had the responsibilities of training his men for battle, reading reports on enemy forces, developing military strategies, and responding to the letters of other generals in command. While his closest subordinates were delegated tasks to lessen his work, Sasuke still spent the entirety of his day monitoring his men and replying to letters.
The torture of General Haruno had to be reassigned to Karin, his third-in-command, as an update of the whereabouts of General Hyuuga Neji had been reported. Sasuke wouldn't say that he was disappointed to be pulled away.
And while Karin was skilled and ruthless enough to manage a torture exercise, Sasuke wasn't disappointed when she returned without any leads either. Somehow, General Haruno had escalated to a higher standard in his mind. Sasuke realized she would die from torture before she would say anything remotely helpful to them.
That night, after having to deal with Madara's men—left behind to recover from wounds as Madara moved his forces out of Sasuke's camp to meet up with the next general—picking fights in the dinner tent, Sasuke offered them a better way to spend their night.
Sasuke invited them to the dungeon to visit one special prisoner.
"I don't think this is a good idea," Suigetsu chimed behind him. Suigetsu was his second-in-command. The guy had a lethal quality when it came to dealing out blows, but it could hardly be deduced from his grinning face. "You're no good at torture. And this is beneath all of us."
Sasuke was leading Suigetsu and three men toward the prison cell at the back. "You've grown soft, Suigetsu," he remarked, motioning the guard to open the cell door with a curt nod. "Playing hero doesn't suit your personality."
The men entered the cell.
Sasuke turned to face the leader of the group, a guy with a scar across his face and a snide smirk lingering on his lips. He wondered how his uncle had assembled such a foul group of men—they had been disrespectful and causing trouble since their arrival—for his army, but Madara had always been known to choose skill over character.
As Sasuke parted his lips to explain the point of the exercise, the leader whose name Sasuke had long disregarded, moved past him. He ordered one of his men, a man with a tattoo on his neck, to grab the nearby torch and illuminate the back of the cell.
The figure of General Haruno suspended above the ground met their eyes. Her long rosette locks fell in tangles in front of her face, but as the leader neared her, her head lifted to reveal fearless pools of green. "The supply of scumbags never end, huh?" she provoked, a malicious smirk playing on her lips. "I was wondering what tactics you would use to extract information next, General Uchiha. But I have to say I'm unimpressed," she spoke with her eyes steadied on Sasuke, ignoring the leader, "I was hoping for something more creative than trying to repulsive me to death."
A low whistle sounded from Suigetsu, who's intrigued was obviously sparked. "Quite the mouth on that one," he remarked.
The leader took offense. General Haruno was capable of belittling him, making him feel like trash, even in her situation. And his pride couldn't take it. Grabbing her by the lower half of her face, he reeled in her attention. "I heard from our guys that you're a nasty little thing," he began, irritation spilling into his countenance, "and we all had an extravagant discussion on what we'd all like to do with you." He sneered at her. "In bed, I mean."
As his men chuckled, their laughter egged him on. With his rough fingers, he stroked her skin, wiping away the sweat and grim on her cheek. "So how 'bout it, general? Want me to rescue you from this dungeon?" The leader leaned in, his fingers beginning to unbutton her tattered uniform, "Your ferocity doesn't scare me, darling. You smell like a virgin."
"Well," Suigetsu cleared his throat, interrupting the snickering of Madara's men. He laid a hand on Sasuke's shoulder, "We better let them have at it."
Despite his intrigue, Suigetsu wasn't one to watch a girl be deflowered by scoundrels. Like most men in General Uchiha's army, he never acquired the taste for torture. And he knew that while Sasuke stood stoic before him, letting Madara's men carry on, his friend didn't have a taste for it either.
Sasuke didn't move. He was staring at General Haruno, who had a bored look on her face, and Suigetsu realized that Sasuke may have been waiting. Waiting for the lady general to fight against the scoundrel touching her, waiting for her to scream at Sasuke to order them to stop, waiting for her to tense up—something. Something that would let Sasuke feel like he was in control.
But her eyes steeled and she bit out, "Go on, General Uchiha. You can come pick up my body in the morning."
Sasuke turned to leave.
As Suigetsu moved out of the way for Sasuke to pass, the cackling of the men and the tearing of clothe ripped through the cell.
"No need to be shy, general. Just tell us where you want us to start," the man who had been silently shadowing the leader began, his fingers itching for a feel.
"It's gonna be a long night for you, dear," the man with the tattoo followed.
"One at a time, boys," the leader interjected, "We don't want to scare her. I'll go first," he stated authoritatively, like the exercise required some kind of pride and honor, "I'll be gentle."
Sasuke was in the grimy hallway of the dungeon when the leader chuckled, joined in by the snickering and marveling of his men. "My, my, my, general, you're starting to tremble."
As Sasuke continued forward with unaffected steps, Suigetsu glanced back distastefully. They were almost finished undressing her. He smiled grimly, catching sight of her thin undergarments. The girl chose the Hyuuga clan—chose loyalty—over her own dignity. He shook his head, how stupid.
And as the final fragments were torn from her body, a faint struggle was heard.
It was fear that escaped her lips, almost unheard amidst the hooting of the men, but Suigetsu knew it was enough.
It was enough for Sasuke.
Suigetsu had never had the opportunity to watch his commanding general kill. Sasuke would often allow his men to attack him, several at once, in mock battle. He would deal out blows in order to keep the practice real and his men alert, but it was nothing devastating, nothing that would giving away his true strength.
And after tonight, Suigetsu decided he would never care to see Sasuke kill again.
General Uchiha moved past him like a gust of wind and kicked open the door of the prison cell with enough force to cause the wooden structure to collapse in front of him. The two men on either side of the leader had hardly realized what had happened when their heads were sliced off with two fluid motions of his sword.
The leader turned around, eyes wide with fear, with his face scrunched up like he was about to cry. "W-w-what are you—"
Before he could finished, his eyes were slashed out and his hands were cut off. The agonized scream filled the dungeon as Sasuke watched him fall, squirming on the ground beneath the feet of General Haruno.
It seemed like hours as Suigetsu watched Sasuke stand over the shriveling body. The general's eyes which had a tendency to flicker a dangerous crimson when he fought never left the man that quaked and cried and begged beneath him.
They all waited for death to take hold, but Suigetsu knew Sasuke was the most disappointed when the screams finally evaporated into the musty air.
There was a brief moment of silence before Sasuke kicked at the corpse and tugged at the collar of his cloak. With the cloak off, he made four effortless cuts through the chains. As General Haruno dropped from the air, he caught her, the cloak enveloping her slender frame.
Suigetsu smirked, turning to leave.
Who's trying to play hero now?
fin.