This fic is meant to be sort of a missing scene of what happens to Saiga between the time he saves Yusei at the end of episode 12 and when he reappears in episode 13. It contains descriptions of torture, and mentions of past self-harm, you've been warned.
The last thing he remembered was telling Yusei to leave him behind, before blacking out. The ground was cold beneath him, but this wasn't where he had passed out; he could tell that much without even opening his eyes. As he attempted to sit up, only to fall back when the room spun and his head pounded more than it did just a few seconds ago, Saiga was almost certain of one thing; he had a concussion.
Eventually the pain and dizziness subsided enough for him to take in his surroundings. He was in a jail cell; Sector Security had finally got him, and frankly, he wasn't sure what they planned on doing to him.
A guard passed by his cell, he looked a bit surprised to see that Saiga was awake, but he still passed by without much interaction.
"He's awake!" Saiga heard somebody-likely the guard-shout. "Should we mark him and let him go? He still looks pretty dazed; I doubt he'll put up much of a fight if we do it now."
"No, this one's a special case." A very familiar voice replied. "He has something I want; information on the whereabouts of Yusei Fudo. Bring him to the room."
The way he said the last part made Saiga tense up a bit. The room was likely the place he'd heard about before; it was where Sector Security would get whatever information they needed out of you, one way or another. Basically, it was a torture chamber.
The guard from before came back, along with another man. Instead of the traditional handcuffs, they snapped an odd-looking collar around his neck. Saiga really wanted take these idiots down, but his strength hadn't returned yet, and even if he hadn't been injured, he didn't think he could fight even one of those guys. He was average height, and relatively thin, while the two guards were both tall and built like grizzly bears.
"This collar is to make sure you don't try anything." One of the men explained. "If you try to run away, or put up a fight, I'll zap you with this switch, understand?"
"Because handcuffs are sooo three years ago." Saiga replied sarcastically.
The guard didn't appreciate his smugness, and pressed the switch with a smirk.
To say having electricity administered directly to his throat was painful would an understatement. The collar burned Saiga like it was on fire. He fell to the ground, unable to breathe as he clawed at his neck, desperately trying to free himself. After what felt like hours, but was probably only seconds, the guard took his finger off the switch.
"They never seem so tough after that." The guard said with a laugh, kicking Saiga's gasping form. "Get up, before I have to zap you again."
"I'd be careful with that thing, if I were you." The second guard said. "If you kill him, he can't tell as what he knows. Another zap like that before he's recovered and you might just fry him alive."
"Even for Sector Security… this is low." Saiga rasped, pulling himself off the ground. It hurt to talk, much less argue, with the guards.
The led him down the hall way, to a small room with a glass viewing window on one wall. A few countertops stood along part of the wall, all covered by black sheets. The only two uncovered pieces of furniture were a metal chair and what appeared to be an examination table; both either rusted or stained with dried blood.
"Wait in that chair until Officer Ushio gets here." The guard instructed him. "I'll be on the other side of the glass, waiting to zap you, if you even think about trying anything."
The two guards left. A few seconds later the door opened once again, revealing Tetsu Ushio, the man Yusei was in a duel with before Saiga had gotten captured. He'd managed to avoid any real injuries when he crashed into Saiga, safe for a few bumps and bruises.
"Now, one way or another, you are going to tell me where Yusei is." Officer Ushio told him. "We can do this the easy way, where you just tell me what you know right now, and I let you go without at fight. Or, we can to this the hard way."
"I don't know where he is." Saiga replied in a monotone.
"I know you've at least got something."
"I don't know anything about him; we just met." He replied. "You're wasting your time with me."
That wasn't really true, he knew a lot about Yusei; probably enough to track down the younger man. But he wasn't about to give any of that information up; Yusei was his friend, probably the last one he had.
Ushio turned on a bright light over the chair Saiga sat in. "Where is he?"
Due to the pain in his head flaring back up from the sudden blinding light, Saiga didn't really hear the question, and only gave a groan as he attempted to keep the light out of his eyes.
Ushio turned the light down a significant amount with a sigh. "Yuso was right; you've probably got some kind of head injury. This is going to make things even harder."
He tied a blindfold over Saiga's eyes, and half-led half-dragged him out of the chair and over to another part of the room.
"You won't like what I'm about to do to you, so I suggest you just tell me what you know already."
"I told you before, I don't know anything. If you want to find Yusei so bad, I suggest you put your efforts into searching, unless you're just torturing me for the hell of it."
Without another moments rest, Saiga's head was forced into a large sink filled with water. Ushio held him down for a minute as he struggled, but he eventually let him breathe again.
"Are you ready to tell me where Yusei is now?" Ushio asked him.
"I don't know." He coughed, still struggling for breath. "And if you keep this up, you're going to kill me."
"You're hiding something, I know it!" He shoved Saiga's head underwater once more, this time it took almost two minutes for him to let up. "So, are you finally ready to talk?"
Saiga didn't reply this time, focusing his energy on gasping for breath. Ushio didn't like this response, and slapped Saiga across the face, sending the shorter man to the ground.
"You will respond to me when I speak to you!" He shouted, pressing a foot to Saiga's chest. "Don't make me repeat myself again; what do you know about Yusei?"
"Nothing you haven't already figured out." He rasped. "His full name is Yusei Fudo, he's a duelist from Satellite. I'm a criminal for hire; my clients usually don't tell me too much about themselves."
But not Yusei. He thought. That guy's like an open book sometimes; it's a wonder they haven't found him yet.
Ushio kicked him in the ribs, smirking when Saiga let out a poorly-suppressed cry of pain. The officer had likely bruised, if not broken, one of his ribs.
"A couple more of those, and you'll be coughing up blood." Ushio laughed. "You probably want me to stop now, and all you have to do to make that happen is talk."
"Even if I did know where Yusei was, I'd rather die than tell you." He muttered through clenched teeth. "I'm a professional; keeping my client's information private is part of the job."
Ushio kicked him a few more times, taking care to get both sides, before growing impatient with Saiga's lack of a response. Usually he had the information he needed at this point. He knew Saiga had at least something he was still hiding, and if Yusei was only a client, as he claimed, then why hadn't he just given up already?
Ushio picked Saiga's injured body, and roughly shoved him on to the metal table. He walked off to one of the counters, and fished around in a drawer full of various metal instruments, before coming back when he found just the right one.
"You can't see it with that blindfold on, but I've got a large scalpel here, and you can take a guess of what I plan on doing with it." Ushio told him. "This is your last chance to tell me what you know, before I add your blood to the stains on this table."
So they were bloodstains after all. That would unnerve most people into finally speaking, but Saiga had already gotten this far, and wasn't about to let his efforts go to waste.
"I've told you this at least five times so far; I know nothing about Yusei." He replied. "Get it through your thick skull already."
Ushio growled at the insult, and shoved the scalpel into Saiga's ankle. On instinct, he kicked the officer right in the face, earning himself another shock. The two guards can back in and tied his arms and legs to the table after that.
Ushio dragged the scalpel along Saiga's wrists and ankles a few times, leaving behind long, bleeding lines, before asking again if he was ready to talk. Saiga didn't even bother replying.
After a few more slashes Ushio gave up. Either Saiga was being honest and really didn't know anything, or he was unbreakable, and Ushio was worried he might kill the man if he didn't quit soon. He called for the two guards to come back.
"He doesn't have what we need; I guess we should let him go." He told them, motioning to Saiga. "Drop him off about a mile from here. Make sure you sedate him so he doesn't find his way back here; I think he knows where the regular prisoners are sent, but he doesn't know where this place is. Bring his duel runner, too; it probably has a tracking device."
"Should we mark him first?" One of the guards asked.
"Don't bother; I don't know how he does it, but he deactivates them somehow." Ushio replied. "It would just be a waste of resources."
That was the last thing Saiga heard before he felt the jab of a needle in his arm, and everything went black once again.
He woke up in an empty alleyway, next to his overturned duel runner. The pain of the whole ordeal was excruciating, but at least he could take solace in the fact that Yusei was safe-for now.
Saiga knew where he was; his apartment was only a few blocks away. He stashed his duel runner behind a stack of rubble where nobody would find it; he knew he wasn't up to riding it back. Besides; he could just come back for it when he needed it.
About half way back to his apartment, he suddenly fell to his knees and vomited on the sidewalk; confirming his earlier suspicions of having a concussion. He didn't give himself too long to recover, before getting up and dragging himself the rest of the way home.
When Saiga finally got back to his apartment, he felt like dying. His white shirt was soaked in blood around the sleeves (Although, it wasn't like he didn't have other, almost identical shirts), an at this point, it was probably easier to name what parts of his body didn't hurt like a bitch. For once, he was thankful he had left the first aid kit he usually kept in his workshop upstairs in his apartment again.
The only positive thing about Yuji being gone is that I don't have to explain the new cuts on my wrists to him. He thought, as he bandaged the bloody wounds. He'd never believe me if I told him Sector Security did it.
He swallowed two Ibuprofen with a swig of the vodka he kept in freezer (thanks to the miracles of science, vodka doesn't freeze), before stripping down to his boxers and heading to bed.
Saiga couldn't remember if you were supposed to sleep or not with a concussion, and he didn't feel like looking it up. He hoped Yusei wouldn't need him in the next day or so, as he was in no condition to save him.