They brought Kurama back along the narrow transsteel corridor blankly, as soulless and formless to Kurama as any of the robots that stalked planetary streets. Nude, he staggered along with Karasu's grunts to avoid being dragged, muscles cramped to the point of trembling, eyes glinting fearfully in the muted yellow light strips that followed the walls and ceiling.
Kurama wept remorsefully all during the march, from pain, from helplessness, from mortality and loss. His eyes, sweeping over his new accommodations, stayed wide and plaintive from the extent of pain that he had already endured, and from the crushing knowledge that they had only nudged the threshold of his tolerance. Nanites were painful, but they were hardly the most painful. Karasu would have methods far beyond that.
Kurama raised his head with a wince as the portal they'd reached snapped open, unable to staunch the tears flowing from his reddening eyes and down his striped cheeks. His knees gave out, but they dragged him the final distance anyway, his bare feet scraping the hull. He came to rest in front of Karasu, who looked up idly and smiled, taking him in with an intimate sweep of his eyes, up, down, savoring everything. Kurama blinked rapidly, wanting to end the tears, and licked stone dry lips, reaching inside to feel just how much power he didn't have.
"Karasu," he sneered, trying to muster some insolence that would speak through the terror.
Karasu chuckled. "Hold him," he commanded, and the brutes' grips tightened. Kurama grit his teeth and struggled wildly, kicking, biting, anything to get away. Karasu opened a drawer in a plastic dresser at the other end of the room, the angle wrong for Kurama to see inside it.
Kurama shrieked no when Karasu held up a glinting needle, examining it casually, and a bottle of an unknown liquid that shone iridescent green in Karasu's hands. Karasu readied the needle as he walked back, talking, Kurama far too panicked to register what he was saying, lunging back stupidly against his captors' holds, fear stripping Kurama of Kurama and leaving him nothing: no pride, no fortitude, just simple, basic fear.
When the words finally registered, Kurama froze.
"Hold still now," Karasu said smugly. "Improperly applied, this could kill you."
Kurama snarled in nameless defiance, listening to his heart beat in his chest. He didn't move. Karasu could be lying to ensure cooperation, but it was all too likely that he was not, and Kurama would not take chances with survival.
The ties around his wrist were unbound, his arm stretched out before him, shivering. Karasu smiled fondly at the bruises already, at this early date, etching dark nasty purple into Kurama's wrists. He pulled a rubber tie from his pocket, and tied it over Kurama's upper arm. A vein was chosen, and then Kurama looked away from the injection. As the needle withdrew, Kurama hunched into a fetal cringe and allowed himself to really shake again as he waited for the drug to take effect.
Then the pain began to spread from the place where the needle had pricked. The first burning twinges brought a moan, but within seconds the moan had escalated, and there were whooshing screams instead. Kurama arched, and began a curious dance.
His skin was on fire. Everything was hypersensitive; everything simply felt so strongly that he thought, within the first minute, he would go insane. He arched to his tiptoes to get away from the floor, the grips of the two men holding him like molten iron against his skin. Even the weight of air on his naked body was oppressive. He didn't know his own screams—didn't hear Karasu tell his minions to bring Kurama to the bedroom, and have the electricity hooked up when Karasu returned. Small blessings. Kurama knew nothing but pain as he was dragged away.