Chapter 3- The Fearful Child
Pain was lying on the erect bed frame, her hands and legs spread eagle over its flat surface. She looked helplessly at her inquisitors. Her eyes blinked profusely in frustration. Her neck and face were turned to her right. It was difficult enough to keep her eyes open without the piercing light they were shining on her.
"You're alive. That much is obvious. But how?"
The man patiently awaited her answer.
He spoke again. "I'm asking how it is you're still moving." He recalled the data the ANBU had briefly gathered on her. So far the report was matching up: the missing Rinnegan and her uncharacteristically normal speech pattern. He remembered her. He remembered her well. It hadn't been too long ago since he'd faced her in battle. How could he forget her emotionless face as he tortured her with no results? How she had turned the tables and practically killed him? But now things were different. The girl in front of him lacked Pain's stoic body and mind. This time she was vulnerable and afraid.
He sighed. "Why do you refuse to cooperate? Would you rather spend the night in interrogation or could it be you're trying to hide your secrets? If I'm wrong then tell me. Why are you still active when the other bodies are immobile? Your real body is dead, so why aren't you?"
She softly spoke, "I don't understand. What do you mean?"
The interrogator furrowed his eyebrows. He walked up to her and looked her in the eyes. She looked up at him, his face only a few inches from hers. She felt his hot breath stick to the rim of her nose. She held her own breath. His hand had come under her chin. She opened her mouth giving away her curiosity.
"There's no use in playing games. If you resist, we'll simply torture it out of you."
The man picked up his left leg and swung it down. Pain heard it hit something mechanical to her side. It was the lever that operated the interrogation table. She suddenly felt her entire body dragged downwards. She was positioned now with her feet dangling into the air. She felt all the blood rushing to her head.
"No, please! I'll tell anything I can. But—I truthfully don't know what's going on. I don't know why I'm here or where I am. I don't know anything!"
Tears were trickling down her face and forming a small puddle below her. The table now flipped back up to its last standing. She was once again only a few inches from her captor.
He looked at her. This time he wasn't so stern. Truth be told, he didn't like any of this. She was a teenager, but she seemed so young. It felt like interrogating a lost child.
"What's your name?" he asked. The other ninja looked at him disapprovingly. He ignored them and waited for her reply.
"I can't remember."
"My name is Ibiki. I'm sorry, but you'll have to stay here until Kakashi shows up."
Kakashi? The name didn't mean anything even though she felt it should.
Ibiki looked to her and said, "Since you don't know, I might as well tell you now. I know this won't be easy but you'll have to bear with it."
He waited for the girl to answer. She hesitated to answer but a moment. Then she gave a small nod, weak but resolute.
Ibiki said, "You are… Pain."
Pain
That name…
It doesn't mean anything to me.
Yes it does.
But!
Don't hide from the truth.
The word repeated itself in her head until it drowned out all other thoughts. It was just a word wasn't it? What did it mean to her? It carried a double meaning, though yet she wasn't sure what it was.
She suddenly felt the black fog of her mind dissipate. For an instant she saw something. She saw everything. She saw herself. She was a girl wearing a black cloak with red clouds patterned to it. She had orange hair with long bangs. Tied to it was a steel-plated head band with four marks in a row and a slash running through them. On her face were black piercings running down her cheeks. Another was planted on her nose. Her eyes were even stranger than this. They were a sickly purple with rings orbiting her pupils.
This was only one of the images in this scene. She also both saw through her own eyes and she saw through the men around her. Each was different in body, but with many of the same features. The eyes, the color of hair, the black rods, and cloaks were the same. Each one had the same symbol on their forehead protector.
One stood in the middle with a blue-haired woman by his side. The man looked directly at her and her brothers. He didn't utter a word but she heard it in her mind.
"Time to move."
The memory faded.
The door opened right on cue. In walked a man of decent height and muscle. He had long spiky hair of a light gray hue. The man wore a black mask, a green flak jacket, and a forehead protector that served to cover his left eye. An ANBU escort was also present.
"Hatake Kakashi," said Ibiki, "Perfect timing."
Ibiki stepped aside to give Kakashi a center view of Pain. Just then someone rushed into the room. The black ribbons of his headband trailed behind him. The girl looked over at him in interest. It was a boy about her age. He had short spiky yellow hair, blue eyes, and wore an orange jumpsuit with black trim. For some reason, she felt she recognized him from somewhere.
The boy's eyes lit up when he saw her.
"You—"
His eyebrows lowered gravely until he began to examine her. His gaze relaxed into something that looked more like… worry? She wondered why that was. Did he know her?
"What has it told you?" asked Kakashi.
Ibiki shook his head. "It seems to have suffered some sort of amnesia. It's telling the truth though. It hasn't any idea who it is."
Kakashi scowled. He immediately said, "Have you told it?"
"Yes, but just that. I didn't want to proceed anymore without your permission."
"Very good. Now," said Kakashi, "I would like to know why it's here."
Ibiki nodded in agreement. He looked at the prisoner whose eyes were darting back and forth between the group as they spoke.
Ibiki said, "Please note its appearance. The rods are still inside, but we haven't sensed any chakra coming from them. The Rinnegan has vanished. Interestingly, its battle wounds have healed as well."
Kakashi said, "That adds up. With Pain dead, the Rinnegan and its hold over the body should be gone completely."
"According to Naruto, Pain used his resurrection technique to restore the bodies and their souls." he said, "Perhaps the technique worked on Pain's corpses as well. Maybe its effects weren't just on us Leaf. But why is this body the only one functioning?"
He then said, "Hmm. I suppose my other question is whether we're dealing with the original... or with him. It's-"
"Stop!" said Naruto.
Kakashi and Ibiki turned to look at him, taken back by his rudeness.
Naruto said, "Don't speak anymore. She doesn't understand."
They looked back at the girl. She was shaking now.
"Corpse? I—I was dead?"
The girl stared at Kakashi and then her eyes turned to the blonde teen. She felt safer when she saw him. He didn't look at her like the others and had stood up for her just now. Even more, he referred to her as a "she" rather than an "it".
The girl turned her attention back to Kakashi and the Special Jounin. Kakashi took on a friendlier gaze and shrugged.
Kakashi said, "I'll explain then. Please hear me out."
He said, "You woke up in the middle of a leftover battlefield right? That battlefield was our village until yesterday. That was when an enemy ninja named Pain invaded, searching for something we possessed. He went on to completely destroy our village, though things are all right now. Back then, he fought by controlling six bodies. Each one was a corpse under his control. You were… one of those six paths."
"You say you don't remember anything. We'll have to be sure. We need to know if the bodies were able to work independently. That is- if you're Pain or if you're just the girl he was using."
All eyes and ears turned to Pain, to learn what her reaction would be. But it was proving difficult to tell just what she was thinking as she sunk her head down. Her bangs obscured what tell her eyes would naturally give away.
At last she spoke up. "I—"
A pair of watery eyes looked at Kakashi Hatake.
"It can't be… I couldn't have killed all those people. I haven't done anything wrong. I'm no one—no one."
"I'm afraid that remains to be determined."
A certain fear was plaguing Kakashi's mind. There was a third possibility with this girl. One he didn't quite like. It was that the girl was Pain after all, but he was the one suffering amnesia. If that were the case, Nagato's identity could manifest itself anytime. But the Nagato that manifested wouldn't be one reformed by Naruto. It would be Pain.
Pain shook her head at his words. She seemed to be struggling inwardly in what was a difficult battle. The girl finally shut her eyes in defeat and the let her tears slide freely down her face.
"It's okay."
She opened her eyes in surprise. The boy had spoken this time.
"Naruto?" asked Kakashi.
Naruto. His name is Naruto.
"Just listen to what Kakashi is saying. You're not Pain. I'm sure it's hard to think that he used you like this. But all of the people in Konoha are alive—thanks to Nagato—Pain's final technique."
Kakashi said, "That's true. I owe my life to his technique."
"If that's the case, then I'm willing to bet my Hokage-hood that you were revived as well. And that means you're not Pain, you're the same person he found in his village. Don't you think so Kakashi?"
Kakashi nodded. "It seems the most logical answer. However, I can't just go and release her. She'll have to have all those chakra receivers removed. So we'll be operating on her. And then I'll have Inoichi check her mental condition. They'll decide if she's Pain or not. If you're not Pain then you'll be free to go."
"Isn't that great?" asked Naruto perkily. He walked forward to look at her face for a moment. He thought she was beautiful. She had pale milky skin and beautiful eyes. Once Naruto looked past that he realized she was still very much afraid. He impulsively reached a hand out to wipe the tears from her cheeks. Her eyes were fixed on him.
"Why is he being so nice to me?" she wondered. But even if she didn't know, she didn't mind.
Suddenly Naruto found himself feeling very self conscious. His actions a second ago embarrassed him. He reactively looked down from her face. His eyes settled on the black of her cloak or rather, where her cloak should have been. Naruto hadn't realized because the room was poorly lit. The single light source, their small spotlight, was aimed at her face after all. So he hadn't had any clue he would be seeing her bare breasts.
Naruto's face blushed and he looked back up trying to pretend he hadn't seen them while checking to see if she had noticed. Pain's cheeks were equally flushed. Kakashi felt a bead of sweat on the back of his head. He knew what an awkward scene Naruto had gotten himself into. The odd part was that it was happening with one of Pain's bodies of all things.
Naruto waved his hands frantically at her. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to see."
She blinked at him with a few leftover tears shaken loose in the process.
This feeling. This is embarrassment. She felt a sudden sense of relief as she identified this emotion.
Naruto finally calmed himself down from his apologetic dance. He shut his eyes making the girl wonder why. The truth was he was expecting either a verbal assault or a physical one. Sure her hands and legs were bound, but he was close enough for a headbutt.
He opened an eye to see her looking at him with her lips parted.
"You're not mad at me?" he asked.
Mad at him? This boy was her protector of sorts. Besides, she didn't know why she should be angry with him and if so, why hurting him (which was impossible given her inability to move) was the answer.
She said, "Uh-uh."
Naruto couldn't help exhaling in relief. He rubbed his hair before looking off to the side. Come to think of it, it was his Rasenrengan that had done a number on her clothes to begin with. He wondered if he ought to apologize. But that meant confessing it was him who had incapacitated her. Not that any of that mattered now.
"It's time." said Kakashi, effectively ending Naruto's train of thought.
Naruto and Pain both turned their heads to him in unison. Kakashi placed one of his hands to his side as he calmly said, "Let's begin the operation."
Naruto looked back to Pain who was mirroring his actions in turn. Naruto smiled with confidence giving her own spirit a boost. He said, "It looks like it's almost time to get you out of here."
Author's Note: This chapter looks noticeably longer, doesn't it? That's because, after reading the last chapter's comments, I decided to combine two chapters. I hope you enjoyed!
