Chapter 3 – Angels, Demons and False Innocence.
Dreamers never die.
Good thing that this guy never had the chance to dream, though nightmares weren't unusual for him.
Grinning sadistically, Deidara picked up the blades at his feet and proceeded to make sure this guy never had a dream or a nightmare again.
Sasori was still enjoying himself by tormenting their victim with thoughts of food and water, only to make them suffer by knowing that they were never actually going to be fed.
Usually they would have been fed a healthy amount of food so the didn't die prematurely of starvation. But, in this case, the person paying them to torture their latest victim wanted maximum pain and suffering in a minimum amount of time, focusing on making him hurt instead.
The reason the victim was currently dying was because their current employer had decided that he didn't want to be faced with the guilt of putting somebody through so much pain.
For some reason, it had been deemed unethical to make people hurt so bad that they went so far that they were on the brink of death but never reached what they seen as the end of everything. Including the suffering. Which is exactly why the victims were pulled back into the land of the living, just so they could suffer some more.
While Deidara and Sasori were, uh, 'taking care' of their latest victim, Sakura was attempting to teach a new recruit the easiest way to strip muscle fibers on a living victim. It also happened to be the most painful way possible without actually killing the person they were practicing on.
"OK, now first you need to insert the scalpel here," she instructed, pointing towards a pre-made mark on the tied-up mans left bicep. Impatiently, Sakura continued, "you will need to cut a hole in the flesh the size and shape of the muscle so you can see every individual fiber. Stop the body from bleeding out by using your charka to pinch the blood vessels in the shoulder, so that blood cannot travel to this part of the body. With those miniscule things that sort of look like tweezers, seize the end of one – and only one – of the muscle fibers and strip them from the main muscle mass."
As Sakura demonstrated this to her student she was rewarded with a scream of agony. Smiling and utterly glowing with happiness, she made her new student practice how dto do this effectively; setting something that was akin to homework but a lot more fun.
For the torturer, anyway.
Gaara growled at the man who was now prostrate at his feet. With a mere flicker of his mind, Garra went the man into a wall that happened to be three rooms away, smirking gleefully at the look of pain and sheer terror on the village elders face.
"How dare you!" he roared.
For good measure he added a scowl and a strange noise that was somewhere between a growl and a scream.
He wasn't actually angry. He had just wanted an excuse to hurt somebody and the near-dead man pinned to the wall had been stupid enough to give him the perfectly legal opportunity.
He was a lying traitorous spy.
Not that it would really matter because the man was dying rather painfully anyway. Gaara had already 'extracted' all of the necessary information that he was able to. Now he was just entertaining himself by drawing out the mans suffering as long as physically possible. Well, until Gaara got bored with the crying idiot.
Or the guards busting in to investigate all the screaming they had heard.
Certainly puts a damper on the mood, Gaara thought sourly, I really need to get soundproofing so they don't bust in again as I'm trying to kill somebody. Oh, well, it just means that I am going to need to… fix the situation. Can't have people spreading bad rumors.
Snarling, he set about doing just that.
Three minutes later, Gaara was found sitting at his desk, doing the immediate paperwork. All the while thinking up new and extremely inventive ways to 'test' his new bride when she arrived in Suna in three days time.
I wonder how long she'll survive.
Sakura slowly and carefully packed her every belonging for her sudden and unexpected move. A week really wasn't that much warning time. Her mother would have helped and even went to the length of offering a hand.
Sakura had politely declined, making up some bullshit about wanting to be alone so she could properly say goodbye to everything that had been constant in her life.
In reality, she just didn't want anybody to see the various sharp implements she had to pack inconspicuously as to avoid detection by the guards in the sand village. If her mother knew just how many kunai and … other weapons were in her house then she would go ballistic.
Either that or pass out.
Humming to a silent tune, Sakura starting folding the linens and all of the homey things she would be required to take with her. Apparently the Kazekage wasn't used to having guests, suggesting such a thing that she might be so inclined as to bring her own things to his mansion so she felt a little more at home then she would have otherwise. It was a clever disguise.
Not that you would really think that Gaara would have had many guest that remained alive long enough to take up residence in one of the guest rooms.
But that was something else entirely.
Now to decide how long she should let her betrothed live.