Coercion

Arc II: Bending the Branch

I just want to flee from this nightmare and never return


Cringe

The task of "filing" bodies went on for about a week. Hinata had gotten used to the cold and the smell of corpses. She was still unnerved by Kabuto's over excitement over autopsies, but she knew she'd get used to it. She was numbed even more by this dismal and repetitive job. She'd still feel nauseated every day and would feast on oranges every evening while watching the lair and before her late night training. Kabuto would meet her after her vigil and teach her healing techniques. Though she could see the affected areas easily, he taught her not just to rely on her eyes to find injured areas.

"We've got to leave soon. Orochimaru has summoned me, and I want you to come along," he told her after one training session. She nodded.

"Ah, always with the silence," he said. "No need to pack, just rest up and we'll be on our way in the morning."

Hinata left the medical ward and went right to sleep. Their journey was nothing special. She didn't really want to speak to Kabuto and he was preoccupied with his own notes to speak to her. Upon their arrival Hinata began to map out her new surroundings. She located the prison, medical ward, store house, training room, Kabuto's morgue and lab and all of Orochimaru's secret corridors. She swept the place for Orochimaru and Sasuke. She located them in a clearing in a forest some distance away. A messenger was going to inform Orochimaru of his arrival and the two of them would be returning soon.

Out of curiosity, she decided that she would watch their meeting. What's the worst thing that would happen? Orochimaru could threaten to kill her if he somehow found out. Or he could actually kill her. Hinata ended up falling asleep before Orochimaru returned. Kabuto came to get her his eyes showing that excitement that only an autopsy could bring.

"Hinata, in order to fully understand how to heal the human body, you must take it apart," he explained. Hinata swallowed hard. She knew this was coming eventually.

"I want you to observe me while I do an autopsy. You will take the notes I dictate to you, understand?" he said. She nodded and a sickening grin spread across his face. She narrowed her eyes and bit her tongue. He didn't seem to notice her sour expression he seemed to be imagining all the things he could figure out when examining the body. They entered the morgue and headed for the autopsy room. She put on gloves and a face mask and got ready for Kabuto's instructions.

"Get me the body that's in this room. It should be on the gurney already," he said handing her a chart and pointing to its label. "I'll be arranging my medical tools."

Hinata left the examining room and hurried off to retrieve the body. An autopsy was the last thing she wanted to be part of, however in Kabuto's current state of mind she dared not defy him. She had the feeling that if she got him upset today, she'd be the one on that table instead of the numbered cadaver on the chart.

She wheeled the body into the autopsy room and handed the chart back to Kabuto. After he checked a few things, he and Hinata moved it on to the autopsy table. He turned on some bright lights, adjusted his glasses and motioned for Hinata to be ready with her clipboard.

"Before cutting a body open, we must make a detailed observation of the outside of the body. Age, height, weight, any outside markings or injuries. Se we'll begin there," he said. She wrote furiously, not missing a word he said. It seemed ages before he was satisfied with the outside analysis.

"Now, to properly examine the organs, you must make what's called a 'T' cut. Actually it's shaped more like a 'Y' in my opinion, but that's neither here nor there. You cut across the top of the torso, and then from the base of the neck to the navel area. Note which scalpel I use to make the first incision," he continued. Hinata noted and bit her lip as he made the cuts.

"Watch closely now," he said ready to pin back the skin. She winched as he opened the torso wide and drew back squinting her eyes in disgust.

"What's with that face, Hinata? You act as though you don't have all the same things inside of you," he said.

"I-it's not that…" she said. "It's just that…"

He put down his scalpel and walked toward her menacingly. She took a step back and he continued to advance. Soon her back was against the wall and there was no way to escape.

"I know what you're thinking. 'My god this man is sick. He lives for butchering bodies and taking all their secrets and won't let dead dogs die. They never did this sort of thing in Konoha,'" he said. Hinata stared up at him silent, though she trembled all over.

"Let me enlighten you. Konoha is full of people who are just as twisted as I am, if not more so. Someone has to dispose of all the bodies that carry Konoha's secrets. Someone retrieves a body from an enemy and you tear that thing apart looking for anything to give you an advantage over your enemy," Kabuto added. "Konoha has performed and condoned experimenting on humans. You went to school with one of their greatest test subjects. Uzumaki Naruto with the Kyuubi sealed inside his body. Don't act as though your village is so high and mighty. They're just as base and low as we are. So don't you go turning your nose up at me like you're so much better."

He pulled away and went back to the examining table as Hinata shivered in the corner.

"Well, get over here. We're not done," he said. She dragged herself over and resumed taking notes through her tears.


Hell

"How's that girl of yours doing?" Orochimaru asked.

Kabuto smiled and adjusted his glasses, "Very well actually. She started dissecting bodies with my supervision. She's progressed immensely."

"Is that so?" Orochimaru said. "Where is she now?"

"Observing your prisoners most likely," Kabuto answered. The younger man knew Orochimaru was in a mischievous mood, so there was something he had planned.

"Kabuto, you know I put a big emphasis on being able to kill. That girl needs to be able to kill without hesitation," he explained. "Or will this 'shatter her into a million useless pieces' as you put it?"

Kabuto's expression didn't change, "I'm not sure now. I need about four bodies. I'll pick four prisoners and have them fight her to the death."

"And if she breaks down?" Orochimaru said. Kabuto only smiled.

"Then I'll have one really interesting body to study instead of four bodies that I use for spare parts."

"You're not worried about all your wasted knowledge?" he said.

"If I gain more in the end it is never wasted," Kabuto replied. Orochimaru laughed. Hinata was summoned to his presence shortly after and she came quickly.

"Well, well," Orochimaru said from his seat. "You don't look so utterly pitiable. In fact, you might have garden snakes slithering back under their bushes. I'll tell you what. Kabuto needs four bodies, and I want you to get them for him. Understand?" he said. She nodded and followed Kabuto.

"Kabuto does Orochimaru want me to kill someone?" she asked.

"Perhaps," Kabuto answered.

"He doesn't expect me to get through this alive, does he?" she added.

"I can't speak for Orochimaru-sama," he told her. She sighed and pushed past him and entered the training room. Calling it a "training room" was a stretch. It was more like a "fight to the death" room. Hinata had seen it happen too many times. The first time she saw it she was sick for days, but Kabuto forced her to keep watching. There was a room like this at every base she had been to in the past month. She saw four men before her. Maybe it was more like one man and three boys. They stood some distance away, eyeing her with suspicion.

"I am the last thing standing between you and getting to Orochimaru. If you have enough hate for him, you will defeat me, leave this room and kill him," she said. That set them off. They went for her and she was ready.

'They're blinded with their desire for vengeance,' she thought. 'They'll be sloppy and easier for me to take down.'

They all went for her at once, thinking that getting her from four sides would end it. Two made the mistake of stabbing a hair too late, for she ducked and they stabbed each other. She couldn't attack the remaining two simultaneously, but she got to one, severing some ligatures and arteries in his left leg. He'd be dead soon, and as it was he didn't have control of the leg she had attacked, but he was not a force to be ignored until she was certain he was dead.

She concentrated her efforts on the last uninjured man. No, these people didn't hate Orochimaru enough. Hinata would disable him limb by limb. She saw him reach for a kunai, and she rushed forward, closing all the chakra points in that arm and causing it to go numb. His eyes widened as the kunai slipped from his hand.

"There is a difference between revenge and hate, you know," she said. "Revenge means you want to hurt or kill that person for your pain or the pain they caused another. Hate is very selfish. You can hate for no reason at all."

She disabled his other arm, this time severing the muscles.

"I-If you hate him so much…why don't you kill him?" he asked her.

"Hating him and making him hate me is all I have," she whispered. "It's pointless to hate a dead man. I won't kill him, and you don't want revenge badly enough, so I won't let you kill him either."

"Then…" he winced and fell to his knees as he lost feeling in his legs. "Wh-Why are you killing me? Wouldn't rebellion make him hate you more?"

"Not in my case," she said. She was talking no more, she slammed her palm against his chest once, and he sputtered and coughed up blood.

"It's almost over," she said. Another palm to the chest and he was still. She left the room, wiping the blood off her cheek.

"Kabuto? Your bodies are ready," she called down the hall. Kabuto smirked and leaned on the control panel.

"It seems I created a bit of a monster, Orochimaru-sama," he said. Orochimaru was silent. He narrowed his eyes and set his jaw. Hinata seemed to have the same backwards logic as her mentor. At the time, Orochimaru wasn't sure if that was good or bad.


Water

She scrubbed her skin as hard as she could. There was a waterfall not far from the base they were in. She sat under it and washed the blood and grime off her skin, but she could not forget the feel of that boy's chest against her palm nor could she stop crying.

"Forget, forget, forget…" she chanted over and over. Kabuto had told her that the more she worked with dead bodies, the less she'd feel when she cut them open. The more she killed the less regret she would feel. She wasn't sure she didn't want to feel regret. However, it might stop her from her ultimate goal. In the past month, she had become fixated on Orochimaru, always watching him in her spare moments when she wasn't watching others, training, or working with Kabuto. She wanted nothing more than to get under his skin.

It became apparent that escape was impossible. Kabuto himself would most likely be the one to take her down. Going home would be awkward and Hinata's faith in them was broken. That unshakeable belief in her hometown was lost. At the same time, she had no stock in the Sound's goals. She didn't care if what they did succeeded. What she did find is that more and more every day she hated Orochimaru. It was a strange jealous sort of hate, she didn't want anyone to hate him like she did. She hated him the most, she loathed him enough so much that it would be unfulfilling if he were no longer there.

She just wanted to watch him live and pick apart everything he did. She could see right through him and know all his weaknesses. He probably knew this. It was most likely why, though she was proving to be invaluable, he couldn't stand being around her. She was no longer to be termed as weak, but she was still not nearly as strong as he was, and she still could easily find his weak points. She knew he was not infallible and she would not let it go.

This kind of effect empowered Hinata a little. The after effects of such power…she looked down at her pale hands in the mist of the waterfall.

"What kind of life am I going to live?" she asked herself. The question was left for time to answer.


Well, that's all for this week. I have to take a little break from writing this, as I have a fic I've been working on for ages that I really want to finish. Once it's done I feel like I can focus on this more fully. Thanks you everyone who's reading.