A/N: This must be the longest chapter I have written so far (over 7000 words^_^). Any way here is chapter 11, there are some warning in here. I don't write a lot of bloody and gore stuff, but this chapter contains some torture scene (There is no skin flaying, that can stay in game of throne), ex. beating, denailing. I tried to keep the blood at minimum, so I think if you read through the chapter before, this is not much different.

Also, on the notes of update schedule, I did say that I am going to update every Saturday, and I am glad that so far I am on schedule. After sticking to the schedule for ten chapters, I think I can confidently say that I should be able to stick to the schedule, at lease until January (since that is where my first round of very important exams are, but even then, I'll definitely put out a chapter before two weeks). That means, one chapter per week guaranteed for the next three months, and if my teachers feel especially lenient, they may even give me less homework that allow me to update two chapters some times. (they are not very lenient so far, but one can have hope).

Beta'd by the awe-inspiring Alice J ^_^

Chapter 11 - Post-Mortem

It's here. The puppeteer was here.

Instead of the human puppet army, I was surrounded by five puppets. Just five, but they gave off a more dangerous feeling than the mass swarm of puppets earlier. The five puppets were dressed in a strange manner, with mesh jackets and ninja sandals. They used to be ninjas, I realized, shinobi whose bodies were turned into puppets. Which village? I recognize their fabric head cover as well as its distinct flak jacket from Sunagakure. They were Suna-nin, dead and turned into puppets. Please, please, I prayed that it's not Sasori of the Red Sand, hoping that maybe once, my luck would show on this mission.

I pulled out my blades slowly, Hyakki Yakō in my left hand and Senbonzakura in my right. The tension in the air was rising, my breath slowed to observe the five enemies in front of, and my teammates seemed to be frozen and have stopped breathing. With no warning, there was a maniacal laugh that broke my attention. I snapped my neck toward the sound, and I saw him, a man dressed in a white cape. His face seemed to be contorting in an unhealthy excitement, and his hand was covered in stitches. His ten fingers were connected to at least thirty chakra thread when normal puppeteers could only connect ten threads.

"Welcome, my guest, I'm surprised you managed to destroy that many of my puppet armies, but alas, that earned you the tickets for this special show, a show that none of you will want to leave!" He said in a hysterical voice before bursting into another fit of laughter. Calm down, I told myself, first I had to figure out who he is, at least he seemed dramatic and chatty.

"Who are you, Sasori of the Red Sand?" I asked and the man just laughed again. I couldn't tell if he was offended or glad, there seemed to be only craziness in his voice.

"Woah! I'm honored that you think I am Sasori-sama. He is such an inspirational figure to me, but no, I am not Sasori-sama. I am Chiashi, and one day I will be as famous as Sasori-sama in my puppet art!" He screamed fanatically. I let out a small breath, but I quickly redrew the breath, realizing that no matter who he was, we were still surrounded by enemies, one of us is critical condition, the other one heavily injured and another not suited for battle.

"Would you kindly let us go? We will spread your name just like you wanted." I said like an idiot, hell, at this point, I'm willing to try anything.

"Such a good girl, and it's a nice offer, but you just destroyed fifty of my precious army, I would feel so bad if I didn't use all of you to replenish my army." I thought so. Without any other exchange I launched toward the shinobi puppet closest to me.

I slashed at the shinobi's elbow, if he was really a puppet, then destroying his joint wouldn't do much good, except that maybe I could get rid of some of it's arsenal that's embedded in its arm. However, considering it's human once maybe I could work on that. from what I'd learnt, human puppets can use chakra and jutsu. However, I didn't know if the limitation of hand seal for ninjutsu was still there. If I took of an arm, then maybe I could limit their ninjutsu.

What I thought was nice, but unfortunately, the puppet moved too quickly, and my blade only manages to nick its arm. The lightning touched his elbow and spread to his forearm, soon, it's blackened lightly. It turned around and smacked towards my head. I bend my body slightly to avoid the strike, in the meantime, I thrust my tantō forward and pierced its' shoulder. With a slight twist and some lightning chakra, one of its' arm fell off. Immediately I gathered chakra in my chest, jumped backward and shot a Great Fireball towards the puppet. I land near my teammates, just in time to see the puppet moving away from the fireball, leaving its fallen arm to be incinerated.

The weakness of his human puppets were their weak bodies; compared to some well made puppets, human flesh was far too weak. However, they can use chakra, and perform ninjutsu, adding to the fact that they could move perfectly after losing a limb and there's hidden traps in them, they are deadly glass cannons. But, if I can figure out their weakness in the short exchange we had, then I have no doubt Chiashi knows this from the start.

The other four puppets moved just as I land beside my teammates. They didn't move forward, instead, they started to form hand seals. One of them immediately shot a dozen fire bullets toward us. Immediately I put back my swords, and started to form the hand seal for a water ninjutsu I copied from Kakashi. Three pillar of water shot out of my hands, they were small, but just enough to hit all the fireballs. The water distinguished the flames, but quickly, I cursed as I saw the shurikens that hid behind the fireball and traveled past the water pillar.

Before I could move, a earth wall was up in front of me, and as soon as it was up, I could hear the sound of shuriken raining down on it. I turned around and saw Maki with his hand on the ground, I nodded at him quickly and he nodded back.

I didn't get a time to rest before a wave of wind blades crashed towards us. I blocked one of them with my tantō, but the wind blade still pushed me back before it disperse. I could dodge, I thought, but then my teammates would be left undefended. Maki is desperately trying to put up earth walls around him, but his back along with Takuma and Yoshida would be undefended. Damn it, it's so much easier when you could dodge. Instead I stood my ground and started to block the wind blades.

The wind jutsu was so much more powerful than the fire, even with two swords and sharingan, there's no point if I could only see it but unable to block it. I deflected one of them away from my neck, and let the other one scrape across my thigh. Lightning was weak against the wind, but fire would probably burn myself and my teammates with it, so unfortunately, I was stuck with lightning. Another wind blade whizzed toward my chest, I hurriedly moved my sword to block it. The impact pushed my sword back and crashed into my chest. There was a distinct feeling of pain that told me the ribs Takuma healed for me a while ago had just been broken again. I gasped and one of the wind blade scratched against my stomach, leaving a bloody trail on the side of my belly.

Then the stones came out of nowhere. One minute I was standing fine, albeit having trouble with the wind blades, the next there were stone spikes coming out of the ground. I rolled away my body in shock when one of the spike rose under me, threatening to impale me. Suddenly, there was a scream, and then there were gurgling sounds. In that split second, I saw Maki getting impaled by one of the spike, and Takuma screamed. I was distracted for a second, realizing that there's no way Maki could have lived after that, and I missed a spike that rose beside me.

I felt the searing pain as my right leg was pierced by the stone spike. It's going numb, and I couldn't move. It hurt, it was like something burned away my leg and it was gone, gone, gone. Maki was left hanging on the spike, Takuma was trembling in fear, Yoshida was left on the ground and nobody could protect him from being pierced by a stone spike. We were all going to die.

"Hahaha, good try, but unfortunately, all the performers in this show are Jonin veterans, or 'were', depending on your perception. But you, little girl, have something interesting. Sharingan! A Kekkei Genkai! Absolutely lovely!" Chiashi laughed as he said in a high pitched voice. I tried to pull my leg off of the stone spike, but the pain from moving threatened to make me lose consciousness. Takuma was still alive, but if I died, then he will surely die.

Every cell in my body screamed for me to leave immediately. I needed to survive, I was finally able to live, and self-preservation was the goal. So why the hell was I still here? I guess I couldn't leave Takuma behind, Konoha's teaching would really be the death of me. The mission was busted anyway, two of my teammates dead, and would probably be turned into puppets. There was really no decision between mission or comrade, because the mission was screwed, so what's there to lose? Right, my life.

"Leave, Takuma, leave. You are the only one who could get away now." I said to the teenager beside me in a raspy voice.

"But, I can't just leave you! You are hurt and you can't fight in a state like this!" He said in a panic.

"But you are a distraction! I can't stay alive while trying to watch out for you!" I screamed, suddenly aware of Chiashi watching our drama in a mild interest. He must be really confident that none of us would survive.

"Leave! Or I will use sharingan on you! So would you rather leave now, report the situation, get back up and leave me to fight undistracted, or stubbornly stay and make me waste my precious chakra on you!" I yelled at him, there were tears streaming down my eyes, and I wasn't sure if they were caused by the pain or the annoyance I was feeling right now.

He seemed stunned for a second, then he closed his eyes, clenched his fist and finally nodded. Good, get away Takuma, hell if I know why I choose to sacrifice for you.

"Good try, but none of you are getting away, if you think you can run from my soldiers, then you are really wrong." Chiashi chimed in, then he moved his hands and all five puppets surrounded us.

"We will see about that." I whispered, unsure what I was suppose to do. I placed my hands together, started to form the hand seals. I needed to attract all the puppet's attention, how? Attack Chiashi directly. I needed to be a strong attack that would require all five of them to protect Chiashi, or it needed to be multiple strikes that requires multiple puppets to defend from all directions.

"Raiton: Rairyu no Mai!" I yelled, pouring all my chakra into this one strike. I didn't need to control it, I just needed the damage to the max. I pushed out my palms, letting six lightning dragons shoot out of it. I aimed directly for Chiashi with no extra control, Kakashi would be horrified to see me do this, but my plan was to let it strike and burn.

As I expected, Chiashi's face was filled with shock as he pulled all his puppets back to defend his body. The lightning dragons twisted in the air and aimed at him with amazing speed, and I wasn't even controlling it, I was just letting these massive strikes of lightning run wild.

As the forest was lit up by the ninjutsu, I felt the heaviness of my body down. Nausea and loss of consciousness followed, typical for chakra depletion and severe loss of blood. Takuma was gone the moment I started my jutsu, and it looked like Chiashi would be occupied with the jutsu for a moment longer. I closed my eyes, happily yelling at myself for being the heroic idiot, and let the darkness sweep me away…

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub.

That was the first sign telling me that I was indeed, still alive. I groaned and winced as I pushed my body off of the cold hard floor. My head was heavy, and I felt nauseous and confused. I needed to stand up and leave, lying down was a dangerous position. But I couldn't feel my right leg; it's not painful, it's just numbed.

I looked down on my leg, my pants were soaked in dry blood, telling me that my leg was indeed pierced in the earlier fight, but the wound seemed to have stopped bleeding. I slowly ran my hand down my thigh, there were… stitches. Someone treated my bleeding, although it wasn't a very good job. The stitches were crooked, and my whole leg felt heavy and slow.

Where am I? I thought with a sharp fear, I was inside a cell, and outside of it… puppets, human puppets everywhere. It's Chiashi, he took me prisoner, and he even gave me emergency medical treatment, but why? Why am I still alive? What does he need me for?

"Awake, little girl? Did you have a good dream or a nightmare? Please say it's a nightmare, they are the best." I heard Chiashi's disgusting voice echoing around the cell.

"Why the hell am I here." I snapped back, his voice was giving me a headache on top of my drowsy brain.

"Good question, I see you are appreciating my beautiful artwork. Let me show you something better." Chiashi moved his stitched hands and shot out some chakra thread. Two figure walked stiffly out of the mass puppet army. I was stunned when I saw them, and then I had to cover my mouth to push down the wave of nausea.

Yoshida and Maki stood beside Chiashi, or rather, their bodies.

"Beautiful isn't it! They aren't my best work, you see the hole in the chest is really an eyesore, but it gave me some ideas for hidden weapons. After all, they are just chunin, their potential is lacking." he commented nonchalantly. I clenched my fists to keep it from shaking in rage. How dare he, mutilating the bodies of the dead, how dare he!

"But you will be different, sharingan, kekkei genkai, and those ninjutsu skills. You will be a perfect addition." He said.

"Then why didn't you kill me then, why did you bother to take me prisoner." I yelled at him, completely forgetting to control my rage.

"You are special, little girl, and your transformation would require… some extra preparations. And once that's complete, I will rival Sasori-sama in terms of my human puppet skill. You will be my first kekkei genkai puppet, my first trophy!" Chiashi waved his arms frantically, but I just grinned.

"You don't know how do you? You have never succeeded in turning a kekkei genkai user into puppets, and you don't know how. You are just a copycat of Sasori of the Red Sand, but you don't even have the skills to copy him. How pathetic." I spat at him with sarcasm and I laughed as his eyes glinted in anger.

Suddenly the puppet Maki appears inside of my cell, how, I don't know. Before I could do anything, its hand clasped around my neck and pulled me off of the ground. I struggled to get his hand off, clawing and scratching, trying to breathe in oxygen.

"How dare you say that! You insolent girl!" Chiashi screeched, I guessed I succeeded in making my point. "Doesn't matter, soon, I will definitely perfect the skill for kekkei genkai users. In the meantime, there are other ways I could make you my puppet. You are naive if you think I can't do anything to you just because I need your body as a puppet." As if proving his point, the puppet punched me in the gut and threw me toward the wall. I gasped in pain as the air was knocked out of my chest, and my hand shook as they attempt to support my body.

"I will make your life so miserable that you will lose yourself. I will make your mind a puppet first before I make your body one. I used to be a doctor, but people kept on dying on me. Until one day I saw Sasori-sama reviving the dead through the art of puppet, and I realized that this is my true calling. So do not underestimate me girl, I know the exact method of making you miserable while still keeping you alive." He said to me venomously.

I raised my eyes and stared at him, I wasn't afraid, maybe I should be. It's been so long since I've been truly afraid, maybe that made me reckless and bold. Chiashi controlled the puppet to haul me up and hung me up by my wrists. Something cold was clasped around my hands, and with a sinking heart, I realized that it's chakra-restraining hand cuffs.

"I'm sure you know about pressure points for chakra, but there are pressure points designed to inflict great pain. Fascinating how such a small point could produce so much pain, enough for you to forget everything." He said as he walked slowly towards me. He walked past me and stood behind me. I couldn't see clearly, but I thought I saw a flash of senbon, then, all the pain erupted.

It wasn't like being punched or kicked, no, the pain is sharper, more concentrated. It feels like thousands of needle had burst from the little point on my back and pierced through my body, my veins, my heart, my nerves.

I remembered hearing a scream, but I didn't remember screaming.

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

When I was around ten (It could be nine or eleven, I wasn't sure), I was sent out on a mission. The mission was to retrieve a target from the enemy base and interrogate the target for information. What I didn't know was that 'retrieve' meant abduction, the 'target' was the young daughter of a Russian Mafia Boss, the 'enemy base' was her father's mansion, and 'interrogate' meant torture until she spilled.

I followed my superior 'Heracles', along with three of my fellow operatives, too inexperienced to be given a codename other than numbers. We infiltrated the housing when the Russian Mafia boss was not home, killing ten bodyguards in the process. Finally, we abducted the fourteen year old girl in her own room. She was crying for her father in Russian, and our superior 'Heracles' banged her head on the table to make her stop. I swear I saw a streak of red running on her forehead, but I kept my mouth shut. It wasn't my place, and it was an effective way of completing the mission.

I forgot for a moment that there was a second part of the mission. At that time, all the missions I'd been on consist of infiltration and assassination. The interrogation was a novelty for me, and I presumed that's the lesson of the mission. OLYMPUS liked hands-on training, and we never practiced on dummies.

'Heracles' dumped the girl onto one of the rusty chair in the safehouse and tied her onto the chair tightly. He said to the rookie operatives "Watch and learn, recruits, it's your lesson on interrogation. In OLYMPUS, we employ both psychological and physical torture. We do whatever is needed to get the information from the target." then he dumped a bucket of water on the young girl, forcing her to be conscious.

The girl first gasped in shock, before she started to mumble words in Russian, praying for help that would never come. 'Heracles' was quick to shut her up by slapping her hard on the cheek. The girl gagged in pain and proceeded to whimper.

"Tell us what we need to know, girl, and you won't be experiencing pain." 'Heracles' said in a menacing tone. He didn't say that we will let her go because all of us in OLYMPUS knew that she would never breathe again after we got the information.

"When does your father plan to send out that shipment of firearms? Or did you overhear him mentioning any voyage or shipments." 'Heracles' asked in Russian, articulating each word carefully.

"I don't know! I don't know! Father never tells me anything!" the girl was screaming. What was her name, Natalia? Tatiana? It was somewhere in the mission debrief. It didn't matter now, nobody cared.

'Heracles' punched her in the stomach, and none of us showed any expression as the girl cried in pain. We ignored the cracking sound originating from her chest, one of her ribs had been broken, and it would hurt like hell.

"Please! I don't know anything! Please, just let me go." The girl whimpered with tears, stuttering to get the words out, but that just earned her another punch. 'Heracles' grabbed her blond hair and jerked her head back in a swift motion.

"Speak up, girl, we know your father conducts most of his business at home. His lips aren't even that tight with his mistresses, and you expect us to believe he never let it slip around you. Don't test my patience." He spat in her face. Psychological tactics, I thought. He was getting into her personal space, telling her that we knew her every secret, telling her that there was no way to hide. I suddenly realized, 'Heracles' was making a demonstration: a teaching demonstration for us, the new operatives. He was making this girl the practice dummy.

"I really don't know, I don't know anything! I'm just a stupid little girl, dad never told…" Before she should finish her sentence, 'Heracles' clasped his hand around her throat and choking her until her neck was purple. The pain by suffocation, not only a method of physical torture, but the psychological trauma was major as well. The girl went unconscious for a moment from the pain before she was suffocated to death. 'Heracles' didn't wake her up immediately this time, instead he walked towards us.

"Operative 31, it's your turn. Do you best." He said to me in a monotone voice. 'We will be evaluating you, so don't fail' that was the real meaning behind the line. I walked towards the unconscious girl, bringing a bucket of water as I approached her.

I dumped the water on her, watching her awake from the icy coldness. I could tell her muscle relaxed when she saw me. She couldn't see my face, but she could see my small stature, she must have thought that I couldn't be any worse than the big man earlier. Wrong. If I fail this, I die, simple as that. OLYMPUS doesn't need useless agents. So I shoved my sentimental feelings into the pit, along with the many other lives I've taken. I didn't want to do this to her, she seemed so young and innocent, and she was only here because of her father. I didn't want to do this, but I didn't have a choice. Liar, I did, but I simply chose my own survival against her sanity.

I didn't say a word to her, instead, I walked behind her and latched my hands on to her shoulder. Within a fraction of a second, I dislocated her shoulder in the most forced and brutal manner. She howled in pain, but I forced my hands to stay iron still and not tremble because of the horrific deed I'd done.

"Tell me the location and time. Or your other shoulder goes." I said ruthlessly, using my best facade. The girl wailed but she didn't say anything, so I latched my hands on her other shoulder and twisted. She wailed louder, crying and pleading.

"There are 206 bones in your body and many more joints, I can do this all day. The question is, can you?" I said again in that cold voice. When she went silent, I moved my hands towards her knees.

"It's three days from now! The shipment is three days from now! Father said it over the phone, something is going out three days from now at midnight!" The girl said in a broken and muffled voice. I didn't even catch myself relaxing my heartbeat a bit. Thank god I didn't have to continue, thank god she said something.

"Enough." 'Heracles' said to me as he motioned another operative to go take the charge. They were going to keep going, I realized. Why? Hadn't she said enough, she spilled everything! Not quite, a voice in the back of my head said, she didn't tell me the location. I suddenly understood that no matter if she knew anymore or not, the rounds won't be finished until every new operatives here had completed the interrogation evaluation. Her torture was our teaching material.

"Good try." our superior whispered to me as I walked back, still keeping his eyes on Operative 16, who was 'interrogating' right now. "Good use of physical and psychological tactics. However, to maximize the pain, the dislocating motion could have been performed more slowly, and your voice could have contained more anger to give her a sense of urgency." I could only bow my head at his comment. His voice was calm and cold, he wasn't a sadist. Sadists were considered emotionally unstable for the organization, so the agents were trained to maximize the efficiency in missions, but not actually liking them. It was the ultimate goal in killing emotions.

The interrogation evaluation lasted for another hour, the girl managed to spill the location, and even the number of armed force at that transaction as well. It was clear by the end of the session that she wasn't really an innocent little daddy's girl, she knew way too much for that. But her cries of pains and whimpers were still chilling me to the bones, almost making me unable to bear it.

By the time she spilled everything, she had two more dislocated kneecaps, a few more broken bones, four missing fingernails, and patches of bruising covering her whole body. Her eyes looked blank, there weren't really anything in it, no defiance, no desperation, no anger, and no pleading. She was simply gone, broken like one of those Russian ballerina dolls.

I never saw her again, nor have I heard about this mission anymore.

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

I twitched my body frantically for god knows how many times already, trying everything to ease the exploding pain in my body. It wasn't working, the pain wasn't fading. Usually after so many shocks to the pain, the body would shut down to block the pain, but whatever method Chiashi used, the pain kept on repeating with no signs of decreasing. If anything, it increased.

Karma, retribution, I thought as I screamed again, unable to hold back my voice. This time, I was the broken Russian doll. I deserved it, because of everything I had done, this was my payback, before I would become a human puppet with no will. A broken ballerina doll.

The senbon stabbed me again, and I screamed again as the pain erupted. It hurts! Every tendon in my body was being shattered, and every nerve I could feel is burning.

I wanted to let go, let go of the pain, let go of the world. Chiashi's maniac laughter was still resonating in my ears, I had no idea that I still had the cognitive ability to hear him. He was crazy, he was a sadist and I was going to be killed by him.

Why didn't that girl - Anya was her name, I suddenly remembered - give up the first time. Yes, she would have still died, but maybe, she would have suffered less, our superior would have chosen another target for our practice lesson. Instead, I clearly remembered that she kept the last bit of information secret until the last second. Was it loyalty? Was it bravery?

"My papa will come and get me!"

She said that numerous time, she yelled it and she whispered it. I wanted to tell her that he won't, he would never find out where OLYMPUS was, where we took her. Was it faith then?

I have a chance! I had to believe that I had a chance. I wanted to live! Akira-sensei would get my message and I trusted him. Chiashi won't kill me before his preparation was due, although he could inflict extreme pain, he wouldn't kill me. He wouldn't kill me. HE COULDN'T KILL ME.

Think, Maiko, think, what can I do to fool him, what can I do to live longer. He wanted me to break psychologically, compared to that Russian girl, he didn't want me to spill anything. Then all I need to do is give him a show.

"Shut up! Shut up! I won't do what you want!" I yelled using the most frantic voice I could. All the prisoners I had met started with denial and anger, then they slumped to desperation before they were finally broken. The road from Konoha was three days max, I just needed to hold on.

"You say that now, but you will be broken anyway." Chiashi chimed behind me. I almost wanted to laugh as he stabbed me again. This time, I didn't hold back my scream. If Chiashi wanted a show, I would give him one. After all, in my previous life, I was a pretender. Now I just needed to hold onto my sanity.

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

When I was thirteen, I was kidnapped. I was captured on a mission along with two more rookie operatives. They took me to a cabin and started to beat us to death.

It was not planned at all, nobody should know we were even on the mission, secrecy and ruthlessness was OLYMPUS' creed. Still, they found us. After the initial beat down, they took us to separate rooms. Torture by isolation, I thought, a psychological tactic, they wanted something from us.

"Tell me about your organization! Tell me everything." The man in mask yelled at me. Anger, used to scare and agitate the prisoner, gave them a sense of urgency.

"I don't know what you are talking about. I don't have an organization." I said coldly. OLYMPUS taught us to never betray the organization, and I had no doubt they would hunt down whoever defected.

"Shut the crap up. We know everything, we know you have a bigger organization behind you!" the masked man punched me in the stomach, making me gag and gasp for air. He wasn't finished, he kicked me onto the ground, and I couldn't help but let the whimpers through my mouth. It was so painful, so painful. It felt like my stomach was shredding to pieces.

"Let's try again. What is your organization called?" He asked again, staring into my eyes with rageful eyes. I didn't know what he was looking for in my eyes, there's no defiance, no fear, no emotion.

"Nothing, there is nothing." I said to him, annunciating each word clearly. What happened next pretty much repeated itself. Physical torture and psychological torture, although they weren't very good at it. Compared to what OLYMPUS has taught us to do, they weren't even trying.

Nevertheless, I turned my eyes blank. I blocked out the searing pain, blocked out their words and blocked out the potential screaming sounds from the next room…

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

I was strapped to a table, hands bound to the cold surface with the chakra restraining hand cuffs. Once Chiashi was bored with the pain pressure points, he proceeded to play with my fingernails. He said to me "I still need your finger to hold a sword, but your fingernails won't be required."

So I was missing two of my fingernails on my left hand. They had been bleeding profusely a moment ago, but I wasn't sure what happened now. Chiashi stabbed my stomach and let out some blood earlier, so the blood loss kept me dizzy.

I was planning on moving onto the second stage, the desperation stage. I slumped my head on the table, pitifully averting my eyes from the red fingers. 'It was a form of sensory stimuli, the red made it seemed more painful than it actually is.' Even I don't believe that crap anymore because the pain was excruciating even when I blacked out.

'Keep up with the faith' I kept telling myself. How long had it been, one day? Two days maybe, considering the fact that I had passed out a few times.

"I like that look in your eyes, it says you've lost all hope." Chiashi said as he crept in front of my eyes. I closed my eyes on reflex.

"A little bit more until you are gone, and then you will be a puppet forever until I can turn you into an actual puppet, and it would save me a lot of trouble when you are not resisting. So let's start on another one." He murmured with hysteria.

Before I could brace myself, one of his puppets punched a needle in between my flesh and my fingernail. Then it ripped.

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

The masked man left me tied up in a chair after I ignored him. My body felt paralyzed from all the pain and I didn't want to move at all since some of my bones were broken.

They left me alone in the dark, tiny room for god knows how long. Sensory deprivation, isolation, starvation, all standard torture tactics.

I snapped my eyes open when I heard the sound of someone screaming getting closer and closer to the room. The door opened, revealing two masked men carrying another teenager. They entered the door and the teenager, operative 44, was kicking furiously.

"What do you want from me, I told you everything!" Operative 44 yelled at the man. I closed my eyes, refusing to believe that he had spilled. Now he would die and I would probably die along with him. Stupid. Child.

"I don't trust you. If your teammate tells us the same, then we will let you live." The masked man directed the attention at me. NO, I was never going to betray the organization, not because of how loyal I was, but because I knew what they were capable of when dealing with traitors.

Operative 44 was looking at me with hope, but I closed my eyes and refused to say anything.

"Tell us everything, or he dies!" The masked man held out a gun and pointed at my fellow operative's head. He was yelling at me, they were all yelling at me. But I refused to do anything.

There was a bang, and operative 44 received a hole in his head. He fell down staring at me. Staring. At. Me.

"Now his death is on you." Yes, his death was on me.

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

He finally took the chakra-restraining handcuffs off of me. He let me slump onto the cell floor, breathing lightly but consistently. My left hand was covered in blood, some dried, some still running. Chiashi finally decided I was done, I was gone. Either I was a good actress, or I was really gone. I'd like to think that I wasn't blank anymore, I could still think, still contemplate about what I was going to do.

It's been three days, with no sign of anyone coming. I was too tired to feel mad about leaving my future in someone else's hands. But I didn't have a choice, Chiashi's body might be weak, seeing he never did anything that required strength himself, only ever using the puppets. I thought he might have done something surgically to allow him the higher capacity for chakra threads, but it wrecks his body. Still, I was injured, starved and dehydrated. If Chiashi wasn't determined to keep me alive, I would be dead already.

I heard something, something mobilizing, either Chiashi was raiding another village, or he was getting ready to. To my surprise, one of his shinobi puppets, a former Suna-nin, came and got me. Chiashi controlled him to hold me by one hand, the one where my nails were still intact, and let the other hand slump beside me. He must be really confident that the pain would keep me from doing anything.

He dragged me out, and for the first time in god knows how long, I saw the piercing light and I closed my eyes while shrieking. Chashi laughed at my display, at this point, he probably believed me that I was broken from the pain, but he never knew what I had been through. I was never whole to begin with.

"Hahaha, losers, watch! Now your fellow Konoha-nins are also in my clutch, enjoy the fabulous artwork they make!" Chiashi was saying something to someone outside. I caught the word 'Konoha', but I refused to let my body twitch. Chiashi would have felt it, and all my careful works would be gone.

He brought the now-puppet-Maki and Yoshida up in front of him, I couldn't see from this angle who was cornering Chiashi, but I knew how sick it was to watch your own comrade being mutilated even after death. Chiashi, he was sadistic.

"Now I present you my master work, or soon to be master work. Doesn't matter, her mind is gone already, she is already a shell even before I make her into one!" The Suna-nin puppet brought me up by dragging me with one hand. I could finally plant my feet on the ground and stand. It was still weak, Chiashi was determined to do the bloodletting every few hours to keep me dizzy. But after a while, you get used to working with the dizziness. Chiashi took the chakra restraining handcuff a few hours before, and from them, my chakra was gathering naturally, too small to be abnormal, but big enough for something.

Something grabbed my hair and jerked my head back. Suddenly, I could see the fuzzy outline of the Konoha pursue-team. They were the black Anbu team, five of them probably, and they were surrounded by floods of puppet army. I had no idea how Chiashi gathered all those corpses without anyone noticing.

Anbu, their objective was to probably eliminate the enemy, working under the assumption that there was no hostage worth saving. But then I heard a yell, "Uchiha-kun!", my eyes followed the sound slowly, and I saw the medic-nin I saved, eyeing me worriedly.

Was he afraid that I was really broken, maybe, and he wouldn't be too far from the truth.

"Hahaha, that doesn't work, little boy, she doesn't even remember her own allegiance, let alone her name. Say, my puppet, what's your name?" Chiashi asked me in a sweet manner that almost made me cringe in disgust.

Sadistic, he was.

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

"Good work, operative. You pass the test. You didn't spill and you held your own against a torturer." 'Hecate' was his or her name, since he/she looked mostly androgynous, and his/her voice was a combination of both male and female, high and low at the same time.

I slumped against the chair, but this time, my hands were untied. I was just too tired to get up from the chair.

"And I see you've accomplished something more." 'Hecate' eyed the fallen body next to the chair. The masked man was lying in a pool of blood, with a hole through his neck. Beside him, one of the chair legs was stained red.

"I see that you've understood that there's unlimited ways of killing your enemy, you just have to find a way. OLYMPUS has been pleased by your performance, and it has been decided that you have the potential to be a great asset." he/she said calmly, not at all disturbed by the OLYMPUS agent dead beside my chair. It was only suppose to be a test to ensure our loyalty even under torturing. But I killed my interrogator, my examiner.

"From this moment onward. You are 'Artemis'. Hold your given title in pride, operative. You have just been discovered." he/said chimed, pounding the words into my slightly blanked out brain.

'Artemis'. That's who I was. That's who I would always be.

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

"Hahaha, You think merely five of you could take on my whole army! Even if you add another squad, like the one you have hidden in the woods, you are still going to lose and my name will be carried on!" Chiashi was sadistic, but sadistic was insanity, and insanity meant people miss things. This was why OLYMPUS deemed any sorts of philia and phobia an emotional liability. They made mistakes, and they lose.

The Anbu and Chiashi's puppet army were in a standoff right now. Their best course of action was to ignore me and eliminate Chiashi before he could mobilize the whole army. The best option, where I would become the sacrifice. Fuck it. I don't want to die.

"Artemis", I murmured in an inaudible voice, Chiashi was too busy laughing to hear it anyway. He was also too busy laughing to notice the change in my chakra flow.

The puppet held me in front of Chiashi with one iron grip on my right arm. Chiashi was confident that I wouldn't be able to do anything. In any case, it's true that my right arm was restrained, so I couldn't turn around to face Chiashi even if I wanted. Wrong, there were unlimited ways of killing the enemy, some were harder than others.

I turned as the final bit of chakra gathered in my left hand. I used every last bit of strength I had. I turned around without hesitation as the puppet still held onto my right arm. My right shoulder popped as Chiashi stunned. I pushed my left hand, surrounded by raw lightning chakra, uncontrolled and unsuppressed, into his chest cavity.

My hands were burning from the uncontrollable lightning, but that's nothing compared to the pain from the denailing. Like I suspected, his flesh and bones were weak and soft, he probably did something really unnatural to allow his hands to have greater chakra control and mobility.

I felt his heart crushed by my hands in his chest cavity. How? I was not sure, it's just a natural instinct telling me that I killed someone. My instinct must have been right because the puppet holding my dislocated arm went limp like a twig, and suddenly nothing was keeping my body straight.

"My name is Uchiha Maiko. I am a Kunoichi of Konohagakure no Sato." I said to Chiashi as his lifeless body slipped out of my arm. Then, I fell down and lost consciousness.

There are unlimited ways of killing the enemy, I just have to find one. Because if I kill my enemy, it won't matter if I win or not, since my enemy definitely loses.

A/N: So that's done... yeah... so there you go, some snippets of her previous memories... I got nothing more to say today.

There is a reason the angst tag is on this story, but there are more relaxed and lighthearted chapters in the story. So please, leave a comment or review if you feel like it!