Disclaimer: Naruto still is not mine.
AN: Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter. I actually found these scenes much harder to write than I thought they would be.
Many thanks for the kind reviews, I hope you continue to enjoy the fic. I appreciate your feedback.
2:10 am, Tuesday...ANBU Interrogation
A yawning Shizune was just leaving the Interrogation Room after treating the wounded prisoner when Neji and Ino arrived on the scene. The dark haired medic-nin eyed Ibiki's torn ear sternly and forced the scarred man to sit so she could treat him.
"Really did a number on you, didn't he?" Shizune muttered rhetorically as she cleaned the wound to examine it. Mint green medical chakra began to glow around her hand as she reached to heal Ibiki's injury, but he caught her slender wrist between two fingers, stopping her.
"Just a bandage will be fine, Shizune-san," Ibiki told her quietly. "Don't waste the chakra on me."
"But..." Shizune sputtered, and Ibiki gave her a rare gentle grin.
"It's fine. I can't be too pretty after all, right?" he winked. Shizune held his gaze stubbornly, then relented with a small shake of her head and finished disinfecting and dressing his wound. It was going to leave a nasty scar if he didn't let her heal it, which offended the medic part of her that only wanted to help, but she could kind of see his point too, considering the deep ragged scars that bisected what would otherwise be a very handsome face. Shizune remembered that face before it had become scarred. Back when she and Ibiki were in the same Academy class, he'd turned the girls heads then. Even hers.
"I'm too tired to argue with you, Ibiki-kun," Shizune exhaled, wagging a long finger at him meaningfully. "But next time..." she let the threat hang. Ibiki smiled, lowering his head slightly as he closed his eyes and he made an amused sound deep in his throat. Shizune made threats when he could snap her like a twig, it never failed to amuse him.
"Yes, Shizu-chan," he said obediently. Shizune snorted at the use of her childhood nickname and whirled on her heel to make her exit past Neji and Ino. The Hyuuga looked as unapproachable as ever behind his ANBU mask, and the blonde was chewing her lower lip and looking at the ceiling to keep from smiling.
"Yamanaka," Ibiki said once Shizune was gone. "Have you been briefed on the situation?"
Ino was instantly all business, her pupilless blue eyes sharp. "Yes, Tatsu-san filled me in on the way here," Ino replied. Ibiki nodded imperceptibly in approval at her referral to Neji by the mask style he wore and not his name while on duty and in uniform. Only he as commander would refer to them by name if the situation warranted.
Ibiki motioned subtly for Ino to follow him down the hall and she did, leaving Neji behind to guard the door. Ibiki took them around the corner to be well out of anyone's earshot, before turning back to the blonde. She stood comfortably at attention, showing not a trace of fatigue given the late hour.
"Godaime-sama has requested we meet with her later this morning regarding your transfer here," Ibiki said quietly without preamble. "She's fighting me on it, since she still wants you for intelligence missions."
"I thought this was a done deal?" Ino replied, touching her bandaged shoulder for emphasis.
"You're assigned to my Squad, which makes you ANBU technically, but I think Godaime-sama is having second thoughts now about making this a full-time assignment. Either way..." Ibiki trailed off, his sharp eyes watching his protégé to see if she caught his meaning. She didn't disappoint him, which is why he'd made the effort to get her assigned to his squad.
"It's in the Squad's best interest to have positive results to take to Godaime-sama today," Ino said simply.
"Time to get your feet wet here, I'm afraid. There's no time to ease you into things like I'd planned," Ibiki apologized. The blonde held her hands up and shrugged, a crooked grin on her beautiful face.
"No pressure then. This is what I'm here for, right?" Ino said casually. "So what are we after in there?"
"Everything."
Ino tilted her head to the side as she looked up to him. "What have you gotten out of him already?" she questioned warily, her brow creasing in concern.
"Nothing... Yet."
She looked older than her eighteen years when she looked at him like that. Ibiki could read people, he usually knew what they would say before they even said it. Ino was one of the few people that could occasionally still surprise him. She was like quicksilver, moody and devious. She was unpredictable in the fact that she often seemed to merely react without thought, but after training with her for several months Ibiki was finding that she wasn't as careless and impulsive as she appeared on the surface. She was resilient and flexible with good instincts. She'd had to be with some of the more unsavory tricks of the trade he'd taught her. He could see her working over the situation.
"So you're saying he's got a formidable will then," Ino mused, and then smiled. "No different than anything else, if he's got a good guard then I'll just have to get around it." Her eyes flashed as she thumped her fist into the palm of her other hand. Ibiki knew this look of hers too, Ino was nothing if not tenacious and she never stayed uncertain or hesitant for long.
Ibiki grunted non-committally in response. "Don't get too far ahead of yourself, Yamanaka. This is still my investigation and we're doing things my way. Got it?"
"Of course, sensei," Ino replied, instantly contrite. Her enthusiasm often still got away from her, but she was learning. Ibiki led her back down the hall, hiding the small smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth. Outside the Interrogation Room he handed her a clipboard and pencil, his face once again set in stern, unforgiving lines.
"I want everything he says, and doesn't say. And don't get in my way once we're inside," Ibiki told her. Pleased with the way there was absolutely no confusion on her face as she grasped the implication of the clipboard and his statement. She was quick, that one.
"He'll never even know I'm there, sensei."
Ino had been inside many minds using her Shintensen no jutsu, in which her spiritual chakra took over the conscious of another, letting her see through their eyes. It was excellent for infiltration and spying missions, but for the kind of mental interrogations that Ibiki did normally, you couldn't pay her to be inside another's consciousness at the time.
No, for interrogation and information gathering Ino had a much better trick.
She sat quietly in a chair next to where Neji was guarding the door, her clipboard in her lap and watched the prisoner, biding her time. Shizune had obviously healed the most serious of his wounds, but she could still see the aftereffects of a beating. Using his fists wasn't usually Ibiki's style. The shinobi must have really pissed him off to get him to use him for a punching bag. Right now the unnamed shinobi's attention was on Ibiki, as the Interrogation specialist made himself comfortable in that ominously casual way that he had. Like you were just sitting down for a nice chat together and not about to be ending up in a fetal ball of drooling mental anguish. Sooner or later though he'd look at her, and when his eyes met hers...it'd be all over.
Ino didn't have to wait long before she saw the shinobi's narrow black eyes peeking out at her from the curtain of his lank hair. She gave him her best and most brilliant smile, holding his eyes with hers, she wasn't above using her good looks to keep the shinobi's attention on her face and not on the quick hand seals she made as she focused her chakra.
'Shindoku-i no jutsu!' she said silently in her mind.
Ino let her head fall back against the wall as the jutsu took effect, her eyes locked on the prisoner across the room. Like a radio trying to receive too many different stations at once Ino was initially bombarded by the overlapping thoughts of those closest around her, piling up like a jumble. It was overwhelming and she narrowed her eyes as she focused her chakra more, tuning in to the prisoner's thoughts alone and letting the hum of Neji's pragmatic thoughts about the security of the room, and Ibiki's darker thoughts as he began his first mental onslaught recede into the background.
She wanted to instinctively recoil from the raw fury and hatred of the shinobi's --Chigumo...that's his name, Chigumo...-- thoughts, like a bad taste in her mouth as they filled her head, and Ino took a deep breath through her nose as she tried to keep herself focused. It was intense, she was just eavesdropping, just listening in as Ibiki began his interrogation, but she could already feel the strain to her chakra.
"Rank. Affiliation," Ibiki growled, his voice coming to her like she was underwater. It was Chigumo's thoughts that were as clear as if he spoke them directly into her ear.
--Chuunin of Sunagakure no sato once-- Ino picked up the pencil and clipboard on her lap to write the information down, --so sick of doing petty bullshit missions for that fucking freak-- her hand a little shaky. Why was she shaking? She put the tip of the pencil to paper --but now...we hit the big time on this one-- and began to quickly transcribe Chigumo's thoughts, as oily and unpleasant as they were. --No one's going to tell us what to do...and when I get out of here--
"If you're not going to answer...believe me, I can make you talk," Ibiki said and mentally applied the screws.
Ino winced involuntarily as Chigumo's mental groans of pain and the corresponding torrent of rage assaulted her as well, like someone shouting point blank in her ear. --get out of here I am so going to fucking KILL you! I don't care what Bingo Book you're in you scarred motherfucker! Next time I won't miss! I'll kill all of you ANBU bastards--
"I told you," Chigumo panted, baring his teeth at Ibiki. "You aren't going to get shit out of me. So either kill me or let me go, but stop wasting my fucking time." --Like these assholes would let me go. Fuck bad luck getting nabbed before I could meet up with- Aaahhhhh!--
Again Ino jerked in her chair from the force of Chigumo's mental screams, her hand coming up to touch her sweaty brow. She'd practiced this jutsu several times with Ibiki, she knew how to focus her chakra and how long she would be able to hold the jutsu normally --which wasn't very long--, but she didn't have the experience like her father did to withstand the backlash. When she'd trained it was to learn to tune into a specific person's thoughts, in those cases Ibiki's, but she'd never done this with a person undergoing a mental assault. It wasn't quite as painful as being inside their conscious during, but it was no fun either. It was starting to take a concentrated effort on her part to remain coordinated enough to scratch out her notes on the clipboard, and her hand still shook, making the pencil tip clatter against the paper repeatedly.
--Ino-san? What--
"Don't look at me!" she hissed under her breath when she felt Neji's thoughts start to focus on her. He was closest to her, and therefore the hardest for her to keep tuned out, especially at the rate she was burning through her chakra. Neji shifted his weight in silent understanding and in his mind began humming a tuneless melody like a meditation chant. "Thank you," she exhaled in a small burst of air.
"What is your objective for infiltrating Konoha?" Ibiki barked, and barely gave Chigumo time to form a coherent thought before he mentally attacked him again with more force than he had before. Chigumo's screams of agony, both mental and verbal were almost deafening in the small room and they hit Ino like an avalanche making her hiss in her breath sharply.
--Gaaahhh! Stop! Fuck make it stop! Nothing is worth this-- "Fuck you!" Chigumo spat out.
"What do you want with Konoha?" Ibiki demanded. applying even more mental force. Chigumo wailed, his bound hands clutching at his head and he bit his tongue until blood ran down his chin to keep from talking.
--recruit...Honey daimyo...no more, can't take it...hurts too much--
"I want some answers!" Ibiki roared. He seemed to have almost forgotten about Ino and Neji being in the room. His whole focus was mentally breaking the shinobi in front of him. He wasn't the toughest he'd ever tried to crack, but he was up there. "What. Do. You. Want. In. Konoha?" Ibiki punctuated each word with another mental strike, like lashes of a whip.
Ino's head snapped back and cracked into the wall sharply as her whole body arched against the pain. Her fingers spasming so hard she snapped the pencil in half and her clipboard clattered to the floor. On the ground nearby Chigumo writhed and screamed, his fingers digging into his scalp. His thoughts so fragmented that they were just an inarticulate howl at this point, making Ino feel like she was standing inside of a ringing boncho bell, her senses dulled and her head splitting.
--talkyesI'lltalktellyoueverything...justmakeitstop--
Chigumo muttered incoherently to the floor he was curled into, blood dripping from his mouth. His mind formulating what and how much to tell the Konoha ANBU who were torturing him. He looked out from under the fall of black hair that covered his face and his eyes met right as it came on her like a rush, everything they'd ever want to know, followed all too closely by the next wave of crippling pain from Ibiki.
"No...more," Ino moaned, her trembling hand coming up in front of her face as she tried to make the seal to release the jutsu, her chakra almost gone. She felt something wet on her lips and the coppery taste of blood --a nosebleed-- she'd definitely held the jutsu too long and put too much stress on her brain. "Release!" she mouthed silently.
She lifted her head to see Ibiki looking over his shoulder at her narrowly. She held a hand up to her bleeding nose as she stood, trying to give him the smallest of nods to say that she had gotten the wanted intelligence from Chigumo, but all she got was the dirty white linoleum floor rushing up to smack her in the face.
And then nothing.
Reviews and comments are welcome, but I'm not holding the fic hostage for them.