Author's Note: Woot! Got all my homework done today so I can hopefully get the next chapter done this weekend. :D
Oh, and I kept forgetting to do this, but I wanted to give a shout out to Moonlit917. If you guys haven't read her stories Remind Me and Remember Me, you really need to. They are hilarious! And she dedicated a chapter to me because I love Green Day and understood a reference she made in one of the chapters. XD But yeah. You should read those stories. They're great. :)
Thank you to Echo Uchiha, Angel42497, BlackRose723, and Evalyd Yamazaki for the reviews on chapter thirteen! :)
Reviews on this chapter would be amazing! Your reviews always make me want to write more and more than I already do. :D
Enjoy!

Fourteen: Interrogation

I didn't know how I could have missed it. His short, spiky hair was the same dark color, his body was large and muscular, and the entire lengths of his arms and legs were wrapped in bandages. He might as well have had a giant flashing neon sign above his head reading, "Hey! Look at me!" It was that obvious. Maybe it was rage that had clouded my perception, but either way, I should have recognized him the moment I laid eyes on him.

Still maintaining control of his arm, I forced him into an alleyway that was, conveniently, located to the left of the grocery store. "Make sure the boy is ok," I commanded Sakura, "treat any wounds he may have, and buy him some fresh groceries. When you're done, escort him home, and make sure he's safe."

"Yes, Sensei," Sakura swiftly replied.

Once we had advanced far enough into the dark passage, I shoved the man from my grasp and landed a kick to the back of his knees to send him staggering to the ground. Before he had a chance to get up, I formed a few hand seals and, in a low voice, called out, "Earth Style: Restraining Earth Jutsu."

The rocky ground beneath the man shifted to wrap tightly around his wrists and ankles, instantly solidifying upon completion. There was no room for his hands and feet to wriggle free, and I couldn't help but snicker as he desperately tried and failed to escape. I had him right where I wanted him, and it was time to interrogate.

"Why did you attack my squad the other day?" I immediately asked him.

"Let me go!" He demanded, dodging the question.

"Answer my questions, and maybe I will," I glared at him, "Now why did you attack my squad?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he snapped, "I don't even know who you are!"

"Don't play dumb with me!" I growled.

I repeated the question once more, and when the man still didn't answer, I sifted through my weapon's holster for a special kind of weapon that I had made specifically for interrogations. Opening a compartment in my pouch, I gripped the kunai that I wanted in my hand. I let the metal blade slowly scrape against the rest of my weapons as I extracted it, letting the sinister sound echo against the brick walls that surrounded us. If he wasn't going to talk willingly, I was going to have to force him to. I ran the sharpened blade across the back of the man's neck, letting it just barely graze the sensitive skin. "So, which one are you, Ichiro, or Jiro?"

"I don't know what you're—"

The man stopped mid-sentence to let out a loud cry as I pressed the blade a bit harder, piercing his skin. Blood began to trickle out of his new wound, running down either side of his neck and dripping off of his Adam's apple. I crouched down beside him, placing my lips just a few inches away from his ear. "If you don't start telling me the truth," I whispered, "I promise you, you'll be in so much pain you'll be begging for me to kill you."

The man let out a small laugh. "You wouldn't kill me."

"Oh yeah?" I raised my eyebrows at him, "And why's that?"

"Killing without reason will get a shinobi in a great deal of trouble." The grin on his face was one of confidence. Overconfidence. I didn't like it one bit.

It was true that mindless killing was against Konoha law, and breaking that law could result in imprisonment and even death. But the laws of Konoha were less concrete in a village that was considered traitorous. Even though I had previously expressed empathy toward this village's situation, I decided to use it to my advantage in my interrogation. "Konoha no longer affiliates with this village," I told him, "Hell, I'd probably even get praised for killing scum like you."

"You think I have some vital information," he responded contemptuously, "so killing me would be illogical if you ever wanted to hear it."

I sliced the blade through the man's shirt to create a long cut along the length of his back. The man shouted in intense pain as it slowly tore through his skin, clenching his fists tightly and squirming in an attempt to escape the sting of the knife. When he finally quieted down and quick, ragged breaths replaced his screams, I gripped the man's chin with my fingers, forcing him to look up at me. "Do you see that girl with the pink hair?" I asked him. Sakura could be seen just twenty feet away using a medical ninjutsu on the young, shaggy-haired boy's fragile body.

The man's eyes flashed to the side for a moment as he struggled to breathe.

Without waiting for his reply, I continued with a sinister smile, "She's a medical ninja. She'll keep you alive as long as I need her to."

I managed to detect a flicker of fear in his dark eyes before he concealed his emotions once more behind his tough exterior. Smirking, I realized I was finally getting to him. "So, which is it? Are you Ichiro, or Jiro?"

He sighed exasperatedly. "I don't—"

I placed the kunai against the front of his neck, tempting him to speak and save his own life.

"Alright!" He shouted, squirming away from the blade, "I'm Ichiro!"

Satisfied that he had finally cooperated with me, I pulled the kunai away from the man's throat, earning a relieved sigh from Ichiro. I rose to my feet and walked around the man, peering outside the alleyway at Sakura and the little boy. Sakura helped him to his feet and ruffled his shaggy hair, and he smiled coyly as she did so. He looked better—more alive—than he had before. The two then walked into the grocery store to buy some fresh food. "Why did you and your brother attack my squad?" I repeated my first question, hoping for a better reply.

"We're poor," he answered, "we steal from others to survive. You just happened to cross our paths—"

Another sharp cry filled the air after I whipped the kunai into the man's back. I whirled myself around, narrowing my eyes, and advanced toward him. The knife just barely missed his spine. "I told you that I want the truth!" I shouted at him, angrily gripping the kunai handle and ripping the blade out of his skin. His body quivered as the pain surged through his body and blood dripped to form a red pool underneath him.

"Alright," the man choked through his ragged breaths, "I'm sorry, I'll tell you the truth."

"Good," I said, twirling the kunai around my fingertips. I hoped that the whizzing sound of the knife slicing the air would remind him of the pain he would suffer if he lied again.

"I wasn't lying when I said my brother and I are poor," he started, "so, yes, we do have to steal from others to survive. But one day, some guy came up to us and said that he would pay us 10,000 Ryo if we could get information on that boy of yours. Isami, I think it was. We took the job because we needed the money. We had nothing against you, personally. I'm sorry, please," Ichiro bowed his head as if pleading for my forgiveness.

"What did he want to know about the boy?" I inquired.

"He just wanted my brother and I to test his abilities. He wanted to know more about his kekkei genkai, but he obviously didn't want to do the dirty work himself. He told us what the boy looked like and then sent us off in search of him. We had been searching for almost a week when we finally came across you guys. The boy matched the description we had been given, so we tried to provoke him to unleash his power."

I stopped spinning the weapon. "Who gave you the job?"

"I don't know," he answered.

I slashed the kunai through both of the man's bandaged arms. He cried out once again, and his body became so exhausted from pain and light-headedness that his arms and legs could no longer hold himself up. He let himself fall into the pool of his own blood, writhing in pain. "I want the truth!" I demanded.

"That was the truth, I swear!" He insisted, tears squeezing out of his tightly closed eyes, "I'd never seen him before in my life! He didn't tell me his name or where he was from! I know nothing about him!"

He had completely dropped his original tough-guy facade, letting his tears flow freely from his eyes, and that suggested that he was, in fact, telling the truth. I was still, of course, unsatisfied with the answer, but there wasn't much I could do if he truly didn't know the man. Sighing, I asked instead, "What did the man look like?"

"P-Please," Ichiro begged, his lower lip quivering, "can you get that medical ninja now?" His eyelids began to droop, and he was so weak that he couldn't raise his voice above a rough whisper.

"Not until you tell me what he looked like," I answered.

"I'm going t-to die," he sniveled.

"Then hurry and answer my question!" I threw the kunai into the dirt just a few centimeters away from his hand.

Ichiro flinched violently. Whimpering, he managed to muster the strength to cooperate with my demand. "I didn't see his face. He had a long black jacket with a high collar, and it covered most of his face. His long black hair covered his eyes. He was kind of short—shorter than you—and he had a really deep voice that didn't seem to match his appearance."

I could sense that his consciousness was slowly drifting away. His neck fell limp and his face fell into the dirt. I crouched down, grabbed him by his short, black hair, and lifted his head up so his drooping eyes could look at me. "Where did he come from? Where is he now?" From the looks of it, I was running out of time, and I still needed answers.

"I don't know… he never told me anything about him… he left the village after my brother and I gave him the information he wanted…"

A small glimmer of hope caused my heart to flip inside my chest. "Which way did he go?" I quickly asked.

"I don't know…"

"Damnit!" I shouted at him, "At least try to remember!"

"I remember him leaving," he murmured, "but I didn't see him do it."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

Through heaving breaths, the man replied, "He always… seemed to appear… out of… nowhere… and disappear just as… fast…"

Ichiro's eyes fell closed, and I knew that his conscious had finally slipped away. Sighing, I released the jutsu that held him captive and rose to my feet. Turning on my heel, I exited the dark alleyway, leaving the unconscious Ichiro behind. I thought about what he had said. "He always seemed to appear out of nowhere and disappear just as fast." It almost seemed like a riddle.

Even though the air of the city was clouded with cigarette smoke, the sun was still blinding in comparison after being in that alleyway. I squinted against the light, and when my eyes had finally adjusted, I saw Sakura approaching quickly from down the street. "I'm back, Kaeda Sensei!" she panted.

"The boy's alright, then?" I presumed.

Sakura nodded. "So, what happened with—"

She paused, looking past me into the alley, and her eyes widened at what she saw. "What the," she breathed, "Kaeda Sensei, did you kill him?"

I laughed at her, patting her on the shoulder, and she raised her eyebrows at me in response. "I didn't kill him," I assured her.

"Well, it sure looks like you did," Sakura commented with a grimace.

"Don't worry," I sighed, "None of his wounds were fatal. I used a special kunai that was coated in a powerful narcotic that induces terrible pain, as if caused by a lethal wound, and light-headedness, as if from loss of blood. It knocks them out after about fifteen-to-twenty minutes. All I did was make him think that I was killing him, and he told me everything I wanted to know. He'll wake up in a few hours."

Sakura tilted her head to one side. "Why didn't you just use a truth-serum?"

"First of all, they're really expensive, unless you're a member of the Intelligence Unit," I explained to her, "second, they're just not quite as fun as my method."

Sakura laughed, rolling her eyes at my slightly sadistic comment. "He must have been terrified," she guessed.

"There's a reason I told you to stay with the kid, Sakura," I told her, urging her to follow me down the street to continue our investigation, "Interrogations can get really ugly."