Beta-ed by ShipperTrish
Chapter 13:Part of the Equation.
This was all starting to feel horribly familiar to Sakura as her mind slowly glued itself back together. Once again she was thrashing and kicking her way up through the murky depths of the indistinct towards the glistening surface of consciousness, and once again the vulnerable numbness in her limbs told her she was without the use of her chakra highway. With those coherent thoughts slotting firmly into place, she was once again made aware that with consciousness came pain.
Her body was pressed against a cold and slightly damp surface and the rich smell of hay and manure seemed to cloud her senses. Although the chill seeping into her bones from the floor was unpleasant, its cold surface wasn't entirely unwelcomed, she thought as she pushed her hot, throbbing forehead against it.
Cracking an eye open, she took in her surroundings, instantly grateful for the dim lighting when her head only pounded gently in response to its intrusion.
The Copy Nin was slumped in a sitting position against a stone wall about eight feet from her, his arms shackled above his head on cast iron chains and a black canvas bag pulled snugly over his head.
Sakura knew it was him, though. An old, thick, white scar ran down from mid thigh and curved sharply around his knee cap.
About a year ago, when Team Kakashi had been on a simple escort mission to Suna, Kakashi had taken a kunai to the thigh. Sakura had been on hand to heal him after he had demonstrated single-handed how to eliminate five enemy ninja in a series of three flashy taijutsu moves. Unfortunately, he hadn't expected one of his own teammates to let loose a kunai just as he was coming out of a full roundhouse kick (Naruto had been inconsolable for hours).
When healing the luckily superficial wound, Sakura had noticed the larger, more impressive scar which, at its widest point, was the width of her index finger. The scar tissue was uneven and bumpy in places and the skin shiny where the wound had stretched during its healing. When she had asked what had caused it, he had simply shrugged and ruffled her hair, saying with complete seriousness "A Tiger." When she had ducked out of his aggressive molestation of her scalp, she had shot him her best "Haruno Sakura Disbelieving Glare" and told him that in no uncertain terms he was a liar. Infuriatingly, he had just given her a confused look and told her "Tigers are grumpy creatures."
It was so typically him, treating her like a child even though, at the time, she had just turned seventeen. She wondered if he'd ever stop looking at her like that.
Seeing her former sensei trussed up in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and a tight, black tank top should have been something dreams were made of, dreams that were not at all "childish" in nature, but all Sakura could focus on was the gentle rise and fall of his chest and the relief that flooded through her at the sight. She thought he was dead, she thought she was alone.
"Kakashi-sensei…" she whispered, surprised at the clarity of her voice in the quietness of their prison.
When she got no answer, she started to shift towards him until the tight bite against her wrists, ankles, and throat told her she wouldn't get very far. Looking down at her own restraints, she cursed out loud upon seeing the neatly engraved kanji on the surface of the smooth metal shackles. She felt around her neck, taking note of the thick metal collar and squirmed her fingers underneath it, searching frantically for some sort of release mechanism. It was as she expected, uniformly smooth and slightly warm to the touch: chakra repressing restraints. Well, that explained a lot.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," she sighed with a huff, pounding her heavy ankles into the ground and kicking up flecks of muddy water.
"Language." Came the grumbling reply followed by a series of pained groans.
"Kakashi! You're awake!"
"Unfortunately." Another shift and another groan. "Where are we? And what is that awful smell? Smells like a farmyard in here."
Sakura lifted herself off the cold ground as much as she could, pulling tightly against the restraints that were, in her case, firmly bolted to the ground. At least they had allowed her limited use of her arms unlike Kakashi who didn't seem to have much manoeuvrability at all.
Finally managing to pull herself into a crouch, she studied her surroundings properly.
Her own medic apron and shoes had been removed as well as her gloves, but their captor had thankfully left her in her black skintight shorts and vest.
The ground beneath her was concrete, covered in a thin, wet layer of hay and mud.
The cell was brick with a metal front which was solid up until waist height and then barred all the way to the high ceiling.
Thick oak rafters were covered over with corrugated iron and the door to the cell seemed wider than normal and followed the same pattern of being solid at the bottom and barred at the top. It seemed to have double hinges indicating that the door could be opened in two halves. If Sakura craned her neck through the bars, there were other similar units of about the same twelve by twelve dimension opposite her, stretching as far as she could see.
"I think we're in some sort of stable for cattle or horses," she mused, rubbing at her irritated sinuses.
Kakashi grunted at that, the sound muffled by the mask and the cowl over his head.
"Are you hurt? You were bleeding. I thought…"
"My skull feels like its been cleaved in two, but I'll live."
"But all that blood…"
"Head wounds always bleed a lot. You know that. They seem to have patched me up properly. I can feel the stitches tugging."
"What happened?" she asked.
Kakashi was quiet for a long time before replying in a low, angry voice, "He just appeared behind me. It was so fast, even with the Sharingan uncovered I didn't see it coming. I didn't even hear it coming. That's never happened to me before." He sounded irritated with himself and surprised.
The silence stretched for an impossibly long time, the low grumble of distant thunder being the only break in the monotony of waiting. What were they even waiting for? Help?
Help was a long way away, Sakura thought bitterly, once again tugging at her restraints. It was futile. The chains groaned an encouraging protest, but did no more than that.
They weren't due back in Konoha for another two days, maybe less, but from the overall darkness of the building, Sakura suspected they had only been there a couple of hours.
The jittery whinny of a horse echoed through the long building and then, as if in response, the rain started, pattering out a chaotic rhythm against the corrugated ceiling. It became almost deafening in its inconsistent persistence, each cracking drop against metal seemed like a hammer striking an anvil and every strike seemed to set Sakura's teeth on edge, driving a nail of worry and doubt deeper and deeper into her skull.
"Kakashi, what are they going to do to us?" She already had a good idea.
"Hmm…Probably torture us, try to find out how much we know, how many of us there are."
Sakura fell quiet at that. She had had her fair share of dangerous missions and life threatening situations, but torture? She'd had training of course, but knowing the human body as well as any other top class medical kunoichi, she also knew there was an infinite amount of ways to inflict pain both physical and psychological. Could she hold up against that? Would she let Kakashi down even more than she already had?
This mission had gone from bad to worse to downright horrendous. It had been a long time since she had felt this spectacularly defeated or this much of a liability. It seemed that in the last six days she had done nothing but screw up. Had it only been that long? Not even a week? And if they didn't get out of here? If she died here? Would Konoha be able to survive this? Kakashi said he had sent word to the Hokage to make preparations for an imminent attack, but they didn't know the extent of what her team had uncovered or what they were still trying to uncover.
It was suddenly too hot to breath. When had it gotten so hot in here? Surely the arrival of rain should have broken the stifling Taki humidity. It was so damn hot! She was starting to hyperventilate, her medic mind told her with an almost wry smile. Her fingers once again started to frantically dig at the collar around her neck.
"Sakura?"
She made a soft noise to indicate she was listening, too afraid to speak in case the words broke apart in her mouth. Her eyes were misting with tears that made her feel even more wretched. Why did she always have to cry? Why couldn't she stop panting? She gave the collar a final hard yank and then let her hands fall dejectedly to her sides. It was useless. She slumped back against the wall.
"I have completed four hundred and fourteen B-rank missions."
The statement came out of nowhere in the thick, familiar drawl she was used to hearing. Even when speaking in lazy, resigned monotone, his words rose well above the crackling patter of the rain.
Unable to see her reaction, he carried on. "I've also completed two hundred and ninety-eight A-rank missions." He said it all with a tone of bored nonchalance and she was sure that if she could see his normally visible gray eye, it would be hooded and indifferent. Was he actually boasting? At a time like this? Her chest felt so tight…
"I've also completed forty-two S-rank missions."
The guy was insufferably arrogant sometimes!
"That's nice, Kakashi," she ground out between her teeth, supporting herself on her elbows.
"And that's not including the hundreds of C-rank and D-rank missions or the ones that 'never happened.' I've done seventy-six of those."
Her eyebrow twitched just slightly.
"In total, I've completed one-thousand, two-hundred and seventeen missions successfully. Granted some of them were completed outside given mission parameters and granted some of them involved accidental casualties, but overall, I think a one hundred percent success rate is pretty good if I do say so myself."
He was just being cocky now…
"Well, Kakashi, you might have to make that a ninety-nine point ninety-two percent success rate," she hissed.
He allowed himself a private grin. "Maybe. Do you want to know something else?"
A pained sigh.
"I've been captured twenty-three times by the enemy and tortured on fifteen of those occasions."
Noting her silence, Kakashi shifted so that his arms were allowed a little slack. He rolled his head across his shoulders, sighing appreciatively as the bones in his neck and spine popped, releasing the tension from being in one position for who knows how long. In a voice that clearly transmitted complete relaxation, he continued once more.
"In all fifteen cases, the torture was brutal, soul destroying, and seemed unrelenting. On one mission when I was eighteen, I was held captive for nine weeks and everyday without fail I would be 'interrogated' until I passed out with pain or blood loss. Konoha had just about given me up for dead. Only the fact that we were in a time of war prevented them from adding my name to the cenotaph: there were too many confirmed casualties and ninjas considered M.I.A were pushed to the bottom of the list. There are, as you well know, thousands of ways to inflict pain: hot, cold, blunt, sharp, physical, mental…Every form has a binary opposite, equal in effectiveness. Then, you have the senses: touch, taste, sound, smell...They can be all turned against you with the right approach. You could take every class the T & I have to offer and still your enemy will most probably find a way to get to you."
"Why are you even telling me all this?!" Sakura practically shouted, her anger bubbling to the surface. Her chains gave a protesting squeak when the links ground together as she strained towards him. "Did that ANBU hit you a little too hard on the head or something?!"
His head snapped straight towards her, his body language no longer lazy and relaxed, but rather sharp and focused. She knew that despite the black canvas covering his head, he was looking straight at her. His voice when he spoke was clear and strong, just like it was on the battlefield.
"Fifteen times I remained silent, fifteen times I recovered from the experience, fifteen times I made it back home. We will get out of here. We will complete our mission."
Sakura could only nod dumbly as her body relaxed. He was right. Suddenly, the fear and apprehension that had been boiling in her blood since the word "torture" had first entered her brain melted away and a blanket of heavy calm settled across her shoulders. She could do this, she really could.
"Thanks, Kakashi."
"No problem." He muttered, sagging back into the wall. "I just need to come up with a plan."
Tsunade stared down at the traitorous little piece of card gripped firmly between her well manicured fingertips, a trench-like scowl marring her ageless face. With a deep sigh, she opened the cabinet beneath her large oak desk and withdrew a saké bottle, not bothering to take out the small china cups that accompanied it. Uncapping the bottle, she tipped it up and let the warm strong taste flood her mouth. Swallowing it with only a slight grimace, she sat the bottle on her desk and began scribbling down instructions on the open scroll in front of her.
"Shizune!" she yelled in her clear, strong voice.
The petite, dark haired assistant appeared almost instantly, clutching a sleeping Tonton tightly to her chest.
"Yes, Hokage-sama?"
"Get me Umino Iruka. Now!" She shouted, slamming her hand on the desk and subsequently sending the bottle of saké smashing onto the floor. Tsunade let out a low growl of frustration and pinched the bridge of her nose viciously before turning on her heel and striding towards the door.
"Y-yes, Hokage-sama! W-where are you going?"
"To buy some more saké." The door slammed behind her, rattling heavily on its brass hinges.
Shizune watched after her with a look of shock and concern.
This couldn't be good…
Walking over towards the desk intent on cleaning up the mess before Tsunade got back, her eye caught the small piece of card that had fluttered to the floor. The silver surface of the lottery card had been scratched away to reveal three matching symbols corresponding to a jackpot of twenty million yen. Shizune sighed dejectedly and walked with hurried steps to track down a certain desk chuunin.
This couldn't be good at all…
Kakashi's body stiffened long before a shadow flickered across the dim light source, his muscles tense and tight before Sakura had even heard the faint sound of approaching footfalls. How he had sensed another presence over the clamoring sound of the rain and the invasive smell of the farm animals Sakura couldn't be sure, but at the sight of his body preparing for action, she felt herself drawing up into the most defensible position she could manage within the confines of her restraints.
The sound of a key being turned and the long drawn out whine of the door grating against the dirty cement flooring had both Sakura and Kakashi eying their portal to freedom with eager expressions, albeit one unseeingly.
A tall, lean ninja strode into the cell, keeping a safe distance away from the two prisoners. He was dressed in a standard Taki jounin uniform and seemed a little skittish and nervous. Sakura didn't know if it was because of them or something else entirely. Hesitantly, he placed a bowl of water down on the cell floor and then turned back towards the exit.
"How do we know that it isn't poisoned?" Sakura asked with heavy suspicion.
The tall, dark haired ninja turned back towards them and gave her a look of almost surprise, the expression sitting comically upon his slightly too broad face. Coughing into his hand lightly, he spoke up with a clear, rich voice.
"It's only rain water, I can assure you," he replied pleasantly, shifting from foot to foot.
"How much longer are you planning on keeping us here?"
"You'll have to ask Kuma-san," he said and once again turned towards the exit.
Finally, in a calm and pleasant voice Kakashi asked, "Could you at least remove my hood and mask? I'm afraid I can't drink without assistance."
Again, the ninja looked around almost nervously, once again shifting from foot to foot.
"I really can't do that," he murmured almost apologetically.
"I won't try anything." Kakashi half stood and pulled against his chains. Kenta's hand immediately darted to his kunai pouch and he dropped back into a defensive posture. "See, I can't move any further than this." A sharp tug against the chains. "I can't use my chakra. All I'm asking for is for you to remove what's covering my face so that I can drink and at least see what I'm doing," the Copy Nin stated reasonably, moving back into an unthreatening seated position.
The dark haired ninja thought long and hard until he finally started backing away.
"What's your name?" Sakura suddenly asked, flashing him what she hoped was an appealing friendly smile to cover her growing frustration. They needed those keys…
"Kenta." The ninja spoke up immediately, taking a hard, scrutinizing glare at her face, searching her features for deceit.
"Well, Kenta, my partner had a very nasty bump to the head and lost a lot of blood. It's important to keep your fluids up after an accident like that, hm?" she kept her voice sweet and light.
For a second she was sure he was just going to turn and leave again with his eyes darting between her, Kakashi, and the wide open cell door. In one last attempt, she pulled on her best puppy dog eyes and forced as much sincerity into her voice as possible. "Please, Kenta-san?"
He took one hesitant step forward and then another until he was within reaching distance of the Copy Nin. Reaching out a hand to bridge the distance between them, he gently hooked his fingers underneath the coarse fabric of the hood and paused, staring at Kakashi uncertainly.
"I promise to not even move." Kakashi said, struggling to keep the smile out of his voice.
Kenta nodded and Sakura quietly released a breath she'd been holding.
The material lifted up at an infuriatingly slow pace, revealing the Copy Nin inch by inch:
The tight contours of Kakashi's black mask...
The strong line of his nose...
Pale skin over high, defined cheekbones..
The shadow of thick eyelashes...
And to Sakura's line of sight, lower down on the floor, the smallest sliver of swirling contorting red.
It was a strange sensation. It made no sound, only gave the brief feeling of being tugged. The walls of the cell seemed to bend with anticipation, flexing and contracting for a split second and then suddenly there was another hand, a gloved hand, griped tightly around Kenta's wrist, effectively stopping his progress. The grip tightened further and there was a muffled crunch followed by a shrill cry. The material fell down over Kakashi's face as Kenta fell down heavily on his knees, clutching his broken wrist and grinding his teeth hard through the pain.
"Kenta, that was nearly a costly mistake," came the smooth baritone. It was a strange voice, velvety and deep, yet devoid of inflection. A beautiful, but expressionless face popped into Sakura's head without permission and she hastily beat down the thought. This man was not Sai. He was entirely more terrifying then Sai had ever been.
"P-please forgive me, Kuma-san. It won't happen again." Kenta mumbled, the pain evident in his voice.
Kuma nodded, a movement that was barely perceptible behind the mask. The dark eyeholes seemed to shift to Sakura for a brief moment until settling back on Kakashi.
"We're going to talk now, Hatake-san."
She heard Kakashi's low growl of defiance and then Kuma's hand slapped onto Kakashi's shoulder and both of them disappeared from the room without a trace. There was no smoke, no flashy display of leaves, just an odd, aching feeling of emptiness and the silence broken only by the persistent pattering of rain on the roof and the pained ragged breathing of the man on the floor.
"Kenta? Where has he taken him?" Sakura asked shakily, her eyes wide and confused.
"To be interrogated." Kenta sighed, rolling onto his back.
Sakura drew her knees close to her chest and stared at where Kakashi's chains now hung limply.
"Why are you so scared of him? Don't you realize you're committing treason by working for that turncoat?" she whispered.
"They have my daughter."
Her face dropped into a horrified expression, but Kenta refused to look at her and gradually got to his feet. He left the cell without another word, pulling the door shut and relocking it.
"Help us," she whispered. "We can help her. We can get her out of here."
She knew he had heard her, but he said nothing and gradually the ever persistent rain drowned out the sound of his feet shuffling away.
"Coward." she muttered.
Iruka stood before the Hokage feeling rather awkward and unsure of what to do.
She was sitting in a rather unladylike position on her desk taking long, loud gulps from a saké bottle. She hadn't even bothered with a cup.
He had been standing there for a good few minutes before he had decided that maybe, even though he was standing right in front of her, he should alert her to his presence.
He cleared his throat into his hand in an oh so subtle attempt to gain her attention.
She continued swigging.
He tried again. "Eh-hurm!"
She took another long swig, seeming to pause to read the label on the bottle upside down.
"Eh-Eh-HURM!"
"For God's sake, boy! I can see you're here!" she yelled, scowling at him and dribbling a little saké into her enormous cleavage.
Iruka blushed and looked at his feet as she dabbed furiously at her chest with the sleeve of her yukata.
She seemed to then shrug before downing the rest of the bottle in one go. After making a long, satisfied noise through her nose, she finally turned to Iruka.
"I have a mission for you, 'Ruka-kun."
He frowned at the nickname and then frowned deeper at the strange, flirty tone of voice she was using. The woman was like a seesaw: Up. Down. Up. Down.
Stepping forward, he took the scroll she was holding out for him and unfurled it, quickly skimming through its contents. His eyes widened, then practically bulged out his head.
"H-hokage-sama, this is going to take days!" he spluttered.
"No, it's not," she sang, kicking her heels back and forth under the table.
"B-but..."
"It's going to take two days at the most," she commented merrily.
"Hokage-sama," Iruka started, trying to maintain a polite tone. "Even with the help of the ninja you have listed, an operation of this magnitude would take us the better part of a week! The rations would need to be prepared and ordered and even though Kotetsu, Izumo, and I are completely capable-"
"ENOUGH!" she shouted, slamming her palm down on the desk. The contents littering its surface shuddered, but did not fall down.
That was one well made desk! Iruka noticed with longing.
"Please forgive me, Hokage-sama." he said bowing low in apology.
"You can use the pre-genin classes to help you, but I need all my jounin available to fight if necessary. We have a threat fast approaching. We need to be prepared."
Iruka nodded, knowing how important his task was. He bowed again, turning towards the door.
"Oh, and Ruka-ru-ru?" she asked with a giggle.
He felt a horrified shudder ripple up his spinal cord.
"Yes, Hokage-sama?"
"If you manage this in one day, I'll buy you a new desk," she said smiling and rubbed her knuckles against her desk's well polished surface.
Suddenly filled with a new lease on life, Iruka strode from the room.
A new desk!
A Hokage-proof, hopefully dog-proof, beautiful new desk! Surely he'd be able to evacuate the village's civilian population in twenty-four hours, right? Organize the sleeping and living quarters hidden deep within the depths of the Hokage Mountain, right? Find enough ration supplies to feed almost six thousand people, right?! That desk would be so his! As he turned into the corridor, he heard the telltale sound of a saké bottle being uncorked followed by the Hokage's menacing laughter. This was going to be a long night.
The grain of rough wood under his palms was all the anchor he needed. When he had that, he didn't need his sight, so despite the claustrophobic confines of the dark hood and the rigid seated position he was strapped in, Kakashi remained calm, his breathing elevated only slightly above normal. It happened again and he forced his focus to deepen so that all that remained was himself and the texture under his hands. It was a reassuring constant against the intense screwdriving pain in his fingertips.
Another senbon slipped under the nail of his right index finger, its sharp, metal tip burning a tunnel through the soft, sensitive flesh. He heard himself hiss and felt his body's natural response of trying to pull away kick in again, but he pushed those distractions down, breathing out deeply and expelling the energy. The trick was to accept the pain. Once you stopped fighting it and just accepted its existence, it became background noise. It still hurt, it was still excruciating, but a decade serving in ANBU taught you how to compartmentalize these things. The man with the needles was ANBU, though, and knew as well as Kakashi did that everyone had limits. You can't keep up that kind of focus forever.
Another senbon and warm, reassuring wood.
"Hatake-san, where are the other members of your team?"
Senbon. Silence.
"Hatake-san, is the Hokage aware of our plans?"
Senbon. A thin trail of sweat sliding down his face from underneath the stifling confines of the hood.
"Hatake-san, how much do you know of our plans against Konoha?"
Another senbon slipped slowly, slowly, slowly into the middle finger of his left hand and Kakashi grunted, biting down on the soft flesh of his bottom lip, trying to redirect his focus.
"Hatake-san, if you tell me-"
"Is this the part where you tell me all the pain will end if I just tell you what you need to know?" Kakashi said, keeping his voice as bored as possible although the rasping sound of his breathing negated some of the effect in his opinion.
Kuma cocked his head to the side although Kakashi couldn't see the gesture. "Yes."
"Well, save me the cliché bullshit. I won't answer any of your questions."
"Hatake-san, clichés are clichés because they work."
Another senbon and a new finger. Another pained groan, slightly louder than before.
"Hatake-san, where are your teammates?"
"This again?"
"Where are they, Hatake-san?"
Fiery pain shot through his right hand as the multiple senbons wedged in the soft nail beds were wiggled up and down at an agonizingly slow pace. Kakashi pushed his palms as hard as possible into the wooden arms of the chair he was strapped to, but was unable to claw back the anchoring focus he had been holding onto. When the process was repeated on the other hand, his control slipped and he screamed, the wooden arms splintering underneath him.
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. His shallow, uneven breathing seemed to dominate the dark space all around him.
"Hatake-san, if you don't cooperate I will have to bring in your partner."
The slightest stiffening of Kakashi's shoulders was all Kuma needed to continue.
"How do you think she will hold up against this treatment?"
Silence. A senbon was ripped out with alarming quickness.
"She's stronger than you give her credit for." Kakashi bit out around the pain.
"I'm sure anyone deserving to be the Hokage's apprentice is indeed strong, but how strong? She's young and inexperienced. A little girl ruled by emotion."
"She'll be fine." Kakashi replied flatly.
"My methods of getting what I need from her won't be as pleasant as this if you resist."
Kakashi could feel himself hesitating. It wasn't the first time a teammate had been used against him like this and probably wouldn't be the last, but Sakura? He gulped, trying to swallow back the words in his mouth. He couldn't tell this man anything.
"I'm sorry, Hatake-san. I'll take you back to your cell now."
"You're not sorry! You don't understand the concept of the word!" Kakashi spat.
All of the senbon were at once wrenched from Kakashi's fingertips and Kakashi screamed, unable to control it.
Kuma cocked his head to the side, considering the Copy Nin's words.
"No, you're right. I don't." Kuma replied.
*
AN: Thanks for last chapters reviews guys! …is everyone still with me? Eh? Also thanks to new readers, new alert's and new favourites.