SO, I am actually sorry this took so long. I had the chapter mostly written but wasn't exactly sure how to go about it. I've never written anything like it before. It was really, really hard to get started. Just a warning, there is torture involved in this chapter. I don't think it's as graphic as it was going to be as I've skipped over most of it, but this is just a warning, ok?
Thank you so much guys!
(Once more, I will just add that this is a trigger warning for torture!)
Sakura opened her eyes, a foggy haze clouding her head as she struggled to make sense of herself. She was disoriented and unable to see clearly. Trying to clear her head, she thought back to her last memory. They had just failed the exam. Hanging her head, she fought back the urge to cry. She had worked so hard and it was all for nothing because she'd been too cocky and underestimated her opponents. She felt sick.
All she wanted to do was crawl into a hole and die. She would never prove that she was good enough.
As her vision began to slowly clear up, Sakura realized that she was neither home nor in the hospital. She noticed bright lights that were almost blinding. The walls were dark stone and her arms were hoisted above her head. When she tried to move, her shoulders and hands ached, telling her that she'd been hanging unconscious for quite some time. Looking up, she spotted cuffs that had chakra seals engraved into the metal on each side, eliminating her ability to escape. She was on her knees with just enough tension to cause discomfort. Staggering to her feet, she blinked.
Groaning, she looked at the mirror on the far wall. She could see that she was still in the same condition as before. She began to shiver, goosebumps rising along her arms as she squirmed uncomfortably. All she wanted was to hug herself, bringing what little warmth she had into her core. The air was so incredibly cold that she was starting to feel numb. Each breath she took left an icy tingle in her lungs.
A steady stream of water trickled down one of the walls; she noticed a sheen of moisture coating each individual stone. It left a very dreary impression that made Sakura remember a particularly graphic scene in one of Jiraiya's novel. Jiraiya must have been inspired by the interrogation chambers of Konoha's underground.
Her breath formed distinct clouds in the air, curling outward and dissipating just as quickly. She didn't know how long she was in the room, awake and driving herself insane. She longed to rub her sore shoulders and wrists but contented herself with the thought that she couldn't possibly have failed if she was locked up like this.
Her teeth began chattering at this point, driving her already cold body into further convulsions in an attempt to conserve heat. Sakura was not impressed. She could do without being slowly driven to hypothermia in a chamber that she knew had been used to horrifically maim and kill countless shinobi.
She started as the door at the other end of the room opened, its metal hinges shrieking. She imagined that it was probably quite similar to the sounds that were made within the chamber as well.
"Hello," a man greeted from the doorway, his hard eyes meeting Sakura's own determined gaze. He was plain, unremarkable. He was the kind of person that you didn't remember, someone that blends into a crowd. Sakura had no experience with this unless under a henge, however, so she looked at the man with mild jealousy.
He was middle aged, scarred, and reminiscent of Ibiki Morino. He could have been his brother and she wouldn't have been surprised. Although anyone that held a special interest in pain usually looked about the same.
She wasn't surprised when he wheeled in a cart full of tools used for torture, nor was she surprised when he stood in silence, staring her down.
This was just the intimidation step that she usually skipped altogether. How easy was it to be intimidating when you were average height and had pink hair. She hoped her children, if she had any, did not inherit pink hair. She didn't know how her father managed to grow up as a boy with pink hair. She wondered how her brother was growing up with pink hair too.
Seeing that her spirit had not wavered, not that he expected it to, he finally began to speak. "You have some vital information―" She rolled her eyes at this. "―that we must acquire. And you will tell me. What was in the scroll?"
She met his question with determined silence. His eyes narrowed and she found her head facing the wall and stars in her vision. He'd backhanded her so fast that it took her a second to understand why her face hurt so much. Turning her head back, she felt hot liquid dribble down her chin and knew at once that she was bleeding.
"Fuck you," she growled, meeting his eyes once more. Her eyes looked almost grey in the dim lighting and flashed like steel as her anger became more and more apparent.
This time she found her eyes looking at the other wall as the sound of yet another backhand filled the room. She felt her cheeks swelling up as she bit back another curse.
Her better instincts lost as she mumbled out an insult. He remained passive as he stared at her. "I will ask you once more, Haruno Sakura. Do not attempt to resist. What was written in the scroll?"
Spitting blood onto the floor, Sakura mulled over her options.
Settling with a good reply, she smirked. "Isn't it dangerous to use your entire vocabulary in a single sentence?"
This time the smack was so hard that she blacked out for a few seconds.
"Do not test me. What was written in the scroll?" She gave him props for remaining stoic, but she was hoping that someone was watching through the mirror and getting a kick out of it. She was once more hanging by her arms after blacking out, and she brought her right leg forward to push herself to her feet when she found a leg flashing across her vision. He kicked her in the knee, causing her leg to buckle as she fell back to her knees.
She hissed in pain. He wasn't gentle about it either. She knew that he would likely switch to genjutsu tactics soon and save physical pain for later. It was the usual practice of nations with genjutsu users, simply because it was a lot easier to accidentally kill an opponent when you were physically hurting them than it was when you were mentally torturing them.
Sakura steeled herself for more pain. She knew a few kicks and slaps were nothing compared to what she was going to face.
"I see that you will not cooperate. I will give you one more chance before I begin to extract information. What was written in the scroll?"
He stared at her, waiting for an answer he knew wouldn't come.
Sakura watched as he walked calmly to the cart and pulled a bucket out from the bottom of it, carrying it over to her. He walked behind her and she swallowed with some difficulty, her body tensing with anticipation of what would be coming next. He was about to up the heat, she knew. She also knew how creative interrogators could get. She tried to concentrate on what making it through the torture would mean but it was hard to find the strength to defend such trivial information.
She felt him splash some of the liquid on her feet, the smell alerting her to exactly what was going to happen. She squeezed her eyes shut in anticipation and clenched her teeth, waiting for the inevitable.
She screamed through her teeth as flames ignited the liquid coating her feet. She could feel her flesh peeling and blackening as they did their work. All her muscles clenched in pain as she writhed, trying to escape from the horrible reality she was experiencing.
And then like that, it was gone. She opened her eyes, a thick layer of sweat coating her body. The intense pain she'd been feeling in her feet was now gone. Sakura wiggled her toes experimentally, but they were fine. Her heart was still racing, trying to escape from the confines of her chest.
Sakura met the man's eyes, taking in the smug satisfaction, and knew at once that he had used genjutsu on her. It had felt so real that she was shaken. She let a small whimper escape as she thought about what was to come. She wasn't sure if she could do it. They would exhaust her with mental torture and then if that was futile, they would move on to real pain.
But she was here to protect. She was here to serve her village and to save lives. Self sacrifice was important and she knew that it would be worth it. She wouldn't be here forever and she wouldn't let them win.
"Are you ready to tell me what I want to hear, Sakura?"
She had to push past her fears, past her limitations. She was here to become one of the elite and she was going to finish this.
"Fuck you," she spat, a fire igniting in her gaze. "I have the Will of Fire, and you can't break me."
Kakashi blinked slowly as he opened his eyes. It took him some time to adjust to the light. He was dazed and confused. He eventually had the sense to see that he was in the hospital. A pounding headache alerted him to the reason why he was lying in a hospital bed. He groaned, holding a hand to his head. Struggling to remember what had happened, he closed his eyes.
He remembered telling Sakura and Sai the information they needed to stall for time and distract them. The mission had been a trick mostly anyways. They were going to be captured and torture tested regardless of the outcome of their mission. Although a few unlucky participants that had not shown skill or had been incapacitated early on had not advanced.
Kakashi realized that Sakura had concussed him when she knocked him out cold. She was definitely scary when angry. He knew that they were likely still being interrogated. Ignoring the fact that he was supposed to stay in bed due to his head injury, he got up and checked his clothing over. They hadn't touched him, it seemed. His shirt was still ripped―he rolled his eyes at that―and it seemed like they hadn't gotten a chance to heal him or anything. His head injury must've been relatively mild if they had left him without treatment other than the bandage he felt.
Sakura really was a beast.
Feeling the urge to see how his ragtag team of students were doing, he staggered out of the room and down the hall. He breathed a sigh of relief as he saw that he was on the first floor and relatively close to the exit.
It took some concentration to straighten out his coordination enough to walk normally, but he made it out of the hospital without any objections. He made his way slowly but surely to the interrogation chambers, almost blinded by the sunlight as he made the journey. He was feeling fairly sick as he reached the entrance, nodding to the guards. They asked him if he was alright as he staggered through the door. All it took was the excuse of getting hit in the head by Sakura's fist for two sympathetic acceptances to be uttered by the guards.
He was worried about them. Naruto was a very determined boy. He could take anything that was thrown at him if he had a good enough reason to. He had suffered enough growing up that he figured there wouldn't be much pain he experienced in the chambers that he hadn't already felt something similar to.
Sasuke was just as stubborn. Really, all his students were. But that didn't mean that they could all withstand torture. It sure as hell didn't mean that they didn't feel pain. He didn't like the idea of any of his comrades hurting, let alone his students.
Shikamaru was on duty, he noted as he finished the descent into the interrogation chambers. A long hall with multiple rooms on either side made up the place. Beside each door was a large window that he knew appeared to be a mirror from within the chamber itself. This wouldn't fool anyone, he knew, but that wasn't its function.
Kakashi stopped when he reached Shikamaru in his raccoon mask. "Ah, Shikamaru," he greeted pleasantly, looking around. "Are they still interrogating the recruits?"
Nodding, Shikamaru spoke. "Yeah, there are a few left. Sasuke and Naruto are already done. They're at the hospital actually. Sai just finished, I think, and Sakura has something like ten minutes left." He shrugged, lifting his mask. "Sakura is in chamber eight. Ah, I see they're taking Sai out now."
Turning back, Kakashi saw that Sai was in fact emerging from the chamber. They were carrying him out on a stretcher and he looked pretty bad. His clothes were torn and he was covered in more blood than looked strictly necessary, but he seemed to still be breathing so that meant he'd passed.
Kakashi made his way to chamber eight, almost afraid to look. He hated the fact that he wa a bit surprised that Sakura had lasted so long. Steeling himself, he looked through the window. There was another person standing beside him, probably an evaluator.
He felt his muscles tense up as he saw the body of his student, limp in the chains holding her up. Her head hung low, half of its pretty pink hair drenched with blood. A steady stream of blood dripped from somewhere on her unseen face. Whatever skin was clear of blood was black and blue from being senselessly beaten. He thought she was unconscious at first, but deep down he knew that she had to be awake because there was no way they would let her stay that way. The man inside the chamber grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back, exposing a nearly unrecognizable face. It was swollen and bruised, one eye black and closed.
Kakashi felt sick looking at her. She looked far worse than Sai had. "You know, they had to switch to physical torture a lot sooner than usual with her," the man next to him said, a hint of praise in his words. "She began to see through and break their genjutsu too much for it to be really effective anymore."
Seeing the state of his student, Kakashi felt overwhelmingly impressed. She certainly was stronger than anyone ever gave her credit for. Sakura was always viewed as the weakest one, the weakest link. But Kakashi could see that she was just as strong as any of them. She deserved to be recognized for this and yet she never was.
Kakashi didn't recognize the torturer and assumed it was a henge. He cringed as the man cut the chain attached to her wrist cuffs. She collapsed to the ground, shivering. Whether in fear or because of the temperature, he couldn't tell. She cried out as the man kicked her in the stomach, sending her flying a few feet. And yet each time he asked her what was in the scroll, she refused to tell him.
Anger boiled up after witnessing the brutal beating she was enduring.
"That's enough," he turned to the door, ready to stop the interrogation. "She's clearly proven herself."
A hand on his shoulder stopped him. He resisted the urge to stab the hand with a kunai as he turned to look at the man. "She has five minutes left, you can't. If you do, she will not pass."
As much as he wanted to rescue her, he knew that she would never forgive him.
"I know you think you're doing her a favour, but she doesn't need your help." Kakashi nodded stiffly at his words, fully understanding what he meant. He couldn't do that to her. He really couldn't.
Unfortunately, he could hear everything going on in the chamber. He wondered why he thought it was a good idea to come here when he had to listen to his student's screams of pain. When he had to watch tears stream down her cheeks, visible only because it was washing the blood away.
The stench of blood was tangible, its metallic ring stuck in his nose. He couldn't watch but he couldn't look away either. It felt like an eternity. Standing, watching, waiting.
How could he be standing here doing nothing?
And yet he knew it was impossible to do anything to help her.
Sakura had never felt so much pain at one time. Everything ached and burned and just hurt so much. She couldn't help the tears flowing down her face. She could barely see anymore. Slipping in and out of consciousness, she screamed with each hit. Reality and fantasy seemed to merge into an endless stream of pain. She had no idea how long she'd been there, but it felt like forever.
She was starting to feel numb. All the pain was surface level for the most part. As much as they wanted to simulate a real torture scenario, they didn't want to cause too much damage that couldn't be readily fixed. She'd come so close to begging for mercy, to quitting. She just wanted it all to end. Countless times, she'd thought that she wasn't strong enough, that she couldn't make it through the endless montage of agony. But she had pulled herself through it. She concentrated on everyone that she wanted to protect. She ran a continuous stream of the faces of all of her friends, of the villagers that made Konoha home.
She got her strength from her real family, from the people that would die for her and the people she would die for. She knew the only thing stronger than fear and pain was love. She focused on the things she loved and she somehow managed to pull herself through each bout of excruciating pain.
But now, she was getting close to the breaking point. She just wanted it to end, she wanted it to just stop. She had never wanted something so tangibly and passionately. She felt such a strong need for it, like a thirst she needed quenched more than anything.
She tensed as the man halted his onslaught. This usually meant that the pain would come once more but intensified. As the seconds ticked by, nothing happened. Whimpering, she dragged her arms along the floor until they were underneath her. Pushing weakly, she managed to sit up, shaking heavily. It took all of her effort to look up.
The man she'd come to hate with a passion was gone and the room was empty. She watched as the door opened and in walked Morino Ibiki and Kakashi. Ibiki offered her a grim smile. "You have passed the final test. You are now a member of Konoha's elite ANBU." He nodded and exited the room.
Kakashi walked up to her gingerly. His one visible eye crinkled as he smiled. "Congratulations, Sakura." He stepped aside as a stretcher was brought in to take her to the hospital.
They unlocked the handcuffs, removing them from her wrists carefully. With a shaky hand, she wiped blood from her swollen face. She sent one of the brightest smiles he'd ever seen from her at her sensei, her happiness apparent. She whispered a gentle "I did it!" before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she collapsed.
Kakashi had never been so proud.
So, that was really hard to write. Feel free to leave a comment on it, I want to know what you guys think! Thank you for reading.