EDITED: July 15, 2016
3
Morino Ibiki was not a man easily surprised. Of course, it was a prerequisite for his job—being the head of the Torture and Interrogation Division wasn't a walk in the park.
He had had his fair share of subjects to interrogate: spies, traitors, enemy ninja, infiltrators, and even rowdy Chunnins (even if it was only Anko, who he was seriously considering taking under his wing, as he had the feeling she would thrive in T&I). They were all dealt with differently, according to the crime committed or perceived. It could be the soft kind, or the brutal one—it didn't really matter to Ibiki, as he prided himself in always making them talk.
(His friends called him a sadist. He didn't even try to fight the claim, but he liked to remind them of the fact that he had never used more force than what was required for a job. He was good at what he did, but he didn't go further than he should. It was true).
During all his years working in Interrogation he had encountered many kinds of people with different personalities, backgrounds, missions and strategies to get out of trouble—even when these never worked in the end—, and after dealing with all that, he had started to fancy himself unflappable. Impossible to take off guard. Ready to deal with anything.
He was proven wrong when the Sandaime Hokage appeared in his office without any warning, three ANBU at his back, carrying the unconscious body of a very young, very alive Namikaze Minato.
"What?!" He had choked, completely out of his depth. "Is that…?"
"No," Sarutobi-dono assured immediately, and Ibiki knew that the man didn't need to be a Yamanaka to read his thoughts. It wasn't really that hard, given the circumstances. After all, the blond shinobi resembled their dead Fourth Hokage too much for anybody who knew him not to make the connection.
"Then… who?" He asked, bewildered.
"I don't know," the man admitted reluctantly. "That's what I need you to figure out," he bit out, irritated, and Ibiki nodded in comprehension. "Where do you want him?"
The younger man eyed the limp body in the arms of ANBU Tora critically. He was covered in dust and there were specks of blood on his uniform—a Konoha Jounin uniform, though it was a bit strange. He had a stray leaf in his blond locks. "Is he wounded?" He questioned, wondering if the blood was his.
"No, just unconscious," the ANBU dutifully answered.
"Cell five, then," Ibiki decided, and made a vague gesture with his hand, indicating to the entourage that they should follow him.
He walked briskly past a doubly reinforced door, down a short flight of stairs, to the left in the first bifurcation, to the left again after passing in front of two heavily warded doors—from behind one of which they could hear muffled sobs—and, finally, to the right, crossing another intersection without paying attention to it.
Cell five was prepared for prisoners on the lower-to-mid-risk scale. He didn't know how powerful this stranger was, but the fact that Hiruzen only had three ANBU with him was enough for Ibiki to assume that the man was not considered a major threat, so he chose this cell instead one of the higher-risk ones. It was small, rather dark, and the only thing that could be easily distinguished at first sight was the chair planted right in the middle. It was there where they put the blond man, securing his wrists and ankles with heavy chakra suppressant manacles.
Ibiki's stomach lurched when he had a closer look to the stranger's face. If it weren't for whisker marks on his cheeks—which reminded him of something, but for the life of him he couldn't seem to remember what—, the boy looked so similar to Minato it was uncanny. It angered him, because he didn't understand and that made him twitchy.
He hated it.
This was an unknown man who wore the face of their dead Hokage and a uniform that could easily pass as one of their highest ranked shinobi in the force. He could be anybody, he could have done so much damage already—
Clenching his teeth, Ibiki turned towards the rest of the group and signalled with a tilt of his head that he wanted them out of the room. They obeyed quietly and without protest, and Ibiki was sure that it had to do with the fact that they would be able to watch everything from behind the one-way mirror. It was fine by him.
He was going to make the kid talk. Ibiki was nothing if not determined to extract every little bit of information he was able to from him. He was going to know who he was, where he came from, and what was his purpose. He was going to make him sing aloud his most darkest secrets.
Ibiki didn't do well with unknowns, especially when they were trying to make themselves pass for people well known and respected in his beloved village.
Those who tried—regretted it.
Sneering disdainfully, he folded his arms and leaned his back on the wall, letting the darkness of the room disguise him. Silently, with his eyes fixed on the slumped form, he waited for endless minutes for the suspect to wake up.
And if Ibiki discovered that he had done anything potentially harmful to his home—
The young man twitched.
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