The manacles had seals sketched onto them, blocking chakra from flowing past her wrists. It would prevent her from being able to form hand seals and manipulate it. They were standard and used for all prisoners kept in Konoha.

Her mind made rapid connections to the last time she was held prisoner, unable to use her own chakra. She could feel the old chains of anxiety tightening around her chest, restricting her breathing.

No. Don't go there.

It took every bit of her willpower not to give in to her growing panic. She knew she needed to keep her wits about her. Even if she couldn't use chakra, her body itself was a weapon. Her mind even more so. However her mind could scarcely process her surroundings as she had been trained to do. All she could do was focus on breathing as she put one foot in front of the other.

A team of four Root agents escorted her to an interrogation room far below the surface. They kept to private tunnels. Danzo didn't want her paraded through the regular forces. He seemed wary of turning her into some sort of martyr. Kotori knew he would try to control the narrative - that he would make her out to be a traitor to Konoha. She could only hope that disappearing after the stunt she pulled in front of the ANBU captains would lead everyone to the natural conclusion. That Danzo wanted her silenced and fast.

She knew Danzo intended to execute her, but first he would permit his Root to torture her. Likely for hours as he tried to gather details on the people who had helped her and then force her into some kind of false confession.

Kotori worried she wasn't strong enough to withstand it.

She closed her eyes. No. Someone would come for her. Her friends would come for her. Kakashi would come for her. He wouldn't abandon her to pain and torment. She would just have to hold out until then. She could do it. She had survived torture once before and she would do it again.

She was thrown to her knees in the middle of a white, sterile room. It would have looked like a hospital room, if it wasn't for the chair with restraints. Kotori felt bile rise in her throat.

Sanada Eiji was there in his doctor's robes. His face lit up at the sight of her. "Ah, so you've finally been able to apprehend her."

"Yes, she has proven most difficult," Danzo said. "But her arrogance caught up with her in the end."

Kotori could scarcely pay attention to the two of them as her eyes wildly darted around. The walls were lined with tools that had no business being in a medical bay. Never mind the jars stuffed with organs on the shelves. The gruesome drawings of humans turning into grotesque forms. And there, lined along the back, where several floor to ceiling empty tanks large enough to hold human test subjects.

Orochimaru's old lab.

It was as if all the oxygen in the room suddenly disappeared. Without thought, she bolted for the only exit. What happened next was a blur. She couldn't channel chakra to her hands, but she could channel it to her legs well enough to aim a few painful kicks. She drew blood from the arm of one Root agent when she bit down hard on his hand. Being killed trying to escape would be better than the fate that awaited her in Danzo's clutches.

Unfortunately, the Root agents had other plans.

The one that she bit grabbed her by her hair, yanking her neck up to look at him before he backhanded her across the face. It was hard enough that her vision went blurry and she collapsed on the ground.

When she woke up, she was restrained in the chair. She fought wildly, twisting and pulling at the restraints to try and break free. The rational part of her knew resistance was futile, but that part of her was buried deep underneath her panic and desperate need to escape.

"Good, you're awake," Danzo said. "I don't have much time - I have to be on the road soon for the Five Kage Summit."

"Make it quick then," she snapped.

There was an ugly smile on his face.

"Oh I have no intention of executing you. We'll make an example out of you, certainly, fake your death so that your friends won't come looking. But you will remain here. A kunoichi of your calibre," Danzo said. "I have great use for you."

"Go to hell! Do you really think I would serve you?" Kotori snarled.

"That's an honour you don't deserve," Danzo said. "However you have other uses. Dr Sanada is always in need of live subjects for his labs."

A jolt of horror coursed through her as she realized what they intended to use her for.

"Sir," a voice interrupted, one that Kotori recognized despite the unfamiliar kabuki mask. It was Captain Seal. "She is a kunoichi of Konoha and has served the village faithfully. Her reputation will be tarnished. That should be punishment enough. She should be given the courtesy of a quick and merciful death."

Danzo seemed to be in contemplation of Seal's words.

"She killed two of our most senior officers, Muga and Nyoko, and plotted against us for years," Sanada said. "We know she's working with others. It would be in our best interest to find out how widespread this conspiracy lies. She's Shikaku's pet most likely. It is possible she is working with him and others to replace you with Hatake Kakashi. She is known to be sympathetic to him."

"Yes - I want captains Lion and Badger at once," Danzo directed Seal. "Leave Captain Tiger, for now. Pursuing him will alert Kakashi to our actions. He won't notice the girl is missing - I've had confirmation from Sai that Kakashi has no contact with her these days. I'll deal with Shikaku myself, that is a more delicate matter."

Kotori hoped that Ken and Mamoru had time to go into hiding. They were both present and likely knew they would be targeted next. Ensui too. And her team... even if they hadn't been involved. Yugao, Satoshi, Kouta, Ryoku and Mimi - they would all be questioned. Genma too. She wished she could channel chakra to her hands and try to alert them.

Fortunately Danzo was wrong about one thing. Kakashi would notice her absence. And Sai... Sai must have known that.

"I may be inclined to grant you mercy and a swift execution, in exchange for the names of any traitors."

"It was just me and my little birds."

"Well, your little birds won't trouble me any more," Danzo said. "And I'm sure you'll be singing a different tune soon enough. I hope you remember, when you're begging us to let you die, that you chose your own fate."

With that, he left her alone with Sanada. Kotori could hear pulse beating behind her ear. Someone would come for her. Kakashi would go looking for her. She could survive until then.

"I believe I owe you payment for the deaths of my old friends. I've looked forward to this day for a very, very long time. I've studied your medical file extensively for this moment."

Sanada slowly walked where she could see him, taking his time as he examined several tools on the wall. Her heart skipped every time he picked out a device, examining it before shaking his head and putting it back on the wall. He spent a long time examining an elephant gas mask. Eventually he selected a hammer and returned.

In one fluid movement, he crushed her right hand with the hammer, breaking several bones at once. Kotori let out an involuntary shriek.

"Now, Tori-chan - do you mind if I call you that? - why don't you tell me who else has been helping you."

She defiantly glared at him through her tears. "I acted alone."

xXx

Two of the guards dropped her in a cell when they were done. Her body hit the stone floor with a painful thud. There wasn't the faintest glimmer of light. She couldn't see the outline of her nose or the stone floor beneath her. She had no idea how small or large the cell was and couldn't move to feel the walls. She couldn't hear a sound other than her own heart beating inside her chest. Her shaky breaths in the cold air. Another form of psychological hell.

It was all Kotori could do to try and curl in on herself to conserve warmth. She was in so much pain that simply breathinghurt. Sanada had kept healing her from the brick of death. Over and over and over again; each time she thought she could take no more. Breaking and re-breaking her bones. Carving her up with knives. The worst was the water torture. He had used his access to her medical files to relive her captivity at the hands of Gyoku. He would cheerfully informed her that none of her injures were fatal and would heal in time. He had plans for her and needed her in good health after all.

She had cried, she had screamed, she had begged him to stop. But she hadn't cracked. She hadn't named anyone who had helped her… anyone who might still be opposing Danzo. They would be safe.

It was there, alone in the darkness, that Kotori finally broke. She couldn't do this.

She silently pleaded into the dark for Kakashi, for Ensui, for Yugao, for Genma, for someone, for anyone to get her out of this hellhole. She would leave Konoha. She would fly so far away no one would ever find her. She just wanted this to be over. What had she been thinking? Her, the head of a department trying to take down the likes of Danzo. It was a horrible mistake. She was a rolled down her cheeks as she shivered, before drifting in and out of consciousness. It was impossible to tell how much time passed before she was woken again by the floor rattling beneath her. It felt like an earthquake, but locked inside her soundproof cell she couldn't be sure. For one horrified moment, she wondered if she would be buried alive down here.

Then, the door clicked open. Sound and and light flooded her senses. Her eyes struggled to adjust to the dim light that was now seeping through the doorway, the faint outline of a shinobi standing guard. Had Sanada sent someone to get her? How long had she been here?

"It's me," the person whispered. She recognized their voice. Ensui.

"W-what are you doing here?" The words felt thick and heavy on her tongue. He shouldn't be here. Not after she had kept his involvement hidden from Sanada. She had denied over and over again that Ensui would help her. She had faked shock and horror at the 'reveal' he had been in Root all along.

She had thrown up. Although, that part wasn't particularly hard to do.

"You sh-should - you should go."

"This is worse than Seal thought. She's going into septic shock," Ken said, crouching down on her other side. Ken! He was supposed to be in hiding, Root was looking for him. "We need to get her out of here to a medic."

"Sorry about this." Ensui pressed two fingers against the tenketsu point in her neck.

The next time she woke, she was in a tent - one that she recognized as belonging to the medical corps. Ensui was sleeping in a chair in the corner, his arms crossed and his head lulled forward.

Satoshi was at her side, flashing a light in her eyes. "Welcome back, Captain."

"Wha- what -? " She rasped. Her throat was so parched it felt like sandpaper.

He offered her a glass of water, holding it as she drank greedily through the straw. "Careful, not too fast or you'll make yourself sick. Do you know where you are?"

"Medical," she answered, rattling off the standard questions to prove that she had some awareness of her situation. "You're Satoshi, I'm Kotori. I got imprisoned for offending the Hokage. Don't ask me the date. Now what - how did I get here?"

Her memories of her time in the cell were little more than a blur of pain and misery.

"You're awake?!" Ensui was out of his seat.

"All of these near-death experiences are starting to get a little old, aren't they?" Kotori's grin was a little humourless and the joke sounded flat to her ears.

"Don't even start! You are going to be the death of me," Ensui glowered at her. However his glare had long since ceased to be as intimidating as it had been in her youth. "As for what happened - word got out among the ANBU after your little stunt. Anyone who knows you knows you're no traitor. And if Danzo was willing to condemn you, well, everyone could see which way the winds were blowing and it didn't take much to push them into a coup."

"So Danzo - "

"Didn't even live long enough to see his organization fall. Sasuke got to him first."

There was a grim sort of satisfaction in knowing that the young Uchiha had finished him off in the end. Ensui filled her in on the details Shikaku had received from the Five Kage Summit and the aftermath.

"Shame, I would have liked him to live long enough to have everything that ever meant something to him taken away," Kotori serenely said.

"Masato and Shikaku were able to petition the Daimyo while he was gone. Between the Jonin assembly issuing a vote of no confidence and ANBU in open rebellion - they were able to convince the Fire Daimyo to appoint someone else."

Kotori's heart skipped a beat. "You mean - "

"Kakashi has been named the Sixth Hokage. Assuming Tsunade-sama doesn't recover."

"Where is he?" She asked.

Satoshi and Ensui exchanged a look and Kotori immediately knew he wasn't in the village. She had been here before. She ignored their pitying looks as Ensui explained they would immediately send for him. There was a tiny resentful part of her. Once again, she had woken up in a hospital bed and Kakashi was nowhere in sight. Then she immediately felt guilty. They were preparing for war. Kakashi had more important things on his plate than to hold her hand.

"No point worrying him when there's nothing he can do about it," she despondently said. The Land of Iron was a long journey there and back. Even with Raiden, it would take more than a day for him to get back anyway.

She was released the next day, fully recovered from her ordeal. Sanada's methods had been so crude that it was easy for Satoshi to heal with medical ninjutsu. Broken bones could be mended. Bruises could be faded. Cuts could be healed. But the nightmares that kept Kotori up, well, there was no easy remedy for that. When she couldn't sleep, she found refuge in the cellar underneath the pavilion, away from well meaning eyes. It was there that Kotori slid, her back scrapping against the wall as she hyper ventilated. Her body trembling as she wrapped her arms around her legs and buried her face into her knees.

She was safe. She was safe. She was safe.

Danzo was dead. Sanada had been killed in the fighting along with three other senior officers in Root. The rest of the force had surrendered quickly with no leader to follow.

It was over.

So why didn't she feel safe?

Kotori felt listless as she returned to her duties. The days blurring together as she took on busy work within the village. She joined Ken and Mamoru as they catalogued what they could in Root's hidden rooms. The surviving members had been imprisoned while they decided what to do to them. The other ANBU hovered around her, but she dismissed them as she had technically been relieved of her duties as Head of Internal Affairs. There had been no talk of reinstating her, which she was fine with.

It was a few days later that Kakashi finally returned from his trip. He tracked her down after his debrief with Shikaku.

"Shikaku said - the ANBU rebelled. He said you would know more." Kakashi's stormy grey eye bored into hers. Kotori swallowed nervously.

She must have planned this conversation in her head a thousand times knowing she would have to tell him. Although she had hoped Masato or Shikaku would make it easier by giving Kakashi a quick summary of what went down. They both knew who she was to Kakashi. Instead they had left it up to her.

Cowards.

"Shikaku and Masato didn't warn you? You're dating a rebel," she weakly joked. "You might want to be careful or I'll overthrow you next."

Kakashi's expression was unreadable, but his tone was hard. "You promised me you'd keep your head down."

She bristled with annoyance. It wasn't like she had wanted to be arrested and tortured by Danzo. But she was a kunoichi and had a duty to this village. One entrusted to her by Tsunade and Hinoki. She couldn't sit back and do nothing.

"We both knew Danzo would come for me sooner or later. I was on the task force to get rid of him." Kotori pointedly said. "When he demoted me for, ah, insubordination, I decided to make a public statement. I may have called him a coward in front of half the ANBU. It's a bit of a blur - I was pretty angry."

Kakashi's face was ashen. "Kotori, you didn't."

She smiled despite herself. Sweet, passive little Sorano Kotori who would have never defied a Hokage was long gone. "So I was arrested. Taken in for questioning."

She tried to sound flippant, as if it were nothing. No big deal. Just a typical day in ANBU. But Kakashi saw straight through her.

"You're trembling. Did he hurt you?" Kakashi's eyes were dark. The type of dark that she had seen before, one that promised he wouldn't rest until he destroyed Root.

And in that moment she couldn't breathe. The chains of anxiety tightened around her chest. She could remember him shutting her out the last time, going off on mission after mission in a misguided attempt to avenge her and destroy the organization responsible for her pain.

"So you're going to leave me? Now? Because I got hurt?" She was crying now, messy tears streaming down her face. "But I thought you loved me."

"I do, but - "

"Then stay!"

"I can't."

She couldn't lose him again to that darkness. Not after everything. She needed him. The village needed him, she realized.So she pushed it down and gave him a small smile.

"No, Ensui got me out before they could do anything. I was terrified, but nothing bad happened. I promise, I'm fine."

Kakashi seemed to sag with relief. "I'm glad. If they had hurt you I would have - "

She willed herself to stop trembling as he wrapped his arms around her. Her body relaxed into his hold, taking what strength, what comfort, he could provide. She could withstand anything so long as he was with her. It didn't matter. She was safe now.

"I know."

AN:Don't worry, they have a nice little chat next chapter about Kotori's lying. Thank you everyone for your patience and all your support! xo