Children of the White Angel, Part I (Part 1)
On this day, the third month of the first year after the fourth great shinobi war, the four former members of the Village Hidden in the Sound, Uchiha Sasuke, the kunoichi knows as Karin, Hozuki Suigetsu, and the shinobi known as Juugo, hereafter referred to as the parolees, are officially granted Leaf citizen status in lieu of completion of the following parole requirements.
The first, that they submit to a full interrogation by Torture and Interrogation Team A and answer all queries about their experiences as Sound nin and what took place in their duration in the former Village.
The second, that they submit to a full physical examination, to be conducted by the Godaime Hokage (or a duly chosen representative), hereafter refered to as Godaime, at her discretion.
The third, sharing of any and all jutsu learned during this time, with the appropriate parties, chosen at Godaime's discretion, for the full extent of the parolees' stay in the Village Hidden in the Leaves.
The fourth, an oath of loyalty to the Village Hidden in the Leaves and its Hokage, to be done in the presence of the Council and the jounin of the Village.
The fifth, that the parolees continue to respect the spirit of the former restrictions placed upon them, hereby officially lifted, so that their transition as full citizens of the Village Hidden in the Leaves might be as smooth as possible under these unfortunate circumstances.
Under these following terms, the parolees will be granted Village citizenship as stated by the Godaime, on the day above-stated. Parolees will sign below in acknowledgment of these terms. Breaking of these conditions will result in stripping of citizenship and arrest. It is so ordered.
(Four signatures follow.)
*
Mitarashi Anko looked down at the clipboard, and then back up at the young man standing in front of her, watching her levelly. "Oh, Sasuke," she said, waving him in. "I remember you from the chuunin exams! Been a long time, hasn't it? Nice to see you're back here these days. Well, sit down, it's a comfortable chair. Want any water? I think I do," she paused and thought about it a moment. "Nah, I think I'll get some later." She took out a pen from her ponytail and prodded the corner of the paper until the ink started. "So, let's start at the beginning, shall we?"
Sasuke made a noncommittal sound, sitting down on the edge of the chair with his feet firmly planted on the ground and his weight more or less equally distributed into a half crouch that only coincidentally had him sitting on the chair. It was the only indication he gave that he was at all uncomfortable in this situation. To her, he looked a little bored. "I was born on July 23..."
--
Ibiki looked up from his notes as the door opened, eying the woman he was to interrogate up and down. Karin, surname unknown, he thought. Red hair, near-sighted, bloodline limit that allows her to transfer life energy into another shinobi through a bite to heal them, chakra tracker. He made a mental note to ask if the bloodline was supposed to mimic a sort of reverse-succubus power. "Karin-san. I believe we have met before in… less desirable circumstances. Please excuse the informality of using your first name, but you have not disclosed a surname. Sit." He indicated the chair in the center of the room.
He, of course, would be standing.
"Does it matter?" she asked, sitting down and crossing her legs. "I don't use it. And you’re Morino Ibiki."
Ibiki made an executive decision and smirked in a way he knew stretched his scars grotesquely. "I see I left an impression. Yes, I am Morino Ibiki. l will be your interrogator today. I trust this session will be fruitful and that no unfortunate misunderstandings will occur between us."
"Yeah, sure," she replied. "Misunderstandings? Have the others been giving you trouble? I'd imagine Suigetsu would," she said, scowling. "He's such a bastard, isn't he?"
"Other interrogations are not your concern," Ibiki told her, looking down at his papers. “To begin, please state your surname for the record.”
There was an annoyed tightening around the girl’s mouth, and then she smirked at him and folded her hands in her lap, mockingly demure. “If you really need it, sure,” she allowed. “It’s Uzumaki. Uzumaki Karin.”
“Hm, thank you,” Ibiki responded, and looked back to his notes.
--
“Hey. Hey kid.” Anko checked her brand new clipboard with a brand new pen. “Hozuki Suigetsu? That you?”
"Damn right," said the kid as he slouched to the chair. He sprawled into it without being invited, legs spread and arms across the back in the slouch universal for arrogant teenage boys. "Only take autographs on Saturdays, though." He grinned in a way that was closer to bearing his razor-sharp teeth than anything else. Anko wondered how he ate vegetables with those teeth. Did he have to take fiber pills or something?
--
Despite Juugo’s size and notoriety of his curse, he appeared almost unassuming when he entered the interrogation room. He was quiet and reserved, and sat down immediately in the chair and refused to meet Ibiki’s eyes. He tapped a steady rhythm on the armrest, one-two, one-two-three, and it soon got so irritating that Ibiki ordered him to stop.
“Sorry,” Juugo said. “It just helps me concentrate.”
“On what?”
“On where we are,” he continued. “It’s dark and underground and closed off and I don’t like it.”
Ibiki nodded, quickly settling on an interrogation approach for a shy, neurotic, potentially violent subject. “And why is that…” he checked his clipboard. “Juugo. You don’t have a last name.”
“Maybe I did. I don’t remember it though.” Juugo looked at the ceiling, studying it with far too much intensity. “And I don’t like being underground because so was my cell. It was closed off from the light all the time. There was just a hole in the door and the walls were stone, and…” his brow furrowed in concentration. “I think that’s it, sir.”
“I see.” Ibiki made a note that the subject appeared to have holes in his memory.
“But it will be okay today,” Juugo said, about to resume the tapping, but instead folding his hands in his lap. “It’s been okay for awhile now. What do you want to ask me?”
--
“Not that far back, kid," Anko said, though she still wrote the birth date down. "And you know it. Starting with what the hell you thought you'd gain by going to Orochimaru." she said the name with a frown. It still left a bad taste in her mouth, even though the last of his chakra was drained out of her during the final battle. These days all her chakra was her own, and even the old curse seal was gone from her skin.
Sasuke blinked uninterestedly, and then settled back in the chair a little. Acquiescing, she supposed. Well, at least he was willing to play the game. "Orochimaru offered me a chance to gain a lot of power very quickly in exchange for my service and use as an eventual vessel. I accepted."
"Yeah, he does that," Anko agreed. "Bet it wasn't worth it, though. Never is." Fucking bastard, she wanted to add. Fucking asshole who played with people's lives, but who died anyway, despite all his efforts to the contrary. That still made her happier than it probably should. "What did he offer you, at first?"
"He put a seal on me without my consent during the chuunin exam," Sasuke informed her, voice drier than the entirety of Wind Country and all its people combined. "While I was still in Leaf." He shrugged, eloquently. "I later found out that it was based on another Sound nin's bloodline limit. It produced a hormone that sent my adrenal glands into overdrive all at once. I didn't know that at the time. I just knew that when it activated I was stronger, faster, and less likely to notice pain."
"Yeah, been there," Anko agreed, making a mark on her pad and twisting her lips into a speculative look. “Not really worth the waking up, though.”
“That,” Uchiha drawled, “is a matter of opinion.”
--
"Let's begin. When did Orochimaru induct you into the Village Hidden in the Sound?”
Ibiki frowned inwardly.
Karin shrugged. "Long time ago. Bunch of people came to my village, but I knew they were coming and hid. He found me afterwards and we went back to Sound. It was a place to go, you know? And he didn't seem all that bad at the time. Just another guy from another village. They're all the same, you know? Everyone from all the villages. They all think they're different and special, but put them all together and you can't tell the difference between them. I mean, Orochimaru thought they were special...lots of them, kept the best ones for himself...but outside of the lair everyone was pretty much the same."
"The same in what way?" Ibiki asked, making a few quick notations about the information she'd given. Member of a now defunct village. Interested in her comrades' disclosures. Believes Orochimaru to have been deluded as to the importance of individuals within Sound--lack of loyalty?
"You're an interrogator, don't you see it too?" she looked at him, as though expecting a reaction. He of course did not give one. "Every ninja wants the same thing, you know? 'Let's kill the guys from the other village.' They come to Orochimaru because he killed the guys from all the villages so they figured he must be the best. I mean, the ones that actually came voluntarily. I figured he was the best, too."
Ibiki frowned inwardly and made a note. He'd have to ask a few questions at some point to test Karin’s loyalty. She appeared to be an adherent of the old philosophy 'the ends justify the means'--which was fine, in certain circumstances, but may be an issue in a new kunoichi who had abandoned previous villages. “Let’s move on, Karin-san.”
--
“So, we’ll start with the usual. Where are you from, and how did you end up in Sound?” Anko asked, eyeing Suigetsu up and down.
Suigetsu lost the grin and somehow slumped even further into his seat. "You're no fun," he whined, and then sighed, completely put upon. "I'm from Mist," he said grumpily. "Had to run during the purge, 'cause of the bloodline, you know." He waved a hand dismissively before crossing them across his chest. "Orochimaru knocked me out and dragged me into Sound, then let me try to escape a few times before pointing out that cooperating with the Village would mean I could get strong enough to meet my goal and end up with fewer broken bones." He grinned again. "Old snake followed through on that last one, at least. Something'd have to be moving pretty fucking fast for me to break a bone these days.”
“The hell did he do to you?” she asked. “Did he help you towards your goal at all?”
"...Not really. Huh..." He looked speculative. "Actually, he mostly tried to see how fast I could react before I got hit with something mortally wounding, and then gave me all these bullshit painful serum things to try to make my reaction time faster." He rolled his eyes. "Best thing I got out of Sound was an accident."
--
“We should begin with your condition,” Ibiki informed him, as he made a show of focusing on his notebook. “How long has it been since it was last… not ‘okay?’”
“Since during the war,” Juugo responded, flexing his fingers nervously in his lap and looking down at them in what appeared to be intense concentration.
“Is there a pattern for when these episodes occur?”
Juugo bit his lip and frowned at his hands. “I… no, sir. It… maybe when I am stressed.”
“Hm…” Ibiki wrote that down, and then abruptly switched the direction of his attack. “Yet my reports say you didn’t want to come here. Why.”
“I’d rather just stay in my room, sir.” Ibiki’s reports claimed that Juugo had been asked three times in the last two weeks to the interrogation room, and refused politely every time. The only people he had seen since the war had ended were the Hokage, sometimes Uchiha Sasuke, and once Hozuki Suigetsu. Anyone else who came was politely asked to remain outside of the house. Ibiki scratched a quick hypothesis based on Juugo’s general attitude that this was due to fear of accidentally harming a visitor for a later session’s confirmation, and moved on.
--
"Heard you got to the second level with yours. How'd it make you transform?" She'd never reached that level, though when she was younger she tried, pushing herself as hard as she could in a desperate attempt to break through and show Orochimaru she was worth something. She knew better now, and knew she was better than that bastard ever deserved. Maybe this kid would realize he was better, too.
He hesitated for just a second. "Demon," Sasuke said shortly. "Large hands for wings."
"Huh," part of Anko was curious as to what that would look like, but part of her was always curious about the cursed seals. "Got rid of your seal, though. How'd you manage that?” Only reason she’d lost hers was because that pseudo-Orochimaru guy drained all Orochimaru’s chakra from her body. Not that she remembered it happening, of course. She’d passed out early on and woken up in one of Leaf’s camps, just in time to watch Sasuke break out again. Apparently he’d passed out from chakra exhaustion when he and his crazy powerful zombie brother had tried to get Kabuto to release edo tensei, and he’d been dumped in camp along with her when Itachi had passed through to let them know that the edo tensei couldn’t be undone by the caster anymore (on account of coming down with a case of death), and he was going along to get rid of the others the hard way.
And... wow, that was the most emotion the brat'd shown the entire time. Not much, but a tightening in his mouth and around his eyes. "Itachi," he said shortly, and... huh. Well. If the guy was powerful enough to break the caster’s hold in edo tensei, it wasn’t much of a stretch to think he’d be able to break the cursed seal, too.
"What'd he do that got rid of it? Most we've ever been able to do is seal the damn thing."
Sasuke gritted his teeth, a muscle jumping a little in his jaw from the pressure. "He used an aspect of our bloodline,” he said, voice drained of what little emotion it’d expressed. Anko waited for him to elaborate, and rolled her eyes when he remained stubbornly silent a minute later.
“Yeah, sorry kid, but you’re going to have to give me more than that. The deal is you tell us anything we ask for, and that includes doujutsu.” She smirked and narrowed her eyes a little for effect, making a show of settling in to wait.
Uchiha narrowed his eyes a little back, but he only held out another minute or so before relenting. “It's an aspect of one of the mangekyou techniques. A genjutsu sword that puts an unbreakable suggestion of sleep on the target. Itachi used it on Orochimaru when I lost control during our last battle. The genjutsu was strong enough to seal him and any influence he had on me personally. Including the seal."
"So that's how they finally got rid of him," Anko murmured, looking down at the page as she wrote. Everyone had admired Itachi a little bit when they met him again during the war, and she was definitely thankful he’d gotten her out of the mess she’d fallen into, but it was still weird to think that Uchiha Itachi had been the one to kill the man who’d ruined so many innocent kids’ lives. "Your brother...was...a good man. Wish we'd all realized that sooner, right?” But they didn’t, so that was that. “So, back to Sound. What did they do when you first got there? Did they require anything of you?"
--
"Did Orochimaru ever do anything to make you believe you’d been mistaken in your impression that he was ‘the best’?"
"Not really," she replied. "He was damn good at everything he did. And... I mean sure everyone hated him, but everyone admired him too, 'cause we thought he could do anything. I don't think I thought anything different until he died. Then I knew Sasuke was the best."
Ah, an opening. Ibiki made a note, and then continued. "Everyone hated him, hm?" he murmured. "A strange thing to say, for someone who has previously been espousing her loyalties to a man. What actions did he take to make him hated in a village where the majority came to him of their own volition?"
"Oh, it was all the shit he did to them," she said. "You'd have guys go off for training and then come back without arms. Or sometimes they'd come back puffed up with snake venom and if I didn't get to them in time they'd die within the day. Nasty stuff, snake venom, have you ever seen it? Think it did stuff with their blood, but all I saw was their chakra going all haywire when they died. It's 'cause they weren't fast enough. And then he'd just leave them there until the bodies started to stink. He forgot about people all the time, you know? When he got bored with them. It was like, hey, you'd come for this..." she waved her hand in the air. "And then you'd end up getting injected with something and then ignored. Or dead." She shrugged.
--
“He gave you a cursed seal, then?” Anko asked. It seemed Sound standard that everyone was given the seal. “Always thought it was an accident that anyone survived those things. Only one in ten lived, did you know that? Probably,” she added.
"Nah, don't have one," Suigetsu said with a grin. "Fucking psycho old person biting people on the neck, what the fuck, am I right? Nah, I didn't used to react as fast as I do now, but I was still fast enough to be a fucking puddle by the time that dude's teeth were anywhere near me. I don't think Karin has one either. Would fuck with her bloodline. Hey, can I have some water or something?"
“Yeah, that was pretty fucked up,” Anko agreed. “I always wondered what’s with the biting to administer the seal. Wouldn’t just an injection work the same? Didn’t ask that when I got mine, though.” She paused to finish writing. “Water? Sure. Hey! Guards!” she turned and yelled over her shoulder. “Bring some water in here, okay?”
A few minutes later, the guards brought in two water bottles. Anko tossed one to Suigetsu and put the other next to her chair.
--
“You decided to join Orochimaru in Sound. Why?”
“I went to Sound because Orochimaru promised me that he would make this stop. He didn’t. He just locked me up and made copies of me instead. He took the rages and put it into hundreds of people to see if it would take. It did in some, I think, because he made me fight a lot of them. I think they died. Most of them did. Most of them had my marks. Orochimaru put my marks on copies and called it a seal. It wasn’t anything special, it was just my blood.” Juugo’s hands started to twitch compulsively. “It was all over Sound. I went to get cured and instead he gave it to everyone. And he only liked the ones who survived it. There weren’t many who did…they were…there were…” one-two, one-two-three. Ibiki waited, watching as Juugo pulled himself out of memories. “It’s too dark here,” he whispered.
Ibiki nodded. “I will get another light.” He ordered the guards to bring lights, then told them to set them up in the corners of the room. When they finished, it was significantly brighter, and Juugo relaxed ever so slightly. His frantic tapping slowed down to a steady pulse.
“How long were you in Sound?” Ibiki asked Juugo.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I think it was eight years. I think that’s what Kimimaro told me.”
“Did Kimimaro have one of your seals?”
“Yes but I didn’t want him to!” Juugo stopped tapping and clenched his fists. “He saw me all the time when I killed people, and he was the only one who could make me stop! Then Orochimaru gave him the seal too, and then we were the same.
“We used to kill together, and when the seal ran out on Kimimaro, he’d talk me back. When I was younger, I’d cry, and then sleep, and then forget.”
--
Back on firmer ground, Sasuke's face returned to what she assumed was its default expression of 'nothing going on upstairs.' "Of course," he said, bored. "I was in bad shape from the escape, so Orochimaru decided that it was the perfect opportunity to test my resolve and my resources by forcing me to work until I literally could not move. I passed out, I think. I woke up a week later in a new room with a new wardrobe and a delicately worded note informing me that if I wanted to be any use, I better not move around and undo whatever healing had been done to me."
"What'd he teach you first?" When Sasuke said nothing, Anko added, "This is the part where you get to tell me all the fun jutsus you learned there. Just list them all, tell me what they did. The men upstairs want this the most, really," she rolled her eyes skyward. "He taught you the snake hands thing, didn't he?" she rolled back her sleeve, ready to demonstrate.
"Hm. Yes. Plus, all the standard uses for snake summons," Sasuke acknowledged. "He taught me body shedding, as well,” he added, mouth twisting in something like a grimace. “He also worked me a good deal with lightning, since it was the natural elemental chakra affinity for which I knew the fewest jutsu. While there, I developed chidori nagashi, senbon, and eiso, as well as kirin. That is a technique in which I create a natural situation in which there is likely to be a lightning storm, and then guide a strike from the sky towards my opponent," he explained. "Then, of course, sword fighting with a chokuto, further control of the cursed seal, weapon summoning--I summon kunai,” he explained, reaching for his left wrist and tugging free a loose knot, unwinding the bandage there inch by inch until he exposed a circular seal tattooed onto his wrist. He held it up to show her, then rewound the bandage as he began talking again. “He spent a lot of time focusing on sharingan techniques. Genjutsu, ninjutsu copying, intuition," he listed. "I used sharingan to copy the body swap while he was using it on me, as well." He looked at her blandly, as though knowledge of that last one was old news. "Do you want specifics?"
"Well, they're going to want the details, kid, so pick the first jutsu and break it down for me."
--
Ibiki paused a moment and let the fact that Orochimaru purposely abused the loyalty given to him in order to destroy and then discard his own nin sink down into his bones. Then he made a few notes and continued. "You kept his interest?" he asked neutrally.
"Oh, yeah," Karin nodded. "He liked me. Let me be in charge of one of the prisons. He said he liked the way I kept order."
Ibiki made another note, then decided to go for a little stroll to the side of the room behind Karin and get himself a glass of water. He drank a glass, then turned to see that Karin had turned her head to follow him. He smirked at the uneasiness this showed. "Drink?" he asked, then began pouring her one anyway. "Please describe your methods for keeping order."
--
"Steroids were the standard, I think, ‘specially with us lowly specimens who didn't get the cursed seal," Suigetsu said, rolling his head back to stare speculatively at the ceiling and sipping from his water bottle. "Then he figured out that I could more or less make muscles given enough water, so he stopped fucking with my body chemistry and started trying to see how much I could take in before drowning instead. Back in the day, answer was 'a shit-ton,' so that took a while. Lessee... he'd pump me full of all these chemicals and shit, trying to see if he could get my endurance any higher, and then to see what my body'd do with a poisonous foreign substance. He, like, would slip that shit into my food or something, so I wasn't prepared for it, or get a venomous snake to strike me when I was asleep. I spent a fucking year alternately curled in a painful ball sweating it out, and getting blood taken to see what the hell happened to get it to go away. Didn't adapt fast enough a few times, of course. He just about killed me a handful of times." He frowned. "Hmmm... Well, like I said before, there was 'training,' where the shit-head threw pointy objects at me in increasing speeds until I couldn't react anymore. Few times, he let me pretty much bleed out after, to see how long I could last. Sucked balls, let me tell you. Can I have another?" he asked, shaking the empty water bottle.
Anko wrote this all down as fast as she could, and then pressed the pen so hard into the paper that she tore through. “Fucking asshole,” she said. “Fucking asshole.”There was a time once when she actually admired that fucking asshole but that was a long time ago and fucking hell, now she needed a new sheet of paper.
“Hey,” she snapped to the guards. “Hey!”
“Is something wrong in here?” one of them asked.
“No, I need more fucking paper, that’s all.” She answered angrily. “And more water for him,” she pointed to Suigetsu, who was frowning intently at the empty bottle. “Bring a few bottles, he seems to go through it fast. Hey,” she turned back to him, and tossed him her own bottle, still unopened. “Take this, too. What’s with all the water anyway? Don’t tell me until I get more paper.”
"Then don't ask until I can answer," Suigetsu whined, setting the empty bottle on the ground and opening the next one.
--
“And when you were older?” Ibiki asked, making his voice as steady and disinterested as he could.
Juugo clenched his left hand into a fist, knuckles turning white as his fingernails dug into his palm. “I knew it was only a matter of time before Orochimaru used Kimimaro as a vessel,” he answered, voice strangely quiet for the tension he was holding in his frame. “Once I wrote out the number of days left on my wall,” one-two, one-two-three, went the unclenched fist, “and then Kimimaro got sick and the days were shorter,” one-two, one-two-three. “And then he was dead.”
Ibiki let the silence stretch out between them, thick with tension and interrupted only by the tapping fingers.
--
"Fun stuff," Anko said wryly. "What was the usual training schedule like? Did you actually get to stop for food? I never did," she shrugged. "Easier that way, I guess."
“I started carrying around soldier pills after the first month," Sasuke said blandly. "Not exactly good for your body, but at least I didn't collapse until after I got back to my room. Plus, minimum required nutrition." He shrugged.
"Oh those! Yeah, those were always a good idea!" she agreed. "You know, I never actually thought of that. Pretty stupid of me, right? They really are useful when you're working as hard as he expects you to. Hey, did he ever do that thing where you had to fight like, ten of the venomous summons at once and not get bitten?" she looked up from the clipboard and grinned at him. "But that's impossible and they bite you anyway and then you had to find a way to stop the flow of the venom before it gets to your heart? He always said it builds character."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Chidori nagashi," he said simply, and then looked smug.
"Cool," she replied. "Hey, show me that, huh? Never seen anyone do that, and it's a really good idea. I just tried to cut off my arm, yeah, 'cause that was smart. Knocked myself out first before I could finish the job, which is good, 'cause what good is an armless ninja? Anyway. Chidori nagashi, show me that." she looked over her shoulder. "Hey, want to see this?" she called to the guards. They didn't respond, so she shrugged and turned back to Sasuke. "Well?"
Sasuke blinked at her. "You... want me to do chidori nagashi inside. While you are interrogating me," he checked, a note of honest incredulity in his voice.
--
Karin held the glass tight and close to her body. When Ibiki didn't move, she drank it all very quickly, and didn't hand him back the glass. “Keep them apart,” she said after a time. “That’s the best way to do it. People make villages because they want to be around other people. Even ninja, you know? They like it too. So if you take one…” she gestured vaguely in front of her. “And hide them from the rest, then he’s going to stop causing trouble. If you hide a few of them, then put them back together, everyone’s so happy to be back together that they’ll stop causing trouble. It usually worked. And if it didn’t, just beat ‘em up until they stop talking.” She looked down at the glass. “Orochimaru thought it was a good idea. He didn’t think of it, keeping them apart. He just stuck everyone together and watched to see what they did.”
Ibiki nodded, and wrote this down. "Isolation tactics are fairly well-known tools amongst guards and interrogators," he offered. To be honest, he would have done something similar, given a large group of overly aggressive nin to control. "You mentioned that Orochimaru watched the prisoners. What was he looking for? How would you describe the..." he searched for the right word, "character of his observance?" Young girl, man who treated people like particularly interesting specimens... rape was hardly a stretch, and if he was going to get it out of her, this was as good a time as any. Going slowly, of course. No need to scare her into clamming up.
“Yeah, it worked. And it made them all do what I said.” She looked proud of this. “Oh, he watched us all the time. Waiting for us to do something interesting. I don’t know what he expected us to do. Fight each other all the time? Try to take each other’s bloodline limits? Make up jutsu like he did? ‘Cause all we did was…” she shrugged. “Just what people usually do. Fight and fuck and sleep and eat. And stay alive. I don’t know what he was waiting for us to do. But he kept watching and waiting. I don’t know if we actually did what he wanted or not.”
--
"Anyway, I got off easy. I got there late, and he lost interest pretty fucking fast, all things considered. I just spent the last year and a bit chilling in a tank of water."
The guard brought a thick sheaf of paper and a few more water bottles and handed them to Anko. She put the new paper in her clipboard and rolled a few bottles over to Suigetsu. “That enough?” she asked. “So, then, what’s with the water?”
--
“Do you remember what Orochimaru’s reaction was to the death?”
“I don’t remember anything after that for a long time,” Juugo said quietly.
--
“What, can you only do it outside?” Anko asked, scratching the back of her head with the pen.
"No." Sasuke looked at her for another long minute, then shrugged and stood up. "You may want to stand back," he suggested, before making four rapid seals, holding snake at the end. "Chidori nagashi," he said steadily, before his entire frame lit up with electricity. The lightning shot outwards from his form in tendrils, hitting the chair he'd been sitting in, the floor, in a two foot circumference from his body, and the ceiling light, which promptly exploded. It also made a good bid for Anko herself and shattered all the mirrored windows around the room quite handily, forcing the guards to leap backwards and to the ground in an attempt to avoid it. Anko dived out of the way and then leaped onto a wall to stay out of the current's way, then huffed at the eighteen-year-old looking blandly back at her, somehow managing to project I told you so in every inch of his body without once changing the neutral expression on his face.
He was still holding the snake seal, posture perfect.
--
"Did Orochimaru ever get personally involved with the inmates, in any of his activities?"
"What, you mean, like, sexually?”
“If that’s how you’d like to answer the question.”
“No. Maybe. I don't know. No one really talked about it. But I think he just liked to watch us." Karin looked a little ill at the thought, but otherwise sounded rather sure of her answer. She was making eye contact, as well, and her voice was steady, so it was unlikely that she was lying.
Ibiki nodded politely, and made a note. Well, not every line of questioning was going to bear fruit. "You explained earlier that Orochimaru often experimented directly on the inmates. Were you one of these individuals?"
“Yeah, sometimes,” she said. “See, when people bite me, I can heal them,” she pulled up her sleeve to show numerous teeth scars. “He took my blood and injected it into everyone else to see if it would heal them. Most of them just died. He tried to make me heal myself, but that never worked, and I think I almost died a few times but they brought me back. They didn’t want me to die ‘cause I was too good with the prisoners.”
"Did he attempt to place any seals on you?" Ibiki asked, just for thoroughness.
"He tried a couple of times to stick one of his cursed seals on me, but it didn't work."
--
I'm made of the stuff," Suigetsu chirped, leaning forward and resting his arms on his thighs, water bottle dangling between. "Biggest fuck-up in Sound, right here. They hyper-accelerated my bloodline limit by accident, see? So now I can't be cut, or crushed, or hit, unless you're really fucking fast and my body can't shift in time, like the Raikage or someone crazy fast like that, but I need to keep hydrated or I just evaporate." He grinned. "Drove Orochimaru crazy. Couldn't do anything to me, because if it wasn't water it just got separated and sloshed out. Pretty fucking neat, huh?"
“Yeah, that is kind of cool,” Anko agreed. “But that would suck if you just evaporated. Must be a pain in the ass to keep up with that. So what, he just gave up with you after that?”
"Yeah, more or less. Stuck me in a tank I couldn't get out of and forgot about me. Got someone to dump a bucket of nutrient-rich liquid in every once in a while so I wouldn't starve, but that's about it until Sasuke came and broke me out." He took another sip of water and grabbed the next bottle. "Anyway, I'm used to keeping up with it. I've got a rhythm down, see. I don't even have to worry about evaporating while sleeping anymore. Used to have to set a timer to wake me up every hour. That was a bitch..."
--
“When were you allowed out of your cell?”
“When Orochimaru wanted me to kill people he didn’t like anymore. When he wanted me to fight people and…I don’t…I don’t remember that much, but he did it a lot. When they wanted to take blood. Sometimes he let me out just to scare everyone else. That’s it. I think. I didn’t even know Kimimaru died until Sasuke let me out. He told me.”
“How was information normally passed in Sound?”
“I don’t know.”
“What was Orochimaru’s purpose in experimenting on your blood?”
“I don’t remember.”
--
“Yeah, that is better for outside,” Anko agreed, jumping back to the floor and scooping up the fallen clipboard. No, it was still intact. “Hey!” she shouted to the guards. “We’re all okay in here, how about you?”
One of the guards looked back in and glared at her.
“Everyone’s okay out there too, then,” she said to herself. Time to find the pen. Oh, there it was, rolled to the corner. She picked it up and tested it against the paper. Oh good, the pen still worked. She didn’t want the bother of going to find another one. Then, back to Sasuke. She eyed him up and down for a minute, mouth in a moue again, and then let herself visibly relax.
“He had no idea what you can really do, did he?” she said, keeping her voice quiet and conversational. “What you were capable of? I don’t care if he was your teacher and taught you everything you know or some shit like that. He had no idea.”
"No," Sasuke answered levelly, still holding the seal. "He didn't. That's why I managed to beat him. Even as weak as he was, if he hadn't underestimated me, I wouldn't have survived the meeting."
“Well, good thing he did,” And, she thought, good thing this boy was on their side now, or going to be. “So,” she looked at the remains of her chair and frowned. Did that mean she’d have to stand for the rest of the interrogation? This could be a long time. “Hey, can someone get me another chair?” she called, then leaned against the wall for the time being. “And hey, I get the picture, you don’t have to keep the seal up. Instead, tell me about that fight, the one where you brought him down. What exactly happened?” Sasuke had succeeded where she failed, and she wanted to know how. Sasuke took his time sitting down, but he did tell her in the end.
--
“Oh, why not?"
“My body rejected it. He’d put the seal on, and it would hurt like hell, but then it’d just get neutralized. It made them take a lot of blood from me, all the time. He wanted to figure out why that happened and make the seal even more foolproof. But he took blood from everyone, and experimented on everyone, so it wasn’t like I was thatspecial. And it was like that for years and that’s just how Sound worked, and, umm, can I go get something to eat? I’m really hungry.”
Ibiki raised an eyebrow at her, but let it slide. This wasn't a prison interrogation. The subjects could take breaks if they felt they needed one. "Absolutely, Karin-san. In fact, I think we're done here for the day. I will see you again on the day after tomorrow at the same time, and we will discuss your knowledge of Akatsuki."
*
Next
The first, that they submit to a full interrogation by Torture and Interrogation Team A and answer all queries about their experiences as Sound nin and what took place in their duration in the former Village.
The second, that they submit to a full physical examination, to be conducted by the Godaime Hokage (or a duly chosen representative), hereafter refered to as Godaime, at her discretion.
The third, sharing of any and all jutsu learned during this time, with the appropriate parties, chosen at Godaime's discretion, for the full extent of the parolees' stay in the Village Hidden in the Leaves.
The fourth, an oath of loyalty to the Village Hidden in the Leaves and its Hokage, to be done in the presence of the Council and the jounin of the Village.
The fifth, that the parolees continue to respect the spirit of the former restrictions placed upon them, hereby officially lifted, so that their transition as full citizens of the Village Hidden in the Leaves might be as smooth as possible under these unfortunate circumstances.
Under these following terms, the parolees will be granted Village citizenship as stated by the Godaime, on the day above-stated. Parolees will sign below in acknowledgment of these terms. Breaking of these conditions will result in stripping of citizenship and arrest. It is so ordered.
(Four signatures follow.)
*
Mitarashi Anko looked down at the clipboard, and then back up at the young man standing in front of her, watching her levelly. "Oh, Sasuke," she said, waving him in. "I remember you from the chuunin exams! Been a long time, hasn't it? Nice to see you're back here these days. Well, sit down, it's a comfortable chair. Want any water? I think I do," she paused and thought about it a moment. "Nah, I think I'll get some later." She took out a pen from her ponytail and prodded the corner of the paper until the ink started. "So, let's start at the beginning, shall we?"
Sasuke made a noncommittal sound, sitting down on the edge of the chair with his feet firmly planted on the ground and his weight more or less equally distributed into a half crouch that only coincidentally had him sitting on the chair. It was the only indication he gave that he was at all uncomfortable in this situation. To her, he looked a little bored. "I was born on July 23..."
--
Ibiki looked up from his notes as the door opened, eying the woman he was to interrogate up and down. Karin, surname unknown, he thought. Red hair, near-sighted, bloodline limit that allows her to transfer life energy into another shinobi through a bite to heal them, chakra tracker. He made a mental note to ask if the bloodline was supposed to mimic a sort of reverse-succubus power. "Karin-san. I believe we have met before in… less desirable circumstances. Please excuse the informality of using your first name, but you have not disclosed a surname. Sit." He indicated the chair in the center of the room.
He, of course, would be standing.
"Does it matter?" she asked, sitting down and crossing her legs. "I don't use it. And you’re Morino Ibiki."
Ibiki made an executive decision and smirked in a way he knew stretched his scars grotesquely. "I see I left an impression. Yes, I am Morino Ibiki. l will be your interrogator today. I trust this session will be fruitful and that no unfortunate misunderstandings will occur between us."
"Yeah, sure," she replied. "Misunderstandings? Have the others been giving you trouble? I'd imagine Suigetsu would," she said, scowling. "He's such a bastard, isn't he?"
"Other interrogations are not your concern," Ibiki told her, looking down at his papers. “To begin, please state your surname for the record.”
There was an annoyed tightening around the girl’s mouth, and then she smirked at him and folded her hands in her lap, mockingly demure. “If you really need it, sure,” she allowed. “It’s Uzumaki. Uzumaki Karin.”
“Hm, thank you,” Ibiki responded, and looked back to his notes.
--
“Hey. Hey kid.” Anko checked her brand new clipboard with a brand new pen. “Hozuki Suigetsu? That you?”
"Damn right," said the kid as he slouched to the chair. He sprawled into it without being invited, legs spread and arms across the back in the slouch universal for arrogant teenage boys. "Only take autographs on Saturdays, though." He grinned in a way that was closer to bearing his razor-sharp teeth than anything else. Anko wondered how he ate vegetables with those teeth. Did he have to take fiber pills or something?
--
Despite Juugo’s size and notoriety of his curse, he appeared almost unassuming when he entered the interrogation room. He was quiet and reserved, and sat down immediately in the chair and refused to meet Ibiki’s eyes. He tapped a steady rhythm on the armrest, one-two, one-two-three, and it soon got so irritating that Ibiki ordered him to stop.
“Sorry,” Juugo said. “It just helps me concentrate.”
“On what?”
“On where we are,” he continued. “It’s dark and underground and closed off and I don’t like it.”
Ibiki nodded, quickly settling on an interrogation approach for a shy, neurotic, potentially violent subject. “And why is that…” he checked his clipboard. “Juugo. You don’t have a last name.”
“Maybe I did. I don’t remember it though.” Juugo looked at the ceiling, studying it with far too much intensity. “And I don’t like being underground because so was my cell. It was closed off from the light all the time. There was just a hole in the door and the walls were stone, and…” his brow furrowed in concentration. “I think that’s it, sir.”
“I see.” Ibiki made a note that the subject appeared to have holes in his memory.
“But it will be okay today,” Juugo said, about to resume the tapping, but instead folding his hands in his lap. “It’s been okay for awhile now. What do you want to ask me?”
--
“Not that far back, kid," Anko said, though she still wrote the birth date down. "And you know it. Starting with what the hell you thought you'd gain by going to Orochimaru." she said the name with a frown. It still left a bad taste in her mouth, even though the last of his chakra was drained out of her during the final battle. These days all her chakra was her own, and even the old curse seal was gone from her skin.
Sasuke blinked uninterestedly, and then settled back in the chair a little. Acquiescing, she supposed. Well, at least he was willing to play the game. "Orochimaru offered me a chance to gain a lot of power very quickly in exchange for my service and use as an eventual vessel. I accepted."
"Yeah, he does that," Anko agreed. "Bet it wasn't worth it, though. Never is." Fucking bastard, she wanted to add. Fucking asshole who played with people's lives, but who died anyway, despite all his efforts to the contrary. That still made her happier than it probably should. "What did he offer you, at first?"
"He put a seal on me without my consent during the chuunin exam," Sasuke informed her, voice drier than the entirety of Wind Country and all its people combined. "While I was still in Leaf." He shrugged, eloquently. "I later found out that it was based on another Sound nin's bloodline limit. It produced a hormone that sent my adrenal glands into overdrive all at once. I didn't know that at the time. I just knew that when it activated I was stronger, faster, and less likely to notice pain."
"Yeah, been there," Anko agreed, making a mark on her pad and twisting her lips into a speculative look. “Not really worth the waking up, though.”
“That,” Uchiha drawled, “is a matter of opinion.”
--
"Let's begin. When did Orochimaru induct you into the Village Hidden in the Sound?”
Ibiki frowned inwardly.
Karin shrugged. "Long time ago. Bunch of people came to my village, but I knew they were coming and hid. He found me afterwards and we went back to Sound. It was a place to go, you know? And he didn't seem all that bad at the time. Just another guy from another village. They're all the same, you know? Everyone from all the villages. They all think they're different and special, but put them all together and you can't tell the difference between them. I mean, Orochimaru thought they were special...lots of them, kept the best ones for himself...but outside of the lair everyone was pretty much the same."
"The same in what way?" Ibiki asked, making a few quick notations about the information she'd given. Member of a now defunct village. Interested in her comrades' disclosures. Believes Orochimaru to have been deluded as to the importance of individuals within Sound--lack of loyalty?
"You're an interrogator, don't you see it too?" she looked at him, as though expecting a reaction. He of course did not give one. "Every ninja wants the same thing, you know? 'Let's kill the guys from the other village.' They come to Orochimaru because he killed the guys from all the villages so they figured he must be the best. I mean, the ones that actually came voluntarily. I figured he was the best, too."
Ibiki frowned inwardly and made a note. He'd have to ask a few questions at some point to test Karin’s loyalty. She appeared to be an adherent of the old philosophy 'the ends justify the means'--which was fine, in certain circumstances, but may be an issue in a new kunoichi who had abandoned previous villages. “Let’s move on, Karin-san.”
--
“So, we’ll start with the usual. Where are you from, and how did you end up in Sound?” Anko asked, eyeing Suigetsu up and down.
Suigetsu lost the grin and somehow slumped even further into his seat. "You're no fun," he whined, and then sighed, completely put upon. "I'm from Mist," he said grumpily. "Had to run during the purge, 'cause of the bloodline, you know." He waved a hand dismissively before crossing them across his chest. "Orochimaru knocked me out and dragged me into Sound, then let me try to escape a few times before pointing out that cooperating with the Village would mean I could get strong enough to meet my goal and end up with fewer broken bones." He grinned again. "Old snake followed through on that last one, at least. Something'd have to be moving pretty fucking fast for me to break a bone these days.”
“The hell did he do to you?” she asked. “Did he help you towards your goal at all?”
"...Not really. Huh..." He looked speculative. "Actually, he mostly tried to see how fast I could react before I got hit with something mortally wounding, and then gave me all these bullshit painful serum things to try to make my reaction time faster." He rolled his eyes. "Best thing I got out of Sound was an accident."
--
“We should begin with your condition,” Ibiki informed him, as he made a show of focusing on his notebook. “How long has it been since it was last… not ‘okay?’”
“Since during the war,” Juugo responded, flexing his fingers nervously in his lap and looking down at them in what appeared to be intense concentration.
“Is there a pattern for when these episodes occur?”
Juugo bit his lip and frowned at his hands. “I… no, sir. It… maybe when I am stressed.”
“Hm…” Ibiki wrote that down, and then abruptly switched the direction of his attack. “Yet my reports say you didn’t want to come here. Why.”
“I’d rather just stay in my room, sir.” Ibiki’s reports claimed that Juugo had been asked three times in the last two weeks to the interrogation room, and refused politely every time. The only people he had seen since the war had ended were the Hokage, sometimes Uchiha Sasuke, and once Hozuki Suigetsu. Anyone else who came was politely asked to remain outside of the house. Ibiki scratched a quick hypothesis based on Juugo’s general attitude that this was due to fear of accidentally harming a visitor for a later session’s confirmation, and moved on.
--
"Heard you got to the second level with yours. How'd it make you transform?" She'd never reached that level, though when she was younger she tried, pushing herself as hard as she could in a desperate attempt to break through and show Orochimaru she was worth something. She knew better now, and knew she was better than that bastard ever deserved. Maybe this kid would realize he was better, too.
He hesitated for just a second. "Demon," Sasuke said shortly. "Large hands for wings."
"Huh," part of Anko was curious as to what that would look like, but part of her was always curious about the cursed seals. "Got rid of your seal, though. How'd you manage that?” Only reason she’d lost hers was because that pseudo-Orochimaru guy drained all Orochimaru’s chakra from her body. Not that she remembered it happening, of course. She’d passed out early on and woken up in one of Leaf’s camps, just in time to watch Sasuke break out again. Apparently he’d passed out from chakra exhaustion when he and his crazy powerful zombie brother had tried to get Kabuto to release edo tensei, and he’d been dumped in camp along with her when Itachi had passed through to let them know that the edo tensei couldn’t be undone by the caster anymore (on account of coming down with a case of death), and he was going along to get rid of the others the hard way.
And... wow, that was the most emotion the brat'd shown the entire time. Not much, but a tightening in his mouth and around his eyes. "Itachi," he said shortly, and... huh. Well. If the guy was powerful enough to break the caster’s hold in edo tensei, it wasn’t much of a stretch to think he’d be able to break the cursed seal, too.
"What'd he do that got rid of it? Most we've ever been able to do is seal the damn thing."
Sasuke gritted his teeth, a muscle jumping a little in his jaw from the pressure. "He used an aspect of our bloodline,” he said, voice drained of what little emotion it’d expressed. Anko waited for him to elaborate, and rolled her eyes when he remained stubbornly silent a minute later.
“Yeah, sorry kid, but you’re going to have to give me more than that. The deal is you tell us anything we ask for, and that includes doujutsu.” She smirked and narrowed her eyes a little for effect, making a show of settling in to wait.
Uchiha narrowed his eyes a little back, but he only held out another minute or so before relenting. “It's an aspect of one of the mangekyou techniques. A genjutsu sword that puts an unbreakable suggestion of sleep on the target. Itachi used it on Orochimaru when I lost control during our last battle. The genjutsu was strong enough to seal him and any influence he had on me personally. Including the seal."
"So that's how they finally got rid of him," Anko murmured, looking down at the page as she wrote. Everyone had admired Itachi a little bit when they met him again during the war, and she was definitely thankful he’d gotten her out of the mess she’d fallen into, but it was still weird to think that Uchiha Itachi had been the one to kill the man who’d ruined so many innocent kids’ lives. "Your brother...was...a good man. Wish we'd all realized that sooner, right?” But they didn’t, so that was that. “So, back to Sound. What did they do when you first got there? Did they require anything of you?"
--
"Did Orochimaru ever do anything to make you believe you’d been mistaken in your impression that he was ‘the best’?"
"Not really," she replied. "He was damn good at everything he did. And... I mean sure everyone hated him, but everyone admired him too, 'cause we thought he could do anything. I don't think I thought anything different until he died. Then I knew Sasuke was the best."
Ah, an opening. Ibiki made a note, and then continued. "Everyone hated him, hm?" he murmured. "A strange thing to say, for someone who has previously been espousing her loyalties to a man. What actions did he take to make him hated in a village where the majority came to him of their own volition?"
"Oh, it was all the shit he did to them," she said. "You'd have guys go off for training and then come back without arms. Or sometimes they'd come back puffed up with snake venom and if I didn't get to them in time they'd die within the day. Nasty stuff, snake venom, have you ever seen it? Think it did stuff with their blood, but all I saw was their chakra going all haywire when they died. It's 'cause they weren't fast enough. And then he'd just leave them there until the bodies started to stink. He forgot about people all the time, you know? When he got bored with them. It was like, hey, you'd come for this..." she waved her hand in the air. "And then you'd end up getting injected with something and then ignored. Or dead." She shrugged.
--
“He gave you a cursed seal, then?” Anko asked. It seemed Sound standard that everyone was given the seal. “Always thought it was an accident that anyone survived those things. Only one in ten lived, did you know that? Probably,” she added.
"Nah, don't have one," Suigetsu said with a grin. "Fucking psycho old person biting people on the neck, what the fuck, am I right? Nah, I didn't used to react as fast as I do now, but I was still fast enough to be a fucking puddle by the time that dude's teeth were anywhere near me. I don't think Karin has one either. Would fuck with her bloodline. Hey, can I have some water or something?"
“Yeah, that was pretty fucked up,” Anko agreed. “I always wondered what’s with the biting to administer the seal. Wouldn’t just an injection work the same? Didn’t ask that when I got mine, though.” She paused to finish writing. “Water? Sure. Hey! Guards!” she turned and yelled over her shoulder. “Bring some water in here, okay?”
A few minutes later, the guards brought in two water bottles. Anko tossed one to Suigetsu and put the other next to her chair.
--
“You decided to join Orochimaru in Sound. Why?”
“I went to Sound because Orochimaru promised me that he would make this stop. He didn’t. He just locked me up and made copies of me instead. He took the rages and put it into hundreds of people to see if it would take. It did in some, I think, because he made me fight a lot of them. I think they died. Most of them did. Most of them had my marks. Orochimaru put my marks on copies and called it a seal. It wasn’t anything special, it was just my blood.” Juugo’s hands started to twitch compulsively. “It was all over Sound. I went to get cured and instead he gave it to everyone. And he only liked the ones who survived it. There weren’t many who did…they were…there were…” one-two, one-two-three. Ibiki waited, watching as Juugo pulled himself out of memories. “It’s too dark here,” he whispered.
Ibiki nodded. “I will get another light.” He ordered the guards to bring lights, then told them to set them up in the corners of the room. When they finished, it was significantly brighter, and Juugo relaxed ever so slightly. His frantic tapping slowed down to a steady pulse.
“How long were you in Sound?” Ibiki asked Juugo.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I think it was eight years. I think that’s what Kimimaro told me.”
“Did Kimimaro have one of your seals?”
“Yes but I didn’t want him to!” Juugo stopped tapping and clenched his fists. “He saw me all the time when I killed people, and he was the only one who could make me stop! Then Orochimaru gave him the seal too, and then we were the same.
“We used to kill together, and when the seal ran out on Kimimaro, he’d talk me back. When I was younger, I’d cry, and then sleep, and then forget.”
--
Back on firmer ground, Sasuke's face returned to what she assumed was its default expression of 'nothing going on upstairs.' "Of course," he said, bored. "I was in bad shape from the escape, so Orochimaru decided that it was the perfect opportunity to test my resolve and my resources by forcing me to work until I literally could not move. I passed out, I think. I woke up a week later in a new room with a new wardrobe and a delicately worded note informing me that if I wanted to be any use, I better not move around and undo whatever healing had been done to me."
"What'd he teach you first?" When Sasuke said nothing, Anko added, "This is the part where you get to tell me all the fun jutsus you learned there. Just list them all, tell me what they did. The men upstairs want this the most, really," she rolled her eyes skyward. "He taught you the snake hands thing, didn't he?" she rolled back her sleeve, ready to demonstrate.
"Hm. Yes. Plus, all the standard uses for snake summons," Sasuke acknowledged. "He taught me body shedding, as well,” he added, mouth twisting in something like a grimace. “He also worked me a good deal with lightning, since it was the natural elemental chakra affinity for which I knew the fewest jutsu. While there, I developed chidori nagashi, senbon, and eiso, as well as kirin. That is a technique in which I create a natural situation in which there is likely to be a lightning storm, and then guide a strike from the sky towards my opponent," he explained. "Then, of course, sword fighting with a chokuto, further control of the cursed seal, weapon summoning--I summon kunai,” he explained, reaching for his left wrist and tugging free a loose knot, unwinding the bandage there inch by inch until he exposed a circular seal tattooed onto his wrist. He held it up to show her, then rewound the bandage as he began talking again. “He spent a lot of time focusing on sharingan techniques. Genjutsu, ninjutsu copying, intuition," he listed. "I used sharingan to copy the body swap while he was using it on me, as well." He looked at her blandly, as though knowledge of that last one was old news. "Do you want specifics?"
"Well, they're going to want the details, kid, so pick the first jutsu and break it down for me."
--
Ibiki paused a moment and let the fact that Orochimaru purposely abused the loyalty given to him in order to destroy and then discard his own nin sink down into his bones. Then he made a few notes and continued. "You kept his interest?" he asked neutrally.
"Oh, yeah," Karin nodded. "He liked me. Let me be in charge of one of the prisons. He said he liked the way I kept order."
Ibiki made another note, then decided to go for a little stroll to the side of the room behind Karin and get himself a glass of water. He drank a glass, then turned to see that Karin had turned her head to follow him. He smirked at the uneasiness this showed. "Drink?" he asked, then began pouring her one anyway. "Please describe your methods for keeping order."
--
"Steroids were the standard, I think, ‘specially with us lowly specimens who didn't get the cursed seal," Suigetsu said, rolling his head back to stare speculatively at the ceiling and sipping from his water bottle. "Then he figured out that I could more or less make muscles given enough water, so he stopped fucking with my body chemistry and started trying to see how much I could take in before drowning instead. Back in the day, answer was 'a shit-ton,' so that took a while. Lessee... he'd pump me full of all these chemicals and shit, trying to see if he could get my endurance any higher, and then to see what my body'd do with a poisonous foreign substance. He, like, would slip that shit into my food or something, so I wasn't prepared for it, or get a venomous snake to strike me when I was asleep. I spent a fucking year alternately curled in a painful ball sweating it out, and getting blood taken to see what the hell happened to get it to go away. Didn't adapt fast enough a few times, of course. He just about killed me a handful of times." He frowned. "Hmmm... Well, like I said before, there was 'training,' where the shit-head threw pointy objects at me in increasing speeds until I couldn't react anymore. Few times, he let me pretty much bleed out after, to see how long I could last. Sucked balls, let me tell you. Can I have another?" he asked, shaking the empty water bottle.
Anko wrote this all down as fast as she could, and then pressed the pen so hard into the paper that she tore through. “Fucking asshole,” she said. “Fucking asshole.”There was a time once when she actually admired that fucking asshole but that was a long time ago and fucking hell, now she needed a new sheet of paper.
“Hey,” she snapped to the guards. “Hey!”
“Is something wrong in here?” one of them asked.
“No, I need more fucking paper, that’s all.” She answered angrily. “And more water for him,” she pointed to Suigetsu, who was frowning intently at the empty bottle. “Bring a few bottles, he seems to go through it fast. Hey,” she turned back to him, and tossed him her own bottle, still unopened. “Take this, too. What’s with all the water anyway? Don’t tell me until I get more paper.”
"Then don't ask until I can answer," Suigetsu whined, setting the empty bottle on the ground and opening the next one.
--
“And when you were older?” Ibiki asked, making his voice as steady and disinterested as he could.
Juugo clenched his left hand into a fist, knuckles turning white as his fingernails dug into his palm. “I knew it was only a matter of time before Orochimaru used Kimimaro as a vessel,” he answered, voice strangely quiet for the tension he was holding in his frame. “Once I wrote out the number of days left on my wall,” one-two, one-two-three, went the unclenched fist, “and then Kimimaro got sick and the days were shorter,” one-two, one-two-three. “And then he was dead.”
Ibiki let the silence stretch out between them, thick with tension and interrupted only by the tapping fingers.
--
"Fun stuff," Anko said wryly. "What was the usual training schedule like? Did you actually get to stop for food? I never did," she shrugged. "Easier that way, I guess."
“I started carrying around soldier pills after the first month," Sasuke said blandly. "Not exactly good for your body, but at least I didn't collapse until after I got back to my room. Plus, minimum required nutrition." He shrugged.
"Oh those! Yeah, those were always a good idea!" she agreed. "You know, I never actually thought of that. Pretty stupid of me, right? They really are useful when you're working as hard as he expects you to. Hey, did he ever do that thing where you had to fight like, ten of the venomous summons at once and not get bitten?" she looked up from the clipboard and grinned at him. "But that's impossible and they bite you anyway and then you had to find a way to stop the flow of the venom before it gets to your heart? He always said it builds character."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Chidori nagashi," he said simply, and then looked smug.
"Cool," she replied. "Hey, show me that, huh? Never seen anyone do that, and it's a really good idea. I just tried to cut off my arm, yeah, 'cause that was smart. Knocked myself out first before I could finish the job, which is good, 'cause what good is an armless ninja? Anyway. Chidori nagashi, show me that." she looked over her shoulder. "Hey, want to see this?" she called to the guards. They didn't respond, so she shrugged and turned back to Sasuke. "Well?"
Sasuke blinked at her. "You... want me to do chidori nagashi inside. While you are interrogating me," he checked, a note of honest incredulity in his voice.
--
Karin held the glass tight and close to her body. When Ibiki didn't move, she drank it all very quickly, and didn't hand him back the glass. “Keep them apart,” she said after a time. “That’s the best way to do it. People make villages because they want to be around other people. Even ninja, you know? They like it too. So if you take one…” she gestured vaguely in front of her. “And hide them from the rest, then he’s going to stop causing trouble. If you hide a few of them, then put them back together, everyone’s so happy to be back together that they’ll stop causing trouble. It usually worked. And if it didn’t, just beat ‘em up until they stop talking.” She looked down at the glass. “Orochimaru thought it was a good idea. He didn’t think of it, keeping them apart. He just stuck everyone together and watched to see what they did.”
Ibiki nodded, and wrote this down. "Isolation tactics are fairly well-known tools amongst guards and interrogators," he offered. To be honest, he would have done something similar, given a large group of overly aggressive nin to control. "You mentioned that Orochimaru watched the prisoners. What was he looking for? How would you describe the..." he searched for the right word, "character of his observance?" Young girl, man who treated people like particularly interesting specimens... rape was hardly a stretch, and if he was going to get it out of her, this was as good a time as any. Going slowly, of course. No need to scare her into clamming up.
“Yeah, it worked. And it made them all do what I said.” She looked proud of this. “Oh, he watched us all the time. Waiting for us to do something interesting. I don’t know what he expected us to do. Fight each other all the time? Try to take each other’s bloodline limits? Make up jutsu like he did? ‘Cause all we did was…” she shrugged. “Just what people usually do. Fight and fuck and sleep and eat. And stay alive. I don’t know what he was waiting for us to do. But he kept watching and waiting. I don’t know if we actually did what he wanted or not.”
--
"Anyway, I got off easy. I got there late, and he lost interest pretty fucking fast, all things considered. I just spent the last year and a bit chilling in a tank of water."
The guard brought a thick sheaf of paper and a few more water bottles and handed them to Anko. She put the new paper in her clipboard and rolled a few bottles over to Suigetsu. “That enough?” she asked. “So, then, what’s with the water?”
--
“Do you remember what Orochimaru’s reaction was to the death?”
“I don’t remember anything after that for a long time,” Juugo said quietly.
--
“What, can you only do it outside?” Anko asked, scratching the back of her head with the pen.
"No." Sasuke looked at her for another long minute, then shrugged and stood up. "You may want to stand back," he suggested, before making four rapid seals, holding snake at the end. "Chidori nagashi," he said steadily, before his entire frame lit up with electricity. The lightning shot outwards from his form in tendrils, hitting the chair he'd been sitting in, the floor, in a two foot circumference from his body, and the ceiling light, which promptly exploded. It also made a good bid for Anko herself and shattered all the mirrored windows around the room quite handily, forcing the guards to leap backwards and to the ground in an attempt to avoid it. Anko dived out of the way and then leaped onto a wall to stay out of the current's way, then huffed at the eighteen-year-old looking blandly back at her, somehow managing to project I told you so in every inch of his body without once changing the neutral expression on his face.
He was still holding the snake seal, posture perfect.
--
"Did Orochimaru ever get personally involved with the inmates, in any of his activities?"
"What, you mean, like, sexually?”
“If that’s how you’d like to answer the question.”
“No. Maybe. I don't know. No one really talked about it. But I think he just liked to watch us." Karin looked a little ill at the thought, but otherwise sounded rather sure of her answer. She was making eye contact, as well, and her voice was steady, so it was unlikely that she was lying.
Ibiki nodded politely, and made a note. Well, not every line of questioning was going to bear fruit. "You explained earlier that Orochimaru often experimented directly on the inmates. Were you one of these individuals?"
“Yeah, sometimes,” she said. “See, when people bite me, I can heal them,” she pulled up her sleeve to show numerous teeth scars. “He took my blood and injected it into everyone else to see if it would heal them. Most of them just died. He tried to make me heal myself, but that never worked, and I think I almost died a few times but they brought me back. They didn’t want me to die ‘cause I was too good with the prisoners.”
"Did he attempt to place any seals on you?" Ibiki asked, just for thoroughness.
"He tried a couple of times to stick one of his cursed seals on me, but it didn't work."
--
I'm made of the stuff," Suigetsu chirped, leaning forward and resting his arms on his thighs, water bottle dangling between. "Biggest fuck-up in Sound, right here. They hyper-accelerated my bloodline limit by accident, see? So now I can't be cut, or crushed, or hit, unless you're really fucking fast and my body can't shift in time, like the Raikage or someone crazy fast like that, but I need to keep hydrated or I just evaporate." He grinned. "Drove Orochimaru crazy. Couldn't do anything to me, because if it wasn't water it just got separated and sloshed out. Pretty fucking neat, huh?"
“Yeah, that is kind of cool,” Anko agreed. “But that would suck if you just evaporated. Must be a pain in the ass to keep up with that. So what, he just gave up with you after that?”
"Yeah, more or less. Stuck me in a tank I couldn't get out of and forgot about me. Got someone to dump a bucket of nutrient-rich liquid in every once in a while so I wouldn't starve, but that's about it until Sasuke came and broke me out." He took another sip of water and grabbed the next bottle. "Anyway, I'm used to keeping up with it. I've got a rhythm down, see. I don't even have to worry about evaporating while sleeping anymore. Used to have to set a timer to wake me up every hour. That was a bitch..."
--
“When were you allowed out of your cell?”
“When Orochimaru wanted me to kill people he didn’t like anymore. When he wanted me to fight people and…I don’t…I don’t remember that much, but he did it a lot. When they wanted to take blood. Sometimes he let me out just to scare everyone else. That’s it. I think. I didn’t even know Kimimaru died until Sasuke let me out. He told me.”
“How was information normally passed in Sound?”
“I don’t know.”
“What was Orochimaru’s purpose in experimenting on your blood?”
“I don’t remember.”
--
“Yeah, that is better for outside,” Anko agreed, jumping back to the floor and scooping up the fallen clipboard. No, it was still intact. “Hey!” she shouted to the guards. “We’re all okay in here, how about you?”
One of the guards looked back in and glared at her.
“Everyone’s okay out there too, then,” she said to herself. Time to find the pen. Oh, there it was, rolled to the corner. She picked it up and tested it against the paper. Oh good, the pen still worked. She didn’t want the bother of going to find another one. Then, back to Sasuke. She eyed him up and down for a minute, mouth in a moue again, and then let herself visibly relax.
“He had no idea what you can really do, did he?” she said, keeping her voice quiet and conversational. “What you were capable of? I don’t care if he was your teacher and taught you everything you know or some shit like that. He had no idea.”
"No," Sasuke answered levelly, still holding the seal. "He didn't. That's why I managed to beat him. Even as weak as he was, if he hadn't underestimated me, I wouldn't have survived the meeting."
“Well, good thing he did,” And, she thought, good thing this boy was on their side now, or going to be. “So,” she looked at the remains of her chair and frowned. Did that mean she’d have to stand for the rest of the interrogation? This could be a long time. “Hey, can someone get me another chair?” she called, then leaned against the wall for the time being. “And hey, I get the picture, you don’t have to keep the seal up. Instead, tell me about that fight, the one where you brought him down. What exactly happened?” Sasuke had succeeded where she failed, and she wanted to know how. Sasuke took his time sitting down, but he did tell her in the end.
--
“Oh, why not?"
“My body rejected it. He’d put the seal on, and it would hurt like hell, but then it’d just get neutralized. It made them take a lot of blood from me, all the time. He wanted to figure out why that happened and make the seal even more foolproof. But he took blood from everyone, and experimented on everyone, so it wasn’t like I was thatspecial. And it was like that for years and that’s just how Sound worked, and, umm, can I go get something to eat? I’m really hungry.”
Ibiki raised an eyebrow at her, but let it slide. This wasn't a prison interrogation. The subjects could take breaks if they felt they needed one. "Absolutely, Karin-san. In fact, I think we're done here for the day. I will see you again on the day after tomorrow at the same time, and we will discuss your knowledge of Akatsuki."
*
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