Naruto Fanfiction: Written, Erased, Re-Written [ch.1]
Written, Erased, Re-Written.
Summary: It’s not enough to capture a man. You need to be able to break him. But how can you cripple something already so damaged? AU, still in Naruto’s world, but a far cry from canon events. Eventual KakaIru.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the voices in my head.
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“So this is how the noble Hidden Leaf Village treat their captives?”
Iruka grunted as a strong blow to his stomach left him winded. His feet moved unsteadily as he took an instinctive step back. Shackles clinked, restraining his arms above him. The skin beneath the metal was rubbed raw, but that was the least of his immediate worries.
He was stripped naked, and lacerations covered a good deal of his skin. The prickle of blood running down his body was getting more familiar than it was irritating.
-once there was a time when the smell of blood made him sick-
Darkness surrounded him except for the lone light bulb swinging above him. Blood loss made his head burn and flashes of colour sweep across his closed eyelids. He could smell the rank stench of sweat mixed with filth and rust.
A cold metal bar smashing into his ribs made him cough painfully, and it felt harder to breathe. Two cracked ribs, a third about to snap, Iruka thought with a detached analysis of his body.
-the smell of blood is no longer a stranger-
Raising his head, the man stared unblinkingly into the dead eyes of his tormenter. A blank, flat gaze was all he saw; the dull black seemed darker in contrast to the pale skin surrounding it. As if the person had hardly the reason to walk in the light of day. A child, he thought with bitter distain. They send children to break me.
“Are you going to talk yet?” The boy had a voice as flat as still water, and as cold as ice. Most disturbing was the complete lack of any discernable emotion. Was it common Leaf practise to brainwash their children? His own teacher was right; Konoha was filled with barbarians.
“Where is it?”
When Iruka remained silent, his back got reacquainted with the thin-wire whips.
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“Not the boy today?” Iruka looked at the newcomer with a vague disinterest. “Finally realizing he should be in school, not the prisons, welcoming guests?”
He wished they’d replace the burnt-out light bulb. Even if he was chained to a wall, he wanted to stare down who ever his new attacker was; wanted to show they couldn’t destroy him. Then again, the darkness was familiar and lent its own flavour of comfort.
-he could hide in the dark, where he never looked, never hurt him-
A sudden slap hit him across the jaw. Blood seeped from a new cut on his inner cheek opened by his teeth. The blooming of heat indicated it was already starting to swell and would surely bruise.
Spitting at the feet of his assailant, Iruka grasped the chains of the shackles binding his wrists and hefted himself up. Captivity had barely sapped him of any of his considerable strength. Catching the other person off guard, Iruka successfully kicked them in the face.
As they stumbled back, hissing, Iruka could tell that whoever the person was, they were female from the voice. First they send children, then a woman! Iruka thought scathingly. Leaf Village must have a warped sense of humour.
The rustle of air, the sound of feet against the floor indicated that Iruka would do best to brace for a counter-strike. Using the shackles and the darkness to his advantage, he drew himself up and was almost perfectly upside-down by the time the female ran towards him. His bare feet brushed the low ceiling.
Stone crunched as the attack fell against the wall, and not a human body. She paused in shock and nearly wasn’t fast enough to dodge Iruka trying to break her neck with his weight from above.
“Sending little boys and little girls won’t do much but drag things out,” Iruka bit out with an offended tone. “Run back to your leaders and tell them to send me someone a little more challenging.”
Two pinpricks stabbed into his upper arm, and he bit back the hiss of pain. Needles, he recognised easily. He was pretty sure they were poisoned. The pumps of his heart dragged and a cold feeling spread from the contact area.
Sweetened breath tickled across his face, a feminine whisper quietly murmuring, “We share the same teacher. I hate him, and since you protect him; you, too. Best not push me right now.”
A sharpened blade pressed against his jugular, and he swallowed heavily, enough to press the edge to cut the skin. Fresh blood flowed into the air, mixing with the scent of her blood, probably flowing from a broken nose.
-how many bones must break before you bow down to me?-
He was a little surprised but not entirely so about the woman sharing his master. His teacher was a man who’d travelled many places, stolen many children for his experiments. No doubt his name was famous across the Hidden Villages.
Licking his lips, Iruka taunted, “Kill me now. Kill me and I win the game.” The idea was probably tempting, seeing how the knife pressed harder against his throat. A thin line of warm liquid made its way down his neck, trailing down his bare torso.
In any other situation, he might have laughed at the way it tickled.
His eyelids drooped with a forced heaviness, so he pushed out, “You’ll get none of my secrets from my corpse. Our teacher made sure of that.”
The echoing clatter of metal on the stone floor made him fill with a warm, twisted sense of self-accomplishment.
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“Yo.”
A bored voice woke him out of a light slumber. Opening his eyes, he immediately flinched at the light that flickered on above him. They’d finally gotten around to fixing the light bulb. With a little hindsight, Iruka decided he liked the darkness more.
He rolled head to crack his neck a little after it’d been in such a confined position for so long. Iruka looked around to see a man sitting in one of the cell corners, reading a book, its cover mostly hidden from view. The man’s head was down, but he was an old one, judging by the gray hair.
Perhaps he was being shown a new interrogation technique. Iruka grinned wickedly at the thought, flexing his arms in preparation for whatever was ahead. He noted, vaguely, that the restraints were pulled tighter; especially the ones shackling his legs were making them brace further apart. It wasn’t really uncomfortable. He’d known worse pain.
-everyone he loved was killed to make him learn his lesson-
Looking down, eyes still adjusting to the harsh light, he wondered why they were letting his wounds heal. Albeit, at a natural pace, but it was strange they were letting the cuts close. Then again, freshly healed skin was far more sensitive against acid and the like, so he probably had that to look forward to.
Nothing like seeing flesh peeling off to break a man; but if Leaf tried, they’d see it was too late. His teacher had done all those things and more, preparing him.
“There are many types of barbarians in the world,” he’d say with a smile. “I am simply protecting you from them.” And then he’d pour more acid on his skin and shush the screams that followed.
-he didn’t want this, never wanted this, but he lost all control-
A crackle of static filled his ears, and suddenly Iruka couldn’t quite seem to remember what he was just thinking of. There was a blockade in his mind. Blinking dumbly a few times, he moved to other matters, the static noise quietening.
“Where is it?” the ninja finally asked, his voice passive and quiet, and almost-but-not-quite bored.
So the man was doing the same thing. These ninja were very narrow-minded and fixated on objects. Same old, same old, Iruka thought wearily.
Clearing his throat, Iruka said hoarsely, “You didn’t say please. Don’t you Leaf-nin know about manners?”
The sound of the book snapping shut seemed loud in the silence that followed that remark. Silently, the old man stood up, brushing the dirt off his pants, before putting his novel away.
-the children liked books, that is, until the children all went away-
“They said you liked to talk back,” muttered the man, almost quiet enough to be unheard. Iruka was surprised to see him leave, going without landing a single blow on his person.
Perhaps not all Leaf-nin were barbarians.
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“Do you know how long you’ve been underground?”
Cocking his head to the side, Iruka paused and thought about how many days and nights had passed him by without the sun- or moon-light touching his face. The pause was long enough he could see the other prepare to speak again, so he answered,
“One month.”
If the man was startled at his answer, it didn’t show. He was still and tall and bearing down with that silent kind of aura that demanded respect. In a way, he reminded Iruka of his teacher.
But the man before him was not like the child or the woman. He had been born with strength, not worked for it, not trained to earn it.
A sudden heaving wave of hate washed over Iruka, before it subsided to a dull roar. His face showed nothing, but there was this instinctual anger towards this fellow. He didn’t like people who didn’t work for their power. Since he had to work for his, there was always a robbed, hollow feeling upon meeting their kind.
-silver-gray reminded him of the cruel boy with the round glasses, the evil grin-
Anger was something he hadn’t felt in a long while. Feels good, Iruka thought, lips curling into a vindictive smile.
“How come you think you have been under for a month?” the man asked casually enough, his back leaning against the prison door.
Iruka could feel the moon tugging at him, but he would never say it. That power was a treasured gift from his teacher, something that only he would have, because so many others died before it was perfected. He was the only child who his teacher thought fit to keep alive.
So, instead of answering, Iruka remained silent, and watched the eye-singular, since one was covered by his forehead protector-light up with some undiscernible emotion. He looked at the Leaf symbol, flashing in the metal it was etched it. If he had a knife, he would carve a line through it and drench it with blood.
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His visitor drawled, “So, I can’t seem to get enough of your riveting conversation.”
Lies, since Iruka wasn’t talking; but this guy used words instead of violence, so his presence was preferable to the others. Iruka had a high pain tolerance, but it was good to have a break. And that was what it was. The peace would not last too long before his temper broke and Iruka would get to mentally tally a whole range of new injuries.
“Aren’t you at least going to tell me your name?” he asked innocently enough.
But the idea was so ridiculous it brought about a round of coughing onto Iruka. He wasn’t exactly able to laugh, his ribs still heavily bruised, but coughs ripped from him unbidden at the hilarity of it all. The man spoke as if it was inevitable Iruka would introduce himself.
-why couldn’t he recall his family name?-
“Again with the rude manners,” Iruka finally called out. “Leaf-nin, you should at least know, that when you meet someone you, you introduce yourself first before asking for the other’s name.”
Silence followed, predictably enough. Leaning back slightly, his shackles clanked lightly, and he exhaled heavily, watching billows of white clouds float from his mouth. They were dropping the temperature in the room, waiting until he could no longer take it. But cold’s icy embrace tickled better than the torment of fire’s razor-tipped claws.
“Manners,” started Iruka again, “is completely lost on you barbarians.”
The other man scoffed lightly, not affronted, but almost amused, it seemed. Well, at least one of them was being entertained. Iruka couldn’t feel his fingertips anymore.
“I s’pose there’s no harm in telling you that you can call me Scarecrow.”
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There had to be some satisfaction in being right, Iruka supposed. He was allowed to heal so the pain they inflicted was so much worse. The acid burned, perhaps more than even he remembered it. Perhaps that could be because they were rubbing salt into his reopened wounds, and in a literal way.
A calm, deadpan voice in his head wondered whether this was anything like meat being marinated. After all, the chilli powder they rubbed into his sinuses burned, and would certainly add a kick to any meal. Pepper spray would probably come later, directly to his eyes.
Bloody saliva dripped down his aching jaw, dislocated from a rather brutal punch earlier. He made no attempt to move it, only keeping his body slack to display that he wasn’t being affected, that their tactics meant nothing in the face of his teacher’s work.
-to scream, to talk, to beg, was worth nothing but more pain to be had-
When the fresh waves of agony stopped, only leaving the resonating echo of old injuries, Iruka finally looked up into the scarred face of his interrogator. Wounds dotted his scalp, badges of honour that showed that the man had once walked in Iruka’s shoes, perhaps not that many years ago.
“I must say, when I heard I was getting the top dog of Konoha’s Torture and Intelligence, I was expecting something a little more,” Iruka cackled tauntingly, seeing how far he could push his new visitor. His words were slurred from his broken jaw, but obviously the guy could understand gibberish fluently.
Something hot burned on his abdomen, and scorched flesh reached his nose. Exhaling heavily, he circled the limited chakra he had in his body to regulate the pain. Chakra cuffs were never successful in locking down an entire network of energy, no matter how hard experts tried to make them.
A part of him wanted to see the old guy again-Scarecrow, he had called himself-because all he did was ask pointless questions or read from his orange book. But no matter; Iruka was getting bored simply being shackled to a wall. In a way, being strapped down to a metal table was actually a little more comfortable.
Weirdly enough, what was the worst thing was that the air he was breathing was fresh, so he knew that once he was shoved back into prison, the rank stench of blood and stale urine would assault him tenfold.
-he was tied up in a room for three days without food or water-
“Do you want me to keep hurting you?” asked the man, who’d paused in his administrations to light a cigarette.
Iruka shot him a look, one that encapsulated the ‘are you fucking retarded?; of course not’ he didn’t bother voicing.
“Then tell me where it is.” The bulky interrogator leaned forward and popped the jaw in roughly, grinned at the wet cracking noise it made.
Clearing his throat, Iruka smiled serenely and spat in the guy’s face, his aim rather admirable, hitting right in the middle of his forehead.
The smile stayed on his face, even as the other man put his cigarette out on his leg.
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“Where is he? Where’s the bastard who knows where Sasuke is?!”
Iruka was sitting in a corner of his cell, donning threadbare pants they thought fit to gift him with. He supposed that along with the reappearance of Scarecrow, the game was in Good Cop mode. The lack of shackles around his wrists was nice, but oddly unsettling, like they were trying to make him lower his guard. He snorted at the idea. At least they were smart enough to weigh his ankles down.
The yelling was coming from somewhere down the hall outside his cell, the echoes loud in the silence Iruka had grown accustomed to - he’d been there for two months now. He saw the noise as a distraction, something to break the monotony of his days.
Human beings could grow used to anything, torture no exception. Iruka was bored, for wont of a better term, but he’d ruled out the idea of trying to break out, or the option of suicide. At the moment, he’d received no word that those plans would be beneficial for his teacher, and he’d only act on that man’s orders.
-no independence, no freedom, only submission-
His cell door slammed open with a loud bang, followed quickly by a blindingly strong flare of angered chakra. A trickle of familiarity brushed his senses at the feel of it, but then static filtered over the feeling, filling his ears, making him forget what he was thinking moments prior.
Looking up at the scuffle taking place in the doorway of his cell, he noticed Scarecrow and the head of the Torture and Interrogation Department restraining a young man who looked almost like Leaf’s legendary Yellow Flash, the Fourth Hokage.
But no, too young, Iruka decided. He had sharper features and a gaudy orange jumpsuit that a respected village representative shouldn’t wear. A relative, perhaps? Regardless, the Fourth was far taller and had more restraint than the young man before him. A kind smile always painted his face, unlike the snarl on his little copy.
A buzzing filled his ears until he realized; I’ve never met the Fourth Hokage of Leaf.
When the fighting stopped, Iruka finally paid attention again to the scene before him. The little doppelganger was staring at him, jaw slack and limp in the arms of the men who were previously fighting to hold him back. Another tickle of familiarity was quickly pushed to the side and easily forgotten.
“Iruka?” The boy’s voice sounded quiet in comparison to his earlier tirade of loud curses. Then the word he said caught up with the prisoner’s senses.
Immediately, he jumped to his feet, ignoring the weights chained to him trying to keep him grounded, and he growled, “How do you know that name?”
His teacher said he’d killed everyone who knew him. Said only he should have the special privilege of knowing Iruka’s true name. When he finds out that he didn’t, he would be angry. Unless Iruka could destroy all the evidence, that is.
“Because you saved my life when I was younger,” the boy explained slowly, as if in a daze. “You helped me escape.”
Frowning, Iruka chose his next words carefully. “I’ve never saved any-arrgh!”
Something was trying to push past the buzzing in his mind. That was strange. Not allowed. Forbidden. The static was an unquestioned reminder to stay in line.
His teacher said so. His teacher never lied.
-run, Naruto, run!-
“I’ve never-” Iruka tried to speak again, but this time he sank to his knees in true pain; the mental kind you can’t run away from. His hands were shaking as he tried to grip his head and keep all the voices in.
-I can’t go with you. I have to make sure they don’t follow-
-the warmth of a final hug, shirt dampening with tears-
-punishment for aiding an escape is a night with your teacher-
-Naruto’s body in his arms, so bloody it was almost unrecognisable-
-the golden hair peaked through the mess of raw meat-
“Naruto died! I didn’t get to save him!” Iruka finally screamed out, his pupils dilating, shakes running up and down his body. Everything felt on fire, he couldn’t breathe, electric shocks burning him. White static clouded his eyes and a crackling filled his ears.
As he blacked out, he figured his teacher was right once again.
Some things were better left forgotten.
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A/N: Aaand I hope chapter one has screwed you over. ^_^
Can you guess who everyone is? Some of them are obvious, but I’d still like to see what you thought: who was the child, the female, the head of T&I and who is Iruka’s teacher?
This story will be dubbed my little side pet-project. :- D
[ chapter two ]