Genma lost consciousness somewhere outside of the actual gates to the ninja village Hidden in Stone. When he came back to himself, he felt... Nothing. He felt nothing at all. No sense of his own body, no awareness of temperature, no feeling, even, of his own breath. He could hear it, in the grey non-light. Or someone's breath. And the rush-rush-rush of a heartbeat echoing dimly in his ears. Was it his own? It had to be his own, but he couldn't feel it.

Was he dead?

Panic rose like a flash flood roaring through a canyon. He needed air, needed to feel his chest move, feel himself draw breath. The heartbeat accelerated to a frantic crescendo, and the quiet breathing turned raspy.

Faintly, very faintly, he felt a current of air brush his upper lip in time with the harsh panting.

Not dead.

Immobilized. Paralyzed. But that had to be his own breathing he was hearing. It had to be his own heart beating. He forced himself to time the breaths, to slow them down and concentrate on that faint stir of air, almost imperceptible.

Iwagakure had him. Had they broken his neck? Severed his spinal cord?

Or perhaps the chakra coil damage in his brain from Kakashi's attempt at that chakra sieve had been just the tip of the iceberg. He tried to sense his own chakra flow, and found it as absent as physical sensation was from his body.

Perhaps he'd had a stroke.

Panic tried to force its way back in.

He focused his awareness on the crown of his head. Was he really feeling it, or was that just memory and imagination? He tried to raise his eyebrows, to scowl. Nothing. Tried to open his eyes, and was sure he had, but his vision was flat seamless grey.

Why couldn't he see?

The nothing continued. Continued continued continued until he was sure he was going mad.

Focus. He needed to focus. If he could think, he was alive. If he was alive, there was hope.

Did they have Kakashi? Was he being interrogated somewhere, by mask-faced Iwa ninja armed with slender senbon and dull silver mallets? But they were all dead, the rescue team two years ago had killed them all. All.

Logic told him that was a lie. Iwagakure was at least as large a village as Konoha, with at least as many ninja. As many ANBU. As many interrogators.

Was it imagination, or did he really feel a hammer smashing down against his hand?

The dreadful sound of someone being sick filled his ears. A complete inability to breathe sent that distant heartbeat racing again.

And then a voice. A voice he knew the way the mouse knows the scream of the hawk. "Koto, roll him please, and suction that out before he asphyxiates."

Very, very distantly, the sensation of movement. Something hard shoved past his lips, banged against his teeth. Breath, once more.

And that voice, low baritone, far too gentle. Far too alive. "Shiranui Genma. How very nice to see you again. It appears your hands and feet have healed remarkably well."

Don't talk was the first rule of interrogations. The only rule, really, beyond stay alive if you can, and don't break. But Kakashi needed information, needed information now, and dialogue was the only way to get it.

Which meant counter-interrogation. Which was a sure pathway to pain.

In this moment, he didn't much care.

The first attempt brought nothing but a rusty, throat-wrenching croak. He swallowed with a click, worked saliva into his dry mouth, and tried again. "Where's -- my teammate?"

Not Genma's name. The man with the cigarette didn't need any extra proof that Genma could be used as leverage, there was already more than enough.

A long silence stretched, framed by coiling tendrils of smoke and that tiny orange glow. Kakashi set his teeth and waited. As his vision adjusted he could see a little more, a mouth bisected by a long scar, the glint of dark eyes, at least two day's growth of beard. The man exhaled slowly.

"I have absolutely no idea," he said, with amiable good cheer, and Kakashi realized with sinking horror that he had no way to smell a lie. "Did you lose him somewhere? Irregardless, we're here to talk about you." A smile knifed in the dark. "Tell me, did you get along with your mother?"

That was so off-the-wall Kakashi just blinked. And breathed through his mouth as the stench of burning thickened, filling the whole world.

"Or your father?" the man prompted. "Any uncles, perhaps? I'm curious, what was your family tree like?"

"Uninteresting." Kakashi tilted his head back as far as he could stand. "How did you know my teammate was a man?"

"Lucky guess. Or statistical probability, take your pick. Did you have any siblings?"

"No." This information was all in the bingo book, why did this man care? He was trying to establish a response baseline, Kakashi guessed. An idea of how his subject reacted to neutral, pointless questions, so that the man would know if he hit on something touchy. "How long have you been an interrogator?"

"Eighteen years. I'll ask you to complete a questionnaire rating how you found the experience later. Do you write with your right hand?"

"Does that matter?"

"It might."

"I write with my feet," said Kakashi, and throttled a cough as more smoke blew into his face. "What's your name?"

"Takajin. Do you find names interesting?"

"Only when I want to check I've killed the right man."

"It's important to care," Takajin agreed. "That personal touch makes all the difference."

"Where's my teammate?"

"Don't you know? That must be very upsetting. I hope you weren't close."

Kakashi regretted not biting the man's fingers off when they'd been near his face. He kept his silence this time, testing every leather strap for a hint of give. They were all tight enough to press marks into skin, but not tight enough to cut off the blood supply. Exactly how he would have tied them.

Takajin watched him for a long moment, ember-lit and thoughtful, then leaned forward and put out his cigarette with careful deliberation on the chair between Kakashi's legs. Darkness plunged back in a wisp of smoke and warm metal. Kakashi bit down a startled inhale.

A hand ruffled his hair with cheerful affection. He jerked away, then snapped around to bite, but his masked teeth met nothing.

"We'll talk later," Takajin promised.

Then there was silence, and empty blackness.

The first real sensation Genma felt was the prick of a needle sliding into the back of his left hand. Terror and fury raced head to head as he felt gloved hands manipulating his knuckles, flexing his unresisting fingers back and forth, testing the repaired joints with a bright bolt of pain at the extremes of each motion.

"They do good work in Konoha," the voice continued.

Name. The owner of the voice had had a name. Genma'd spent two years trying not to remember it, but it came sailing back like a kunai on a wire: Kumoto-sensei, the medic who had kept him just enough alive between interrogation sessions that he could face another.

"Who did this?" Kumoto continued. "Ito Sanosuke? Or maybe Tanaka Shigure? Seeing as you are evidently functioning as a high-level operative again, and after how long? Only two and a half years? Yes, I'd have to say that was Ito's work. At least on your hands."

Rage won.

Genma choked on saliva, and the suction tube was pushed between his teeth again.

"Give it a moment, Genma-san. She's only just administered the first dose."

Dose of what? Who was she? Why couldn't he see? Why was Kumoto alive?

There was the bell-like sound of a tuning fork being struck, and a sharp ripple of pain shocked through his left foot.

"Aha. Yes, so there is clearly still some damage here," Kumoto continued. Sharp barbs raked at Genma's sole, made muscles jerk to life. "Oh... Oh no, give him a little more of the... no, not that one. Yes. We don't want more seizures, do we?"

Another prick, and a slow, syrupy feeling as the new drug took hold.

The bell-ring was repeated, and the pain-shock, but this time on his right heel.

"You know, I think Ayame had almost decided she was wasting her time with you. It was amazingly good luck for you that your friends arrived when they did. I doubt she would have put up with your continued refusal to answer her questions much longer."

Ayame. Was that the masked interrogator? The woman with the mallet?

"Where?" Genma's voice was shrapnel in his throat.

"Who, Ayame? Oh, she's dead." The tuning fork was struck again, and applied to Genma's right wrist. His right thumb was wrenched all the way away from his hand. "Don't you remember?"

The fog started to dissolve, becoming redder, as if there were a flame smoldering just out of sight.

"Can you open your eyes? Open your eyes, Genma-san."

A cold, gloved thumb pushed one of his eyelids up, and a bright light knifed through one grossly dilated pupil. It was repeated on the other side.

"Still almost no voluntary motor response," a woman's voice reported. "Pupils are unequal but responsive."

"Give him another three cc's," Kumoto instructed.

Genma felt his heart race as yet another drug was injected. He gasped and choked again. The suction tube was forced past clenched jaws.

"Very good. There's some strength in you after all," Kumoto said. "Now open your eyes."

Kakashi couldn't lose time in the stone cell -- he'd had no time to begin with. He measured his own reactions instead, how hungry he was, how parched his throat had become, how soon he'd need to wrangle some kind of bathroom arrangement. Which was fortunately not soon, given the dehydration and the lack of heavy meals in the past two days.

The consistency of the dried blood on his fingers gave him a rough estimate of hours--at least several--since the hand-wound had been inflicted. Though the fresh blood trickling down screwed up his guess a little.

Half a day, he figured, since they'd tied him to the chair.

So Genma was either a cooling corpse, or a deeply unhappy, healing man.

Kakashi had never been much of a praying shinobi, but now, trapped down in the belly of darkness with nothing but his own fears, he could feel the urge rising on his lips. Please don't let me have screwed everything up.

Let Pakkun have made it through.

Bring Konoha here with a rain of death and vengeance, or at least a shower of diplomacy.

The lack of torture was a reassurance there, at least. They'd made him uncomfortable, but they hadn't ripped his skin off in strips. Someone was keeping Takajin on a leash.

He hoped.

Kakashi turned his thoughts away from fruitless, energy-draining worry, and focused his attention on escaping. The chair was bolted heavily to the floor. He wasted several years trying to get an angle to kick out one of the legs, but the ankle-chains had no slack in them. His arms couldn't move at all. The wide leather strap around his torso kept his back pressed firmly to the chair.

He threw himself around anyway, trying for luck over logic, and achieved nothing but bruises and a fiercer headache. The chair didn't even shiver.

They could keep him without water for two days, he judged, when he stopped to catch his breath. Without food for two weeks. But if Konoha was coming, they'd arrive long before that. Which meant his only enemies were boredom, torture, and losing his mind through a lack of knowledge.

And Takajin.

Kakashi had barely finished contemplating this non-reassurance when cool fingers clamped tightly around the back of his neck, and something with a fine, delicate point bit in deep.

Drugs, he realized belatedly, instant teeth-snap falling on empty air. Drugs were another enemy.

The world melted at the edges.

Two-and-a-half years ago, in twenty-six days of captivity -- that was the official count on the mission report, based on a known date of rescue and a very well estimated date of capture -- Genma had only ever seen one of his Iwagakure captors' faces. This face. Kumoto's face. He looked almost the same now as he had then, with sandy brown hair cropped close, furrows between his brows and around his mouth hinting at wrinkles and jowls to come. His hair was a little thinner, a little greyer. And one eyelid drooped a bit -- had it used to? But otherwise he looked the same. Same mildly concerned frown. Same air of reserve that seemed to belong more in a pediatrician's office than the bowels of Iwagakure's interrogation facility.

Genma took a ragged breath, eyes going wide, and tried to arch his back. There was no response from his body but a dull, diffuse pain slithering down his spine and crawling along his limbs like a torpid snake.

"What the-- fuck--"

"Genma-san, please try not to move. You'll only do yourself injury." Kumoto withdrew, moving away.

Genma strained his head back, rolling his eyes, trying to see something, anything. His vision was hopelessly blurred and distorted, like looking through a grease-smeared lens, but he was able to make out bright overhead lights, dully-gleaming metal, the pristine white and pale green that marked this as a medical treatment chamber, not a dungeon.

Gloved hands again, manipulating his hand, bending his fingers. There was a shrill of alien chakra forced through the coils in his palm, and he tried to jerk his hand away. His shoulder popped with a dull echo of pain, and he realized he was restrained.

"You see how the second circuit has been overlaid by both the seventh and the eighth, with the tau node converted to a gamma at the third juncture?" Kumoto said.

"Where?" The female voice. Genma could see her back, the edges of a green surgical gown flapping open over ninja blacks.

"There, see?" Another shock of Kumoto's chakra. Agony. Another jerk. "Genma-san, please."

That same voice before, imploring him in the dim light in his cell, Genma-san, please. This isn't any pleasure to me, repairing the damage over and over. And they will run out of patience, eventually. Please just answer the questions, Genma-san. It's only going to get worse. The prick of a needle. The dull crack as Kumoto set bones in Genma's foot back into place.

Genma twisted and tried to free himself, fetching up against stout bonds and a body that wouldn't respond. Vertigo sucked at him like a cyclone, and he retched dryly, remembered pain curling around fresh.

Kumoto sighed, reappearing at his head, pressing cool hands against Genma's temples. "I did try to tell you to stay still. I haven't seen such bad chakra coil damage since the war. What would possibly have possessed your teammate to do such a thing to you? And there's some kind of chakra-damaging poison circulating in your system. Not a lot, but enough to worry me. I've isolated a sample of it and sent it for analysis."

"Bastard," Genma grunted. They had the poison? Fuck. And they had him. Had Kakashi. Did they have Kakashi? Where the fuck was Kakashi? "Where's my teammate?"

"My, two years has certainly added to your charm," Kumoto said mildly. "You used to ask me that without swearing at me." Bright green chakra flared between his palms, behind Genma's eyes. Genma's back arched once, and then he went very, very still.

Kakashi was having a hard time keeping his head balanced atop his neck. It kept wanting to loll back and rest on the chair-back, something that made precisely no difference to the view.

There were still fingers wrapped around his throat, but they'd shifted their grip now, pressing firmly against the slow, rolling pulse beneath his skin. A cool grip, solid but not painful, irritating in a background-itch kind of way. Kakashi tried to shake it away and got exactly nowhere.

A flame sparked to light above his head, blinding bright. Kakashi winced, but it only lasted an instant, replaced by a dull orange glow. Smoke trickled down and seared his nose. He sneezed hard enough to whack his head against the chair-back, and groaned.

"Y'need to stop that." The words sounded like a mumble and a slur, slipped out and gone before Kakashi could stop them. He rocked back with horror -- or tried to, the hand on his neck brought him up short.

"Stop what?" Takajin inquired. His voice came from up high, level with that floating orange glow. Kakashi knew the interrogator was standing right behind him, far too close, but he couldn't sense a flicker of body-heat, or hear a whisper of clothing, or smell anything but that damn cigarette.

He bit down hard on his lower lip, trying to shock himself back to clear thinking. Blood welled around sharp canine teeth, but the world stayed slippery and warm, spilling through his gory fingers like a handful of hot syrup. Pain faded away, leaving insidious relaxation in its wake.

He felt easy, suggestible, and toweringly angry underneath. Terrified beneath that.

Takajin exhaled a long ribbon of smoke. His hand dropped from Kakashi's neck, replaced by a lean-muscled arm draping over Kakashi's shoulders. The cigarette light lowered, held in a mouth hovering far too close.

"So," said Takajin, "tell me about your mother."

And Kakashi wanted to.

He arched his back, trying to get away, a move all physical and nothing logical, but the leather straps just creaked. Metal chains tremored. Takajin waited patiently. Kakashi wrenched around to bite his face off, but had to jerk back when that burning ember-tip singed his eyelashes.

"Fuck you," he spat out, and clamped down on the flood of words that wanted to follow. Tried to hold onto his fury, instead of the light-headed giggling that wanted to bubble up.

Takajin snorted. "Not today. Do you have some immunity to truth serums, Kakashi? I wouldn't be surprised, but this one is relatively new."

Kakashi sang out a rattle-fire series of multiplications in answer, as high as he could hold the numbers.

"Interesting," said Takajin, and slapped his hand over Kakashi's mouth. The words cut out. "Clever, too. What do you think about Konoha?"

The hand pulled away. Kakashi's head rocked back against Takajin's shoulder, smile spreading like oil on water.

"I think they're coming here," he slurred, and could have killed himself. Would have killed himself, if the thought had stayed inside his head long enough for his teeth to find his tongue. His voice lifted and sing-songed. "Think they're going to kill you..."

Takajin's fingers slid through grey, sweat-soaked hair. "See?" he said. "I knew we'd have so much to talk about."

"Genma-san?" Kumoto's voice. "Genma-san, wake up." Genma held utterly still. It was a dream, he told himself. A nightmare. If he waited, it would go away. Or maybe he could make the voice into something else. That's what you were supposed to do when you woke up in a nightmare, right? Take control of it; make it something pleasant. Who would he want to hear calling him? Yanagi. Yanagi would be good. Yanagi waking him up for a blow job. Yes...

"Genma-san, open your eyes. Can you hear me? You need to wake up now."

It wasn't Yanagi. Not Yanagi's voice. Not the name Yanagi would call him. And his hands hurt. Someone had once told Genma that you were never aware of your own hands in a dream, but ever since that mission to Earth Country that had been a lie, at least for Genma. That was the past, he told himself. The past, and this was a dream.

"Genma-san?" right in his ear, a voice he trembled to hear. "Give him a little push," more distantly.

It was a bad dream...

Metal-salt taste washed over the back of his tongue. His heart raced, and his eyes flew open to blinding white light. He gasped and shuddered, trying to bolt upright. Canvas and leather bound him; hands pressed against his chest, held his head.

He hurt in every muscle. In his feet, in his hands. In his head. Echoing pain like a violent thunderclap reverberated in his skull from deep within and made him want to scream.

Iwa has you. That's Kumoto's voice. You think you got rescued two years ago, terror whispered, but you never did.

"Back with us?" Kumoto asked, his mild face appearing in Genma's vision, blotting out the dazzling light. "We repaired the damage to your chakra coils. Can you feel this?" Someone thrust a dagger through Genma's shoulder. Genma bit down on a scream. "It's just a little pressure, that shouldn't have hurt. Did that hurt?"

The important thing to remember, Genma told himself, was not to say anything. Tears welled in his eyes when the dagger was twisted.

"That looks like it hurts. Koto, can you go ahead and push the chakra blocker back in, and some morphine? It looks like we have more work to do on our friend Genma-san."

Nothingness washed back over Genma like an ocean swell in a raging typhoon capsizing tiny fishing boats. As he went under, he hoped that Seijuro was still holding on, resisting interrogation. Or was it Kakashi? Wait, was it Kakashi? But the undertow caught him, and he was gone.

Takajin didn't stop touching.

Kakashi endured hands in his hair, fingers on his neck, an arm around his shoulders, and breath on the side of his face until he felt like screaming. Until the drugs washed that thought away and replaced it with another, with laughter and loose-boned ease -- until he remembered again. He almost wrenched his neck whipping around to bite, but Takajin was gone like a ghost each time and Kakashi was dizzy enough.

The dead air was thick with cigarette smoke, like breathing underwater. It made him light-headed. Dragged cloying claws through poison-seared, newly burning lungs.

Takajin rested his chin on Kakashi's shoulder. "Do you like yourself?" he murmured.

"Don't like you," Kakashi grated back, and shivered when fingers slid down the back of his mask, resting against his spine. The cloth was sweat-soaked, clinging.

"That's good," Takajin said amiably, like Kakashi had just complimented his cooking. "I like to know when I'm doing my job right. When do you think your people will arrive?"

I don't know. The answer caught in Kakashi's teeth, fell apart, and became a long babble about time-sheets, steered by the part of his brain currently engaged in having a full-fledged panic attack. The rest of his brain just went along, supplying dozens of scrambled thoughts until his mouth couldn't keep up. Takajin listened in interested silence, stirring only when Kakashi broke off with an airless groan.

"That's very good. Have you been tortured before?"

"You're not torturing me now," Kakashi pointed out, and wished he could gag himself. Wished he had the leverage to crack his skull against the chair. Wished he could crack Takajin's skull with his bare hands. Wrench every vertebrae out and make them dance--

He was laughing again. Low and gagging, struggling for breath.

"I could torture you," Takajin mused. "Would that make you feel better?"

"It'd be easier." Blood splashed as Kakashi's hands jerked in his bonds, pain flickered distantly. "It's always easier, better than talking, makes you focus--" He choked himself off.

"Questions before or after?"

"Never. You're the worst torturer ever--" The hand left his neck, tightened in his hair, and yanked once. Hot pain jangled in his skull. Kakashi hissed.

"After, then. Or during. Do you have a preference for any particular method?"

"I'd like to rip your face off."

"Fair enough." Takajin leaned back, adjusted that hair-grip until Kakashi's throat was bared to its full extent, and laid a cold metal edge against his temple. "Will a scalping do?Traditionally the face is needed for talking."

Kakashi found words, lost them, found laughter and felt it crackle in his lungs. "Do you know how fast head wounds bleed?" he whispered.

"In intimate detail. How old were you the first time you made someone bleed?"

"Five."

"Good man." The blade flashed and struck.

"How long until you have that ready?"

"Five more minutes. We have a live feed coming from room two, but it has to pass through Shiroi's review. Doesn't really look like you're ready for us yet anyway."

"Hmm? I suppose not. He was really in a terribly degraded state when we got our hands on him."

"Not like you haven't seen that before."

Harsh, self-satisfied laughter. A smell of ozone and antiseptics. A smell of blood.

"Is he really the same guy?"

"Yep. Repeat customer. I think he likes it here."

More laughter. Kumoto's supercilious nasal voice, and two women, one high-pitched and young sounding, the other gravelly as if she smoked.

Genma trembled.

"How'd he get out?" The young-sounding voice. "I mean, look at his hands..."

"We honestly don't know. That's what Imahara's here to find out, as soon as he wakes up."

"He was one of Ayame's?" The older voice.

"Her last," Kumoto agreed. "I've taken extensive notes and photographs. This is the first time we've ever seen anything like it. Of course none of Ayame's previous subjects managed to escape."

"No, they all died," the deep-voiced woman agreed.

Genma's trembling increased, chilled despite the blanket over him. He was on his side, both arms in front of him, with his shoulder painfully wrenched and his wrists shackled at about waist level to some kind of stiff restraint. There were cuffs chaffing his ankles, too; pointless, he thought, since he couldn't move his legs. A pins-and-needles schiller of blocked chakra and strained nerves made his bones ache.

"It's ready. How long is he gonna be out of it?" the older woman asked. "If it's gonna be a while, I'm gonna go grab a cig."

"He's awake," Kumoto said mildly.

"He is?" Young voice. Apprentice girl.

"You haven't been paying attention to his vitals, Koto," Kumoto chided. "Look, respiration and pulse both picked up almost three minutes ago. He's eavesdropping like a good little ninja." Kumoto's voice came closer, and his gloved hand fell on Genma's shoulder. "Aren't you, Genma-san?"

Genma kept his eyes closed. Kept his breathing even.

"Now, now, dear boy, don't be like that. Imahara here has been waiting ever so patiently to talk to you, and she's brought something to show you. Just cooperate with her, alright? Koto and I have worked rather hard to prepare you for her visit."

I'll just bet you have. Bastard. Where's Seijuro? What are you going to start with this time, my damn feet again? Genma braced himself. The soles of his feet were exposed. His whole body felt exposed.

"I really don't have all day," the woman -- Imahara -- complained. Something electrically cold sent a spark racing over Genma's side, snapping his muscles into a tight convulsion.

"Please, Imahara-san. I just stabilized him." Kumoto's hands touched Genma's shoulder and hip, alive with chakra, and easing twitching muscles back to calm.

"Make him open his fucking eyes and talk to me then," Imahara grated.

"Come on, Genma-san," Kumoto pleaded. "Don't you want to see your teammate? I know you were worried about him, and we've set it up so you can see him."

Genma remembered how bad Seijuro had looked. Remembered the black swelling that obliterated his eye, the crusted blood on an unstitched scalp laceration, the way his shoulder had hunched, dislocated and deformed. He remembered the horrific, haunted look on Seijuro's face.

"You bastards," he whispered.

"Really, Genma-san. He's fine. Have a look."

Despite himself, Genma opened his eyes. He was confronted with a television screen showing a ghostly grey-green night-vision picture of two men. A standing one with a brightly-glowing cigarette. A seated and bound one with wild hair. Not Seijuro.

"Want to explain how you got a message to your buddies to come get you out?" Imahara asked. Genma could feel her standing behind him.

"Magic," Genma said. And choked. Why was he answering her?

"Oh dear, you didn't mean to say that, did you?" Kumoto chuckled. "We've made some improvements to our interrogation techniques since you were last our guest. Look, your friend likes them, too. Koto, turn up the volume."

From the television came a tinny sound. Laughter. The standing man leaned in to the seated one. "Have you been tortured before?"

"You're not torturing me now."

Oh sweet fuck that wasn't Seijuro, that was Kakashi.

Kakashi on the screen choked into an eerie drugged laugh.

"I could torture you," the interrogator said mildly. "Would that make you feel better?"

Genma strained against shackles and chakra restraints. Shut up, shut up, Kakashi!

"It'd be easier." Kakashi-on-the-screen said. His voice sounded just a little slurred, definitely not quite in his control. "It's always easier, better than talking..."

"Shut up!" Genma roared. "Shut up! Don't tell him that! You'll just make it worse!"

The sound snapped off. Kumoto's white-coated figure blocked Genma's vision of the screen. "Yes, you understand that part at least, don't you, Genma-san. Answer Imahara-san's questions, though, and I'm sure we can see about making your friend there more comfortable, yes?"

"Fuck you," Genma bit.

Imahara moved around the head of the bed to stand in front of Genma. She was older, with a narrow jaw and iron-grey hair. Her skin looked mottled, as if in some long-ago youth she'd had bad acne, or maybe a disfiguring pox.

"How did you escape two years ago?" she repeated.

There was no pain.

For a wild moment, Kakashi thought Takajin had sliced in so deep he'd punched through bone, into brain, and cut out Kakashi's ability to feel anything at all. Then Kakashi felt the wrenching tug on his scalp, heard the skrrrrkk noise of tearing hair, and realized the blade had never come that close.

"Are you serious?" he gasped out, half-choked.

Hair showered down the nape of his neck. There was another tug, another rip.

"Perfectly," said Takajin, cigarette clenched jauntily between his teeth as he worked. "Have you never read a T & I manual? Hair cuts are dehumanizing. It's very traumatic for some people."

His grip shifted, yanking Kakashi's head to the side. The blade flashed far too close, barely visible in the nothing-light, and blood-clotted hair came away in a matted clump, followed by another. Kakashi's slippery thoughts circled the idea of pulling away, then abruptly discarded it. Better his hair than an ear. Better Takajin focused on this project instead of another.

"I still feel human," his mouth spilled out, without any intervention from his brain. "Don't think your plan's working."

"Give it time," Takajin assured him. Another cut; Kakashi lost half of his bangs. The interrogator paused thoughtfully, his blade tapping once against the side of Kakashi's head. "You actually feel human?" he asked. "A ninja of your calibre?"

"Insanity runs in my family."

Takajin didn't miss a beat. "Mother or father?"

"Didn't know my mother," Kakashi mumbled, and realized he'd failed to dodge the question. He closed his eyes, fought for control. "What was yours like?"

"My mother? Lovely woman. Baked cookies for neighbourhood children." A shearing slice took off the rest of Kakashi's bangs. The blade rarely touched his scalp; at a guess, he thought he probably still had an inch or two of hair left. Takajin pulled his head the other way. "Do you regret not knowing your mother?"

"Does yours regret knowing you?"

"Ha! Touche. You are good at this, aren't you?" The blade scraped down the back of Kakashi's neck; he could feel hair drifting in downy clouds over his shoulders, left bare by ANBU blacks. Takajin brushed him off. "Does your village like you?"

This time, the words caught because Kakashi didn't know the answer. Useful wasn't liked.

He grabbed the second's respite to think. Village meant teammates meant--

"Where's Genma?"

"Ah, the elusive teammate has a name. Good start. Do you miss him?"

"Where is he?"

"Not here, obviously." The blade did a final sweep, snick-snick-snick, and then vanished. Takajin ran his hand over Kakashi's shorn head, but this time his fingers could barely get a grip. "Would it upset you if we'd killed him?"

Kakashi's breath came out in a long, shuddery exhale. "I'll rip your heart out," he promised. "Tear it out and feed it to you--"

"I'll take that as a yes," Takajin said dryly. He leaned his chin back on Kakashi's shoulder. "Well, then, let's talk about Genma."

Genma lifted his head and tried to see past Kumoto and his new interrogator, to see the figures on the dimly-lit television screen. The interrogator with Kakashi had a blade in his hand, and Kakashi's head pulled back. The blade came slicing down.

Genma shut his eyes. It was a trick. A lie. It wasn't Kakashi.

"How did you escape?" Imahara asked again, impatience woven through her tone like gold threads in a princess's kimono.

"Let him go." Genma snarled back. "Let him go, he didn't do anything. He doesn't know anything."

"Oh, yes, that was the same line you used on Ayame-san, wasn't it?" Kumoto said. "You really should consider a new tactic, Genma-san. You remember how far that one got you?" Kumoto's fingers traced over Genma's in what was almost a caress. "Come here, Koto. Watch the monitor." He grabbed Genma's right index finger and straightened it, pushed it a little back, then further, straining tendons and two-years'-healed bone.

Genma waited for the snap. He held his breath and opened his eyes again to stare at the screen, because anything was better than staying in this room. The other interrogator was raking a blade over Kakashi's scalp. There was no sound. And it didn't look like the blade was making contact. A fake. It was a fake.

He waited for the snap, but it didn't come. Kumoto released his finger, trading for Genma's left thumb.

"Oh," Koto said. "Is that what you meant about chakra rerouting, Sensei?"

"Yes. You can see the jump in signal, as he anticipates pain. And then a second spike when he actually experiences it. But the transit time is abnormal because of the damage that was done to his hands before--"

"Can the two of you have your lesson some other time?" Imahara asked pointedly. She put a gloved hand to Genma's chin and wrenched his face away from the screen. "You had help. We know that, so you don't have to bother denying it. How did you get a message to them?"

Metal jutsu. Don't say it. Rescue team just read the trail Seijuro and I left. Didn't know there would be a rescue. Don't say it. Jutsu catalyzed with my own blood. Iron spiraled leaf for ANBU trackers to find. Don't answer her. He clenched his jaws so tight it made his teeth ache.

"This is tedious," she complained. "Can't you just give him the stuff Takajin gave the other one that makes them so talkative?"

"He came in with a brain injury," Kumoto said with a hint of condescension. "So no. You're lucky he's talking at all." He leaned in towards Genma. "That being said, Genma-san, I really wish you would answer her. I hate to think of vandalizing Ito-sensei's gorgeous reconstruction work, but the point of leverage is painfully obvious. I suppose I could start with your feet. Koto? Break one of his toes."

Kakashi tried to headbutt Takajin in the face.

He got closer this time, despite the feeling of warm syrup pooling through his veins, slowing his muscles. Close enough to feel the faintest breeze when Takajin melted away. It had to be a jutsu, that trick. Or a genjutsu, and Kakashi hadn't moved at all.

Strangely comforting thought -- if this was a genjutsu, he'd wake up with his hair intact.

Or his hands missing.

A shiver ran all the way through his centre. Without his chakra-sense, or access to Obito's eye, he was truly blind. Entirely helpless. And with the drugs, he couldn't even rely on his own mind.

He snapped the thought in half. It would only drive him mad.

"Now, what was that?" Takajin said, reappearing in front of Kakashi. He loomed, easily six foot tall, filling Kakashi's entire frame of vision -- a shadowy smudge in a world of darkness. "I thought you wanted to talk about your friend?"

"I want him alive," Kakashi spat, trying to lurch forwards. Steel and leather caught him short. "Your ninja agreed--"

"Technically," Takajin interrupted, "they're not my ninja. I'm just a working man." He crouched down, a new cigarette flaming between his teeth, and brought his hands to rest on Kakashi's spread thighs. "Just like you. Of course, I like to keep my hands clean of my friend's blood. It's a personal rule. Just enemies, you know, so I can sleep at night."

Kakashi was starting to feel hysterical. He dragged a smoke-filled, unlaughing breath, and tried to stay calm. Silent.

"Was it your fault?" Takajin said softly. "Is that why you came here, to fix your mistake?"

One word, it came out raw. "Yes."

"Ah," said Takajin.

Kakashi threw his head backwards, trying to beat silence back into his skull. The metal chair-edge caught him a sickening crack, knifing pain through the sticky wound where that earlier, undodged kunai-hilt had taken him down. White stars burst in his vision. Everything lurched. Then firm, cool hands caught his head and steadied it, and Takajin was right there.

"Consider this therapy," he said, close enough that Kakashi could see the dull orange cigarette glow reflected in dark brown eyes. "It's always your fault, isn't it, Kakashi? That's why we're here. Working out what to do about it."

The laughter swept back, all shatter-glass harmonics and no air.

"Tell you my sins?" Kakashi rasped, when it strangled out. "You setting up for priesthood? Fuck you."

"Don't swear," Takajin smiled. "Angels don't like it. Besides, your friend might be watching. I hear heaven's a forgiving place."

"Not for us." Kakashi closed his eyes. Tried to think over the broken reel of Genma's dead, Genma's dead, I got him killed, Genma's dead-- Takajin was lying. "Konoha's coming," he got out. "Soon. And you'll have a war on your hands."

Takajin patted his cheek gently. "Won't be the first time."

"Wait," Imahara said. She gestured to Kumoto, who stepped to the side so Genma could see the television screen again. Someone turned the volume back up. Kakashi's voice rang thin through the speaker. "Where's Genma?"

Genma's breath stuttered. They'd broken Kakashi?

"Ah, the elusive teammate has a name." The interrogator again, deep-voiced, almost kind sounding. "Good start. Do you miss him?"

"Where is he?"

"Not here, obviously."

Genma watched in horror as the man raked his blade over Kakashi's head again, then caressed Kakashi like a man petting a dog. "Would it upset you if we'd killed him?"

Rage burned bright and hot in Genma's throat. Don't fucking believe him, Kakashi. Don't listen to him.

Kakashi shuddered, panting harshly. "I'll rip your heart out. Tear it out and feed it to you--"

"I'll take that as a yes." The interrogator leaned right over Kakashi's shoulder, in a sickening parody of an intimate gesture. "Well, then," he said smoothly, "let's talk about Genma."

The screen shimmered, blinked, came back into focus. A glitch in the feed, or were they editing this?

"Was it your fault? Is that why you came here, to fix your mistake?" the interrogator asked softly.

A terrible answer from Kakashi: "Yes."

Another glitch. This had to be edited.

"Fuck you." Kakashi spat.

"Don't swear," chided the interrogator. Had he moved? Was he in a different position now? "Angels don't like it. Besides, your friend might be watching."

I am, Genma thought fiercely.

"I hear heaven's a forgiving place," the interrogator continued.

"Not for us." Kakashi's voice sounded utterly dispirited. Utterly broken.

"You bastards!" Genma hissed. "Stop toying with us!"

"You heard the man," said Kumoto. "Koto?"

Genma felt the assistant's cold hands on his left foot, one around the middle to hold it steady, the other selecting his small toe.

"No, not that one. You want to start with one of the longer ones, but not the big toe. The hallux and the smallest toe are the two most difficult to fracture," Kumoto told her. Her grip over Genma's arch tightened.

"Last chance, ANBU," Imahara said. "Who helped you escape?"

"Kumoto," Genma grated. "Kumoto did. He got my message out because he felt sorry for me--"

Kumoto snorted. Imahara remained impassive. The assistant hesitated.

Genma put every bit of strength he had into calling on the frayed shreds of chakra he could still access, forced his hands closer together despite the shackles, formed his fingers into seals, and tried to translocate out of his bonds.

A searing light blotted out the center of Genma's vision and grew, eating towards the periphery. His bones melted, nerves vaporized.

"You idiot," Kumoto roared, somewhere outside the inferno. "What did you do? I just had him stable."

"I didn't do-- He did that, Sensei!"

"Now how long is it going to be until we can talk to him?"

"I don't know. Oh for heaven's sake, Koto, inject the damn paralytic! Do I have to tell you how to do everything?"

The fires extinguished, leaving ash in their wake.

Vision was gone. Pain remained.

Kumoto pushed one of Genma's eyelids up, then the other, flicking a penlight like a weapon. "He's still in there. I think." His hands enveloped Genma's face. Genma couldn't move at all. "This is going to take hours." The hands pulled away in disgust.

"I never liked you, Genma-san. Never liked you at all."

Takajin's hand lingered on his cheekbone, calloused fingers catching the filthy black mask, and for the first time Kakashi didn't try to bite him. Didn't do anything but stare, sick and horrified.

"You're insane," he said finally. "Or lying. Iwa can't afford a war; you don't have the resources."

"Neither does Konoha." Takajin tapped him on the forehead with two fingers, smearing sweat and sticking hairs. "You value yourself pretty highly, don't you? Would your Hokage really risk that much just for you? One ninja?"

"Two ninja," Kakashi grated. Takajin was lying. "Stone might abandon their soldiers, but in Konoha loyalty works both ways."

"Ah, but you're not just a soldier, are you? You're an ANBU." Takajin's other hand traced the red spiral inked into Kakashi's arm, already four years old. Kakashi barely twitched. "Dying's part of the job description."

"So's living," Kakashi snapped back, and that was true. Living until you couldn't, and then selling the price of your last breath for something worthwhile. And it didn't matter if he'd meant to do that four years ago, that the only reason he hadn't yet was because no one had been good enough to take it from him; he was still alive. And he had a duty to stay that way, as long as he could. "And you're just stalling. If you were going to torture me, you'd've started already. This is just -- playing, while you wait for a message. You can't touch me."

He welcomed the laughter this time, spat it into Takajin's face like a challenge. Until a wash of smoke choked him, and he coughed hard enough to make his head spin.

Takajin's palm flattened over his mouth before he could regain his breath. "I'm already touching you, Kakashi," the interrogater said, all smiles, and covered Kakashi's nose as well. Air ceased entirely. "Would you like me to stop? Just say the word."

Kakashi wrenched back, but Takajin's other hand cradled his skull, yanking him forwards. Agony crowded his chest, red and hot, broken with coughs he couldn't get the air for. His ribcage heaved, lungs spasming. A full body-memory of Genma pinning him down, stripping his mask away, and forcing a gout of antidote down his throat, hit Kakashi like a shovel to the head. But this wasn't a poison, and Genma wasn't here--

"Just one word," Takajin prompted, encouraging as any jounin-sensei. "Any time you like."

Kakashi strained against his bonds, making leather creak and metal dance. Reached desperately for chakra that wouldn't come, that wasn't there. Blood pounded in his ears, splattered the floor as it cast off from his sword-sliced hand; the fragile scab had broken again. Everything was already dark, but he could feel his vision narrowing all the same.

"See? I knew you didn't mind it, really." Takajin said, and released his grip just as Kakashi's eyes started to roll back. "That's common in ANBU. You like a little pain."

Coughing, gasping, retching breaths almost tore Kakashi apart. He inhaled smoke, fought for air, and felt like someone had filled his lungs with broken glass. Still jerked his head back when Takajin's hands settled around his face again.

"Easy," said the man, soothing as a viper. Another stream of blue-burning smoke wreathed Kakashi's head. "Breathe like you mean it."

Kakashi retched froth and bitter saliva into his mask. "I'll -- kill you," he swore, rusted-hoarse. "If you don't -- kill me first. You're dead."

"And destroy this beautiful relationship? But we have so much more to try, Kakashi." Gentle fingers wiped away the wet, silvery trails left by reactionary tears. Resettled Kakashi's mask a little higher on his nose. "So much time to spend together. Wouldn't you like to know Genma's last words?"

Pain helped fight the drug, overwhelmed it with a thundering heartbeat. Kakashi felt himself shiver all over, and forced his muscles still. "He's still alive."

"Let's talk about Konoha," Takajin said, as if Kakashi hadn't spoken. "I'm just dying to know what it's like."