| [Nov. 14th, 2011|02:38 am] |
Outside the cells it was a completely different world: linoleum floors and ceiling strip-lights, walls plastered and painted in mute colours instead of raw stone, like a hospital. If this was a bunker, it was bigger than any he’d ever seen before. He was dragged down a maze of winding hallways, and through a set of white double doors.
Onto an observation deck.
It was a claustrophobic little room, painted white on three walls. The final wall had been replaced entirely by glass, and down below was a stainless steel operating room. There was a woman on the table, naked to the waist and unzipped from throat to navel, her ribcage splayed open like wings. He could see her heart shuddering in her chest. Her wrists and ankles were bound; there was an oxygen mask strapped to her face.
Her eyes were open.
There was a man leaning sideways against the glass, looking bored. Next to him, a white-haired woman was taking notes on a clipboard.
“Amazing pain control,” she murmured.
Asuma choked on his words. The orderlies kicked his legs from under him, wrenching his arms tight behind his back as they forced him to his knees.
The first orderly broke the silence. “This one says he’s got friends high up. Said he could expose the operation.”
The bored man’s eyes drifted to Asuma. “Where’s he from?”
“Around,” said Asuma, who had no intention of revealing himself as a useful bargaining chip. He re-gathered his shocked wits. “You’ve got people from at least four different villages-- five, if I’m reading her tattoos right.” The woman on the table had ink like desert sandstorms running up her arms -- Suna’s version of ANBU. He couldn’t shake the feeling she was looking right at him. “I don’t know how many treaties you’re breaking, but you’re about to get caught.”
The white-haired woman -- she had to be Kaminari -- glanced at him, lifting one snowy eyebrow. “Treaties? They won’t touch me, little boy. The only thing Kumo cares about is whether I get results, and Kami knows that I’ve delivered.”
The man chuckled.
For all that he was seventeen and had been living outside the village for over a year, Asuma suddenly felt very young, and very out of his depth.
And very pissed off.
“You’re torturing people--” he snarled, before the first orderly’s hand closed around his throat, choking him off.
The orderlies were ninja. There were no suppression seals out here, where they needed to work, and none of them had bothered to sedate him. He yanked on his chakra and managed to twist his locked hands into one rough wind seal. Knife-blades of wind spiked from his arms and shoulders, cutting into the hands holding him.
Three orderlies lurched back, yelling. The first orderly kept his composure better. An elbow clubbed the back of Asuma’s head, and his vision burst with red spots; he lunged off his knees, slamming a bare heel backwards into a thigh that felt like it was made of oak. A burst of chakra wasn’t enough to crack the bone, but he still spun the orderly off balance.
Both white-coated scientists had their attention firmly on him, now. |
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