| [Feb. 21st, 2010|04:34 am] |
The blonde woman and the thin-faced man came back, accompanied by a broad-shouldered man in a dressier, blacker version of their uniforms. He had eyes like a poisonous snake's, and a manner that bespoke long authority. Kumoto was nowhere to be seen.
"Get up," Thin-man said. Genma stared at him. But Blonde unshackled his feet from the bed, and bound them instead to each other. Then she unlocked one hand. Genma made a desperate grab for her, but Thin-man's elbow was at his throat, cutting off air until Genma went limp and saw only brown-purple blotches. When his vision cleared, his hands were manacled together, elbows and wrists contorted so that his hands were back-to-back. The woman ran a cold chain around Genma's naked waist like a belt, and attached his cuffed hands to that with a lock.
"Up," Thin-man repeated. He hauled on Genma's shoulders. "On your feet. You're being moved."
The silent commander said nothing at all.
The two guards between them manhandled Genma into standing. The woman said something Genma didn't catch, the man snickered, and then the woman reached down, pressed a hand glowing green against Genma's lower abdomen, and yanked the catheter she'd so unlovingly placed god's knew how many hours ago back out. The pain was crippling; Genma doubled over, groaning, but the smirking guard grabbed Genma's elbow and kept him on his feet.
They forced him to move. He shuffled naked along the white-painted hallway, until they came to a low, brick-arched door. Dressy man unlocked it, and the woman shoved Genma into what seemed to be some kind of airlock. A tiny antechamber to another room.
Now it starts for real, Genma thought with dread.
"You will not be able to use jutsu in this room, and we advise you not to try, Leaf-ninja," the Dressy man said, speaking for the first time. He had a softer-pitched voice than Genma had expected. A less imperious manner. "Kumoto-sensei assures me that any attempt to do so on your part is very likely to kill you. I believe him."
What the fuck was going on? The outer door was locked, the inner one swung open.
In the room, lit with pale daylight coming from a high, barred slit near the ceiling, there was nothing but a simple metal toilet jutting out from the wall in one corner, and in the other a pair of mattresses on the floor. On one of the mattresses, sprawled face down, lay Kakashi. He was bruised and pale, with his hair cropped nearly to the scalp. But he was bandaged, and dressed in a light-grey t-shirt and baggy pajama bottoms.
The woman unshackled Genma's feet first, as before, but this time she removed the restraints altogether. "Step," she instructed, and Genma was shocked to see her holding a pair of pajama pants for him.
Her face bore no expression at all, as she pulled the pants up over Genma's hip bones, and tightened the drawstring down. They left him shirtless. The woman took a key on a long string, and tied it high around Genma's neck. Too high to reach with his hands chained to his waist. She showed him a folded greyish shirt identical to Kakashi's, setting it on the empty mattress.
Kakashi didn't stir. But he wasn't shackled.
"When he wakes up, he can release your hands." Dressy man said. The woman shoved a hand between Genma's shoulder blades, sending him teetering off balance. He crashed to his knees with a curse. The door slammed shut behind him, and he heard the double click and quieter slam of the outer door being opened and relocked.
Crawling across the floor on his knees -- a clean floor, Genma noted with shock -- took all the strength his trembling muscles had left. He got as far as Kakashi's mattress and lay down on the cool concrete.
What the fuck was going on?
|
|