| [Oct. 1st, 2010|11:25 pm] |
As they emerged, they were met by four stone-faced Iwa shinobi. Guards. Maybe ANBU. None of them with faces Genma recognized. The guards took up positions surrounding the Leaf ninja with silent precision to escort them away. Kumoto fell back behind the tailing guards, but Genma could hear his footsteps echoing louder than any of the other shinobi, as he followed along.
The hallway was cleaner and better lit than Genma expected, with curving plastered walls forming an overhead arch. Wooden doors set into the wall at regular intervals looked identical to the one he and his escort had emerged from, with heavy brass locks and curling branches of script etched into the surface where permanent seals were set. It was a prison, but hardly a dungeon. Although when Genma thought of the cells in ANBU's first sub-basement, with their antiseptic air, he supposed it wasn't that different. Iwagakure's building looked older, more careworn, and heavier, as if this place had been hewn out of the living rock surrounding it.
Genma limped and stumbled, supported by Sugimoto. His head ached with a tracery of fire that blossomed from the wound on the back of his neck, and his vision played tricks on him, giving every doorway a double outline, and the tiled floor beneath him a vertiginous curve. Even so, he counted doors, looked for landmarks, and tallied threats. There were dozens, mostly in the form of their guards and the curious-eyed Iwa ninja they passed, some in their distinctive field uniforms but more, many more, in the menacing and elegant black that Iwa's intelligence officers wore.
"Just a little further," Sugimoto said, glancing up at Genma's wan face and slowing their pace. Kumoto walked several feet behind them. Too close to them for Genma's racing heart to slow, but at least the bastard wasn't anywhere near Kakashi. There had to be a way to get Kakashi out. Fujita Kenshi was here for Kakashi, Sugimoto had said. And we know it is about Kumoto's identity. They knew. Konoha knew. They wouldn't let someone as valuable as Kakashi come to any further harm. They wouldn't, Genma told himself.
And then, through an open door, he saw a face he did recognize. A handsome, square-jawed, heavy-browed face under a shock of stiff black hair. A face Genma knew from countless hours of video. Kakashi's torturer caught Genma's eye and smiled, offering a friendly salute.
Genma moved so fast he took even himself by surprise. He tore free from Sugimoto's grip and hurled himself towards that open door, exploding past the startled guards and already six seals in to the sequence for the strongest killing jutsu he knew. A tidal wave of his own chakra surged through him, snapping wild like a wet sheet in a gale, and then the Iwa ninja were on him, pinning back both arms and dragging him away in a choke-hold.
The torturer came to the door, smiled again, and shut it.
Sugimoto stepped in front of Genma. "Shiranui," she said. Just his name, but with all the force of an order.
The choke hold was released, but both his arms were pinned. Genma tried a kick, and found no strength in his legs. The Iwa ninja on either side of him held him up as much as they held him restrained, and as he watched, a red-grey haze descended in front of Sugimoto's face. He half-retched. "We need a stretcher," he heard Sugimoto say. She sounded like she was in a well. "Shiranui, focus." Cold hands on his face. A burst of chakra to a pressure point, and there were Sugimoto's brown eyes boring a look straight into him. He blinked and gagged again, and let her knock him out. |
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