| [Dec. 1st, 2011|08:16 am] |
“Ichiba...” Genma said softly. “He didn’t make it?”
Katsuko looked up then, meeting Genma’s eyes with a frightening steadiness. “No. They took him hours before the ANBU showed up.”
“I’m sorry.” The gap between them was no more than two feet; it felt like a chasm. Genma rocked himself a little closer, so that he could feel the heat of Katsuko’s skin on his own bared shoulder. “That’s how Seijuro went, too. They...” He took a breath and stopped himself. “You don’t need to hear this.”
There was the faint creaking of armour straps and fabric in motion, then Katsuko’s slender hand hovered hesitantly over his shoulder, like a bird unsure whether it was safe to light. He turned his head to look up at her, sitting a few inches above him on her rock. Her hand touched down. “Tell me,” she said.
“We’d been interrogated for a little over three weeks. They brought me and Seijuro into this room where Taisei was. Seijuro didn’t even look like himself. Seijuro. His face was destroyed. Black. They put us face to face across this table. Put my hands in cuffs built into it. He said he was sorry. Said he’d broken. He didn’t even know anything worth telling them. I was the one who knew the code they wanted.”
A shudder ran down Genma’s spine, and Katsuko’s hand lifted.
“No, it’s okay,” he told her. “It’s okay.” Her hand came back.
“And then they made one last try to get us to tell them what they wanted to know. Started in on me. On—” he hesitated. “My hands. Made Seijuro watch. I don’t even remember what they asked. Taisei started counting. He was a medic — in training to be a medic — before they caught him. There are fifty-four bones in a pair of human hands, and he told me they could probably break each one twice, so he counted. One-hundred-eight, like beads on a prayer necklace.” He laughed. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it.”
“Gods.” Katsuko’s voice was little more than a breath. She leaned against him, resting her head against his. It was strangely comforting, and he felt a little guilty seeking solace in her scarred arms.
“And then the woman — It was a woman. I never saw her face until it was over. Never saw any of their faces, they always wore masks. Like ours, only blank.” He touched the painted ceramic rat face fixed at her belt, hanging between them. “She pushed Seijuro up against the wall next to Taisei and told me to choose. Did she kill my friend, or the crazy kid I didn’t even know?”
“Did you choose,” Katsuko asked. Her voice was calm. As calm as Genma’s. “Or did they take the choice from you?”
“I flipped her off,” Genma said. He stretched his scarred hands out in front of him, fingers splayed like they had been, but whole now, carefully pieced back together over three years ago. Slowly, painfully, as if the bones were still broken, the tendons still a tangled mess, he lifted his right middle finger. “She ran her blade across Taisei’s throat, and the kid laughed. He was so happy. He was telling her, ‘Pick me pick me!’ So she turned and just gutted Seijuro.”
He shut his eyes and could see that terrible little room as if he’d never left it, hear Seijuro’s gasp, smell the blood, see his partner’s intestines falling in pink loops onto the cement floor before Seijuro even had time to realize he was dead.
“Five minutes later — Ten maybe. Practically no time at all — ANBU showed up." |
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