It has been almost three weeks since the end of the preliminary round of the chunnin exams. Naruto, Sasuke, and all other participants are still busy training for the third round. Deep in Konoha's prison however, it seems they aren't the only ones who are hard at work.
Aoi, Ibiki, and Inoichi all sat in the interrogation room that was deep within the prison. No natural light was able to make its way down this far, so the three sat around a flickering candle. They had all been here for the past four days, continuing Aoi's training in emotions and interrogation. The chunnin guards that shadowed Aoi everywhere hadn't been seen, as the prison was one of the most highly guarded buildings in the leaf. All heads turned as the door into the room opened and a woman, roughly 30 by the looks of it, was escorted into the room.
"Ah~ how exciting for me!" The woman smiled at the group lightly, her voice singsong. She was mocking them. "For me to be in the presence of two of the most amazing men in Konoha, who focus solely on intel. Oh? But who is the kid?"
Ibiki glared at the woman harshly, but she didn't even flinch. Slight bags could be seen under all three's eyes, as they hadn't gotten much sleep the past few days. "I would reexamine your situation here. We'll be asking the questions here."
"Let me guess at what you want." The woman completely ignored Ibiki's words, continuing in a teasing tone. "You want information, obviously, but on what? You know, rumors travel fast around here. Not much else to do when you're locked in a cell other than talk. I already know you've been interrogating others, but the missing key would be why you would interrogate convicted criminals. Aren't we already out of your hair?"
"Sit down, we're starting now." When the woman refused to do as Ibiki said, he made a quick motion to the two guards behind her. They stepped forward, and without too much fight from the woman strapped her into the chair.
She lifted her hand an inch, looking lazily at the cuffs that now bound her arms and legs. "Ooh~ chakra cuffs huh? Nifty things." Her gaze rose from her hands to meet Ibiki's glare. "You've been here for a few days now according to rumor. Add that to what's happening with the chunnin exams and-"
Ibiki cut her off, "How do you know what's happening out in the village?"
"While I may be trapped in here, the prison guards sure aren't. If us prisoners get bored, you can suspect that they do too. Anyways, from what I can tell, you're here to ask about Orochimaru."
"Since you already know what we're talking about then, there is only one last question. Will you tell us about him?" Inoichi spoke, already sensing that Ibiki would snap if the woman pressed too many of his buttons. He could also tell that Ibiki was nearing that limit.
"Hmm..." The woman looked up, as if considering. "Nope! You forget that I loved that man, to me he was so much more than a superior." Her face held a faint blush at the confession, but she smiled mockingly nonetheless.
"Of course." At a nod, one of the guards behind the woman made the handsigns to place her into a genjutsu. Aoi started forward, his hand outstretched, but Inoichi caught it. "She seems prepared for all this, let me make sure you can handle it first." Aoi nodded, and Inoichi reached out and touched the woman's forehead.
Ibiki watched, a glare still on his face, while Inoichi delved through the woman's mind. Aoi stood off to the side, watching with disinterest at what was happening. They had been doing the same things with countless people, all of which were connected with Orochimaru. So far there was no luck in finding any information that they didn't already know. It didn't seem that Orochimaru stayed in contact with people who had already been caught.
"It's clear, there is almost no defenses inside her mind. Almost too easy." Inoichi backed away from the woman and motioned for Aoi to proceed. The boy stepped forward, and the second his hand made contact with her forehead he was in a 3-D maze.
After shaking off the feeling of vertigo he always got after entering a mind, Aoi oriented himself. There was only one direction to go at the moment, and that was up, so pushing off he started to float up the hole he was in. Every mind was different, because every person was as well, but in all of them there was no law of physics. You could quite literally do anything, because you weren't an actual physical entity.
The instant Aoi was about to get to the top of the hole her mind had placed him in however, he stopped. There was no explanation as to why, but it was a good thing he had. Above Aoi, a small bunny bounded out of one corridor and down another. A guard for her mind. They could look different from mind to mind, but they all worked the same. The moment a guard touched you, if you were intruding in a mind, you would be mercy to their will or be promptly kicked out. One of the first defenses you would learn in guarding you mind.
Aoi continued upward, then turned down the passageway the bunny had come from. The hardest part about trying to read someone's memories was getting to them. It could take hours to traverse through a maze that surrounded the mind. Dodging the guards in the mind, Aoi eventually came to a final passageway. At the end was a brain, or at least what looked like one. Aoi was already in the brain, but the place that stored memories took on the same shape as a real one.
Something brushed past Aoi and landed in front of him. He had only a moment to recognize the figure of the bunny before complete darkness overtook his senses. Subject to her will, he came to the realization that she had more defenses than previously thought. The guard was a bunny for a reason. Bunnies were rather fast, and on top of that they made no sound. It seems that one had tracked him, and attacked when Aoi had let his guard down slightly.
A teasing laugh sounded out, and though Aoi didn't know what it was, dread washed over him.
_+_
"Perhaps we should stop the jutsu." Inoichi glanced at Aoi again. It had been five hours so far, and though it wasn't a great amount of time it was longer than Aoi usually took.
"Inoichi, relax. You trained him personally, so he should be fine. Maybe he just found something." Ibiki reassured the man, for the seventh time.
Inoichi remained silent a while, chewing thoughtfully on some bread. "He isn't fully trained yet though. And even fully trained students can make mistakes or be caught off guard."
A sigh escaped from Ibiki's lips. Closing his eyes, he leaned back farther into his chair. "You sound like a worried mother." Inoichi remained silent, and cracking one eye open Ibiki saw he was staring at Aoi.
Though he wouldn't admit it, Ibiki was also slightly worried about the blue haired boy. Inoichi had traversed the maze of the woman's mind in less than a half hour, and Ibiki knew that Aoi wouldn't take much longer than that. If he had found something, Ibiki was sure that Aoi would have informed them as well. The more Ibiki considered this, the more he was becoming convinced that something had gone wrong as well.
Suddenly there was a thud, and immediately after the crash of two chairs as their occupants hastily stood. Inoichi was the first to reach Aoi, and quickly held the boy's head. Shifting Aoi's hair to the side, he noticed a sheen of sweat that beaded on the boy's face. When he placed a hand on Aoi's cheek, he was shocked at the heat that came off the skin. Neither Ibiki nor Inoichi had noticed Aoi's condition, as his blue hair hid the flushed face from sight. The woman blinked slightly, a smile on her face.
"Aww, looks like the boy didn't hold up. Such a shame isn't it? We had so much fun together." There was a sadistic light in the woman's eyes. In a sudden movement that shocked everyone however, she lay on the ground still strapped to the chair, an angry red mark on her face. She was unconscious. Ibiki's punch had made sure of that.
"Ibiki..." Inoichi looked at the man in shock, not used to such displays of anger. Sure the man was in charge of torture and interrogation, but he never got this angry on someone else's behalf. Not since his brother had left Konoha.
"Take this woman back to her cell." He ordered the two guards. After getting over the shock, they hastily moved to do as Ibiki said. When the woman was gone, Ibiki turned to Inoichi, who was standing with Aoi.
He carried Aoi with one arm, his arm under Aoi's legs, while Aoi's mop of blue hair was resting messily on Inoichi's shoulder. The two said nothing for a moment, Inoichi looking at Ibiki, and Ibiki staring at Aoi with a mask of indifference. "I'll take him to the hospital then."
Ibiki nodded. "I'll come too, you can't fight while carrying him." Inoichi just nodded. He didn't say anything, but he knew that Ibiki did actually care. The excuse about not being able to fight, while true, was nothing more than an excuse. Ibiki wanted to know how Aoi was doing.
_+_
Hey, yeah... sorry for the cliff hanger type thingy... I have a head start though, so don't come looking to kill me. If you're still reading, and not trying to trace my IP address, I'm gonna try and upload another chapter before tomorrow, just so you don't have to drive yourself nuts. I've gotten a lot of comments and votes every chapter, so thank you all. If you're a writer, then you know that praise can make you blush sometimes... or maybe that's me... Not to say that criticism is bad, because it really does make writers think about what they could do better. I'll stop rambling. Random question time. (If you come up with a cool name for that... I will be happy?)
Would you rather lose all your teeth, and not be able to get dentures, or grow an extra hand from your bellybutton, and not be able to remove it?
That one is weird. Song to the side is amazing, so listen if you desire. Other than that, comment and vote!
-Nicky~