Torture Comes in Many Forms

Chapter 7: The Second Week

Sai and Ibiki stumbled into their small emergency quarters covered in blood and feeling incredibly frustrated.

“Have you used that drug before?” asked Sai, heading for the kitchenette and putting the teakettle on.

“Yes, all the subjects I’ve given it to and put in the chakra-inhibiting room have remained unconscious, and their chakra wasn’t replenished,” said Ibiki as he sat down on a stool at the little counter between the kitchen area and the bedroom part of the room. He pulled the cookie jar over and took one out and bit into it, leaving the jar open for Sai. The younger ninja pulled out the stool that Ibiki had started to call “Sai’s” in his mind, sitting down on the kitchen side of the counter opposite Ibiki.

“Have you ever seen anyone heal like that?” asked Sai.

“No, but we read about it in Kabuto’s file—he can regenerate cells. He survived Rasingan—and have you seen Naruto use that jutsu?”

“Yes,” said Sai dejectedly, pulling out a cookie and munching on it. “I read the file, but to just see it—the minute we took Kabuto out of the chakra-inhibition room, he just started to heal. We didn’t even need the damn healer. After a week, we had him inches from death, and he healed in just ten minutes.”

The two of them sat in silence. Neither one wanted to talk about what had happened after Kabuto healed and before Ibiki had injected him with the drug that sent him into unconsciousness.

“Well, at least his damn hair didn’t grow back,” said Sai.

Ibiki and Sai started laughing. It wasn’t funny, but laughing was how you managed to keep going. Ibiki knew that it was easier to be tortured in some ways than to torture. He wouldn’t let himself feel guilty for laughing even as he sat here with Kabuto’s blood on his clothes. It was human nature to try to cover up the inhuman horrors you could commit with things like laughter, cookies, and warm tea. It was important to keep doing the things that made you feel human.

The teakettle whistled, and Sai made the tea. Ibiki sighed and said, “I’ll handle the next stage.”

Sai just stared at the tea steeping, saying nothing. But Ibiki could tell that he was going to, and he just sat and watched Sai, waiting for his words.

“I think we should stay with physical torture. Kabuto wants us to rape him. He said himself he wanted us to hurry up and start the raping,” said Sai at last.

Ibiki sighed again poured them two cups of tea, saying, “You’re forgetting the first part of that speech of Kabuto’s. He said he was bored with all the cutting and shocking especially since compared to Orochimaru we were downright incompetent and didn’t know a damn thing about making the human body suffer. He could be asking for rape because it is the one thing he dreads.”

“Have you done that before?” asked Sai.

“Yes,” said Ibiki. “I’ve also had it done to me, and honestly, I think doing it is worse. I have to give myself an injection to get myself up for it.”

“You use drugs to get an erection?”

“Yea, although fortunately you can use various sex toys and devices for a lot of the work,” said Ibiki.

“Has anyone else in I.A.T. besides you ever put a subject through sexual torture?” asked Sai.

“No, it’s not something we like to do. It’s a last resort if I can’t crack them using everything else,” said Ibiki.

“How often does that happen?” asked Sai.

“Well, this will be the third time in seven years, so not a lot,” said Ibiki, reaching in the cookie jar for more comfort food.

“Then I’d better do it,” said Sai. “Konoha should have at least two experts in all I.A.T. techniques, in case something should happen to you.”

“Sai, no, just no,” said Ibiki.

“Why? Isn’t that why I’m here, to learn everything you can teach me?” demanded Sai. “Besides it’s about time I learned about sex anyway. Being a virgin at my age is embarrassing.”

Ibiki’s mouth dropped open—after a week of hard work he had no energy left to suppress his feelings when he was “off the clock.” And sharing these small quarters this week, they’d heard each other’s tears under the water of the shower, heard the whimpers when they tried to sleep. They were now a team, beyond the need to hide things like surprise.

“That’s impossible,” said Ibiki.

“It’s reality,” said Sai.

“Then you absolutely can’t work over Kabuto. You have to have some good sexual experiences, or this will fuck you up for life, and you’ll have even less of chance to find someone to love than any of us idiots here in I.A.T.”

“Like you just pointed out, now that I’m in I.A.T. the chances of anyone wanting to sleep with me are about nil,” said Sai with a shrug, “I don’t see why I have to have a positive experience with sex—it’s not like I had a positive experience with ripping toe nails off people before I did that to Kabuto.”

“You’ve had positive experiences killing people—that counts. When you inflict pain on a subject, you know that not all violence is like that. You know from memory, from living it, that you can fight someone equally, purely, man to man as nature intended,” said Ibiki. “This week haven’t you found yourself thinking about your earlier kills? Can you honestly say you haven’t thought about how good it will be when you can just kill an enemy that deserves to die cleanly with one stroke of your sword instead of doing things that no human should have to do or endure?”

“You’re right, Ibiki, you’re right. I have thought about that. But that doesn’t mean I can’t do the torture for you this week. I just need to have sex first with someone that cares,” said Sai.

“Oh, and we have time for you to go out and find someone like that?” asked Ibiki.

Sai smiled, “You care about me. If you didn’t, you would have just said, `Ok, Sai, go ahead and rape Kabuto.’ And come on, Ibiki, can you honestly say you haven’t thought about how good it will be when we have sex?”

Ibiki couldn’t answer that, and Sai knew it. It was time to show Sai why he wouldn’t want to have sex with Ibiki. He stood up and walked over to the small closet. Ibiki took off his black overcoat and hung it up. Then he took of his grey uniform jacket and hung that up. He turned around to find Sai was lying down on the one bed in the room, getting blood on the covers. Ibiki pulled off his forehead protector and just threw it on the floor. He ripped off his black-buttoned shirt, sending the buttons flying every which way. He let Sai had a good look at the front of him and then turned around, letting him see the back. Then he walked into the bathroom slamming the door and locking it.

He got in the shower, not bothering to take off the rest of his clothes or waiting for the water to get warm. He leaned his head against the wall of the shower and hugged the tile. God, what had he done to deserve this? He’d rather rape Kabuto for the next month than walk out of this shower and see the pity and disgust in Sai’s eyes. No, he couldn’t think of that, he wouldn’t think of anything. He focused in on his breathing—breath in, breath out. You could endure anything if you just took it one breath at a time.