Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Weapon 7 ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

Authoress Pre-ramble: Some old and some new reviewers! Thank you for all of the praise and encouragement to keep on writing. Posting of this thing will be sporadic at best, but I'm gonna make it through!

 

Title: Weapon Shichi

By: GrizzlyTeddyBear

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, and this makes me sad. It also means I make no money from this venture. Naruto belongs to Misashi Kishimoto. I do own Shichi, my OC!

Main Pairings: Eventual IbikixOC

Rating: M for mentioned violence & adult themes

Warning: AU, timeline? what's that? BDSM themes. Also is OC-centric. Hold your pants, all will be revealed as the story progresses.

 

Summary: The nature of interrogation.

 

***Chapter 2***

 

Noises in the hall came at irregular intervals of time. No one spoke while passing her cell. At each sound of approaching footsteps, Shichi closed her eyes as an additional shield to harsh lighting entering her dark cell and tensed for action. At times she would flex her fingers on her left hand to assess how much pain the drug was letting through. With the amount she had taken in the overdose, she guessed she had about 3-4 days before she needed a maintenance shot to keep withdrawal symptoms at bay or risk death.

 

She was cold, hungry, thirsty, and the pain in her fractured forearm had grown to a dull throbbing ache. Several times she needed to get up to relieve herself in the corner of her cell and then return to her post, 4 paces from the door. Increased kidney function was an unfortunate byproduct of her body processing the overdose of drug in her system.

 

Shichi was aware the isolation and deprivation of food, drink, and a proper place to relieve herself were all attempts to make her more amenable to questioning when given better treatment. Her handlers were sure to expose her to torture to educate her and build up her resistance. Shichi guessed about 24 hours passed when the door was opened.

 

The light was excruciatingly harsh in its brightness, but she opened her eyes a fracture of a second later, spun and lashed out with her right hand. The potential blow was caught before it could strike the head of her target. The ANBU was passive behind the mask. It countered her move by pinning her arms to her back in a move that dislodged the aligned bones in Shichi's fracture. Roughly she was pushed through the open doorway opposite of her cell door, the door of the new cell, locking behind after a gruff order of "Wash," was given.

 

The new room was as bright as the other was dark. Light seemed to come from every direction and at first Shichi felt disoriented. Squinting against the light, she took in the orange bucket and rag provided for her, presumably to wash with. Keeping her right arm extended, she walked until she hit solid wall, then traced the perimeter of the room. The construction seemed similar to the dark cell, only a difference in lighting. Grabbing her left wrist, Shichi reset her fracture with slightly increased pain from last time. Next she walked to the bucket, wet the rag in the warm water, and washed no more than what was necessary to prevent infections in her still exposed wounds. Placing the bucket at the center of the wall opposite the door to mark the boundary her vision was still having trouble identifying in the white on white cell, she again took paces from the door and then sat facing it.

 

It was approximately another 2 hours before three sets of footsteps announced another possible encounter with ANBU. Shichi chose to stand and wait for the inevitable questioning calmly as slowly, the three deadbolts were unlatched. In contrast the door opened swiftly and a dark-hair woman with her hair drawn up in a spiky ponytail wearing a rather revealing outfit under her trench coat barreled into the room carrying a file followed by two ANBU carrying two chairs and a small table. The table and chairs were set in the middle of the room and the ANBU left. The woman took a seat and motioned for Shichi to do likewise in the other chair.

 

After checking the chair, she obliged and sat on its edge--making sure she was balanced for any needed quick movement--facing the woman across the table.

 

"A cautious one, eh?" asked the woman. "Doesn't matter, no harm will come to you while I'm in charge of you." She sniffed the air and made a face. "I see you didn't bathe." The woman took a more thorough visual assessment. "Although you did wash your wounds, good to have priorities."

 

Shichi stayed silent and offered a blank expression in response.

 

"Would you like something to change into? A yukata perhaps?"

 

She guessed she was expected to have bathed and demanded clothes, a chance for her jailors to seem kindly and grant her request.

 

After a small staring contest, the woman continued speaking. "Not a talker? Too bad. The sooner you talk, the sooner you get to have your freedom. We'll start simple. Name? Rank? Designation?"

 

This she could answer and had been instructed by her handlers to answer. No information could be gained connecting her to Orochimaru's labs or the experiments which produced her. "Shichi."

 

"Is that name, rank, or designation?" queried the woman.

 

"Shichi." It was all and nothing.

 

The woman wrote down something in her file. "Alright, we'll call you Shichi for now. As a treat, I'll tell you my name is Anko and I'm in charge of your questioning while in Konoha's ANBU custody."

 

Shichi gave no response outwardly, but could time the silences between questions by the increasing pain in her arm and other wounds.

 

The questions were standard; where was her allegiance; who sent her; how did she take out so many ANBU in the village before capture. The woman would prattle off on tangents before re-asking all of the questions, always returning to the first: name, rank, designation. Finally after about 3 hours, the woman knocked on the door three times to be let out.

 

ANBU came to remove the table, chairs, and shoved Shichi roughly into her dark room. No one had cleaned where she had urinated or defecated from her last time in the cell. Taking her 4 paces from the door and sitting down, Shichi closed her eyes and slept lightly, waiting for the next round of questioning in the white cell and the possibility of death if her body could not overcome the withdrawal from the drug she has been physically dependent upon since age 4.

 

***

 

Ibiki gave no indication of minding Anko's brazen intrusion into his office. He ignored her flopping into one of his office chairs and putting her feet up on his desk. What finally caught his attention, was the file that was thrown in front of him.

 

"She's a tough nut to crack," Anko announced. "No outward emotional changes, and you wouldn't even know she has that fractured left forearm we left unhealed, she's not even favoring it!" She gave an exaggerated stretch that showed off her body and blew her bangs from in front of her eyes. "You would think she actually liked smelling like a latrine...refused to bath! She only cleaned her wounds. And the way she sat in that chair naked, she makes me look modest!"

 

"Shichi," he replied after looking over the file during her rant.

 

"It was the response she gave when I asked for name, rank, and designation. The only word she has uttered the entire time!" Anko sat up and gave him a more serious expression. "The one thing I definitely know, that woman has been through serious conditioning that includes resistance to psychological techniques when being questioned."

 

"Accent give away residence or possible allegiances?" probed the head of torture and interrogation.

 

"Nothing absolute. She sounded like you or I."

 

"The ANBU that intercepted her stated she moved faster that anything they had ever seen. No chakra signature at all, not just supressed, but it isn't there! She's civilian with some freaky strength, speed, and stamina. She killed 10 of our men and several more are still being tended to by Tsunade and Sakura as we speak. Injured she's not so bad, didn't even hit the guard when she tried a swing."

 

If he had read the pre-interrogation report without personally knowing the ANBU involved or going to the hospital to see the damage himself, he would have had trouble believing the facts.

 

"If we hadn't been on alert for a different attack, she would have taken her target by surprise. My guess is she's someone's assassin, the weapons, working alone..." Anko trailed off.

 

"Shichi. The number 7." Ibiki repeated.

 

"Yeah, but what does it mean."

 

He had a hunch, but he wanted Anko to question her another time to confirm it. Ibiki was reminded of Danzo's creations from Root. He absently wished the old man was still alive to confirm his suspicions, even though he greatly disagreed with Danzo's methods and reasoning. 'Shichi' might be the only information she was able to give because she had the rest of her identify stripped from her. Anko needed to have her own hunches and reach her own conclusions though, "Proceed as usual tomorrow. We'll assess the need to change techniques after you report."

 

Anko huffed, grabbed the file from his hands, and promptly vanished from his office in a teleportation jutsu.

 

Ibiki continued to think about the case after his subordinate left. There were too many things that did not add up. Her toxicology report showed a yet to be identified drug in her system at alarming levels, but she showed no ill effects. Her speed, strength, stamina were unheard of at civilian levels of chakra. Many Jonin would have difficulty killing and injuring as many ANBU as she had apparently handled with ease until her collapse. Strength that apparently she was having difficulty summoning up in her injured state. A tough nut to crack indeed. He gave a small quirk of his mouth that could have been mistaken as a smirk and cracked his knuckles. It had been a while since he had a challenge.

 

He would let Anko lead the interrogation for a while longer. She was his second, and the only one to be trusted with such an unusual case. Her judgment was not in question nor her abilities. Ibiki had simply sat behind a desk for too long and itched to see what would happen when 'Shichi' did crack. Because one way or another, 'Shichi' would talk, even if he had to borrow some of the techniques used on himself.

 

***

 

Authoress post-ramble: *bounces in anticipation* So? What do ya think? Characters need tweaking? My thoughts were that Anko would actually be serious about her job and more flippant about everything else, especially protocol. I plan on revealing more and more about Shichi as the story evolves. Comments, questions, and critiques in the form of reviews keep me going!