Chapter 3
He woke up with a violent jolt. Someone was yanking his hair, pulling his head back at a painfully sharp angle. He opened his eye just in time to see a blurred hand reaching for his Sharingan. In a fraction of a second, the eye gifted to him by Obito was mercilessly ripped away. His head was released, hitting the hard, wet, and cold ground with a dull thud. He could feel the warm blood streaming from his left eye socket. A groan escaped him. Pain shot through every fiber of his body, but at the same time, he had no control over it—he couldn’t move on his own. The wound in his side pulsed, still bleeding, no doubt. His head spun, and an unbearable cold settled in his bones. He heard retreating footsteps, followed by the sound of a door slamming shut, and then he lost consciousness again.
When he came to for the second time, he sensed figures standing over him—three of them. Realization dawned on him that he was being forcibly kept unconscious. He clung to the hope that maybe he could resist the technique before they left, but how was he supposed to manage that when his mind was clouded and sluggish? He was weak, like a child; his chakra reserves had drained further instead of replenishing. There was no telling how much time had passed. A bleak realization settled in his chest—even if he were fully lucid, escape would be impossible without help. And he doubted he had any allies here.
Suddenly, strong hands grabbed his shoulders and hauled him up onto his knees. The fact that he hadn’t even heard their movements, hadn’t had a chance to brace himself, confirmed just how badly off he was. His head lolled like that of a broken doll. He had no control over his body—if not for the hands holding him up, he would have collapsed. Was this the work of poison rather than some immobilizing, sleep-inducing jutsu?
“Open your eye, Hatake! Don’t pretend you’re asleep,” snarled a harsh, grating voice. A hand gripped his hair, keeping his head still. Swallowing with difficulty, he forced his remaining eye open. In the dim torchlight flickering on the wall, he made out the blurred, deeply wrinkled face of an old, gray-haired man.
“Give us the technique to disable your village’s barrier and tell us where the Hokage stores the forbidden jutsu scrolls.”
Kakashi remained silent. He had no intention of saying anything. Even if they used mind-probing techniques, they wouldn’t get anything from him—he had ensured that just before being captured. At least, he hoped so.
A thin, long knife appeared in the old man’s hand. The jounin only caught the glint of the blade before it was plunged into his right ear. He couldn’t stop it. Somehow, he managed to stifle a scream, though his skull felt like it was being split apart, and violent tremors wracked his body. His heart pounded furiously, forcing blood to pour from the horrific wound. The hearing in that ear was gone instantly; he doubted it would ever return. His captors let go of him. The moment he hit the floor, they began beating him with clubs, cruelly aiming for the wounds he had sustained during battle.
“The barrier and the forbidden scrolls!” the old man shouted.
They’re impatient, Kakashi noted dimly, focusing on his breathing, trying to steady his racing heart. When a strike landed precisely on the fresh wound at the side of his head, he gratefully slipped into unconsciousness once more.
The third round of torture began with kicks to his torso. His entire left side felt like it was on fire. How much blood did he have left? This time, there were two tormentors. Different scents, different people. He was regaining awareness painfully slowly. Just as he was about to open his eye, the bones in his right hand shattered. He couldn’t hold back a groan.
“We don’t have all day, Hatake! Give us the seal suppressing the Nine-Tails’ chakra!” a new, highly irritated voice demanded.
Kakashi was disoriented. Piecing together coherent thoughts was now harder than enduring the pain. Did they capture Naruto too?! A cold fear gripped him. No. Impossible. Tenzou had taken him. He had to have gotten away…
Both his legs were broken simultaneously. Air was forced from his lungs. Every cell in his body screamed for them to just let him die already. He wouldn’t tell them anything. His tormentors stopped hitting him and rolled him onto his back. A crushing weight pressed down on his chest as one of them pinned him to the ground. His broken ribs stabbed into his lungs. The other planted a foot on his forehead, pressing his head hard against the wet floor. Without warning, a hand forced his right eye open, and a blade plunged into it.
This time, he howled in agony, utterly unprepared for the attack and the overwhelming pain that followed. By the time they let go, he had blacked out completely.
When he regained consciousness for the fourth time, he prayed they had finally come to kill him. Blinded and partially deaf, stripped of chakra, paralyzed by poison and unimaginable pain, he barely understood what they were saying.
“How many ANBU guard the Nine-Tails’ jinchūriki?!”
The meaning of the question only reached him after it had been repeated about ten times, punctuated by kicks that rolled him onto his left side. The irritation in one of his two remaining captors’ voices told him they were losing patience. He could only hope he hadn’t given them anything already. He had no way of knowing—what if they had used a jutsu he wasn’t familiar with? Stealing information from his shattered mind wouldn’t be difficult now. But if they were still asking him questions the traditional way, that likely meant the seals he had used to block his memories were holding.
The question also confirmed something else—they hadn’t captured Naruto. “Good.” Yes, he knew the answer to that as well, but he wasn’t about to share it. Inside the village, Naruto was under constant, discreet ANBU surveillance. Outside of the Leaf, either Kakashi or Tenzou usually protected him. The Akatsuki threat was too great. Was it them holding him captive now? Were they planning an attack? His mind drifted involuntarily to his time in ANBU under the Third Hokage’s command, serving alongside Tenzou.
His tormentors continued their assault, kicking him and repeating the same question. He had never been so detached from reality. He only snapped back to awareness when they suddenly halted his torture. From what felt like a great distance, he heard the old man’s raised, panicked voice:
“We’re under attack! We have to flee!”
He must have been standing near the entrance, because Kakashi felt a rush of fresh air. For a brief moment, he thought he could hear the sounds of battle and shouting. He couldn’t be sure.
They yanked him onto his knees, holding his limp head up by his hair. His arms hung uselessly at his sides—they were broken anyway.
“You refused to talk to us, so now you’ll never talk to anyone again,” his second torturer sneered venomously.
Kakashi had expected them to kill him immediately, but he was wrong. A sharp pain pierced the left side of his head—then came complete silence. Why rob him of his hearing at the end? Why continue tormenting him? Entirely deaf and blind, he longed for the eternal void to finally claim him.
Instead, his mask was ripped from his face, and a powerful punch smashed through his shattered teeth. Long fingers forced their way into his mouth, grabbed his tongue, and pulled. The last thing he felt was the searing slice of a blade—and the relief that it was finally over.
They threw him to the ground, unconscious and bleeding profusely. A pool of red spread beneath his head almost instantly.