Konoha Chat with your host, Ibiki! [& special guest, Hizashiko!]

[sadismislove]

Ibiki's footsteps echoed quietly in the concrete corridor. The flickering fluorescent lights provided just enough gray-blue illumination to see just how stark and bare the walls and floor really were. Further down a pipe dripped artfully, the soft plunking of moisture almost musical in contrast to the quiet buzzing overhead. The doors lining the

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[sadismislove]

Ibiki smiled slightly. Gentle compassion; nothing mocking or scornful in her expression. Not an emotion her scarred visage often displayed. "I'll make a mention of it. Are there any foods you would prefer to have?" The Hyuuga's wariness had no effect on Ibiki. She simply added it to the yet-unwritten profile on the woman. Note to self, have Tae bring a few more blankets. Especially if Hizashiko insisted on sleeping in the corner like that.

Dark eyes, again, took in the visible scars on pale skin. Other shinobi's scars fascinated her, for they told stories better than the bearer themselves. She wondered how deep they went, but answers like that had to wait until Hizashiko underwent a full examination. Haruhi had only confirmed there were no injuries needing immediate attention (for a bunch of civilians, the Temple carried adequate medicals) and that Hyuuga Hizashiko was in fact a Hyuuga. A listing of the most prominent scars and locations had been scribbled on the medic's handwritten notes.

More importantly than the scars themselves, though not mentioned yet, was just what information had Cloud extracted from her body. Unfortunately the best Konoha would be able to determine an educated guess.

But that was later. Right now, Hokage-sama wanted a full report on why Hizashiko was still alive, according the kunoichi herself. From what Shida-sensei allowed Ibiki to read on the bait-and-switch Sandaime and the Hyuuga clan executed to stop another war from starting seven years as Master Interrogator and she still hadn't found all of his hidden cubbyholes, damn him, the Raikage had been handed a dead, identical body. Though in the past fifteen years they had to have learned that Hiashiko still lead the clan.

Ibiki quashed the next thought before it fully formed; she must go into this questioning with no assumptions. The information must be sniffed out and sifted through the old-fashioned way: conversation.

[hizashiko]

"...no, there aren't." Hizashiko finally replied, wary of the woman being so... nice. She could see see that Ibiki was being honest in her compassion and that was somehow creepier then her giving false compassion. The head of T&I wasn't supposed to be nice to the prisoner who was supposed to be dead. It just made Hizashiko want to shove herself even more into the corner she had currently claimed as her own.

"What do you want?" the Hyuuga finally asked, voice giving away her wariness. "I'm sure this isn't a social visit."

[sadismislove]

Now the amusement touched Ibiki's eyes. She hadn't had the pleasure of meeting the Hyuuga before her 'death', but she could see some similarities to her daughter and sister. Straight and to the point; actually, spoken fairly bluntly for a Hyuuga. (And Ibiki rather reveled in the ability to make a person cringe, however slightly, simply by her mere presence. A delicious power.)

"It never is, with me," Ibiki admitted. Deciding she never would receive the invitation, she went over and sat in one of the chairs anyway, legs crossing at the knee while one elbow rested casually on the table, her other hand in her lap. "Never one hundred percent that is. But neither is this an interrogation in the strictest sense of the word. Something you would recognize considering the stories your scars tell. And you at least still have all your hair. No, Hyuuga-san, this is rather a debriefing. The Hokage is quite interested in what happened after your alleged death, and how was it you came to find refuge with a temple full of monks."

[hizashiko]

Ah. THAT conversation.

Hizashiko gingerly touched her own hair after the hair comment, a tiny bit of that Hyuuga vanity showing through. The previously shorn locks were now long enough that she could just pull it back, but she let it go. It was so straw like though, she worried that it would never grow back like it once was, almost mid-back. Noburo and others had always told her it was quite silly to be a shinobi and to have hair so long, but it was one vanity she simply had not been able to get rid of. Nejiko had had long hair when...

"... tell me something before we begin," the woman asked, white eyes watching Ibiki sit. After a moment, she stood herself,dropping the blankets to the floor, her clothes hanging loosely on her skeletal frame , and then sat in a chair across from Ibiki. After a moment, she continued. "... if this is not an interrogation, please tell me something. Tell if my husband and daughter live. My sister as well."

It was something that had been haunting Hizashiko since she had returned. Her daughter would be close to twenty now, if she was alive and Noburo... she couldn't even remember how old Noburo would be now. Could Ibiki even answer this question? Had Hiashiko been assassinated by now, killed by Cloud, what had happened to them all?

Was she really all alone?

[sadismislove]

Ibiki considered the question, and what Chiriku had said about Hizashiko believing her family was no longer alive. Hizashiko had meant her immediate family, then, rather than the branch or the clan as a whole? Interesting. The hierarchy of importance, too, intrigued.

"Your sister still leads the clan as Hyuuga-sama," she answered, dark eyes ever-watchful and unrevealing of her thoughts. "Your daughter serves as a jounin." Now would come the difficult part--for Hizashiko. For someone who never experienced nor desired the entanglements of a romantic relationship, Ibiki nevertheless knew that no matter how she delivered the news, it would be harsh. So rather than coddle more than absolutely necessary, her concession to the reception was to allow sympathy to flash through her eyes as she continued: "Your husband died on a mission a few months after your death."

[hizashiko]

Hizashiko had been telling everyone that she believed her family to be dead. They were shinobi, she grew up in harsh times, and the lifespan of a shinobi was never a long one. The chances of anyone in her former life still living was practically impossible. Logically, she knew this and that was why she proclaimed it.

... but she had still hoped, somewhere, that she'd come home and Noburo would still be alive and she could just say sorry.

The other woman knew that it was good that her daughter was alive, and Hiashiko too. But the sudden pain of learning Noburo really was dead took her by surprise and almost seemed to steal her breath away. It was a moment of weakness she really shouldn't have let Ibiki see, but it was too hard for a moment to conceal it all. She bent over slightly, forehead resting on the table and hands laced behind her head as she struggled to get a hold of herself. There would be no more teasing, making waffles, or calling her Hiza-chan even though he knew she hated it, no-

White eyes shut tight, feeling the scratching and burning tears she refused to succumb to. What was done was done, and it was Fate said it should be that bitch. She would say her apologies and pay her respects to him when she was allowed out of this hellhole.

... if she was let out.

"... there was a medicine, of some kind, in a tea," Hizashiko finally said, voice muffled as her head was still bent. "Hiashiko-sama gave it to me, she sat with me until it took effect. It mimicked death. The plan was for me to be taken to Cloud, them to believe me dead. And since they'd have no use for a dead, Branch Hyuuga- and we knew they'd never cop up to taking me, because it make them look weak AND make them admit what they had done- once they disposed of my body, the medication would have worn off, and I would head back home. The problem was someone dosed me wrong, or something because I woke up early- just before the examination was supposed to start, actually. And good or no, no one can hide a beating heart."

[sadismislove]

Ibiki kept silent and still while Hizashiko fell apart and struggled to pull herself back together. The Hyuuga was wrong if she thought Cloud would have no use for a dead, Branch Hyuuga once they learned of the deception. Nothing would hide the scars of a shinobi's life; the body would still prove immensely valuable even if it wasn't the exact identity requested. That Byakugan would have been safe because of the seal was paramount, of course. But a shinobi's body could give up so much information. Getting her hands on Deidara's corpse had been a cause for celebration. Analysis of the body continued even now, two months later.

So to lose a shinobi of Konoha to Cloud, one not even damaged in a battle, had worried the Council for days. But in the end it boiled down to one shinobi now, or to lose an untold number in the course of a war later. (Of course, that bodies were dissected for information was the sort of thing reserved for ANBU and a select few others, who either dealt with body retrieval or the bodies themselves.)

Perhaps waking up early had been a blessing, for doing so saved her from dissection. Or perhaps not, Ibiki adjusted as she eyed again the scarring on the woman's hands.

"What happened when you woke?" she prompted gently. The full story first. Details she would pick apart at her leisure.

[hizashiko]

"They were angry to begin with, about being tricked," Hizashiko continued, lifting her head and sitting up properly; any traces of being upset had been wiped from her face. She was doing a report now. "They were discussing what to do when I woke. They didn't realized at first what was going on. But they figured it out quickly when I breathed and my heart beat. They became more enraged. They understood what we had meant to do."

White eyes narrowed, staring at nothing as she thought. "They were quick to make sure I couldn't fight- no one wanted to get the Jyuuken. And... they never... really decided out loud what they wanted to do, they never said it. They just... someone hit me, and then it was a free for all of fists and feet and fury. When they vented their rage, I was placed in a cell, chained up. I'd had nothing on me, but they took my clothes leaving me in my underwear- the cell was cold, I believe they wanted to make me uncomfortable."

Hizashiko's gaze had taken on a dull, almost faraway look. "...they actually helped me, a little. The next person to come in stuck senbon on me, and shocked them. No questions, just shocking me. But he left them in me when someone called him out. I dislocated my thumb, and pulled a hand out." She blinked once and then turned her gaze on Ibiki, the look still not quite there. "I made sure no one could get the bloodline from me by raping me and forcing me to have a child. That really pissed them off."

[sadismislove]

Her words needed a little mental translation, but Ibiki understood. Senbon in the flesh would provide a multitude of miniature lightning rods that with a very controlled lightning jutsu, the kind Cloud-nin specialized in just as so many in Konoha trained with fire, allowed for a crude but effectively painful method of electrocution that could be more skillfully tailored than simple live current. Ibiki had experimented some with that; maybe she would try again when the opportunity presented itself.

She met Hizashiko's faraway eyes squarely and wondered what pathway the other woman's mind walked. The trick of dislocating finger joints to free hands from manacles was a common one; Ibiki had used it time and again in the past. Hizashiko's other statement generated a few questions for Ibiki to ask of Haruhi--and wondered what would have stopped any decent medical from simply opening her up and extracting the raw ova directly. For now she kept the questions in her mind and kept her own speculations, however logical, tucked away until later. And even if Hizashiko did do what Ibiki was not guessing at present, there were still other ways.

"I'm sure it did," Ibiki murmured. "What else happened?"

[hizashiko]

"... they beat me," Hizashiko added in, thin shoulders shrugging. "Knives, fists.... one of them was a whip expert. If I got too close to losing too much blood, or dying, they'd call in a healer to heal the worst of it- they didn't want me dead. And they did it over and over and I don't know how long."

The other woman clenched her hands in her lap under the table, hiding how they were shaking. "It eventually began to taper off and they began feeding me less and less and less. I became too weak to move eventually, too weak to fight, and they got bored. I don't know how long that part was. There was no time, just... someone was there, someone was not. No one ever asked me any questions. I don't think they wanted to- they just wanted to beat the shit out of me."

After a moment of silence, she shook her head and looked back to Ibiki, gaze back to the present. "It took me a few days to realize I had become so thin that the cuffs they had on me had literally fallen off and to the ground. I could not walk- I crawled. They had left the door open, I don't know why, I don't care. I used the Byakugan, and blacked out. I woke up and did it again and managed to hold it long enough to get to a door outside. No, I don't know how I didn't run into anyone. For awhile, I thought they let me escape on purpose. I still do some days.

"And then I ran and ran and ran," Hizashiko almost sighed, gaze weary. "And I came to a garden and stole a tomato. But I knew it belonged to monks, and I couldn't eat it. And that's when I met Takanobu and ended up at the Great Fire Temple."

[sadismislove]

"If you had to guess, Hyuuga-san, how much time did you spend on the run verses locked up?" Ibiki inquired. While she was very much interested in the precise tools and methods, now was not the time to ask and again, Haruhi's report would tell her more. Perhaps later, they would discuss the torture itself. Hizashiko would not forget details in the interim. The same way Ibiki never forgot anything ever done to her.

[hizashiko]

"One month, two weeks and four days were spent running," Hizashiko answered promptly, crisply, like any shinobi should. "I counted the rise and fall of the sun. I stole clothing and food along the way. I did not stop until I reached the Temple. At that point, I did not have enough left in me to really keep going. I worried they were still following me though, which is why I refused to give them my name.... they wouldn't have to lie if asked then."

There was a pause, and then a mumble. "Not like Cloud ever asks..."

[sadismislove]

Ibiki shifted in her seat, and resettled in a way so that her chin rested in her hand. "Please tell me about your time in the Temple. How the monks found you, what they did..."

[hizashiko]

"... Takanobu recognized the torn tomato plant, and then I gave it back to him. He convinced me to come back to the Temple with him. I was allowed to bathe, gievn clean clothes, and a room to sleep. I really only interacted with Takanobu and later Chiriku-sama. I didn't know or trust anyone else really. He treated most of my wounds. He was in charge of my recovery."

[sadismislove]

Curious lack of embellishment. And lack of a suffix for her primary caregiver, too. Musn't forget the slight hesitation before answering.

Interesting, also, the protectiveness in those white eyes. "And you were in the temple for how long...?"

[hizashiko]

... this was a harder question and Hizashiko frowned. Her answer was slow in coming, but only because she was trying to calculate the days in her head. "... about four months. I don't know exactly because I would sleep through days occasionally, when I felt safe enough to do so and my body had enough."