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[GUtW]—❈—42.1:: Interlude:: Carrot and Stick
🕑 Added 2023-08-07 21:01:46 +0000 UTCAnd we learn what's happened to Ken and Kei.
PS: I wrote quite a bit of this chapter half asleep, so please don't judge if you see something weird.
—❈—
Shiro Fuji (alias: Ken Ishimura)
Two Weeks Ago
Ken Ishimura, once known long ago as Shiro of the Fuji clan of The Village Hidden in the Leaves, awoke to find himself unrestrained and nestled in a comfortable leather chair in a nice, tastefully decorated room.
Obviously, this was rather odd, since the last thing Ken remembered was surrendering to, and being cuffed and rendered unconscious by the S-rank Leaf-nin Kakashi Hatake, as his student, Kei, watched on helplessly.
It had killed him to do it, surrender like that, but it had been the right thing to do, their only real option at that point; and maybe if he'd impressed that upon Kei, instead of scaring her with his constant talk of how important it was for them to never get found out… well, maybe things would be different now.
In his defence though, he had been scared, terrified even. Ninja have never taken kindly to deserters, and it was mostly for the reason of preventing the very thing he did; the sharing of ninja knowledge with unaffiliateds.
It is one of their biggest, most enforced laws, and the punishment for breaking it was always swift and harsh.
That said though…
Ken looked around the room he was in, with its soft blue walls and comfortable, expensive looking furniture, this didn't exactly look like he was about to be harshly punished.
And honestly? That troubled the retired ninja, it troubled him a lot, because he knew he was going to be punished; as surely as he knew that, no matter how things may look, he could never escape from here.
And if his punishment was not going to be physical, that could only mean that it would be psychological. And Ken Ishimura was honestly way too old for that shit.
"Hello, Shiro," a man said from beside Ken, and the aging ninja turned to find a man in a trench coat sitting on the chair there, a glass of red wine in hand.
The man was large, and everything about him, from his size to his scarred face with its severe features and even the all-dark uniform he wore, worked impeccably together to give an imposing aura that Ken had to admit unsettled him. Even if only to himself.
"That is your name, isn't it?" the man asked, taking a sip of his wine. "Shiro, of the Fuji clan."
"I prefer Ken Ishimura," Ken said.
The man smiled. It was not pleasant. "Of course you do," he said. "Be the lie."
Ken frowned, annoyed, but he held from replying; his life in Springtree was based on falsehoods. He knew it, and if he tried to defend it against someone such as this, well… Ken was quite confident he would lose terribly.
Instead, Ken said; "This isn't real; it's a genjutsu."
Ken had already suspected before, but it had been all but confirmed when the ninja beside him had appeared without Ken sensing his presence.
In fact, even now as he looked right at the man, he still couldn't sense him.
Ken tried to flex his chakra to see if he could break out of this illusion, however far it may extend, but as he'd expected, he couldn't; his chakra was there sitting in his belly, or at least the feeling of it was, but it refused to respond to Ken's call.
"You're right," Ken's… interrogator(?) said, "this is a genjutsu. But just because you're in a genjutsu doesn't mean what's happening to you isn't real."
Ken frowned. "And what is happening to me?" he asked. "Better yet, what's happening to Kei?"
"Ah, yes," the interrogator said, "the student."
"That's not an answer," Ken said.
"It wasn't meant to be," the interrogator said.
Ken's scowl deepened. "Is this some strange new torture method I don't know?" he asked. "To annoy me to death?"
"Oh, we don't torture people anymore," the interrogator said. "Not physically anyway. 'What's the point?' they say." He scoffed, actually looking annoyed at that.
"Where is Kei?" Ken asked, losing patience.
"Right there," the interrogator said, pointing at the wall.
Ken looked and saw that the solid wall was now a wide glass window with a plain, white room behind.
He got up and walked to it.
Within the room was a bed, and on the bed was his student, a girl who was like a daughter to him in many ways.
She was unconscious, but she looked unharmed and her sleep peaceful.
Ken knew he shouldn't buy it, this was an illusion after all, and the reality could be very different, but despite knowing that, he still felt so relieved to see, safe and sound, the girl he'd long since grown to love.
"You know, I think I get it," the interrogator said, standing beside Ken even though Ken was pretty sure the man had never moved from the couch. "You go through the hot mess that was The Second War; lose friends, comrades, family… your students, and you realize you can't take it anymore. I get that; that's the story of ninja who came before you, and ninja who will come after you.
"I even get you leaving the village; faking your death and running off to live your life. I get it.
"What I don't get, is you training some random girl from the sticks. If you wanted to be a sensei again so bad, why didn't you just sign up to teach in The Academy?"
Ken took a slow, long breath.
"What do want from me?" he asked. "It can't be information; the Yamanaka have no doubt gone through our minds already."
"Every nook of it," the interrogator agreed.
"So what do you want?" Ken insisted. "Is this just some sick game? Is this what The Leaf does now?"
The interrogator looked contemplative for some time.
Finally, he said; "Your clan died out during The Third War."
Ken sighed.
The news hurt, not much, but it did. More than the hurt though, was the… annoyed exhaustion that came with understanding what this whole display had been about.
"You want me to restart my clan," Ken said.
The interrogator nodded. "You're still virile," he said. "We know. We checked."
Ken failed to suppress the disgust that statement arose in him.
"You want me to—"
"Let me explain to you what's going to happen," the interrogator interrupted, "you're going to jerk off into however many cups we tell you to, and in return, we'll cripple your chakra network and hers—" he pointed at Kei where she laid on the bed "—before sending you off on your merry way. That's the carrot. You want to see the stick?"
Ken stared at the man.
While the talk of crippling their chakra networks may sound bad, and it was, it was really only terrible for an active ninja, since a crippled chakra network meant forever being unable to use justu.
In their case, it was barely more than a nuisance.
Kei would hate it of course, but better she was upset than dead.
Ken looked at the scarred interrogator (or, he supposed, negotiator) whose name he never got.
The man obviously knew Ken was going to accept his offer, and Ken couldn't even find it in himself to hate the smug bastard for it; he'd put himself in this position. And just like when he'd surrendered to Kakashi Hatake, surrendering now was the best decision.
Not just for him, but for Kei. Especially for Kei.
He looked back at the girl, or rather the illusion of her.
"Keep your stick," he said. "I accept."
"Good man," the ninja beside him said.
Ken said nothing, he was too busy trying to comprehend just how they'd managed to be lucky enough to be getting out of this with their lives.
