top interrogator

As much capacity as nature had for change— floods, fires, rock slides— walking through an area and seeing it untouched by disaster brought a subtle touch of comfort one was hardly aware of. Considering what had happened to Konoha years prior with Orochimaru's schemings, it was fortunate this little area remained the same.

“ the medical staff thought i was losing it. luckily, those surprised guards corroborated my story. ” weren’t for her, he might have died and never made it to the intelligence division. ibiki blinks. suddenly introspective toward implications. what would his absence have meant to his teammates, his village? “ you should change your name to lifesaver, suraya-san. ” the honorific was a fond murmur.

ibiki cups a hand to his stinging, smarting jaw. he knows a handprint will formulate. vicious, visceral reminder of fatherly wrath. (the embarrassed, fearful boy scrambles onto his knees. unstable fingers scrabble at table corner.) it was like his limbs were underwater, fighting an aquamarine tide.

“I  have  very  little  to  do  with  the  torture  and  information  force,”  Baki  informs  him.   They  sought  after  him  for  some  time;  the  removal  of  his  eye  was     …      attractive  to  them.   The  whole  thing  left  a  bitter  taste  in  his  mouth;  it  was  bad  enough  waking  up  in  a  cold  sweat  sixteen  years  later.   He  had  no  desire  to  watch  something  else  unfold  like  that.   Perhaps  the  leader  of  their  devision  was  right—he  didn't  have  the  heart  for  it,  or  the  guts.    Baki  knew  how  to  obtain  information;  he  wasn't  that  soft,  but  the  task  often  left  him  awake  at  night.   It  needed  some  reform,  that  was  for  sure,  and  he  was  glad  that  the  leaf  was  willing  to  help. 

“ while your association with the force is minimal, ” ibiki responds, “ your input will prove invaluable. ” the hidden leaf torturer leans toward his chair, flak jacket apparent under trench coat. (his village had requested the leading information gatherer aid the sand village.) an order which perplexed a man known to exercise merciless ferocity. “ the hokage mentioned reform in the new climate of peace. ” his sword saber eyes flick to baki.

it bothered the shinobi none. (when you work an occupation like his, you forgo opinions and outlooks and who accepts me? indifference comes with it.) iruka’s neighborly gesture was closer to unfamiliar territory. a social sign that ibiki had yet to recognize, realize.

Neji watches the strings as Ibiki weaves them like a spider making a web. He had seen this before, when he was a small child. An older man in the Branch family had shown him in. At the time, Neji couldn't appreciate it - his small hands and fingers weren't deft enough to be gentle enough with the strings.

ibiki, ever the teacher, undoes the string to repeat the bridge build. he woves and plaits it around his thumbs, his pinky fingers. “ this bridge build is my personal favorite. ” he comments. “ you can invent your own designs, too. ”

How do I know this? The dead fly in the windowsill told me, the grass pollen as it puffed into the air told me, a brass candlestick told me, a speck of grit. Everything remembers and speaks to those who will listen.