Chapter 5 – Part III

13 months, one week, three days

Tenten could feel her mind crashing down. If there was one thing they taught you on how to survive torture, was that you'd break, everyone had a breaking point, a button to push, and absolutely everyone would break given enough time. All you had to do was live long enough to convince them that you truly don't know anything to get a clean death or hold enough for someone to rescue you.

And Tenten could hardly think of something as useless as that in her current situation. They were torturing her, true, but they weren't asking anything, they didn't want anything from her, no mission reports, no maps of important Konoha buildings, no trading routes, nothing at all. Because they didn't want information, they just wanted her to break. And god, were they coming close.

She could almost feel the way her thoughts became more and more disperse, slipping like smoke between her fingers. There were whole days that she didn't remember; only knowing that they had passed because of the increased number of open wounds on her arms. She would touch her face and feel scratches on her cheeks but they had respected her face until now, why would they scratch her face? They didn't, those were self-inflicted and she couldn't even remember it.

Even her own village was starting to get blurry. She remembered things that she knew couldn't have happened. Memories of Naruto attacking her, red eyes and dripping fangs. Of Neji beating her into submission in front of the Hyuuga Elders, his pale eyes shining with hate. That couldn't have happened, because she still remembered stolen kisses and hidden smiles in a locked dojo. She could still feel his lips against her skin and his calloused hands on her waist. Everything was still there.

But it wouldn't stay there for long. Every second that passed by, her memories got more and more twisted. She knew that, eventually, she would be overwhelmed by these visions of blood and death and there would be no one to make her recall things as they used to be. Given enough time, she would become a willing traitor of Konoha.

Why shouldn't you betray them? They never appreciated you. For them you were always the sad little orphan girl, with no money and no home to go to, sent to the Academy because there was nowhere else to send you to. Always looking at you with pity, with hate, the teachers always going easy on you because you were to weak to be evaluated like the rest of the children. You are nothing there. You mean nothing to them.

The kunoichi was pretty sure that whatever was making her go crazy it came with the food. She was never injected and the instruments used to torture her were never coated with anything. The food was the obvious answer. Problem was, she couldn't stop eating. If she did, she would get weaker which would either accelerate the process or kill her. She was rather fond of living, thank you very much.

Besides, she had to figure out what the hell was their objective by making her go mad. Because along with her memories, her abilities were getting tangled too. They made her reflexes tests, checking her reaction time and it was getting worse. She began moving a sixth of a second slower that she used to and now she took two full seconds in registering the kunai heading her way. She assumed that the chemical messing with her head was affecting her muscle memory as well. Her reactions now had more to do with instinct than training, slashing with her fingernails instead of blocking the attack, her movements more and more unrefined.

So she had to figure out their reason before she was as useful as a civilian.

You'll be as worthless as your parents, killed like lambs. I bet they didn't even fight back.

In conclusion, things were going badly, considering of course that she had been kidnapped, beaten, raped and overall humiliates in every way a human being can be humiliated. On top of that, her mind was turning against itself, tearing it by the middle and breaking everything that made her Tenten.

She would lose herself, she knew it. Eventually, she'll be nothing but a shell of what she once was. A watercolor copy of a masterpiece. A sad, twisted creature that would betray friends she couldn't remember and turn them in to their enemies. Every training, every lesson, every jutsu, every weapon her beloved village had given her would be used to harm them. And she wouldn't be able to stop it, she would flourish under the blood of the Konoha nin, laugh while she slit pale throats with even paler eyes, revel on the torn headbands and members. She would be a monster.

Nothing more than a monster.