Putting on the Pressure [solo,io,nk]

"Now, then", Kozai began, taking a cleaver from off the wall and spinning it expertly, "let's get started with the questions." In the seat opposite him, his arms secured to the table, was a senior clergyman. Not senior as in old, the fellow was quite obviously in the prime of his life and up until yesterday, had been enjoying the power that his position in the church had given him. Kozai flicked a fingernail against the flat surface of the cleaver and smiled slightly at the light sound that the action produced. Good stuff, really. He'd borrowed it from an acquaintance across the street; some restaurant owner who'd appreciated the business that the library's popularity had brought to him as well. It paid to make connections.

"To begin with, tell me. Since the incident with the shinobi a few months ago, have there been any important decisions pertaining to the village's ruling body or the shinobi?" The man was clearly under duress, sweating and twitching as he eyed the weapon in Kozai's hand. Good. Kozai intended to keep up the pressure; he had to in order to get the information he needed. This was far less risky than him using genjutsu and bumbling around

"W-we don't interfere in the business of other esta-" Kozai whirled and brought the cleaver down, shearing off the tip of the man's middle fingernail. The priest yelped, then gulped after realizing that Kozai hadn't cut away any flesh... yet. Kozai yanked the weapon out of the wooden table, then gave the priest a baleful stare.

"Since the incident with the shinobi a few months ago, have there been any important decisions pertaining to the village's ruling body or the shinobi?" The same words as he used before, with a slightly more frosty tone. Not only was he applying the knife to the man's body, he was also applying the same words over and over again to the man's psyche. His goal was to hammer at the man's willpower like a chisel of sorts.

The man wriggle and squirmed, hoping that by some miracle, he could escape. Kozai noted, with no small satisfaction, that there were no pleas to God, no cries for angels or saints to deliver him from this sticky situation. It was exactly as he expected. The men of the cloth had about as little faith in the divine as he himself did. Oh, Kozai definitely appreciated that they had set up an institution in the village that used the villagers' need for fulfillment to gain power, but Kozai was better, and not in the moral sense. The Church couldn't produce true miracles, and it couldn't destroy buildings with but a thought. He, however, certainly could. And would, if it came down to it. The Church, nay the Faith was firmly entrenched in the minds and hearts of the people, and without it they would feel bereft. Kozai intended to fill that need with a thirst for knowledge. His plan was to offer them fruits of information that they would return to him over and over for.

"Since then? Uh.... not in particular. Nothing major, no." The fellow was clearly lying. Even without his sharingan activated, Kozai was able to determine the man's deceit. He frowned, wondering for a few seconds. Why was he holding out? Did he really think that Kozai would simply let him go? Surely, he wasn't that stupid. Then again, fear did strange things to a man's mind. Well, pain would have to motivate him more. The cleaver went up again, then back down, severing the smallest tip of the man's middle finger. The priest shrieked, jerking as he tried to free himself from his restraints.

The shinobi raised the implement again, and fear did the job even better than pain did, as it turned out. He wailed and the room filled with that unique smell that the extremely afraid give off. Disgusting. Some people had no control.

"W-we have attempted to locate the princess!" Oh, wonderful. Kozai had half expected this, but generally didn't really care. He knew that he had already beaten them to finding the princess' location, and that the Council knew where she was as well. Those idiots in the civilian ruling body didn't even want to have her assassinated, which he would have thought was in line with their plans. Fortunate, in the end, for him. The princess was now within his grasp, alone.

"To what end?" He twirled the cleaver again, raising it up slowly over the victim's digits once again. This time around he would take off as much as he could of the middle finger without scratching the others. After that, however, he would have to start damaging the hand further, which would get messy, without a doubt. While he needed this information quite badly, he preferred to get it out without using violence.

"... to kill her, of course. Nevertheless, the fil- err, shinobi who came before you made sure that she was hard to find." It seemed that after whatever catastrophe had happened to the Church, their resources had become much more thin. Even Kozai knew where the princess was now, and it seemed that the church did not. It was good to know that he was keeping a step ahead of his current competition. The obfuscation tactics employed by those who had come both after and before him (ironic, that) had held fast after all this time as well. Excellent.

"Good. As you see, things will go easier for you if you cooperate." Lowering the slicing implement, he bent forward, looking at the man in the eyes directly. "Has the Church taken any action against the Archives, then?"

:"No, not at all." Now there was a surprise. Kozai could tell by the victim's facial topology that he wasn't lying, but it just seemed so... incredible. Was he really in such good fortune this time around? What a pleasant surprise. There would be no obstacles to his goals now, which he had no objections to.

"Why not?" Keep the questions high frequency, and succinct. Maintain pressure, and the answers would come of their own accord, of course.

"The bishops are afraid of the Archives. Whatever demon runs that place has established something capable of subverting the faith in a matter of a few years. Something like that is t-truly an abomination in the face of God. Something that even those of great faith must fear and pray for salvation from." Kozai rolled his eyes. What bullshit. Luckily, this person didn't know that HE was the one who had founded the Archives. No need to tell him everything; just enough to get what he needed.

"Afraid? Very well. In that case, I have one more question before we finish here." He picked the freaking cleaver back up, and examined it in the dim light of the room. "What happened to the shinobi involved in the incident? As a matter of fact, what happened in that incident in particular? I was living.... 'under a rock' at the time, shall we say." Indeed, he'd literally been six feet under and had had to bust his way out of the ground to get back into the flow of things, as it were.

The man shook, then started to yell, much to Kozai's alarm.

"No! No! I won't say anything about it!" Kozai raised the cleaver, but there wasn't even a reaction from the man Clearly, there was something going on here. Mental conditioning? No, even worse than that. Kozai activated his sharingan in peered into the man's eyes. Flat affect. Was there some kind of... fucking zombie switch in the man's head? Clearly, the Church had access to some serious tech if they were able to pull something like that off. So, a removal of consciousness and a pre-programmed set of behaviors to respond to, what, interrogation? Something specifically surrounding the events that had occurred just before he had woken back up.

Well, he'd certainly found something useful here. The man continue to rant, rattling off what were probably the zombie switch's best efforts at simulating what a man in panic might behave like. Kozai would have to make good use of this soon. Developing his own zombie switches didn't seem like such a bad idea, to be perfectly honest. The ability to get around the inner homunculus, to bypass the filter of human consciousness, could be useful at times, though that filter was certainly necessary in normal life.

He dealt a blow to the man with the blunt end of the implement, and left him there for later. There was still use for him yet, he figured. Wait for the zombie switch to turn off, then try the blunt force that was genjutsu on him. Find out more about this incident with shinobi in the village. Maybe he'd be able to get something out of Yasaki about this, but he doubted that he would. The man seemed terse, but he too hid secrets.

[EXIT, CLOSED
WC 1500
15 stats
1500/1500 toward this]

Approved