Chapter 7 - The Solution

There is nothing more fragile than the human heart.
Bent as reeds in a storm; broken as bones. Susceptible to thoughts, feelings, emotions- love, hate, fear, bravery, loyalty, honestly, good, and evil. So much is allowed in, unless we cut out hearts off from everyone and everything. If that is your choice, then you will feel neither pain nor love. You will not truly live. You will simply ‘be’. You will exist just for the sake of existing. And that is no existence at all. It is a wasted, empty shell of a life. Giving nothing, taking nothing. Leaving no mark on humanity, be it good or bad.
There is nothing stronger than the human heart.
The heart can be shattered, and yet it can likewise be mended. Pain will turn to acceptance; acceptance to solace; solace to life anew. For those who can open their hearts, there will be no shortage of second chances to find happiness and comfort. Each being has a place in this universe. All one must do is accept the joy and pain of the heart.
-

Azami came into the room. She seemed reluctant, as though worried or embarrassed. If Yuji had been thinking anything other than “is it really her?”, he might have figured out that she was just as surprised as he was. Besides, this had been awful for her. She was sure she wasn’t her old self. Was she like he remembered? Would he still find her attractive? She wasn’t sure she could in his position. Was she ‘damaged goods’ now?

Yuji took a tentative step toward her, unsure of what to do. Was this real? An illusion? And if it was really her, how did he act? Did he kiss her? Did he bow and assume his position at her feet? Did he put a leash around his neck and strip naked?

“Yuji…” she said in a half-whisper. She took a step toward him, too. She met his eyes with hers, and thought she’d never felt such happiness.

When she had heard he’d left a month and a half ago, she’d been almost hurt. But as her attackers began to show up (or at least, she had been told they’d be brought in), she realized that he was simply making sure the world was safe. He was alright. He was the old Yuji.

So she worked hard, asking that he not be informed of her recovery. She had looked like hell when she woke up. Her muscles were mostly gone; her breasts sagged; her skin was pale, and her face gaunt from trauma.

The coma had healed both body and mind to a large degree, but she still wasn’t the Azami he would remember. She needed weeks of rehab for that. From the second she’d woken up, she’d done everything to get back in shape. Even now, six weeks later, she knew she wasn’t perfect. Her muscles weren’t back completely, but her skin was a normal color, her face filled out to normal, and her insides sterilized of those rotten frackers who’d invaded her body. She would never forget that awful memory. So instead, as she rehabbed, she thought of Yuji. Of how he had fought bravely; desperately, even helpless as he had been.

And now, he’d brought her rapists to justice. Except that prick Raikage, but he was untouchable.

My tits don’t sag anymore, so I’ve got that at least. she thought sardonically. But more, she thought about the man who’d waited for her.
I lost my parents…they didn’t want me anyway. Now I’ve got someone who does. I’m not a scared little orphan girl, fighting off rapists. I’m not tied to that bed, with those pigs humping me. I’m free to be with who I want. And he’s here. He waited.
I love him.

With that, she bolted across the room and jumped into his arms, knocking him down. She began to maul him with kisses and whispered words, straining to touch every bit of him. She laid fully on top of him, seizing his head and kissing first his lips, then his cheek, and finally his ear.

“God, I missed you!” she whispered, nibbling at his ear.

He didn’t respond with words. He just held her tight to him. Her tears fell, salty to the taste, mixing with the ones that were tricking down his cheek. They were going to get a second chance at life. They were going to-

Then he saw it. The scars. On her neck. On her arms. Those bastards! When he’d been unconscious, they must have carved her up like a turkey! With knives, or nails. To hear her scream. To listen to her beg. To-

“Azami…we can have a life together,” he told her, kissing her neck lovingly, cutting off his own thoughts in the process. “I have one more bounty to collect, and then I’m done. I’m yours forever.”
-

Throughout the happy reunion, Tsunade and Shizune had been comparing notes. They had come to the same startling conclusion.
Yuji had been using an illegal drug. At least, they thought it was illegal. It wasn’t anything they’d seen before. Quite a feat. Between the two of them, they possessed entire volumes of information. But this drug…

They tuned back in to the conversation the young lovers were having, to hear the last part.

“…one more bounty to collect…”

Tsunade carefully moved toward Yuji. She smiled down at the couple happily entwined on her floor. But she was the look of concern on Azami’s face, too. The last bounty…

“Yuji…who is this last target…?”

Yuji note the dangerous tone in her voice. Disapproving. Worrisome. He turned his head to face her, his sunglasses back in place. His tone was stern, leaving no room for argument.

“The Raikage. He’s as guilty as the rest of them.”

To say he was targeting the head of a nation so brazenly…to even think it! The repercussions wouldn’t end with death for him!

“Yuji, we know about the drug…”

More dangerous tones. Yuji didn’t like this. He looked to Azami. But there was no comfort there, either. Her face held the same worry.

“He is no more immune to justice than anyone else,” Yuji stated quietly. Azami had let go of him, pulled back as if he had the plague. But why? That didn’t make sense. Why would she be repulsed. Hadn’t this been what she wanted? Wasn’t it right to rid the world of rapists? Why should anyone be immune?

Tsunade reached for him, but Yuji pulled away. He seemed to ignore her after that. He was focused completely on Azami.
“So, this is how it is? I did this to protect you. I love you. And you’re disgusted by me.”

Ignoring her feeble protest, Yuji stalked up to the roof, followed by all of them. He stood in the center of the roof, looking out across the village.
“I lived to protect this place. The people. All of them. It didn’t matter who. And I just protected them again. The women don’t have to live in fear of these pigs. They can feel safe.”
He turned to face the three women, his arms outstretched.
“So what is so wrong about me wanting to deal with one more? The man who started the war. The man who caused all those lives to be lost. The man who made me into a murderer…”
Yuji clenched his hands into fists. “The blood on my hands will never come off. So one more stain won’t matter. It will prevent others from doing what I had to do.”

The three girls approached carefully, but stopped when Yuji reached into his waist pouch. He pulled out a syringe. It was full of a deep purple liquid, with lines of an even deeper purple in it, as if it had veins. It almost looked more like a solid than a liquid. It was the consistency of blood, or so it seemed. He held it up in front of his face.

“This is my last dose,” Yuji announced to them. He pushed the syringe into his upper left arm, pushing the plunger down slowly. He closed his eyes, but from pain rather than ecstasy.

“Mm…I hate this,” he grumbled, pulling the syringe out of his arm. “I hate relying on drugs for strength. I’ll have to earn all the strength legitimately…
After I take down the Raikage.”

“I can’t let you do that, Yuji,” Tsunade told him, moving slowly toward him. “You’re under a lot of stress, so you’ll be forgiven, of course. But you’ve got to let this go. Azami is alive, safe, and now a citizen. Isn’t that enough?”

Yuji didn’t move against her approach, but he exuded a dangerous aura.
“Now that I’ve disgusted her? No. If I can’t have love, then all I have is a mission. And that mission is to make sure no one suffers as she did.”

Tsunade appealed to Yuji’s common sense first. His bond with the Leaf was unbreakable, surely, even through this drug-and-pain induced haze!
“If you try to kill him, you’ll start a war.”

“They’ll be in so much disarray there won’t be a war. They’re not in any hurry to try us again, anyway. Besides- kill? I didn’t intentionally kill anyone on this little crusade. If he dies, it’s his bad luck.”

The casual manner in which Yuji spoke worried Tsunade even more. Was his mental state more damaged than she originally thought? It couldn‘t be good that his level or morality had done a complete one-eighty. Not from a man who seemed to carry guilt as often as kunai.
“Don’t make me call for backup on this, Yuji. Just relax and let me get that drug out of you…”

Her fingers were inches away from Yuji when he pulled away. Tsunade stepped back, partly in shock and partly in self-defense.
He was affected by the trauma, too! shoot! I didn’t even think about the cumulative effect of thinking about her rape so long! I was more worried about her mental state! But of course Yuji would feel it, too! He watched it happen! He was as helpless as she was!

“Shizune…call for back-up. He’s a danger to everyone right now, including himself.”

“R-right!” she stammered, running down the stairs to find the nearest able bodies.
-

Within thirty seconds, Yuji was surrounded. Kakashi in front; Gai behind. Tenten, Lee, Neji, and two ANBU guards surrounded him.

“Don’t make us fight you,” Kakashi warned, his hand hovering over his headband. He was ready to use the Sharingan if he had to. “We all want to help you.”

Yuji didn’t miss a beat. Standing tall, sunglasses in place, and mask around his mouth again, he didn’t even blink.
“Then let me go and do what I need to do.”

Kakashi held firm. “I can’t do that. Now, please. This is your last chance to come peacefully. You’re surrounded. There‘s no escape.”

Yuji looked around dramatically. “One, two…seven of you? For me?”

Kakashi’s hand tensed. That was it! The trigger for the battle to begin!

“Not nearly enough!” Yuji declared, shooting forward, grabbing the hand Kakashi was going to lift his headband with, and throwing him to the ground. Before anyone could move, Yuji closed the distance between himself and Gai with one step. He struck with the heel of his hand, right on the center of Gai’s chest.

“Gah!”

Gai flew across the roof, hitting one of the giant concrete pillars hard enough to crack it and stick in place for a full three seconds. He peeled off and fell to the ground, staying where he laid.

“That’s it! Let’s go!”

The ANBU agents mobilized, dancing in and out of some kind of pattern that was unreadable. Their swords began to flash out with stabs and slashes.
Yuji dodged effortlessly, leaping and twisting through the air. The longer the attack went on, the more he could read their pattern. He waited for the right moment, before he faked a leap and stood still. Two swords slashed by his head. He leaned just enough to dodge them both. His hands flashed out, catching the hands of assailants and stripping their weapons. He send one sword spinning end over end straight off the roof. The other one he kept, elbowing it’s owner in the stomach hard enough to knock him all the way across the roof. Only a last-second reaction by Kakashi stopped the man from plummeting to the ground.

Yuji stopped, as did all the attacks. Then, abruptly, he threw the ANBU sword toward a tree about fifty meters away. There was a scream, and an agent fell from the tree, hands pierced by the sword.

“That’s better. Without that annoying Paralysis Jutsu she’d been casting, I can move much better…”
Not even a hint of remorse or worry in Yuji’s voice. He seemed to cast an incredibly long shadow, so imposing was he at the moment. All these solid jonin and no one had hit him yet. It was several levels beyond Yuji’s power to pull off such a feat. It was almost an Orochimaru level of power, had Orochimaru not been inhibited by his constantly-failing bodies. Yuji was young and physically healthy. So his accumulation of power would be more similar to Sasuke’s, perhaps. That was not a calming thought.

Lee and Tenten both made their move. Tenten’s bo went low, then high, while her other hand threw a series of kunai. Yuji leapt, then tucked and rolled in between them all, landing crouched. His palm hit Tenten’s shoulder, sending her spinning away, but otherwise unharmed.

From the sidelines, Tsunade noted that particular strike.
He isn’t trying to kill. He’s still in there! He’s still himself! But how do we bring him out of this stupor?!

“Perfect, Tenten! I am ready now!”

Lee’s foot cracked Yuji under the chin, sending him high into the air. Lee leapt up, perfectly aligned with Yuji’s shadow. He had Yuji in the perfect position for one of his most devastating attacks.

“Primary Lo-”

Yuji spun around, seized Lee by the vest, and hit him several times in the stomach, rapid-fire with his right hand.. Lee began to free-fall fast, blood falling from his mouth as he began his descent toward the hard rooftop.

How is this possible? When we sparred, he could not even land one hit! And now he has defeated my best technique!

Yuji turned his head, seeing Gai leaping up behind him. Yuji threw Lee hard into Gai, putting both of them back into the concrete pillar. He landed back on the roof, in the center. Immediately, he knew he’d fallen into a trap.

“Eight Triagams, two palms-
Four palms-
Eight palms-
!”

That was the farthest Neji got. Yuji had begun hitting back, matching Neji blow for blow, then surpassing him. He was halted midway through the attack. He recovered and tried to restart, but now Yuji was dodging the strikes with a minimum of effort.

“That’s it! We’ve got to stop him!”

Shizune held her forearm steady, her hand tensing on the pull string of her spring-loaded needles. They were dipped in a special toxin that would paralyze at the slightest touch. She just had to get a clear shot…

Meanwhile, Neji found himself on the defensive and quickly transitioned to his Rotation defense. Kakashi jumped over the spinning Neji, a Lightning Blade aimed right at Yuji.

Yuji dodged him by a paper’s width, giving him a hard roundhouse kick to the back. Tenten’s bo was thrust toward him. He leaned back, caught it as she tried to pull the strike back, and threw it- and her- across the roof.

Now!
Shizune fired her needles, a full spread of six. They were aiming toward Yuji, no way they could miss.

Abruptly, Yuji did a back flip, dodging the needles. As he landed, Tenten had him lined up with shuriken. She threw them, and he seemed to defy logic as he dodged each of them with blinding speed. He blurred as he moved, closing the distance between them, grabbing her hands and smacking them into his knee to release her hold on her weapons. They clattered to the ground. Yuji jumped backward, avoiding her leg sweep as she cradled her injured throwing hand.

Silence. And no movement. Everyone tried to recover and strategize. And this drug! What was it?! And how did it work so effectively?!

“Are we done here? I have a mission to see to. I really don’t want to fight you. Any of you.”

What could they do? They would have to kill him to stop him. And that was fast becoming an option. One no one really wanted to consider. To kill a man who’d been so traumatized that his personality had changed…the very thought left a bad taste in their mouths. And moreover, Yuji was still Yuji. A war hero. They couldn’t let him become a villain. They couldn’t let him start the next war.

Tsunade began to step forward. She was the last of those who were unharmed. And the best hope for taking him down regardless. If Yuji was in there, he would not hit her. There was no way. Not unless she struck first.
And one blow was all Tsunade needed to finish a fight.

Abruptly, someone stepped in front of Tsunade.
It was Azami.

“It’s my fault he’s like this. It’s my job to fix him…” she said, her voice full of a conviction that her expression did not match. She closed her eyes, tears barely contained within, and looked right at Yuji.
“…Or destroy him.”

She walked out to him, her eyes boring into his. She tried to swagger as she did before the rape. She needed to be the Azami he remembered. She wanted to be the girl he fell in love with. The one who defeated him in combat. The one who finally broke him in interrogation. The girl who had taken his virginity and given hers in return. They had a bond. For a week, they existed outside of reality. It was only the two of them.

Capture that feeling. Capture him and pull him back.

After what seemed like hours, she reached him. No one moved or spoke as the two stared at each other.

“Yuji, you can’t kill him.”

“…”

“If it’s what you think I want,” she continued slowly, not breaking her eye contact with him. She couldn’t see his eyes under the dark sunglasses concealing them, but she could feel his gaze. “You’re wrong. It’s not what I want. Even though I understand why you’d think I would.”

Azami reached a hand out slowly toward him. Before, she’d been more powerful than him. Now, she knew, she was no match. Even if he hadn’t been so enhanced by that drug, she’d been in a coma for a full year. She needed more than six weeks of therapy to rebuild herself. So she had only one other tactic.

“I don’t need you to kill him to feel safe. I feel safe with you. I trust you. Like I trust no one else.”

Her hand inched more toward him. She could see his expression soften behind the mask. He needed just a little more prodding.

“Do you remember the time we spent together? That last night when we both finally broke down?”

Her hand was inches away from him. His hand raised to meet hers. The bare tips of his fingers closed around hers. His other hand pulled off his sunglasses and lowered his mask. It was odd to see his eyes again at first.

“You…can forgive me?”

His voice cut through the silence like a kunai through manju. He sank to one knee, still holding her hand. She looked down at him, a smile on her face.

“Of course! You did it for me, after all. How could I not forgive you?”

He brought her hand to his lips, kissing tenderly.
“Mistress…”

She ran her hand through his hair, feeling the scar underneath his hair. The scar he’d gotten when he’d been thrown into a wall while trying to save her. She bent down and kissed it.

“Not mistress. Not now. You belong to me, but right now, I’m Azami. The girl you waited for. The girl who drove you to do all this…I should be asking forgiveness. If we had just run for it like you said…”

Yuji’s eyes snapped up. “No! You can’t blame yourself for that! I should have protected you! I should have done more! We were strong! We shouldn’t have been helpless! They got lucky…nothing more.”

It seemed as though she couldn’t stop smiling. She held her hand out to him, offering him help up. He took her hand gratefully.

They hugged. The others watched, blushing a bit themselves. All the world loved a lover, after all.
But no one was watching the ANBU agent on the far side of the roof. He was busy taking aim with a knife.

Azami saw it first. She spun, putting herself between the knife and Yuji. It struck her high up on the back with enough force to make her hit Yuji’s shoulder with her chin. She slumped into his chest with a moan. He held her up, shocked and confused at what had just happened. It took only a moment for the confusion to wear off. Yuji’s head snapped toward the agent who attacked.

“I gave no order to attack!” Tsunade shouted as she and Shizune ran to Azami, beginning to tend to her wound immediately.

“I don’t follow your orders!” the agent declared. “I-”

A piece of concrete from the shattered pillars smacked him in the face in mid-sentence. Yuji had thrown it with all his power behind it, enraged once again. Had the agent not leaned back, he would have been killed instantly. Instead, the porcelain mask cracked, then crumbled. The remains of the mask fell to the ground.

“You!” Yuji snarled. This is what came of not tying up all your loose ends!

It was the servant of Denryou Miyazaki. The one who Yuji had kicked, accidentally causing Denryou’s death.

Yuji was across the roof and at holding the man’s throat within half the time it took to blink an eye. He held the older man up high by his neck, holding over the edge of the roof. The servant began to cough and choke, turning progressively more purple as he kicked his feet in desperation. He grabbed Yuji’s wrists, as that was all that was in reach.
“So you’ve failed twice. You couldn’t save that rapist frack, and now you failed to kill me.”

The older man kicked out suddenly. Yuji didn’t move, but that was a mistake. The servant’s boots were tipped with spikes, and very quickly four deep, narrow puncture wounds were in Yuji’s stomach. Yuji retaliated by squeezing harder, turning the servant purple. His free hand flashed out and pulverized the man’s stomach with thirty punches thrown in two seconds. From there, he dropped him, letting the man fall until he was just barely within reach. Then he caught him by the fingers and jerked up, breaking all ten in one go and then holding him up by just the destroyed digits. The scream of pain could be heard all around the Leaf.

“YUJI! SHE’LL BE FINE!” Shizune shouted.

Yuji looked at her, nodded, and then let go with one hand. He knelt down close, staring Denryou’s servant in the eyes, squeezing the broken fingers tightly, grinding the small bones together.
“I’m going to let go now. Because you didn’t kill her or me, I’ll let fate decide whether you live or die.”

The servant spat in his face.
“I don’t need my hands to activate the paper bombs on my chest! With no master to serve anymore, I’ll take you with me to my gr-”

Yuji let go, and the servant plummeted at a speed that even a shinobi at full strength would have a hard time surviving. Yuji watched dispassionately as he hit the ground nearly a hundred feet below. He could see his knees blow out from the impact. He crumpled to the ground with a scream that could be heard even up this high.

Leaning over the edge, Yuji looked down, his sunglasses replaced. A neutral, almost placed expression was on his face.
“Fate wasn’t with him. He didn’t die. But he won’t walk again.”
--
-

After a few days, all had been forgiven. Yuji hadn’t seriously hurt anyone, after all. And they could all understand his desperation.

“It was so romantic, wasn’t it?” Tenten gushed to Neji. The story was common knowledge now, and among the females, considered quite romantic, if a little on the psycho end of things. “I mean, the desperation he had to protect her! (sigh).”

Neji grunted non-committaly. “But to turn to drugs…Yuji, of all people…”

Tenten looked down. “You know, I can’t bring myself to dislike him for it. We all did things we weren’t proud of in battle. But Yuji…”
She shook her head, wincing on his behalf. “Between the people he was forced to kill, the rape of his girlfriend, and then a year with nothing to do but think about it… I don’t know how sane I’d be.”

This time, Neji agreed outright. “Yes. It was enough to unhinge even Yuji, who was among the best of us. I hope that this therapy will work for him. But I wonder…what did Azami want with those chains of yours, Tenten?”

Tenten blushed, giggling a little bit. “Well, it’s not what you’d think, Neji…”

Neji looked at her with a curious expression. “What do you mean?”

Tenten laughed again, whispering to him: “Some girls like to play rough.”
--
--

Azami secured Yuji from the ceiling, his wrists and ankles bound by chain. She caressed his face lovingly, her black-painted nails leaving scratches down his face as she dug in farther. He winced, and she snapped forward and grabbed his chin.

“You know you love it,” she whispered, her lips so close to his that he could taste the words coming out of her mouth. She kissed him sloppily, tongue and lips prying their counterparts apart and invading his mouth.

Her free hand found the collar of his shirt. She dug in and began to tear it off. She left a long, narrow scratch down his chest. She broke her lip lock on him and licked the scratch slowly while she pulled the tatters of the shirt off his body.

Her hand went to work again, tugging at his belt, then undoing the button and zipper on his pants. She paused there, looking up at him, a teasing smile on her face.

“I can stop…”

His eyes pleaded with her. Both sets of dark eyes danced across each other, having a conversation all their own.
Don’t stop.
Never stop.

I won’t.
I never will.

She smirked, lazily giving his stomach a lick, culminating with her tongue flicking in his navel.
“Mmm…tasty. Even with that poison defiling your body.”

Her glance flicked to the tattoos on his shoulders. It had taken two to restrain his chakra this time. All that power had been difficult to control. But in the end, she achieved control, as she knew they both preferred it.
It made her shudder happily. She had tamed all that power. It all belonged to her. It was at her beck and call. Even though Yuji clearly desired nothing more, she took comfort in knowing that she could have forced him if she had wanted to. Having such a powerful man completely dependent on her…

She looked at her chained-up boyfriend. The sweat glistening off his body from the potent mixture of emotions and endorphins. Desire. Pain. Humiliation. Love. Obedience. Lust.

There was no pretence of ‘interrogation’ this time. Simply torture and sex. Pain and passion. This time, they would really have fun. Azami had been allowed to bring anything and everything to help Yuji through the withdrawal period he would have coming down off the drugs. It was going to be a nasty, nasty process. Thankfully, she had been allowed a counter-drug that was normally forbidden outside of the most torturous, darkest interrogations.

Azami absently finished undressing Yuji, ripping off his pants and underwear, since she didn’t want to untie him to remove them. She’d already brought spare clothes…for when she was ready to let him have them. She also had a selection of whips, paddles, and even some small electricity-based devices. She had also gotten him a new collar and leash for the occasion. All of her favorite things. So many ways she could play with her new toy.

She hid her surprise behind her back, sauntering up to him. She tossed off the black gown she had been wearing. She knew he liked it. It allowed her to flash just the right amount of chest and leg, even letting a garter high up on her leg, concealing a knife, be viewed. The combination of bare flesh and weapons was definitely a turn on for Yuji. The sight of the small knife concealed in said garter was absolutely enticing to him.

She let him get a full view of her in her bra and panties, both of which were black with just the right amount of lace to hint at femininity, but not so much that she seemed to be shamelessly baiting him. No, this underwear wasn’t for show. It was functional. Again, she knew Yuji very well.

“So you like drugs, do you?”

She knew he did not, but it was all part of the game.

“Well,” she continued, holding up a syringe full of an ominous, colorless liquid, “This was a gift from Lady Tsunade. We’ll be using this in place of your other drug. It won’t give you power. Instead, it will give you hunger…desperation…and pain. You see, it’s a powerful aphrodisiac. Restrained as you are, you’ll have to beg for relief. And my body is the only antidote. And were I to drug myself as well…”

She pushed her body close to his, rubbing his chest while she bit down -hard- on his collarbone and shoulder. His blood dribbled down onto her lips, where she lapped it up happily.
“Well, kunoichi are known for their passion. If I add this, you may not be enough to satisfy me. Can you really allow me to suffer? If not, I suggest you try your best to take care of me…”

“I love you,” he breathed, wanting to say it now, before lust took over. They’d made sweet, honest, passionate love their first time together. This time, if she was into the BDSM thing- well, so was he. Perfect. He hated himself so much. But Azami put him at ease.

Azami gave him a light, sweet kiss. A quick show of love before she began to torture him again. His body was so incredibly hot, all cut up like this. His power rendered helpless…
“I love you, too.”
And she meant it.

She put an ice cube on his right nipple, letting him think about what was about to happen. Last time, a needle near his nipple had broken him. This time, it would have far more pleasant consequences. The fact that this was where she’d chosen to inject him with the aphrodisiac (cleverly mixed with an another mixture of herbs that would take the edge off his withdrawal. She wouldn’t dream of this ridiculous ‘drug play’ otherwise. If left unchecked, however, Yuji would have let himself suffer the full effects of the withdrawal as a means of punishing himself for cheating his way to power. He had never lost his morals) was no accident. She played on his memories and fears.

He watched the needle approach warily, worried. He even pulled his chest back as far as his bindings would allow. But he had nowhere to go, and so didn’t make the effort.

Finally, she injected him. She forced his head towards the syringe, making him watch the liquid inside drain into his body.
“You have thirty seconds until the effects kick in…”

He smiled at her, shaking his head slightly. “I have to admit, I enjoyed being the super-powered bad guy. Instead of the clean-cut hero.”

She gave his chin a little tickle with her fingers. “I loved being bad, too. Everything it sexier when you’re bad. But you are fated to be a good guy.”

Ten seconds.

“I’ll be a ‘dark’ hero, then. And if you’re willing to stay with me…”

She had used a black lip gloss, specially treated to help keep him distracted from the suffering he’d soon feel. She hadn’t applied it right away. She hadn’t wanted to mark him up yet. Now, though, she pressed those painted lips to his tenderly. Then, before she spoke, she added her tongue into the mix, to accentuate her words.
“Let’s be bad…together…”

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