All characters and story belong to Kohei Horikoshi and Masashi Kishimoto
"Ow! That hurt!" Zaku said, wiping the blood from his nose with his hand. He bent down for a moment to pick up the kunai Bakugo had thrown and approached Bakugo with a sinister smile. "But I'd rather have a broken nose than this."
For the first time since Orochimaru's attack, Bakugo felt pain somewhere other than his right shoulder. It was his stomach, which had been pierced by his own kunai, wielded by Zaku.
—Uggg. —The veins in Bakugo's neck bulged from the effort he was making to hide the pain he was feeling and appear weak.
"You're not talking that much anymore, tough guy," Zaku said, spinning the kunai, making the torture the blond was enduring worse.
Bakugo's face was completely red from the effort of enduring the pain, which was making all the blood rush to his head. But it didn't take a genius to know that what Zaku had done was taking its toll on him. His eyes were closed, and he pressed his lips together tightly to focus on that pain instead of his stomach.
"Get away from him, you monster!" Ino sobbed.
"I told you to shut up!" Kin shouted, hitting the blonde in the forehead with the back of the kunai.
The blonde fell to the ground, and Kin kicked her in the stomach repeatedly. Bakugo, despite the pain, felt tremendous anger seeing this and grabbed Zaku by the neck with both hands, suffocating him.
"Tell that bitch to stop, or your fucking deal is off!" Bakugo shouted, out of his mind.
"Kin, that's enough," Dosu said, surprised to see that Bakugo still had so much strength left.
"Okay. Get up, brat!" Kin said, grabbing her by the hair and forcibly lifting her up.
Bakugo reluctantly let go of Zaku and he put his hands on his neck to catch his breath.
"Cough, cough," Zaku coughed. "Fucking brat..." Zaku said in a small voice. Just as he was about to stab him again, Dosu stopped him with his voice.
—Stop acting like an idiot, Zaku! We need you to tell us Sasuke's location! He's no good to us dead!—Dosu shouted.
"Tsk," Zaku muttered. "You heard the boss. Where's your partner?"
"Fuck you, jerk," Bakugo said, trying to stop the bleeding in his stomach with his hand.
"Wrong answer," Zaku said. Then, he punched him with all his might, knocking him to the ground with a gash across his eyebrow.
Between the fever, the blood loss, and the blow, Bakugo felt terribly dizzy. But it was at that precise moment, when he was feeling so bad, that his brain was racing. He was convinced Shikamaru wouldn't be far from his best friend Choji. The little he knew about him was that he was a lazy, highly intelligent genin, capable of beating him at chess. But he also knew, or at least hoped, that he wasn't a coward. He assumed he was plotting to free his teammates.
"I just have to buy enough time for Mister Yawn to make his appearance. And be ready to act at that precise moment." Bakugo thought from the ground.
Bakugo got up from the ground, one eye closed from the blood that fell from his eyebrow directly into his eye.
—Let's try again, where is Sasuke? —Zaku asked again.
"The only bad thing about your nose being broken is that I can't break it again," Bakugo commented with a mocking smile.
—Haha. —Zaku laughed.— What a shame, I, on the other hand, can break it for you.—he said, changing his face to a very serious one.
Zaku did as he was told, and this time his punch went straight for his nose. Bakugo made no move to dodge it and fell to the ground again, but this time with his nose broken.
"I hope that lazy bastard hurry up," Bakugo thought, starting to lose faith in his last hope.
"You're going to fucking tell me where your partner is! Or else I swear that what you feel in your stomach is going to be a pain compared to what I have in mind!" Zaku threatened.
The truth is, he only felt a lot of pain in his gut the moment Zaku pierced him and spun with the kunai. Now the focus of pain was his right shoulder again. It hurt like crazy.
"Okay, I'll tell you," Bakugo whispered from the floor, struggling to get back up. "I'm too weak. Come closer so you can hear me."
Finally, Bakugo managed to get up although his legs were shaking from the effort.
"Where?" Zaku asked, approaching. Bakugo sniffed and spit at him, part blood, part mucus, and part saliva, landing directly on Zaku's cheek.
The sound ninja wiped his cheek and clenched his fists tightly. He threw a punch to his jaw, knocking him back to the ground. Zaku loomed over him and launched a series of consecutive punches to his face.
"WHERE IS IT?" Zaku shouted, not stopping his punches.
"HE'S GOING TO KILL HIM!" Ino sobbed, unable to stay silent despite Kin's threats.
—ZAKU!—Dosu shouted, pissed off by his partner's attitude.
Dosu's scream made him stop. Bakugo was unrecognizable due to the blood and swelling on his face from Zaku's punches. Because of this, his eyes were forced shut. He looked like a boxer completely annihilated by his opponent. And despite all this, Bakugo kept smiling and felt only pain in his right shoulder.
"I sent them to your fucking mother's to keep her company. She must feel miserable and lonely having a shitty son like you," Bakugo said from the ground, not knowing where Zaku was, since his eyes were closed.
"Let's try something else." Zaku lifted him off the ground, as Bakugo felt unable to stand on his own. But with such bad luck, he grabbed him by his injured right shoulder.
—Arg. —Feeling the grip, Bakugo couldn't hide the pain he'd been feeling all day any longer and made a grimace that didn't go unnoticed by Zaku.
"Well, well," Zaku laughed. He squeezed Bakugo's shoulder again, and the ash-blond moaned in pain again. "Does it hurt if I do this?" Zaku repeated the action, but with more force.
—AAAAHHHH. —Bakugo screamed in pain, tears on the verge of falling.
"I was saying it seemed strange to me that a ninja would wear his headband in such an odd place as his shoulder," Zaku commented, noticing the leaf bandana covering the wound Orochimaru had inflicted. "Let's see what you're hiding..."
Zaku tactlessly removed the tape, causing Bakugo to feel a stab of pain again. The wound had worsened considerably from all the movement during the fight with the Sound Trio. Much of the skin around the hole created by Orochimaru's Kusanagi had turned red. The infection had caused dead tissue to form, and pus had begun to ooze out, causing a horrible odor.
"Wow. That's fucking disgusting. That wound looks really bad, brat," Zaku said, covering his nose. "Though it's admirable that you've been able to endure it all this time without complaining."
—Ha. I said before that he was a great actor. He made us believe he was in perfect condition and that he didn't care about the lives of this brat and the fat boy, Kin laughed.
"It's time to stop pretending, champion. My partner Kin has advanced knowledge of medical jutsus. Tell us where Sasuke is, and I'll tell him to help you. You have my word," Dosu said, raising an arm. "Where is he?"
—...—Bakugo wanted to give him one of his murderous looks, but his face was so swollen from Zaku's blows that it was impossible for him to see anything.
"My partner asked you a question, tough guy," Zaku said, then stuck his finger into the infected hole in Bakugo's right shoulder.
—AAAAAHHHHH!—Bakugo shouted, with a mixture of pain and hatred.
Just when Bakugo thought he'd reached his maximum pain threshold, Zaku managed to prove him wrong. It was also the first time in Bakugo's life that he truly wished for someone's death. The death of Zaku Abumi.
—Stop it! —Ino shouted.
"How many times do I have to tell you to shut up!" Kin said, annoyed. As she was about to hit her again, Dosu stopped her by grabbing her arm.
"Let her scream. If the kid won't tell us where they are, we'll make them come to us. When the pink-haired girl hears the blonde and Bakugo's screams, I'm sure she'll come try to save them. All the idiots in Konoha want to play heroes," Dosu commented.
"Scream for me, tough guy," Zaku said with an evil grin. This time he shoved the tip of the kunai into the hole, scraping out pus and dead tissue.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" Bakugo screamed again, unable to hold back his tears. Finally, the pain had overcome his pride.
—That's it, that's it. Scream, cry, call your bitch friend! —Zaku said, twisting the kunai.
—AAAAAAHHHH!—Bakugo screamed. When he got used to such torture, he regained what remained of his pride and dedicated a few words to his tormentor. —I swear I'm going to kill you..., you'll regret the day you pissed Katsuki Bakugo off.—
"Look how I'm shaking!" Zaku said sarcastically, pretending to be trembling with fear. "Hahaha. I forgot, with that face I gave you, you can't see shit."
"Please, someone come and help us!" Ino shouted with all her might.
—HELP!—shouted Choji
"That's it. Shout," Dosu said with a smile. Then he brought his face closer to his companion's. "Kin, I want you to..." His eyes widened as he felt himself completely paralyzed. "What the hell?"
"What's wrong with you, Do...?" A headbutt to the nose from Ino made him shut up.
Even though Bakugo couldn't see anything, he understood from what he heard that Shikamaru or someone had finally taken action. He had to act immediately. Zaku turned around, and the ash-blond, with superhuman willpower, managed to overcome the pain and put him in a jiujutsu lock from his world. The so-called Lion Killer technique, in which, from behind Zaku, Bakugo used the crook of his arm to squeeze his neck and subdue him.
Zaku tried to escape from the hold, but Bakugo applied even more pressure until he restricted all the blood going to his head. After a few seconds, Zaku lost consciousness. The ash-blond was tempted to continue squeezing until he died, but stopped when he remembered All Might and his classmates from UA Academy. He then threw Zaku's unconscious body to the ground.
Bakugo's adrenaline wore off, and his body felt very heavy. His legs couldn't hold any longer, and he fell face first to the ground. Just before he lost consciousness, only one thing was on his mind.
"I should have killed that son of a bitch!" Bakugo thought, falling