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"This," Kabuto says, swirling the reddish liquid in the test tube gently, "is the stuff."
"Ooooh," Zetsu's white half says politely.
Kabuto has no idea why Zetsu is in his lab in the first place, if he's being honest. The plant's motives are completely and thoroughly alien to him at all times, besides the obvious streak of sadism that seems to be a requirement for Akatsuki members. It makes him nostalgic for the old days. Lord Orochimaru may have been a demanding master at times, but you always knew where you stood with him.
Anyway.
He raises his other hand to stop the liquid's movement. "This is the third variation of this serum I've tried," he informs Zetsu. "The others proved useless, but I am quite confident that this one will produce results. It's my own concoction."
Zetsu casts an aside glance at the hapless shinobi secured to Kabuto's lab chair. "And you're going to test it on the one we caught this morning?" it inquires gleefully.
Kabuto smiles. "That's the plan."
The shinobi, a scrawny man who wears the mark of the Hidden Cloud on his clothes, whimpers, though the noise is muffled by the gag over his mouth.
"Oh, don't worry," Kabuto says soothingly, turning to his newest test subject. "It won't hurt. It's a truth serum. The point is to get information out of you, not kill you."
As he had expected, this does not comfort the man. He likely expects to be killed at the end of the interrogation. Which, Kabuto has to admit, is probably what's going to happen. Perhaps Zetsu is here to secure the honours.
He shrugs vaguely, and prepares the serum for syringe delivery, deliberately ignoring Zetsu's curious gaze. Administering it takes but another second with Kabuto's skilled hands; the test subject winces, but does not whimper again. He'll do Cloud proud, Kabuto thinks mockingly.
After a tense moment in which nothing appears to be happening, the eyes of the test subject grow wide and hazy, leaving him with a blank stare that might be unsettling to someone who hasn't spent as much time with unusually-eyed individuals as Kabuto has. He removes the subject's gag, satisfied that the serum is in effect.
"Now we question him," Zetsu's black half growls.
"I can handle that," Kabuto says, staring deep into the milky white ovals that now constitute the Cloud shinobi's eyes. "Can you hear me?"
The man nods solemnly. "I can," he says, in a deep monotone.
Now comes the part Kabuto has been waiting for. "I want you to tell me all of your secrets."
"All of them?"
"All of them."
"Well," the man drones. "I still wet the bed sometimes."
Zetsu snorts loudly.
"Not the inconsequential ones," Kabuto snaps, adjusting his glasses. Maybe he'd phrased the question incorrectly. "Tell me your important secrets."
The shinobi is silent, gears grinding in his evidently miniscule brain. Finally, he offers, "When I was fourteen, I thought I had a thing for feet. Y'know, because they're really smooth and the toes are really good when you-"
Zetsu starts to laugh.
Kabuto grits his teeth. "That's not important," he impresses on the subject. "Do you have any military secrets? Information about the strength and movements of the allied shinobi force? Is there anything you can tell me about the Hidden Cloud's weaknesses?"
"I don't know a lot," the man says.
"Anything will do," Kabuto says, narrowing his eyes and attempting to shut out Zetsu's quiet laughter.
Another pause for thought. "We got new gear last week. Lightweight armour and stuff from the brass."
Finally, a lead. He can analyse armour specifications, perhaps devise a poison or compound that can penetrate the materials it's made from. "Go on," Kabuto prompts.
The man's flat voice becomes almost conspiratorial despite its lack of emotion as he lolls forward and says, "I'd never tell anyone but my squad this, because it's from the top, y'know? Don't want the big ninja down on me for disrespecting the armourers' good work. And it's good all the rest of the way, sits pretty and light just like it's s'posed to. But it chafes. Around the area. If y'know what I mean."
Kabuto is silent, fuming.
Zetsu is in hysterics. It's possibly the most annoying sound Kabuto's ever heard in his life: one second a shrill and grating giggle, and the next a low, disturbing cackle.
"Thank you," Kabuto says sourly to the subject, and throws the test tube at Zetsu. The plant deflects it easily, still shaking with laughter, and the tube lands on Kabuto's lab desk, promptly exploding in a neat little fireball and taking half the desk, the chair and the poor drugged test subject with it.
The smell of burnt human fills the air.
"Oops," Zetsu says, and cackles some more. Its white half takes over, sounding almost at the point of tears of mirth. "We were going to kill him anyway, right?"
Kabuto glares daggers into its back as the plant ambles away to whatever dark hole it spends its time in. It's right, of course, but he had not intended to sacrifice his equipment along with his subject.
So much for his own concoction.
He sighs, and heads off to find a dustpan.