Chains
Naruto wasn’t sure she was awake, at first. There was nothing in her, nothing around her - the world reduced to a yawning chasm that threatened to swallow her up.
Then her eyes flew open and she was upright, in a panic - and she was sprawling across a hard stone floor, foot jerked back by - something.
She had been chained to the bed, she realised. Still in her ruined ANBU uniform, still covered in blood and dust from the explosions and the other things she tried not to think about.
The floor underneath her was painted with intricate seals, all converging on the bed in the centre of the room. In the corner there was a grim, utilitarian sink and toilet, the remains of a tiny mirror still hanging, broken, above them. Naruto ought to be able to feel the seals, ought to be able to at least begin to see their purpose, but they remained only ink under her fingers, inscrutable.
She crawled back into the bed and slept.
When she woke again, she had no idea how much time had passed. The electric light still burned bright in the middle of the ceiling. Her mouth was like sandpaper. She stumbled to the sink, hearing the chain clank against the stone floor. The water was metallic, lukewarm, but she still drank it from her cupped hands eagerly. Under the sink was a cardboard box, half-filled with ration bars and wrappers.
Her head was thrumming with the beginnings of a headache, and every joint in her body felt bad, wrong. She rolled her shoulders tentatively, hearing the joints crack and shift.
The cell was small, windowless. Pale grey concrete, painted wall-to-wall with seals she couldn’t begin to decipher. Loop after loop of silent, still ink, arranged in a careful spiral.
Within minutes, Naruto was the most bored she’d ever been in her life. The chain was long enough that she could get to the walls if she stretched, but no further. Tracing the seals only served to remind her of her deprivation. She wasn’t tired enough to sleep - although her eyes were sore from overexposure. She wished the light wasn’t so bright.
Slowly, she familiarised herself with every square inch of her cell. The chain had, at some point, worn a deep, shiny groove into the metal of the bedpost. The edges of the manacle were worn, too, like someone had pulled at it again and again and again.
She had been deposited in bed in her full uniform, sans shoes (she supposed the manacle wouldn’t have fitted over them). In a way, it was a relief - she thought she would have been much more upset to wake and find she had been cleaned and undressed in her sleep, without her knowledge.
On the other hand, she was absolutely filthy, soaked in blood from her trousers to her flak jacket, even smeared across the white porcelain of her mask. She glanced at the sink.
She washed her mask first, dark red sliding off the porcelain, swirling down the sink. It came off easily, cleanly, not even leaving a shadow of a stain. Naruto’s fingers began to tremble, and, all of a sudden, it came crashing over her.
She remembered Shisui’s ringing voice - Naruto! What have you done?
She didn’t know how to answer that, then. She didn’t now. Was this blood from Hound, the men and women he’s killed? From Shun, from the men she’d killed that she didn’t even know the names of?
She’d killed Hirohito’s father, who’d loved him and held him and would have done anything to make him better. Because of her, Hirohito would never know his father’s face. Wouldn’t remember what his voice sounded like. Would never play with him, or learn to throw a kunai from him, or -
Naruto’s knees gave out and she crumpled to the floor, gasping. She wasn’t crying, not really. There weren’t tears, just shuddering, painful breaths, coming fast and then faster. Her sides ached, her face went numb, head spinning around the same dreadful, dreadful thought.
Because she hadn’t needed the kyubi to do this, had she? She’d done it all on her own, and felt very little while doing it.
She didn’t know how long she’d been there, on the floor. Maybe she’d fallen asleep, maybe she hadn’t.
The lights were still on, and the water still running in the sink. Her mask had fallen to the floor, face up. Naruto stared into its painted face and felt nothing.
Mindless of the fact that she was still drenched in old blood, she stumbled back to the bed and laid, curled on her side. There wasn’t really a comfortable way to lie, with the chain - it dug into her ankle in every position, tangling in her legs if she rolled over onto her side. She couldn’t forget about it. Frustrated, she pulled on it, hard. The chain rattled, the sound echoing and strange to her ears.
She gave up on the bed - clearly, no rest was to be had, and she was getting hungry. There were ration bars stowed under the sink, the box already half-empty. Still, she choked one down, nearly gagging at its bland, grainy texture.
She jumped to her feet, suddenly itching to get out of her bloodstained uniform again. This time, she managed to make it as far as unbuckling her forearm guards and peeling off her gloves before she started to cry, bringing her now-bare hands to her mouth to muffle herself. Her voice sounded too loud, too harsh, in the deathly quiet of the cell. She could recall, all too clearly, how it had looked when the blood was fresh.
Her stomach lurched, and she barely had time to throw the seat of the toilet up before she was vomiting, retching painfully even after there was nothing left.
She rested her forehead against the cool metal of the toilet seat, regardless of the smell. She closed her eyes, and drew in a deep breath. It hurt - the acid eroding her throat. She stood on shaking legs and flushed the toilet, flinching again at the sound.
She rinsed her mouth, spitting out foul water. She was parched, but didn’t dare drink, knowing she’d just throw it up again.
Naruto deposited her gloves in the sink and ran the tap over them, wringing them until the water ran clear instead of rust-coloured.
Shun, Hound, the others - the blood all looked the same. She couldn’t tell friend from enemy from - whatever Shun had been, to her. The blood came off easily, her uniform no doubt designed to resist stains of all kinds.
Finished, she stood, holding the damp gloves - there was nowhere to hang them up, not really. The bed lacked a headboard or baseboard. She shivered, arms bare, eventually settling for draping them over the closed toilet seat. She’d never get her trousers off over the chain, so she could only clean her shirt.
She unbuckled her flak jacket and pulled it over her head, the material stiff with dried blood. She was even colder without it, cold to her bones, to the pit of her stomach. They had taken everything that could be a weapon - her kunai and shuriken, her ninja wire, even her old homemade flash-bangs that she still carried everywhere. Even her kanzashi were gone, and her hair was loose around her shoulders.
A splinter of glass still stuck in the mirror’s frame caught her eye, reflecting the red of her hair back to her. The sight of it made her heart race. Something brown stained the edges of the few remaining shards.
The splinter of glass could be a weapon, she supposed, but then, there had once been a whole mirror in this cell. It wasn’t made to hold an unwilling occupant, a traitor, an enemy shinobi. Naruto had come willingly, after all.
No, she thought, no.
This cell had been made to hold a jinchuriki. And Naruto was not the first.
She gave up on washing her shirt and sat next to the toilet, head in hands. Her hair was tangled, she noticed, snarled horribly in places, matted to her head in others. She didn’t know how long she stayed there, until her back ached something awful. She had no will to continue cleaning herself up, and soon found herself pacing the same ten steps back and forth, back and forth.
The chain dragged her bare foot with every step. It was starting to chafe, rubbing her skin red. Her feet were so cold she couldn’t feel her toes.
She was growing tired of these sudden changes in mood, tired of this room, tired of herself. For a third time, she lay down in the bed and tried to sleep.
When she woke her head was pounding and her mouth felt like sandpaper. She cursed her own stupidity, inwardly - she’d never drank anything, after she’d thrown up, however many minutes or hours earlier. She stumbled, ankle stinging, to the sink and drank without a care for how it might unsettle her stomach again.
Her gloves were still damp, she noted. She wondered if it had even been an hour, or several. She suspected that she was deep underground, under Konoha, somewhere silent and humid and cold.
She should try to eat, and so try she did, eating another of the ration bars. After, the food sitting in a congealed lump in her stomach, she counted how many were left. Ordinarily, a shinobi on a mission would eat three a day, or more. But, given her size and the fact that there was certainly no exercise to be had, she could do with one a day, maybe less. The standard box had thirty, but there were only fourteen left.
She didn’t know how long a day was, in here, she realised. The light burned above here, now pulsing, now flickering - but never dark. She had no way to mark the passing of time.
Naruto turned her attention to cleaning herself up, again, determined to actually finish washing her shirt this time. Like her gloves, the blood washed out quickly and without leaving a trace on the fabric. Her torso was mottled with the same dried blood, none hers. She tried to wash it off, using her shirt as a washcloth. She was shivering by the time she was done, clean except for her hair and the blood still crusted under her fingernails.
She dunked her head under the sink, nearly jerking back when the water hit her head, running down into her eyes. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to untangle her hair, but her fingers kept catching in ugly snarls and chunks of - something.
She had nothing to dry her hair with, she realised, a stupid oversight. She would be cold and colder still with wet hair, chilling her head and shoulders. She wrung out her hair as best she could, and decided to put her shirt back on, regardless of the fact that it was still wet. She felt too exposed like this, back to the door.
Naruto began to pace again, trying to keep warm. But at some point, the skin of her ankle broke and began weeping angrily. She didn’t understand it. She’d never been hurt this long, not ever. Bruises faded within hours, more serious wounds gone within minutes. She’d never so much as developed a blister before.
But - it was her chakra, hers and the kyubi’s, that healed her. Here, it was pushed down so far inside of her that she couldn’t even begin to feel it.
Naruto lay on her side, trying to warm herself by wrapping her arms around her torso. It was little comfort, but eventually, she slept.
Or she thought she did. She couldn’t tell, anymore, not with the light beating a brutal pulse above her. She saw it when she closed her eyes, and she woke up with tears tracking down her face.
She couldn’t stand it anymore, not a moment longer. She lunged at the door, but she was jerked back by that hated, hated chain, falling to the floor. She hit the cement of the floor hard, her mouth filling with blood from biting her tongue. She cried out, ankle and face and arms throbbing where she’d tried to catch herself.
It was then that she really started to cry, not bothering to be quiet anymore, fists pounding the concrete bloody, screaming until her throat was hoarse, until there was no more sound left in her. She cried and begged and pleaded - for what, she wasn’t sure.
She wished that she’d never spoken to the kyubi, she wished that he would lend her his power again and break them both out of here. She wanted to see the sky again, she begged someone - not knowing if there was anyone on the other side of the door - to turn off the light, to talk to her, to let her out. She pleaded that she would be good, that she was sorry, to please, please, not let her die here.
And eventually, she fell silent, exhausted, head pounding, having cried so hard she couldn’t feel anything, anymore.
Naruto slept -
- And woke with a start. Someone was calling her name.
“I’m here,” she croaked, the words alien in her mouth. Blood had congealed in her mouth, and she swallowed around it.
“How are you?”
She knew that voice. She turned her face up, towards the door. For the first time, the little window on the door had been opened. She caught sight of a scarred face, of white hair.
“I don’t know,” she mumbled into the floor. She didn’t know a lot of things - if it was night, or day. How long she had been here. How much longer until they let her out. If they ever would. She closed her eyes and reached out - grasping fruitlessly for chakra that just wasn’t there. Hound didn’t feel real. If she couldn’t feel his chakra, know it was him, how could she be sure? How could she know she wasn’t dreaming?
The chain wasn’t long enough to quite get to the door, but she still tried, even as her ankle protested.
“They wouldn’t let me bring you anything,” a pause. “I’m sorry. Jiraiya-sama will be here soon, he’s a master of fuinjutsu.”
Naruto didn’t understand what he was saying, not really.
“Hound?”
“Yes?”
“How can I know you’re real?”
There’s a long silence. She couldn’t see his face, the angle too steep for her to see through the little window. Then he brought his hand, to the window, and put it through as far as it could go - not far. He wasn’t wearing his gloves.
Naruto strained against the chain, stretching her hand as far forward as it could go. Her hand met his - solid, warm.
“Do I feel real?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“Are you okay?” she asked, eventually. She remembered that he’d been pretty far from fine, the last time she’d seen him, just before Shisui had put her deep asleep in a genjutsu - she’d agreed to it, but only because if she didn’t, they would have done it anyway. He’d looked like he was about to cry as it was.
“I will be.”
Not a yes, she noted.
Still, she held on to his hand for a long moment, trying to make sense of - any of it, all of it.
“Hound,” she whispered, “when will you let me out?”
He started, then, fingers tensing under her hand.
“Jiraiya will be here soon, a few days at most. Shisui sent one of his summons ahead, so he could be brought back as quick as possible,” another heavy pause, “And my name’s Kakashi.”
“My name’s Naruto.”
“I know.”
She smiled, almost despite herself.
Naruto let go of his fingers and slumped to the floor, inexplicably tired. On the other side of the door, she heard him sit down, too. “How are the others?”
“Alright. The mission was successful, at least. Shisui wanted to come see you.”
Hound - Kakashi - kept talking, about Shisui and Tenzo and training and the festival next week and how Jiraiya would be here soon and you’ll be let out as soon as he comes until she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore, couldn’t keep mumbling replies through the iron door.
When she woke, Kakashi was gone. But he had been real, she was sure of it.
She wiled away more hours trying to detangle her hair, pulling at her scalp until it was sore, pacing back and forth until her ankle bled. Her cheek and forearms were bruising where she had fallen from the bed, turning an ugly shade of purple. She didn’t know how ordinary people coped, if this was how slow they healed - if the world was as dead to them as it was to her, now.
She slept, and woke again with a pounding headache, shivering uncontrollably. She wasn’t cold, not really - at some point, her shirt had dried. It was just that her hands were shaking, head throbbing. She pressed her hands into her eyes, shying away from the light.
Soon, she thought to herself. Whenever that was.
She wasn’t sure if she was sleeping or waking, anymore. Wasn’t sure when she’d last eaten, or drunk water - when Hound (or was his name something else?) had visited, or if she had dreamed that too.
“- really necessary, sensei?”
A terrible scraping sound filled the tiny room. Naruto clamped her hands over her ears, mindless of any threat it might pose. It was just too much.
The door was opening, and a silhouette filled the doorway. Naruto tried to focus, then, for the first time in - a while. It was hard.
“Hey, kid,” said the silhouette. “I need to take a look at the seal.”
What seal? There were seals everywhere, here. The whole damn world was made of seals.
“Can you hear me, Naruto?”
Naruto propped herself up on her elbows and looked at him properly. The silhouette was a middle-aged man with long, wild white hair.
“Yes,” she said, or tried to. Her voice came out strangled, croaking.
The man sighed, and stepped through the door. He was very tall, she thought, watching as a shudder ran through him. She wondered if he hated the seal as much as she did.
“Pull your shirt up over your stomach,” the man said. Like she was in a dream, Naruto complied.
The man produced a brush and ink pot from somewhere, and knelt at the side of her bed. Dipping the brush in ink, he painted a few symbols that Naruto should understand onto her stomach. The ink was cold, and it tickled - Naruto drew in a shuddering breath, trying her best to keep still.
She watched in abject fascination as the ink spread, unfurling into a spiral. The man stared at it, too, assessing it with glittering eyes.
The man turned back towards the door.
“Like I told you, sensei, there’s not a damn thing wrong with the seal.”