Chapter Text
Now more than ever he sits perfectly upright, shallow and steady breathing a false counterpoint to his racing thoughts. His tears might be invisible amongst the nutritive liquid saturating his hair, dripping down his face and body, but the tracks are etched into his memory. He hollows his cheeks and the sticky suction merely proves his suspicions: more is trapped under his gag with little chance of escape. Nothing burns yet, so there shouldn’t be any open wounds, but the stratum corneum can only absorb so much water before it begins to rupture and open the way for bacterial infections.
A medic should be along before the end of what he’s come to call day or before the morning beating. He’d be of no use to them dead or with his fingers, leg and arm too poorly healed to serve. Even though the bones are knit, the pain is enough to to render his movements ineffectual for fear of rebreaking them and causing irreparable nerve damage.
Sometimes he wonders if part of the medic’s job is to undo any healing they’ve done on their own to keep him disabled enough to be less of a threat. Regardless, until the medic returns, he has to care for his own broken rib. He flexes the fingers on his right hand and sucks in a sharp breath. Two more broken fingers. At least the medic always takes special care with his fingers, but they break his fingers on rotation. If the medic had even a quarter Tsunade’s skill he’d rest easier, but they don’t and she hasn’t been a part of his life for over a decade.
His lips twist, if even one of his dear teammates cared he’d have been found within a week.
The lights go out. He jerks in his restraints and the room is too-large-too-small and threatens. His rib screams and draws him back to the moment. Calm, calm, his mind whispers. It only takes a few seconds for his night vision to kick in and prove he’s alone in the dark.
It seems his earlier mistake has returned to punish him. How fortunate that he’d only ever told two about this particular secret. It might be harder to keep track of time now, but he’ll be able to see what lies beyond his cell.
He rests against his wall, turning his considerable intelligence to pure chakra theory. It really is a waste that most shinobi did little more than scratch the surface of the true intricacies and marvels of the very essence of the earth.
At least the first step is easy: refine his chakra until he holds pure yin or pure yang without either tainting the other or letting his natural affinities bleed through. Once again, he thanks whatever good fortune lead him to a team taught by a God of Shinobi who himself had been taught by Tobirama-sama. To think he’d been mocked by more than just Jiraiya for being so studious.
His chakra is simultaneously slippery and barbed, like some vicious beast dragged up in a net from the fishing grounds of Uzushio, yin and yang gripping to each other as tightly as a drunk Tsunade clings to her sake bowl. Well, the first step is theoretically easiest.
His screaming instincts jolt him from his meditation. He freezes, scanning the room from top to bottom, breath held and searching for the tiniest shimmer of a genjutsu or an off taste that only the best can hide.
There is nothing. Nothing. He shakes his good arm and slams a bare foot into the wall, they resound like thunder in the silence. Only the building pressure in the back of his skull alerts him of his cowardly shrinking into the vague comfort of solidity.
Without the light, the dimmest hum of electricity is gone. The room is truly silent and dark. He is tightly restrained, shivering in damp clothes, gagged so efficiently he can barely make a sound, aching all over, hunger-sense dead, but constantly thirsty. And now at the mercy of people who found a crack in his armour.
They won’t kill him. He can’t kill himself. He is alone and the emptiness digs into his mind, prying at the weariness he ignores and slipping along the edges of his resistance.