Mother had decided that, after my little show of body-horror, that it would be best to give me something to defend myself. I knew exactly why. The Kaguya, clan was fearful of anyone with the Shikosumyaku. How a clan full of a bunch of psychotic professional tough-guys would be freaked out over somebody who can make their bones move was both funny and terrifying to me. And so, for my fifth birthday, Mom gave me a tanto knife. I don't think mom was a kunoichi or anything, otherwise she'd have started me on the ninja shit already. The only form of training I would get with the damn thing was "put the stabby end into the bad guy."

In other words, nothing remotely useful for dealing with magical ninjas.

But nevertheless, it was nice knife. Or as nice as mom could afford anyway. The sheathe and handle were made of a matching woodgrain stained darker to bring out all the different patterns. The two parts were separated by a polished steel divider that served to keep the blade attached to the hilt when drawn. It was just a bit too big for my hand to fully close around it, but if I gripped it with both hands I could probably keep a tight-enough hold on it. Not the best setup since it basically turned a dagger into a two-handed sword, but having a weapon was better than having no weapon if the worst came to pass.

I still haven't figured out how to do all the creepy bone dagger shit Kimimaro could do.

"Chinatsu." Mom said, looking me in the eyes as she handed me the knife. "You must keep this hidden…" She held up one of my sleeves, reaching into it and denoted the pocket sewn into the interior. "…in here." She held my face up so that I was staring into her eyes. "Promise me that you will keep this with you all the time."

"I will, Mother." I promised, reaching out to grasp at the knife. My fingers curled around it, but mom didn't let go of it. Not immediately at least. Her face was a mixture of sadness, anger, and nervousness. She didn't want to give me the knife. She didn't want to have to arm her only child in her own home. Not when said child was only five years old. But she let go anyway, handing the knife to me. She had to give it to me. That was just the nature of the world we lived in now.

I hated it too. It scared the hell out of me. I couldn't sleep right. I kept waking up in the middle of the night after I heard something move or shift. Sometimes just the house settling was enough for me to jump awake. Sometimes it was just nightmares that made me wake up. I was only five and already I was waking up with cold sweats.

I tucked the blade into the sleeve of my shirt, stowing it inside the hidden pocket. Mom opened her arms wide and I stepped into the hug. She needed a hug.

I needed one too.

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I jolted awake when I heard someone rooting around outside. The blinds in the bedroom were closed but I could still see the shadow cast by the moonlight around the edges of the window where the light still creeped in. Someone was outside.

Then came the knock at the door. Mom was out of bed in a heartbeat. She turned to me, where I'd been sleeping next to her during the night. We'd gotten rid of my bed since I'd shown the Shikotsumyaku, taking it apart and shoving it into the maintenance closet in the bedroom. It was to keep me hidden if anyone came to investigate the house.

"Chinatsu, get under the bed." Mom said calmly. Even in the dark I could tell she was anything but calm. I did what she asked without protest, scrambling under the bed even as more knocks resounded on the front door. "I'm coming!" Mom shouted to the front door, before draping the covers over the edge of the bed to hopefully shelter me from view. I had zero confidence it would work if it was indeed ninjas who'd come to check on us.

Mom hurriedly rushed out of the room towards the front door. I kept as still as possible as I heard the door unlock and open. Mom said something, but it was too quiet for me to make out. I couldn't see what was going on, the front door was out of line of sight to the bedroom. Even if it wasn't there was still this blanket in the way.

"Where's the child?" The person on the other side asked my mother. Male, low voice, growly and guttural. He spoke in a tone the said "I'm not going to tolerate bullshit".

My heart leapt into my throat. They knew about me?! How?! I'd never left the house! Except that one time but that was when I'd been one! Why would they wait this long to come for me?!

"She passed away two years ago…" Mother said. A cover story. Most people had probably seen mom walking around pregnant with me. It would be a good way to avoid suspicion of that.

I heard a loud smack and my mother scream before someone hit the ground. I flinched. He'd just hit my mother. "I'm not here for the lies! I'm here for the girl!" He barked, marching into the house. I counted the footsteps, there was more than one person. I reached into my sleeve. My heart was pounding in my ears.

What was going to happen to me?!

I heard my mother scream at them to stop. I heard someone strike her again and tell her to shut up. I saw the shadows of two sets of feet stride into the room from beneath the blanket. I drew the blade out of my sleeve. The blanket was suddenly lifted off the bed, and I lunged with the knife towards the pair of legs. I felt something hit the back of my head.

It all went black.

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I slowly blinked myself back into consciousness, shifting on what felt like sold earth and rock. I opened my eyes and had to take a minute to realize that I wasn't actually blind, but that it was just dark where I was. Where am I anyway?

"Mom?" I called out groggily. No response. "Mom?!" I called out again.

"You're mother's not here." A small voice called out from the dark and I squeaked in surprise, flinching. I started scanning the room, trying to spot someone in here from the shadows. Whoever it was sounded like they were about my age, but there was no way to be 100% sure of that. "Over here." They repeated, and I followed the sound of the voice. I could see a shock of white in the dark if I squinted really hard. I started trying to make my way towards them, but my face hit something hard and rounded and I cursed.

I started feeling around with my hands, trying to figure out what I'd hit. It was horizontal, rounded bar…connected to a vertical bar…and another vertical bar…connected to another horizontal bar. I felt a metal lock holding some of the parts together. I was in a cage. In a cave. Which means that that other person was…

"Who are you?" I asked the other person, voice shaking.

"My name is Kimimaro…" He said plainly. Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck! I was in the cave! I was in the prison cave for the Kaguya clan! No. Nonononono! What had they done to mom? Was she okay?! I don't know and that scared me. They hadn't killed her for having me, did they? The fact that I wouldn't be surprised with the Kaguya doing that scared me more than the fact I was in this cave was surprising. I wanted mom to be okay. I wanted to be able to see her again.

My head shot back up to stare at Kimimaro. He'd said something, but I'd missed it. "What?"

"I asked what your name was." He said.

"Uh…Chinatsu." I fumbled with my name. I hadn't had to introduce myself to anyone before then. We went silent after that. I didn't want to say anything, I didn't feel like talking to anybody. Right now, my brain was trying to come up with a way to get out of here. Trying and failing. I had no idea how to pick locks, I had zero confidence in my ability to be able to cut through these bars even if I could make a knife or ax. Which I can't, because I had no idea how to use my Kekkei Genkai. Even if I could, I was going to have to do it silently and quickly because these were ninjas I was dealing with here. And after that I'd have to deal with those same ninjas when I tried to sneak out.

And I was five.

"Why are you here too?" Kimimaro suddenly asked.

"Huh?"

"Why are you in here too? You must know what you did right?" He elaborated. His voice was shaking, barely but it was there.

I looked down at my feet, even though I couldn't really see them outside of a slight shift in the lighting where my skin stood out against the rock. I knew why. I had my clan's, our clan's kekkei genkai. The one they feared. The one they felt needed to be controlled and contained. I don't know anything about Kimimaro outside of his presence on the Sasuke retrieval mission, and his fight with Lee and Gaara. Should I tell him?

"It's because of my bones…" I said sadly.

"You're bones?" He sounded surprised.

"Yeah, I can shorta shift them…and when I broke my arm it healed fast." I explained. "At least, that's what I'm guessing…"

"Oh…so then you're like me…" He said. "But then what did I do wrong…? He muttered to himself, sounding disappointed. No…pained. Like what he'd gotten out of me wasn't what he'd wanted to hear.

"I don't know…" I admitted. I actually didn't know enough about Kimimaro to know for sure if he hadn't done anything before this. I only knew that I didn't deserve to be in here. I knew I'd done nothing wrong. Mother and I had just been minding our own business when the clan had busted in a taken me away.

Silence descended on us once again. The two of us separated by our respective cages.

The only thing that broke that silence was when some hateful bastard of a Kaguya showed up and slid food under the bars of our cages with his foot. I didn't go for the food until he'd left, instead having curled up into the back corner.

But once he left I dug into the terrible table-scraps of food. I was hungry…