Sorry for not updating sooner. College happened. Enjoy. :)

My skull crashed against the meaty fist of my attacker, a brutish man with dark hair who, along with his three friends, had me cornered in the cafeteria and was proceeding to beat my face in with my own tray. I ducked the blow. The metal hit the wall with a clang, which I hoped and prayed would catch the attention of the guards. I slid under his arcing deathblow only to have his gray-haired friend heel-kick me in the stomach. I saw it coming. I even knew exactly how to dodge it. But those damned sedatives and the chakra-sucking collar snaked around my neck made my limbs feel like two tons of jello. I blocked. I fought. I was still getting my ass handed to me.

I knew who they were, my attackers. Rather, I knew of them. The big one was Nango. Large and quiet he may have been, but he was much smarter than he let on, especially when it came to fighting. The scrawny, gray-haired one was Chushin. A sadist and a loudmouth. He laughed giddily as he grabbed me by the hair and threw his bony fist into my eye. I caught him by the wrist before he could land the blow, barely, and jabbed him in the kidney with a fork I had hidden in my sleeve. He cursed me something fierce and threatened swift vengeance, but he backed away, trying to wiggle the fork free from his abdomen. Benten, who I would've sworn was a woman until I heard him talk, wrapped his arms around my neck and squeezed, all the while laughing at Chushin's suffering. Akaboshi, their cool and collected leader, was watching the fight unfold along with fifty-some other prisoners who were all huddled around our corner, laughing, cheering, and trying to keep the guards from saving me. Together, these four called themselves the Magaki group.

Benten was relentless, and my lungs were begging for oxygen. I elbowed him in the ribs, but he held firm. I tried again and again to no avail. As I felt my consciousness failing me, the prisoners suddenly scattered and Benten let go of my neck. I gasped for air and drew in an enormous cloud of smoke, doubling over in a coughing fit. Two people lifted me by the arms and dragged me out of the chaos. When the smoke had left my eyes, I found myself kneeling and bleeding in the middle of the band-aid station, the pint-sized medical wing of the prison, affectionately named so because all they really did was slap a band-aid on you and kick your ass out.

I noticed there was only one guard in the room, Kotetsu. The other had left and, in short time, began hauling in a few more injured inmates. One was Chushin, that dickbag. Much to my delight, the fork was still stuck in him. He sneered at me. "Have a nice breakfast?"

"Hn."

He laughed coldly. "I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to lunch."

Kotetsu smacked the back of his head and warned him to be quiet before he and Izumo herded us into separate rooms. Izumo stayed with me, helping the nurse stop the blood gushing out of my split lip and eyebrow. She was kind of cute, the nurse. But her breath smelled of liquor and she had worse bedside manners than Hoshigaki Kisame. Although, I would too if I had to work in that godawful place.

"Making friends already, eh Kakashi-san?" Izumo said with a chuckle, trying to lighten the mood.

"Not bad for my first day, right?"

A stiff silence passed between us, and Izumo rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "We should've been there earlier. I'm sorry for that."

"Don't worry about it. You can't watch me all the time," I said. "Although, it might help if you lightened up on the sedatives just a tad."

"You know I can't do that, Kakashi-san," Izumo said solemnly. "Danzo-san was very insistent that you be watched closely. And there have been ANBU members lurking around here every hour since you arrived. If they caught on..."

"I understand..." I said, sighing. Fucking Danzo.

Izumo handed me a clean towel and an ice-pack. "Did you get anything to eat before they..."

"Kicked the shit out of me?"

"Um... Yeah."

I nodded.

"How was it?"

I shrugged. "It was pretty good."

He sighed. "You didn't eat anything, did you?"

"Nope."

"I'll bring some pieces of bread to your cell if-"

"No. I've already got half the prison trying to kill me," I said. "I don't want to give them any more reason to hate me."

He nodded. "Well, it only gets worse, I'm afraid," he said. I grimaced. "We tried to... Well, the prison is so over-populated already... Your cell was the only one available, so..."

"So?"

"You're going to have a cellmate."

"I wha..."

The nurse picked that exact moment to stick me in the ass with a needle. I yelled and swung at her. She stuck me again. I meant to ask her what her problem was, but I didn't make it past "Mmuh" before I fell ungracefully to the floor. It turned out they were testing a new anesthetic.

I woke up with a massive headache, starving and tangled in my own bedsheets. They must've given me another shot of sedatives, as it was a struggle just to escape the mess of sheets.

"Need some help?"

I backpedaled to the wall and prepared for a fight, my sheets still wrapped around my ankles. "Who are you?"

"Eiriasu," he replied, sitting casually on his tattered mattress, twirling a piece of chalk in his hand which he was using to play hang man and tic-tac-toe. I didn't find out until later how he had managed to play against himself. "My hobbies include making voodoo dolls out of the shitty prison soap and finger bones – if I make them well enough, I sell them to stupid people – I'm a volunteer assistant for the shank-making class, and I'm El Presidente of PETA, People for the Execution of Terrible Actors. I currently work as a full-time cleaner of the gene pool and part time village lunatic. My favorite food is a burrito, especially if it isn't mine. My favorite color is blood. And I have a degree in awesome and a minor in batshit crazy."

"It's nice to meet you..." Jashin, I hope he's joking. "I'm Kakashi."

"...And?"

"And … My hobbies include reading, and... I'm not in any clubs or cults or whatever else. I don't currently have a job. My favorite food is miso soup, especially if it is mine. My favorite color is blue. And I don't have a degree in anything."

He gave me an odd glance, as if I was the one who was crazy. "How long've you been in?"

"Just got here," I replied.

"Me too. Well, I was transferred from Mist Village because the throat I slit happened to belong to some shitbag from the Leaf Village." He pointed at my battle wounds and said, "Helluva bump you've got there, friendo,"

I rubbed the tender bruises with the tips of my fingers, feeling how swollen they'd gotten. "Hm. How long have I been out?"

He shrugged. "You were still napping when I got here and all through lunch and yard work and play time and now it's about dinner. So I'd say seven or eight hours at least."

"Great..."

"Mhm. So whaddya do?"

I felt my heart skip a beat and my mind went into overdrive. If I tell him the truth, he'll kill me (or cut off my fingers). If I lie, he'll find out in due time and kill me (or shank me). "My partner and I were going to rob this house. Usually, we'd watch the place for awhile, wait until we were sure everyone was gone, but we were desperate and stupid," I said, whispering so the other inmates couldn't overhear and blow my cover. "Well, turned out the house was empty. But it was being staked out by ANBU. Anyway, we fought. My partner and one of the ANBU members were killed by a paper bomb, and I was held responsible."

"Hm."

I swallowed hard. If he didn't believe me...

He rubbed his nose. "Bullshit."

I'm dead. "Excuse me?"

"Bull. Shit. A common thief, who didn't even kill somebody, gets this much shit just after getting thrown in prison? Maybe, if you stomped on one of the big bad's toes, but you don't look that stupid. And that purty necklace you've got 'round your neck? No one gets a chakra-restraint like that except terrorists. Shit, that thing isn't even legal. So, the way I sees it, either you are a terrorist or you're a shinobi turned Sith Lord... a Star Wars terrorist."

I stared at him blankly. "How do you know all this?"

"I had to remove one once. A guy I used to work with had one just like it. He wasn't a terrorist or anything, mind you. Just a regular complete monster and omnicidal maniac. Funny as hell, though. There wasn't a prison that could hold him, so they slapped that there thing on him. He still got out." He paused for a moment, a weird grin on his face as if he was reminiscing on old times. Then he looked at me again. "So whaddya do?"

I sighed in exasperation, using the short amount of time to decide if I should roll with his terrorist theory or just tell him the truth. "I'm a shinobi turned … whatever it was you said..."

"Sith Lord."

"Yeah, that... Well, not really... They accused me of trying to assassinate one of our elders. It was a setup, though."

"Why?"

I shrugged. "I can't say for sure. But I'd bet he's trying to overthrow the Hokage and claim the throne for himself."

He rubbed his nose again. "Whatta douchebag."

I laughed. "Yeah..." He was still sitting casually on his mattress. And I didn't notice any shanks or finger-cutting tools within his reach, not that he would need it to kill me, big as he was. "So..."

"Hm?"

"You're not going to kill me?"

"No, I'm good. Thanks."

I breathed deeply and my stomach un-knotted itself.

With violent sharpness, the cell doors opened, clanging in unison.

"Dinner time!" my cellie said with an excited grin.

Ah hell...