A/N: I'm probably going to regret posting all my pre-written chapters so quickly, especially once I run out. (two more after this)

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Hold On (be strong)

Chapter 4

I called shenanigans on this bullshit.

So, best guess, those tags had been chakra suppression/restriction seals of some sort, and now any iota of control I had managed before had gone right out the window. Three more attempts to climb, three more little toddler handprints pressed into solid metal that I would've had trouble denting as a fully-grown adult, and to my dismay I could no longer even achieve that mild sticking effect anymore.

Biting down on the flesh of my cheek in silent frustration, I gave up on the direct route and moved over until I was standing before bare stone. I took a couple minutes to breathe and try to calm down, which really didn't work well because I was a spiteful grudge-holder and used to succeeding in anything I tried my hand at pretty quickly. I wasn't used to failure (unless you counted math). I still tried, though, and I was slightly, marginally, less frustrated when I reached out and pressed my palm flat to gritty stone. Slowly pushing chakra down my arm—

And I may or may not have shrieked in inarticulate rage when a tiny layer of rock sheered off from the wall like shale, where it stuck to my hand and crumbled. I'm not telling.

I will also not admit to balling up a blanket for the sole purpose of absolutely waling on it.

After what may or may not have been a tantrum induced nap, I was just a little bit calmer, and had also been struck with an idea.

Once more skulking into the cell, I crouched down beside the barred hole in the corner, considering it. If the bars weren't there, I wouldn't even have to squeeze to fit down there. Yes, that was also the hole I used to do my business, but it had to go somewhere. The room never flooded from the constant stream of water from my drinking pipe; the room never smelled like waste or stagnant water. Sometimes I could even hear the water sloshing or moving faster, which meant it either came from or went somewhere.

I wrapped my fingers around one of the bars, and found with some vindicated satisfaction that it was thin enough for my thumb to just barely overlap the first joint of my index finger. I now had the ability to dent metal on accident; time to see what I could do on purpose.

Tapping my knuckle on the bar, I spent a minute thinking about the best way to approach the problem before pushing chakra into it. I didn't know how big that drain was, how deep the water was or how much empty air there was before I hit water, so it probably wasn't smart to try bending the bars straight down. I also wanted to make the largest possible gap to reduce the risk of getting stuck…

Eight bars, about two inches space between each; I would definitely want to go down feet-first. The hole was in a corner, bars parallel to one wall and perpendicular to another; the water pipe only stuck out about three inches from one wall, but drained into a center-space—ugh, the cold water that trickled from it would be awful to work around. But I had my plan, now, even if I had to grudgingly shed my shirt to do it, because it was worse to wear wet clothing and risk getting sick.

(If I got caught escaping because I got held up from a fucking cold so help me god…)

I would work from the outside, inward, pushing the most distant bars as much as I could to clear the center, then start again on those closest to me, pulling by degrees until I made the largest hole I could.

Critical-fucking-thinking. Making tools out of unconventional non-tool items, coming up with creative solutions to hypothetical problems. I'd always hated strategy games, but ask me how to get something out of twelve-foot circle without stepping inside, using only shoelaces, eraser nubs, and paperclips, and you'd better believe I could do it.

It was wholly satisfying to make use of that long-unused skill for something so worthwhile.

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Potentially exhausting my chakra only occurred to me once, while I took a break to dig through the cabinet for the jars of food powder I knew were there. Within the first five minutes of bar-bending I'd realized that it wouldn't be done quickly, because while pushing chakra into the metal would dent it, it wouldn't bend the way I needed it to without physical effort behind it. The first bar had been pushed satisfyingly flush to the wall, but my arms ached from the unaccustomed exercise, to say nothing of my hands and back from the effort of pushing.

So I needed to pace myself, no matter how anxious slowing down made me, and I needed to eat to refuel my reserves to keep working. My stomach burned with hunger.

In between scooping a bit of powder into the bowl and mixing it into a paste with a little water and two fingers, my mind wandered back to that resolution and poked it curiously, and. Huh. How did someone recognize chakra exhaustion? Besides the obvious fainting-and-unconscious-for-x-days. How much of my chakra was I even using to make the bars malleable enough to shape?

I honestly couldn't tell. My chakra was just…there, present, like a thought lingering at the back of my mind. Available whenever I tried to call it up, in all its wild, uncontrolled glory. So unless something changed while I was working, the limits of my chakra wasn't something I was likely to know until I ran headfirst into it.

Well. Something to look forward to.

Break over, I set my bowl aside with a hollow wooden clunk and gave one last stretch before stalking back into the coolness of cell. Unfortunate discovery of my limits notwithstanding, I wouldn't call it a night until at least two more bars were bent.

Some unknown amount of time later, but shortly after I reached the halfway point –discovering, to my great relief, that pulling was easier on my body than pushing– I noticed that the overhead light in the 'doctor's office' was now dimmer than the orange light of the cell. I didn't waste precious time cursing or contemplating, but hurried to ransack the place of anything that might be even the slightest bit helpful to my efforts, because doing so blind didn't appeal.

My loot was thus; two scalpels, five changes of clothes, four jars of food powder, three large IV bags full of an unknown clear liquid, three coils of medical grade tubing, two sterile needles in packaging, six small bottles which presumably contained some type of liquid medicine (or venom), two unused syringes, and one new blanket (that I immediately added to my nest).

I didn't immediately go back to widening the hole afterwards, lingering over the pile of loot, picking it up and turning it over because I had an idea. It was the work of minutes to unwrap some of the flexible tubing and knot a loop of it just below the lid of one of the jars, and then I was crouched over my escape-hole-in-the-making and lowering the weighty jar into the darkness. I went slowly, and immediately drew it back up the moment the vibration of glass on stone shook up the rubber looped around my fist, hand over hand, and then less carefully once I'd felt wetness. With the jar sitting upright on the floor and the tube held taut vertically…the water down there was midway up my toddler-self's chest.

Somewhat grim, I added 'make a flotation device' to my needs, right under 'finish making the goddamn escape hole'. It didn't matter how strong a swimmer I may or may not have been—exhaustion killed, and I didn't know how long that drainage pipe was.

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I double and triple-checked my knots again, pulling as hard as I could at the tubes braided around my chest and the now air-filled IV bags attached to them, and deemed it as acceptable as it could be. The hardest part was deciding what I could afford to bring with me; what I wanted to take versus what I could realistically transport through the unknown terrain I would be diving into. So I was wearing three shirts, two pairs of shorts, and had one jar of food powder and the scalpels wrapped in another set of clothes, nestled into my bowl and tucked into my shirt, tight against my belly.

Well. One way or another, it was time to leave.

I fell into the dark unknown, leaving the cell behind me.

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Everything hurt, but I didn't even care.

It was bright, so bright I could barely open my eyes –and, wow, my left eye was actually really sensitive– but worth it because that was the sky up there. Those were trees around me, moving air that didn't stink of damp stone or death or antiseptic. Colors. Sounds, animal sounds, living, moving things that I couldn't really feel, but also didn't feel like fear or pain or slowly building stress-hysteria-madness.

Eventually, the sun moved enough that I was no longer lying directly in a sunbeam, and then I had to move because I was still half-submerged in the water and I was getting cold again. My fingers clenched, and I didn't even grimace at the gross feeling of stringy-rotten grass and slimy mud welling up between them, because it was still a new sensation to this body and I welcomed it.

Less welcome was what I discovered when I forced my recalcitrant body to sit up.

I was dizzy, a pulsing throb spread over my forehead that suggested I had smacked it pretty good when the water level in the tunnel had abruptly risen and quickened. More alarming was the state of the layered smocks plastered to my skin. The grayish cotton was stained all the colors of blood, fresh-bright and vivid over my belly, brownish and paler as the water leeched it outwards. I no longer had the bowl that…fuck, that had contained the glass jar full of food powder. My floats drifted sluggishly in the current, just barely attached to me by the last knot.

I cautiously pressed one little hand to my belly—the wetness there was sticky and warm, fresh. Oh, fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.

The pain spiked high enough to drag a groan out of my unused throat when I begun pulling myself backwards, away from the bank of the little river, leaving the repurposed IV bags to drift away like awkward bubbles in the slow current. When the ground under me no longer squished, I stopped, panting in exhaustion and anxious frustration both. Peeling the soaking, muddy smocks up over my head was (a mistake) so breath-stealingly painful that I had to stop, retching into the iron-smelling cotton that was stuck to my face, then sobbing aloud when that only made it worse.

My stomach looked like it'd had razor wire dragged over it. There were still little pieces of glass stuck into the gashes, and I couldn't even get them out because my fingers were numb and touching the wounds was like stabbing myself with a hot poker. The skin around it –that wasn't loose and bloodless from being submerged in water for however long– already looked inflamed, felt hot with the start of infection. The cuts weren't actively bleeding –seeping, maybe–, but I couldn't even remember if that was supposed to be good or bad. Bad, probably.

With much more care than I had given to sitting up, I laid down again, the brilliantly green grass warm and only a little itchy against my bare back. I swallowed thickly and felt my eyes burn treacherously.

Well. I'd escaped, anyway. If only I'd thought to wrap the jar one more time, or leave it behind entirely.

What a stupid fucking way to die.

I'd lived through Orochimaru for, what? Two years? A little more? And this was what would do me in? Infection or blood loss, unable to even stand?

…maybe I'd 'wake up' in a different life, again. A different place.

…but I'd really wanted to be here! I wanted to play with my chakra! Maybe not get involved with all the drama of the 'story', but this world was so cool.

Almost petulantly, I tugged on that feeling inside, wild vitality and vast, boundless energy. It was mine, and I hadn't even gotten to learn to do anything with it.

I hadn't gotten to do anything. My legacy was in whatever notes Orochimaru left behind, a few baby-sized handprints dug into a metal cabinet… A little skeleton near a riverbank that might be found one day, or might be washed away in the next flood.

Fuck, I was crying again. Fucking useless.

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The chills started up just a little before sunset. I ignored the sensations as much as I could, greedily taking in the scenery instead. This would be a peaceful place to die, anyway. Much better than the last. (Definitely better than the cell.) The sound of the river was soothing, and when the wind shifted I could smell warm, rich earth instead of the cloying reek of the smocks heaped nearby. Once, I saw a flock of birds.

It was noisy out here, compared to the cell and lab, but it was a good kind of noisy. I rather liked tree frogs, and they seemed plentiful.

The sunset was magnificent. I couldn't remember the last time I'd just watched the sky change, even before the fire. Orange to pink to purple, dark blue, and then…stars. So many stars, so clear without smog or light pollution. They were beautiful.

I was too tired to feel anything besides mildly resentful, anymore, so when my eyes burned and the stars blurred and swirled overhead, well… After that I let the creeping cold drag me under to sleep. Maybe I'd have a better chance wherever I woke up next.

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Something touched my cheek, alive and vital like Orochimaru, but also not. It took me too long to pry my eyes open, like they were crusted shut, but I was too weak to rub at them, could only just make my fingers twist into the lush, cold grass. The light was dim and gray, everything blurry like looking through frosted glass, but I could see a fuzzy blotch of white-orange-black looming over my head. And. Eyes?

They(?) said something(?) and the little touch on my cheek trailed up, closer to my eye, and this was all very interesting but I felt so tired, even with the way my chakra was surging so restlessly –almost violently– under my skin, and I couldn't.

My world flipped and wretched sideways, and everything went blessedly black again.