Warnings: Torture and death of children.


"We'll be alright!" Hiroko yelled as Mayuri walked away. Her voice was tiny and lisping, yet it seemed to fill the cavern with its intensity. "I love you! I love you, and I'll find a way to get you back! I promise!"

Mayuri ignored the way her heart seemed to stutter inside her chest. There was something dangerous inside that promise, an intensity that left her worried but warmed. Hiroko could be fierce and protective, and it made Mayuri love her all the more, but her sister could also be reckless. Hiroko was dangerous in her convictions.

"I'll be back, Hiro. I promise."

The words tasted like ash in her mouth. She could hear the way Hiroko's breath hitched, see the desperation and fear in her eyes. There were tears welling in her own eyes despite her best efforts to stop them, and she could only hope Hiroko didn't see as they spilled over. Mayuri didn't want her to worry, or to know just how afraid she was.

As the door shut behind her, she could hear the beginnings of Hiroko's cries. It made her heart feel tight in her chest. Her throat seemed to be closing up as she fought back her own sobs; she had managed to really fuck this up, but she didn't know what else she was supposed to do.

She couldn't kill that boy. There was no way in hell she would have been able to. Just the thought made Mayuri feel sick. Even so, she probably shouldn't have snapped at Orochimaru like that. She shouldn't have drawn his attention in the first place. She should have just kept working through her pain and exhaustion, so he didn't have any reason to take notice of her in the first place.

She grit her teeth and clenched her fists, feeling the bones – both beneath her skin and not – shift and grow with her agitation. Only a few minutes had passed, and already she could feel the weight of regret and uncertainty resting heavy on her shoulders. Her knees felt almost too weak to continue holding her up, trembling with the leftover dregs of adrenaline and desperation. Still, she pressed on.

The bones that had curled their way around her shoulders and neck were shaken off, and they clattered loudly to the stone. The hollow sound echoed throughout the passageway and Kabuto paused briefly to glance over his shoulder at her, brow furrowing slightly as he noted the bones littering the floor around her.

"You'll scare someone half to death like that," he said, though he didn't sound particularly concerned with the idea.

Mayuri simply shrugged in response. Some distant part of her felt a little bit bad about just leaving the misshapen bones there for some random person to stumble upon, the same kind of guilt she got at the thought of littering, like her body parts were just the same as crumpled wrappers and empty cups. She shook the feeling off quickly, knowing that if she stopped to pick her own bloodied bones off the floor, she would collapse right on the spot and not be able to continue moving forwards. Kabuto hummed, before shrugging as well and continuing on.

"I'll have Risa collect them later," he decided. His voice was soft and airy, as though he was just thinking aloud. Mayuri could practically feel the way the words were pointed, though, directed right at her. "After all, they're harder than most metals. I'm sure she could find some use for them, since you discard them so easily."

It was almost comical, just how dark the thought was. If she wouldn't kill someone for them, they would still find a way to make her body serve the same purpose. It was almost a gloat. We get what we want, one way or the other.

Still, she was too stubborn and too upset to change her mind now. Turning around and kneeling to gather up her discarded bones would feel too much like conceding to defeat of some kind, so she just shrugged again and made a noncommittal little humming sound. She wondered if Hiroko would recognize the glistening white of her bones, if she found herself painting them after they had been turned into tools for the village.

That seemed morbid. Mayuri wanted to laugh again, and she also wanted to slam her fist against the wall, through the wall, bring the entire base crumbling down around her as she howled with mirth. Instead she just walked silently behind Kabuto, waiting for him to speak and unwilling to break her own silence. The halls were empty. She was cold.

He lead her on a roundabout route, going down halls she didn't know and through empty doorways and entrances hidden by rocks and shadows. As they walked further into unfamiliar territory, beginning to pass through heavy doors unlocked by a burst of chakra and never once seeing another living soul, she felt her head hanging lower and her steps growing heavier. She hadn't even realized she'd been hoping that someone would try to save her until that hope was slipping from between her fingers.

The caverns they passed through seemed to stretch on endlessly, darkness lapping at their corners, throwing the ceiling into impossible yawning emptiness. Their route had no rhyme or reason, unlike the village, whose passages were laid out like a maze but were easy to naviagate once one had lived there long enough and learned the tricks. These passages and caverns, though undeniably part of Orochimaru's domain, were not a part of the village that she had tentatively begun thinking of as home. The realization only served to make her more nervous, a creeping certainty that death was not the only thing planned for her future.

The passages grew damp and cool, much to her shock. Moisture gathered on the walls and glistened like crystals in the flickering light. The smell of dirt and earth tickled her senses, the first hint of the outside world she had felt in years. She was so used to the careful climate control and filtered air of Otogakure that the sudden sensation of damp and dry, earth and dirt, left her nose twitching like she needed to sneeze.

The thought that perhaps they were going outside made her head spin.

"What are we doing?" she asked, forgetting for a second her stubborn silence. Kabuto didn't even seem to notice her speaking, continuing on like she hadn't said a word. She made a face, lips pursing and brow furrowing. "If you're leading me to certain doom, I'd rather know about it now."

"Do you think this is a joke?" he asked, mild and pleasant. It made chills climb her spine despite the unusual warmth of the air around her. She chewed her lip and tasted blood, swallowing down the nervous babbling that wanted to spill from her mouth.

"I think I'm probably going to get hurt if I think it's anything less than serious."

"You're going to die if you try to treat this like a game," he corrected, and Mayuri faltered at his bluntness. She was so used to his pretty words and careful mask that that sort of honestly was shocking. Then, it sunk in what he was trying to say, and she froze. Kabuto turned to face her, his expression grave as he continued. "You either take this seriously, or you and everyone you love will suffer for it."

"Oh." The word was barely a breath. Her mind felt blank, all the worries and plans falling away in the face of this revelation. Her knees felt weak, and some distant part of her wondered what Kabuto was thinking as he watched her try to process his words. He seemed to be waiting for something, but when she gave no further reaction, Kabuto simply turned away and started walking again.

She had no choice but to follow, eyes bleary and legs trembling slightly with each step. Some part of her brain was foggy, convinced that this was nothing more than a nightmare, just another elaborate dream. It was so hard to tell them from reality, sometimes. The stones digging into the soles of her bare feet and the way her nails bit into her palms, as muted as the sensations were, reminded her that this was reality. She couldn't afford to keep messing up, not if she wanted to keep herself and Hiroko and Dosu safe.

They passed through hallways lined with bars, eyes staring out at them from the darkness within. Voices hissed and spat curses at them as they passed, most of the ruckus directed at Kabuto. The boy didn't so much as flinch, but Mayuri couldn't help the anxiety that crept within her at the killing intent that filled these hallways.

A few more halls, and they reached what looked like a cell block. It felt like a scene right out of a horror movie. The torches were spaced out to throw entire sections of the halls into overwhelming darkness, and there were countless voices whispering and sobs echoing down the halls. It smelled like blood and piss and sweat. As Kabuto took his first step into the torchlight, Mayuri trailing behind him, there was a shrill whistle from somewhere down the block. Immediately, everything fell into absolute silence. It was like people were afraid to even breathe.

Mayuri felt her mouth go dry. Even with everything she had seen and experienced in this world, even after seeing Kabuto cruel and cold, it was still strange to wrap her mind around the idea that people could be so very scared of him. Sure, the people of Otogakure were wary of the boy genius, but it was nothing like the kind of fear that could cause this earth-shattering silence or the rage from the previous halls.

"Kabuto, what's going—" she began, only to cut herself off at the look he gave her. It was a sharp warning to be quiet, his eyes narrowed and glinting like shrapnel and his lips pressed into a tight, severe line. She didn't know if he was giving her that look because of the familiarity with which she spoke to him, or because she dared to speak at all. Either way, she heeded the silent warning and swallowed down her questions and kept her mouth shut.

The last thing she wanted was to give him or anyone else any more reason to get her in trouble. He led her down the hall, and as they passed by each of the cells, she couldn't help but stare at the shadowy figures that lingered just beyond the bars. A few stared back, the bloodshot whites of their eyes all she could see within the shadows of their faces. Most of them just kept their heads down as she and Kabuto passed by.

They stopped in front of a cell that looked just like every single other one. A yawning hole in the cave wall, covered in bars and seals. The only thing that distinguished this cell from the others was a series of markings she couldn't read carved above the entrance, along with its number, 4.

As she watched, Kabuto formed a series of handsigns too fast for her eyes to follow. He murmured something, his voice low and smooth, and pressed a hand to one of the seals positioned near the center of the bars. From within the cell, a cacophony of soft voices rose. It sent a shiver down her spine.

As the bars began to retract, Kabuto called, "If any one of you tries anything, everyone will suffer for it." The countless shadows shifted in a nervous, seething mass as Kabuto took a step inside, sharp eyes scanning over them like he could pick out individuals through the darkness. "Come here, Saya-chan."

There was a pause, the voices falling silent and the shadows going still. Then, a figure emerged from the darkness and stepped forwards into the dim light. The mass of shadows began moving again, the whispers picking back up, but so quietly that Mayuri couldn't make out anything that was being said.

Saya was tall and broad, with long, messy, teal curls. Despite the grime that covered every inch of her like an extra layer of skin, she was pretty in a way that seemed out of place in this dark, dank place. Her eyes were a glowing blue, radiant even in the darkness, and when she smiled, Mayuri could see fangs.

"What can I do for you?" Saya asked, her voice low and sweet and poisonous. Her luminous eyes were trained on Mayuri, and she seemed hungry in a way that food could never satisfy. Mayuri resisted the urge to hide behind Kabuto like a child.

"This is Mayuri-chan," Kabuto said, stepping aside and pushing her forwards with a hand on her shoulder. "I want you to show her the ropes and explain to her what is happening. Answer any questions she has."

"How exciting," Saya murmured, licking her lips. She glanced towards Kabuto, her eyes half lidded, and smiled coyly. She seemed to be practically purring as she said, "I'll be sure to do my best, Kabuto-kun."

Kabuto frowned, just the slightest downwards twitch at the corner of his lips. Quick as a striking snake, his hand darted out and grabbed Saya by the front of her ragged shirt. He dragged her towards him, somehow managing to scowl down at her despite the fact that she was a few inches taller. She shrunk back, eyes going wide and the smile frozen on her lips.

"If anything happens to her outside of the arena, you will only wish you were dead," he hissed. Mayuri wondered distantly if he had learned that particular trick from Orochimaru. It was certainly having a similar effect, if the way that the girl whimpered was any indication. Kabuto's mouth curled into the cruel imitation of a smile and he released his hold, sending Saya stumbling backwards. "I'm glad we're on the same page."

Saya straightened her top and fluffed her messy hair, like she was trying to regain some sense of dignity. Kabuto watched her, bored expression and cold eyes, and then he stepped back out of the light. Mayuri turned to watch him go, and she was too scared to even make a move to follow after him.

He left without a word or backwards glance, and that stung like betrayal.

The whispers persisted as the echoes of his footsteps faded, rising and falling like the tide, too many voices mingling until she couldn't actually understand anything that was being said. She could feel tears slipping down her face as the bars closed over the cell's entrance, trapping her inside with Saya and the ones that formed the shadow. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and wiped her cheeks.

Saya turned to look down at her, lips curling like she wanted to scowl but was forcing herself to smile. Under that twisted expression, Mayuri couldn't help but feel very small. Mentally, she had probably a good 15 years on this girl. Physically, however, she was years younger and at least a foot smaller. Her tiny size and young age were going to be all that Saya and anyone else in this cavernous cell were going to see, and that was all that was going to matter. It was going to make her a target, more likely than not.

Intimidation wasn't going to do her any good here, not until she could do something to prove that she could back up any threats she made. From what she could make out, the individuals that made up the mass of shadows were all small. Young. She wouldn't be able to use her age to gain any sympathy, either. It really didn't leave many options, besides….

She took a deep breath, swallowed down the fear rising in her throat, and bowed low. She could feel herself trembling and wished it was easier to hide. She pasted on the brightest smile she could manage, making sure it reached her eyes. When she spoke, it was light and cheerful, loud enough to reach the majority of the people lurking just beyond her circle of light despite the fact that she was addressing the ground.

"My name is Mayuri. It's a pleasure to meet you!"

Using a clan name was a risk she wasn't willing to take just yet. If someone held a grudge or wanted to challenge a child from a clan, it would make her an immediate target. However, later on, once she knew people one-on-one, the prestige that came along with bearing the name of one of Water Country's noble clans might benefit her. It was much smarter to stay anonymous for now. She needed people to like her, if she was going to get through this ordeal without getting hurt.

Speaking of which, she still needed to actually find out what was going on. She had no idea what any of this was, other than the ominous warning that it was a very serious matter. She had a sneaking suspicion about what was going to happen, but she was very resolutely ignoring the terror clawing at her brain until she knew for sure that this was another kind of horrific experimentation.

"I'm sorry, but would you please explain what's going on? Kabuto-san didn't tell me anything before bringing me here." It was easy to slip into the routine of wide-eyed sincerity, overt politeness, and a sweet and soothing tone of voice. It was usually the easiest mask to wear, one she had donned frequently in both lives. She liked to think it was close to the real her, even though most days she found it hard to know for sure. She usually just felt hollow, if she stopped to think on it too hard.

"You're fucked," Saya spat back, much to Mayuri's surprise. After a pause, though, she added, "And also lucky you've got this chance."

Mayuri blinked wide eyes at her, and hoped that the blood leftover from the fight just a little while before didn't detract from her friendly visage. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that not a lot of people get the opportunity you're gonna get down here. If you win enough fights and get Orochimaru-sama or any of the big names' attention, you've got a shot at being a shinobi of Otogakure."

Mayuri wisely did not say, "I was already in the academy for that, so I'll just head back and finish that up instead, thanks," no matter how much she wanted to. Obviously, since she had already been on the more hygienic and less creepy fast track to that exact goal, that was not the reason she was down here. Which brought her right back around to the thought that this was either punishment or a lesson of some kind. Or an experiment. Maybe all three.

She wished she was better at getting into people's heads. It would make this whole situation, and many others, so much easier. Even as that thought crossed her mind, though, she realized how useless it was. After all, she wished she could stop the nervous twitching and the way her teeth chattered when she was scared. She wished she could stop seeing old eyes in the mirror or waking from dreams calling for people that never came. Wishing hadn't done her any good for the past couple years, and that probably wasn't going to change, so she shook the thought from her mind and instead smiled up at Saya like her words were the best news she'd ever heard.

"Really? That would be so cool!" she gushed, only to falter slightly as the forced smile dropped off Saya's face.

"You won't last two days," she sighed, almost too soft for Mayuri to hear. Then, she turned on her heel and marched forwards, disappearing into the shadows. Mayuri could still hear her clearly, though, as she called out, "Follow me, you little twerp."

Mayuri rushed to obey, stumbling over her own feet as she went. As she stepped out of the pool of torchlight and her eyes adjusted to the darkness, the mass of shadows became more easily separated into individuals of all shapes and sizes. Every single face she could see was young, watching her warily, sizing her up. She smiled shyly at anyone who made eye contact. No one smiled back.

"Stick close to me," Saya ordered from somewhere up ahead. When she turned to glance over her shoulder to check that Mayuri was keeping up, her eyes were still glowing despite the darkness. It would make her easier to keep track of, hopefully. "You're gonna get hurt if you wander off alone."

If the eyes watching her from gaunt, hungry faces were any indication, her fellow cellmates were eager to do far more than just hurt her. Mayuri fought to keep any indication of fear off her features, ignored the way her legs shook and her teeth chattered, and practically glued herself to Saya's side, smiling despite the scowl that the other girl sent her way.


When she woke up the next day, there was a moment of confusion. She was curled against a warm body, and the warm golden rays of early morning sunshine were right in her eyes. For one short, glorious, painful moment, she thought that the last few years had been nothing but a dream. She was home, and she and her fiance had just fallen asleep on the floor after marathoning the newest season of American Horror Story the night before. The soreness was because of work and nothing more. It smelled funny because the new puppy was still in the process of being housetrained. For a second, everything was perfect.

But then reality hit her. The memories rushed back in, the reality of her situation crushing her beneath its burden. She scooted away from Saya, who she had apparently pressed herself against sometime in the night, and curled in on herself. She squeezed her eyes shut and fought back the tears that were burning beneath her eyelids. She told herself that this overwhelming sense of loss was nothing new, and she needed to suck it up.

For a moment, she tried to go back to sleep. She wanted to forget again, to pretend that she was home and safe and loved. The stone floor and the chilly air and the too-bright light made it hard to do so.

She sat up, eyes flying open. Bright light? There had only been the shadowed, flickering light of torches for so long. This was new, familiar and comforting. This was—

Sunlight. Her eyes went wide, a hand rising to press over her mouth at the sight of warm golden light filtering in through cracks in the ceiling above and illuminating the cavern. It was splotchy and dappled, casting darker shadows wherever its light didn't reach. It should have seemed ominous. It should have filled her heart with dread to see the darkness encroaching in new and even more stifling ways. Where there was light, the darkness only grew more overpowering.

As she held a trembling hand out to catch the golden rays in her palm, Mayuri couldn't help the smile that spread over her face or the tears that finally overflowed. The sunshine danced as the breeze blew so close overhead and shifted leaves that she could not see or hear or touch. Mayuri couldn't help but think that it was the most beautiful thing she had seen since the first time she had met with Hiroko, whole and alive.

Somehow, this gentle reminder that there was a world outside these stone walls worked to fill her chest with something light and bubbling. It didn't drive away the despair, but it did work to taper it and make it more manageable. She smiled, and allowed herself a moment of hope.


They called it The Underground. Though it was connected to the village proper through an intricate maze of secret tunnels, the people being held in The Underground weren't actually considered citizens of Otogakure. They did, however, all aspire to become citizens, which was usually achieved through winning bloody battles that were occasionally to the death. It would have made for an interesting book or show, one full of action and adventure and glory, back in her world.

In this world, though, it was a miserable and horrific existence. There was nothing glamorous or exciting about it. All but a very select few went to bed hungry and scared, woke up to the smell of piss and blood and unwashed bodies, and lived every moment wondering if they were about to be called to the arena to die. The few who didn't were called the "Champions" by the other kids. They were the ones who beat every opponent they were faced with, and were known for being ruthless and cruel. They were more likely to get more to eat and had special privileges not afforded to others. They were the ones most likely to achieve their goal of leaving The Underground and becoming shinobi. The Champions were the people that everyone wanted to be.

At least, that was how Saya explained it. She was probably at least a little biased, though, considering she was one.

"If you're one of the champions, then why are you babysitting me?" Mayuri asked, lips pursed. She was sitting cross-legged in front of Saya, watching the older girl eat a piece of bread she had plucked out of Mayuri's hand. Saya frowned, then rolled her luminescent eyes in an attempt to cover up her displeasure.

"I lost my last two fights," Saya admitted through a mouthful, crumbs falling from her lips into her lap. "I've won enough that it's not a huge deal, but they probably wanted to prove a point or something." She shrugged, not meeting Mayuri's eyes.

Mayuri hummed, trying to ignore the way her belly was growling with hunger. She had only missed dinner and breakfast so far, but her stomach already felt empty. Saya was turning out to be kinder than she had originally let on, but she didn't seem like she was planning on sharing food anytime soon, much to Mayuri's disappointment. She couldn't even imagine the hunger that these children faced every moment, though she was likely going to be finding out very soon. The trepidation that coiled in the hollow of her belly at the thought made her feel weak and soft.

What kind of a person was she, that she felt worried about one missed meal while surrounded by children who had been on the verge of starvation for who knew how long?

There was a lull in conversation as Mayuri found herself lost in thought and Saya kept chewing on her bread, looking like she was also mulling something over. All around them, the sounds of young voices echoed. There was squabbling and laughter, children chatting quietly amongst themselves or shouting to be heard from halfway across the cell. Sunlight fell from the ceiling in patches, and when Mayuri looked closely, she could see that there were tree roots breaking through the stone ceiling.

It was all somehow rather idyllic, like a scene from a Ghibli movie. If not for the lingering smell of fear and blood, the way that no one's eyes ever really stopped moving suspiciously over anyone who came too near, and the shroud of uncertainty that had settled heavily over her, she might have even preferred this place to Otogakure proper. She watched dust motes as they caught in a beam of glorious sunlight, and thought it was a shame that it was so beautiful in this cell.

Saya finished off her crust of bread and stood, stretching her arms above her head. Mayuri watched her with hooded eyes, curious but wary. Kabuto had explicitly stated that she was supposed to remained unharmed for the time being, but she also didn't trust any of the kids in here to actually care much about that threat. Kids didn't tend to think ahead, after all, and traumatized ones were even less likely to consider the repercussions of their actions in the heat of the moment. The last thing she wanted was to get her throat slit by a particularly ambitious toddler. Saya blinked down at her, lips pursed.

"What are you waiting for, stupid? I'm going to show you around. You need to wash that blood off you."

Mayuri blushed, scrambling to her feet. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she acknowledged that she was more embarrassed about the bloodstains than the fact she had been chided by the other girl. So far Saya had really only shown her the rows of holes where people used the bathroom, and the spot she and a few of her friends had claimed as a resting place. The bed she could survive without. The indoor plumbing, though….

Well, she had hazy memories of having to pee in the woods on camping trips when she was little the first time around. She already knew she would miss proper toilets and running water more than almost anything else. She bit back a sigh and followed obediently behind Saya as she led the way, trying to act like she didn't notice the eyes that followed her the whole way, gleaming with any mix of suspicion, curiosity, or disdain.

The sound of moving water grew louder as Saya led her deeper into the cavern-like cell. Mayuri would never have guessed that the place was this big when she had first seen it, but as they wound through the milling bodies, Mayuri got the chance to take in just how expansive it was. She wondered how anyone could keep track of this many children in such a place. Could someone just refuse to come when they were called forth, and disappear into the stalagmites and creeping vines forever?

She shook the thoughts from her head almost as soon as they appeared. Maybe if she just had to worry about herself, it would be different and she could try to figure some way out of this mess. She had more than just herself to think about, though. Hiroko and Dosu were still in Otogakure, were still just as much at Orochimaru's mercy as she herself was. If she messed up then it very well could be turned around and used as just one more way to justify hurting her sister and their friend.

"C'mon, stupid," Saya snapped, giving her a rough shove. Mayuri blinked, surprised to find that they had stopped moving. Saya was staring down at her, her glowing eyes narrowed and her lips pursed. The expression seemed to be one of her favorites to make. "Are you going to bathe or not?"

Mayuri smiled at her, offering an awkward apology and a sincere thank you. Then, she turned towards the pool of water before her, taking it in with a muted sense of wonder. Water trickled down the wall from the ceiling and into a pit. The water was murky enough that she couldn't make out how deep it was, though it smelled clean and fresh. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was calculating just how much emotion to show, whether she should make it obvious how interested she was in her new environment or hide everything she felt behind sweet smiles and a roll-with-the-punches attitude.

It turned out it didn't matter much, because between one step and the next, Saya shoved her forwards. She fell into the pool with a high-pitched yelp and rose to the surface sputtering, undignified and wide-eyed as she fought off an immediate sense of panic. She gaped up at Saya, who was laughing in a way that didn't strike her as cruel at all, which was...unexpected. She could hear the full bodied laughter echoed by the nearby children, who were watching with bright eyes despite the hunger in their faces and blood beneath their nails.

Was this...hazing of some sort? There was something so endearing about the little giggles that filled her ears and the way smiles stretched across dirty faces. Despite the freezing water and her soaked clothes, Mayuri found herself laughing as well as she pushed dual-colored hair out of her eyes and grinned up at Saya through chattering teeth.

"What, you don't want to join me for a bath?"

Saya shook her head, the blue of her eyes like neon lights as she tried to stifle her laughter, sharp teeth bared in a wide smile. She stepped back from the splash of water that Mayuri tried to nail her with with agile grace. Mayuri could already feel her walls beginning to crumble away and wanted to curse her soft spot for kids; this was exactly why she had tried to distance herself from the majority of her classmates.

"Give me your clothes," Saya said, holding a hand out with the air of one who expected her orders to be followed without question. Her lips were still curled in a grin. "I'll hang them up. They won't dry, but at least you won't be stuck with dripping clothes."

Though the order surprised her, it made sense. The underground air, though tempered by the sunshine, was still chilly. The last thing she needed was to be stuck in sopping wet clothing. The murky water was up to her armpits, and it wasn't like she really had anything to hide in a body so young anyways. She didn't exactly want to wander around naked, but she could survive a moment without clothes. Probably everyone in this cell did the same thing, anyways. As she stripped off her tunic, she told herself firmly that it was no big deal.

It wasn't until after she'd handed over her clothes that it occurred to her that Saya didn't have to give them back if she didn't want to. She watched the girl walk away to find a sunny spot to put them, then sighed, sinking further into the water. She could only hope that nothing funny would come of this.

The water was cold enough that she could feel her teeth beginning to chatter, but not unbearable. She could feel the pull of a current at her feet, and wondered if that was how the water stayed relatively clean. It made her feel a little better about the dried blood and grime that she was scrubbing off her body and into what she could only assume was a source of both drinking water and bath water. She felt a little more alive as she scrubbed her skin clean, listening to the steady trickle of water and the rise and fall of voices all around her.

It was almost relaxing. If the water was warmer, she probably would have been content to just laze around in the pool for hours. As it was, though, the chill soon chased her from the water's depths and towards the edge of the pool. The water lapped at her hips as she levered herself further out of it and scanned the strangers all around her for a sign of bushy blue hair or glowing eyes. Saya seemed to have disappeared, though.

"Someone took your clothes?" someone asked, soft and gruff. Mayuri blinked, turning to find the source of the voice, water sloshing as she moved. Her eyes zeroed in on a boy crouched nearby, watching her with narrowed eyes. His black hair was messy, falling around his shoulders in course waves and with bangs long enough that they hung in his eyes. There was an amused tilt to his mouth as he waited for her to answer, and after a second, she nodded. He grunted, and his mouth curved into a sharp, cruel grin. "You'll learn pretty quick that everyone here is an asshole."

His blunt statement startled a giggle out of her, which seemed to surprise him in turn. His dark eyes narrowed, and he pulled the blanket he had wrapped around his shoulders a little closer.

"Thanks for the warning," she told him, letting herself sink back into the water. He squinted, unsure whether she was sincere or mocking him. Mayuri made sure to brace her feet on the ground and lock her knees, just in case he wanted to try to push her head beneath the water.

"It wasn't supposed to be a favor," the boy pointed out, nose wrinkling with his scowl.

"Well, I appreciate it anyway," she said with a shrug. She considered him, lips pursed, and he stared back unblinkingly. She shivered, tried to relax her muscles to keep her teeth from chattering, and eyed the boy. Well, it wasn't like she really had anything to lose at this point, she decided. "Hey, do you think I could borrow your blanket for a moment? Please? Just until I can find where my clothes ended up."

It was almost funny, the way his reactions played out over his entire body. The boy jerked back, face twisted like he'd just tasted something sour. There was surprise in the widening of his eyes and annoyance in the way they narrowed soon after. She waited, watching him with a soft smile and warm eyes that were worn like a mask.

"Why the hell would I give you anything? Didn't I just tell you that everyone here is an asshole?"

"Well, yeah. But I figured that if you were taking the time to give me some advice then you might want to keep up your streak of good deeds. I just need it until I can find something to wear. You can follow right behind me to make sure you get it back, if you want. Please?"

She could see the gears turning in his head, like he was weighing his options. There was a spark of cunning hidden behind his youthful features, an age to his eyes that made her at once wary and curious. She crossed her arms on the ledge and rested her cheek on them, never taking her eyes off the boy, her smile gentle and patient and carefully kept in place. The stone was cold and smooth beneath her skin, and she could feel the water leaching more of her warmth with every passing second. Her hair was plastered to her back, the tips of it dipping into the water and swaying with the gentle current. She didn't really have any other option but to wait, though, unless she wanted to wander through the crowds of people butt naked. (She really did not want to do that.)

She would make sure to keep her underwear next time. It was turning out to have been a really stupid idea to have just handed everything over on blind faith alone. Live and learn the second time around, apparently.

Finally, the boy groaned, his head tipping back dramatically. "You owe me one," he said, and Mayuri's grin stretched wider, knowing she was getting what she had asked for. Definitely for a price, but that could be figured out a little later. For the time being, she was mostly concerned with getting out of the water and finding her only pair of clothes. He pulled the blanket from his shoulders and held it out while Mayuri scrambled out of the water, her hair dripping and leaving a puddle by the side of the pool. She noted that beneath the loose, too-long sleeves of the boy's top, his shoulders were unusually broad and sort of lumpy.

She sighed as she accepted the scratchy blanket and wrapped it tightly around her. It was warm from the heat of his body, and she gladly snuggled into it and hoped that the shivers that wracked her body would stop soon. She thanked the boy profusely as she moved further away from the pool, and she could hear him grumbling behind her, matching her step for step as she searched the cavern for Saya. She could feel his eyes on her, tiny pinpricks at the back of her neck. She shuddered as the bones in her back shifted beneath her skin, reacting to her paranoia that this strange boy might try to attack her from behind.

Mayuri fell back a step so they were walking side-by-side, instead. The boy eyed her, nose scrunched up and lips pressed into a tight line. He seemed like even he wasn't sure why it was he was walking with her. If she looked carefully, she could see strange movement from beneath the fabric of his sleeves. Either he was hiding several animals in his shirt (which was always a possibility, she supposed) or he had some kind of kekkei genkai that affected his arms. Mayuri smiled at him, and introduced herself.

"Kidomaru," he grunted back, turning away. He crossed his arms in front of him, the sleeves bunching up with the movement, and Mayuri realised that what he was hiding beneath the wide sleeves was actually a couple extra pairs of arms. Something tickled the back of her mind, a hazy recollection that she had come to associate with her memories of the show. Allowing her smile to fade, she glanced away to scan the surrounding children for a sign of Saya and her stolen clothing.

"It's good to meet you," she chirped, and saw him turn towards her from the corner of her eye. She turned her full attention back on him, took in the way he had adjusted his sleeves to hide his arms, and wondered if it would be rude to tell him that she thought it would be useful to have that many extra hands. She chewed her lip as she pulled her gaze away, returning to her search. A flash of blue caught her attention, and she grinned. "There she is!"

She heard Kidomaru sputtering behind her as she dashed off, the edges of his blanket fluttering about her knees. His footsteps were heavy behind her, and the distant thought that he should learn to walk more quietly fluttered across her mind. It was a strange reminder that these children didn't have the advantages that Otogakure afforded its citizens, as strange or painful as they might be.

"Saya! I'm done with my bath! Can I have my clothes—" She pulled up short, cutting herself off as she took in the scene before her with wide eyes.

"Oh, hey! We've got them almost dry," Saya called, her eyes shining madly as she flashed a sharp-toothed smile at Mayuri over a puddle of honest-to-gods lava. The kid who was puking up said lava, cheeks puffed out and eyes almost crossed with the effort, gave her a jaunty wave, which Mayuri returned, too baffled to do anything else. A second of stunned silence, and then—

"What are you doing to my underwear?"

"Drying them, of course. I already told you that!"

"Oh. Yeah. Thanks, I guess."

Saya beamed and Mayuri decided that, yeah, she was definitely keeping her clothes nearby from now on. Kidomaru snorted from his place a few paces behind her, and she turned back to find him crossing his arms over his chest. All 6 of them, apparently.

"Kidomaru let me borrow his blanket so that I could come find you," Mayuri said, grinning back at him before returning her attention to Saya and the mystery lava-spitter, who were apparently just finishing drying her clothes. Saya tossed her the crumpled and slightly singed pile with a smile, and held the blanket around her so she could get dressed. Kidomaru didn't say a word as he waited for her to be finished, and only grunted in response to her thanks as she handed his blanket over. He left without a word or a backwards glance, though Mayuri called out a cheerful goodbye and gave him a jaunty wave as he walked away.

"Be careful with that one," Saya murmured once he was out of sight. She and the lava-spitter both looked surprisingly solemn. "He's one of the Champions, and he never hesitates to kill. He's even come after people outside of fights before. I don't know why he's interested in you already, but make sure you watch your back, because if you die then I'll end up getting my ass handed to me for it."


She was able to track the days that passed because of the cycles of the sunshine and darkness that filtered into the cave. The thought of being able to track them by herself instead of relying entirely on others for the day and time was indescribably exciting for her. When she tried to explain this fact in a rush of breath, eyes bright and voice a little too loud with her enthusiasm, Saya listened with a soft, sad sort of smile. She seemed to understand exactly what Mayuri meant. It made her wonder what, exactly, Saya had seen in her own short life.

On the third day, Mayuri was thrown into the arena. The first battle was easily won, her opponent a tiny little thing with big doe eyes and almost no taijutsu abilities. The girl relied almost entirely on her kekkei genkai – an amplified scream loud enough to knock Mayuri to her knees and make her ears drip blood – to shock her opponents long enough to get close and deliver a finishing blow.

The girl's downfall was, of course, that she had to get close at all. Mayuri had been training under Otogakure's senseis for years, and while she had never been the best at technical skills or remembering kata, it was hard to beat her in an all-out brawl. Her bones reacted almost free of her will, her body moved on instinct, and Mayuri was left standing over her opponent, the winner despite the way her ears rung and her head felt like it was splitting in two.

When the vaguely familiar jounin who was proctoring the fight smiled at her from behind the mask of the standard issue uniform, Mayuri felt herself smile back, dazed. When he ordered her to kill the girl laid out at her feet and choking back tears, she felt herself begin to tremble. She said no with her stomach churning and bile on her tongue, and didn't stop shaking until long after the man had nodded his acceptance of her refusal and returned both girls to the cell.

She...hadn't expected it to be so easy to say no. She had thought that there would be more of an argument and that she would be punished for daring to disobey a direct order once again. Instead, there had been no threats, no anger or ominous declarations, and no further orders. The jounin had just nodded once, asked if she was sure, and then led Mayuri and her bloodied opponent back through the Underground to their cell.

Mayuri sat in a patch of sunshine, contemplating what this new development might mean as the children around her gave her a large berth. It probably had something to do with the fresh blood on the collar of her tunic. Or maybe the fact she had a bad case of resting bitch face. Either one would be a plausible reason to stay away.

She didn't move when she felt someone settle at her side. Saya nudged her, rough enough that it might have sent her sprawling if she hadn't already braced herself. The older girl stayed close, pressed tight against Mayuri's side, sharing her warmth.

"I see you met Ryouko," she said. Mayuri flinched as she felt warm fingers slip beneath her hair and brush against her earlobe, which was still streaked with flakes of dried blood. "She's got one hell of a shriek, huh? Not much use outside of surprise attacks, though. She reminds me of a flashbomb."

"They wanted me to kill her," Mayuri whispered. Her hands had clenched into fists in her lap as she willed them not to start shaking again. She could almost see the blood staining her fingers. She had already killed Emi. She had been so close to killing that boy just days before. Why did they keep asking her for more?

"Did you?"

Mayuri turned to her, eyes wide as she gasped, "Of course not!"

Saya's mouth twisted in that strange way, half-grimace, half-smile. She shook her head, cloud of blue hair swaying with the motion. Mayuri's indignant shock turned to a worried frown.

"What are they going to do, since I refused?"

"Nothing, probably. People usually can't do it the first few times. Everyone caves eventually, though. It's hard not to, especially when it starts becoming you or them." Saya shrugged. Her eyes were distant. "They probably knew you weren't going to kill her. Ryouko might not be much now, but she'll probably be able to kill someone with just her voice in a few years."

"Then why tell me to do it at all? What if I had actually killed her?"

"No big loss." Saya shrugged again. "Most of the people of her clan develop the same ability. She just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and Orochimaru-sama saved her."

Mayuri's brow furrowed, confused. "What do you mean by 'saved her?'"

"It's the same story all around. Kids with kekkei genkai aren't usually well received by most people, you know? Bastard kids get killed or sold off all the time. That's how Orochimaru-sama found most of us."

"Sold off?" Mayuri repeated, her voice low. Dread was coiling in her stomach at the creeping realization of what Saya must have lived through. Saya cocked her head, like the notion of killing or selling children for any reason was normal and she didn't understand why Mayuri was so disturbed.

"Yeah. Usually to the highest bidder. Sometimes to turn them into weapons, sometimes for freak shows or to tote around like exotic pets. I got sold off to this brothel that specializes in servicing people with really weird kinks. Some shinobi get off on the freaky shit kekkei genkai users can do." She paused, frowning slightly as she considered Mayuri's expression. "You know what those words mean, right? Brothel and kink and stuff?"

Mayuri nodded wordlessly. She felt sick to her stomach. She had never considered that wherever these kids had come from might have been worse than where they were now. Saya nodded back, her lips curling into another of her manic grins.

"How about you? Where did Orochimaru-sama pick you up from?"

Mayuri's voice was so soft and low, it was barely a breath as she said, "The clan compound. My granny had a kekkei genkai and they were afraid that my sister and I would develop it, too. Our father wasn't a part of the clan, so maybe they thought our loyalty would be split. They killed our granny, and wanted to kill us, too. Our mother brought us here." Her voice dropped lower, and Saya leaned in closer to hear her as she whispered, "He killed her."

"And what happened to your sister?"

Mayuri felt her heart seize, and she curled a little further in on herself. She shook her head. "I can only hope that she's safe right now."

Saya's expression twisted a little, apathy melting into uncertainty at the slip of Mayuri's mask. She tutted and drew Mayuri closer, into an awkward sort of side-hug. Mayuri tried not to squirm, unsure how to take the attempted show of support. It was strange to talk about this out loud, but here, in the depths of the Underground with others who might understand better than anyone else, she couldn't help but be put at ease by the sense of camaraderie. She knew that Saya likely only pretended to care because her own well being depended on Mayuri surviving her time in the Underground. As she leaned into Saya's touch, though, she couldn't bring herself to care about that.

She couldn't tell Saya the whole truth – would likely never be able to talk about it with anyone other than Hiroko – but saying even this much out loud lifted a weight from her chest that she hadn't even realized she'd been carrying. Not even Dosu knew everything about their past. He had grown up the child of one of Otogakure's top shinobi, a woman who loved him dearly even if she wasn't always able to be around for him, and he wouldn't have understood the pain that they faced.

Her eyes were burning, and it made her want to laugh. The stress was getting to her. She had adjusted to life in Otogakure at last, and then suddenly everything had been turned on its head all over again. This life had been nothing but awful, and she wanted so desperately to just go home, a thought she hadn't dared to allow cross her mind for so long.

Mayuri shook her head, took a few deep breaths, and forced herself to calm down. There was nothing she could do by crying. The only thing it would accomplish would be to show everyone here that she was weak, so she swallowed around the lump in her throat and blinked back the tears.

"Here you have to fight, though. You might die or have to kill," she pointed out, and was relieved when her voice came out mostly normal. "Is that really better?"

"I prefer it." The answer was immediate, like Saya had expected the question, and when she smiled it wasn't the manic grin or ugly twist of lips that Mayuri had become accustomed to. It was gentler, softer, a melancholic sort of expression that Mayuri wasn't quite sure what to do with. "Here I at least have a chance, you know? I can see a future if I try. That's not something I've ever had before."

Mayuri couldn't think of anything to say to that. She looked away, chewing her bottom lip anxiously as she mulled over Saya's words. She imagined that saying sorry would be useless and might even make Saya upset, though the words still welled in her throat, clogging her airways. She had never been the best at people, so instead of speaking, she just pressed herself a little closer into Saya's side. She felt Saya's soft humming as it vibrated through them both, a wordless little tune.

They sat quietly, the sunshine warming their skin while the cavern around them echoed with disjointed voices. It was almost peaceful, pressed so tight to another living being, bathed in sunlight. A strange reminder that she was alive.

As that thought passed through her head, the cavern fell into silence. Mayuri sat up straight, brow crinkling as she looked around at the children standing frozen all around her. Saya had gone stiff beside her, eyes bright and alert and trained on where the entrance to the cell was. Mayuri knew that the sudden hush meant that someone was about to be called to the arena.

The whispers grew, a single name spreading throughout the frozen crowds. Saya's manic smile was back, the gentle expression long gone. She rose from the ground, smoothed her tattered pants, and tied her hair back with a strip of cloth she had kept wrapped around her wrist.

"Guess it's my turn," she said, and marched towards the front without hesitation. Mayuri watched her go, wide eyed, and resisted the urge to call out after her.


"You can't hit like that and expect someone to actually stay down," Saya huffed, standing over Mayuri with her arms crossed over her chest. There was blood staining the front of her shirt from where it had dripped from her mouth and down her chin. None of the blood was hers; Mayuri had made sure of it, clumsy hands glowing a pale green as she ran them over Saya's skin, healing up the small cuts and bruises with a muted sense of wonder and buried pride in her own progress with medical ninjutsu.

Judging from the smile on Saya's face, whoever her most recent opponent had been had not come out on top. That was a good thing for her, considering how much she had been struggling recently. Losing battles put you in danger here, where second chances were hard to come by and each of your opponents were fighting for the chance to live to see the sun again. The older girl had returned from her fight with her body still coiled tight and the urge to continue battling singing in her blood, satisfaction leaving her glowing.

Unfortunately for Mayuri, that meant she was getting her ass handed to her. She had agreed to getting in some "extra practice" after losing her last fight. Ever since that loss, Saya hadn't shut up about how lucky she was that Orochimaru apparently wanted to keep her alive for the time being. That had been two days ago, and Mayuri's next fight would be within a day if the pattern established over the last two weeks held true.

"I'm not sure why you're helping me," Mayuri admitted as she climbed to her feet, frowning as she tasted blood from her split lip. The wound stung a little, but she wasn't sure if it should hurt more or not. It was getting harder to tell just how injured she was after each spar or fight. "What if we have to fight some day?"

"No worries. I can kick your ass any time!" Saya announced, her bloodstained fangs flashing as she grinned. "Besides, we're in different age brackets. Unless everyone else drops dead, we won't have to worry about facing each other for another couple years."

Mayuri grunted her acknowledgement and got back into a starting position, her face screwed up in concentration even as her mind whirled with the new bits of information she had received. She hadn't even known that there were age brackets that designated who would fight who. She had been stuck here for a little over two weeks, had fought five times already, and was still learning more about how this place was run every day.

Saya lashed out, catching her in the shoulder, then the arm as she tried to block a second strike. Mayuri grunted under the force of it. Saya was stronger than Dosu, faster than Hiroko, and much bigger than Mayuri herself. She won every spar without much effort, which was a blow to Mayuri's pride since they usually had at least a couple people watching for lack of anything better to do. The only bright side was that Mayuri knew she was improving, at least a little bit. Saya wasn't a Champion for nothing, after all, and even if her teaching methods were more along the lines of "knock opponent down, laugh, rinse and repeat" than any actual teaching, Mayuri was still getting better at defending against opponents that had size, speed, and strength on her.

As Saya's fist connected with her face and Mayuri found herself on the ground yet again, she had to clench her teeth and remind herself that there were good things in life that didn't involve getting beat up. There was sunshine. She hadn't had to kill anyone yet and she was still steadily improving.

Neither Hiroko or Dosu had ended up in the Underground yet. That was the most important thing.

She took a deep breath and forced herself to climb to her feet yet again. Before she could, though, Saya was upon her. Mayuri gasped as Saya pinned her down, settling her full weight just above Mayuri's pelvic bone, keeping her knees pressed tight into her sides and her calves and bandage-wrapped feet framing the tops of Mayuri's thighs.

She leaned down, hands clamped tight around Mayuri's delicate wrists, and her breaths puffed across Mayuri's jaw. She could feel chapped lips and the needle-sharp tickle of Saya's fangs as she grinned wide against Mayuri's neck.

"Got you again, brat," Saya breathed, lips brushing the soft skin of Mayuri's neck, hovering over an artery. Saya felt strangely cold as she pressed herself against Mayuri, her heartbeat fluttering like a bird in her chest as Mayuri's own thudded dangerously loud.

Mayuri thought about the blood around Saya's mouth and how those lips and teeth were pressed so gently against the vulnerable line of her throat. She thought about how easy it would be to will her bones to burst from her skin, to skewer Saya at each point of contact between them. It was strange, how easily they could kill one another.

Her bones rolled beneath her skin but did not break through. Saya laughed and pulled away, her smile stretched wide. Mayuri smiled back and allowed Saya to pull her to her feet. There was the itch of dried blood on her neck, pressed there by Saya, and the pounding of adrenaline through her veins. It made her feel giddy and a little lightheaded, the thought, I could have died, not as heavy as it once was.


Mayuri opened her eyes, took in the darkness broken up by the silvery ghostlike glimmers of moonlight, and wondered what woke her. Saya was pressed tight to her side. The lava-spitter, Arata, and an older girl that went by Beru were nestled close as well, trying to ward against the chilly night air. There was the quiet murmurings of restless and sleeping children alike echoing throughout the cavern, a sound that had become comforting instead of disquieting in the last couple weeks. She closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of too many bodies mixed with the hint of clear water and a chill breeze, listened to the children all around her, and tried to make herself fall back to sleep.

It was then that the sound that woke her made itself known. Her eyes flew open, the whites of them flashing in the darkness as she searched for the source without daring to move. A muffled, choked off scream that seemed to echo all around her, shaking her right to her core. It reminded her of those moments before death, the desperation and fear rising up and bubbling in her throat, choked off as she found she suddenly couldn't draw enough breath through a blood-filled mouth and broken ribs to cry out.

Her eyes searched the cavern, falling at last upon a figure that seemed out of place. They were crouched over someone who was lying limp on the floor. She squinted through the darkness and wished for glasses she didn't have.

The crouching figure was speaking, low enough that she couldn't figure out what was being said. He sounded amused though, tone light and teasing enough that Mayuri allowed herself to relax a little bit despite the tingling of discomfort along her scalp. From what she had seen, most of the kids here generally got along. There was the occasional argument, some bullying, but it had never seemed to end too badly outside the arena. This was probably just another case of a kid getting too cocky and getting knocked on their ass for it. She sighed, and had just begun to settle back down when that choked cry sounded again.

That wasn't just the sound of a kid being bullied.

She shot upright, muscles tense as she tried to figure out whether she should step in or not. If she looked hard enough, she could just make out the uncanny movement of multiple arms as Kidomaru spoke to the child at his feet, gesturing grandly as the child began to convulse. She felt her stomach churn at the choking and the breathless sobs of the child lying broken at his feet. She began to clamber up, her only thought of stopping whatever it was that was going on, when she felt a hand clamp down on her wrist, tight enough to bruise.

"Don't," Saya hissed, her fingers cold against Mayuri's skin. Her eyes were glowing in the faint light of the moon, the brightest thing in the room. "If you interfere, you'll only make yourself a target. It's already too late for her anyways. Lay back down, kid."

Mayuri hesitated, her eyes flickering between Saya's solemn expression and the child that Kidomaru was tormenting. The child he was killing. Her rattling breaths were almost drowned out beneath the sound of his quiet laughter. As Mayuri watched, the girl's convulsing stopped. Then, a second later, her breathing. Kidomaru wiped his eyes, teeth showing as he smiled widely and spoke softly, seemingly to himself.

Mayuri laid back down, trying to ignore the prickling of her skin. Saya pulled her closer, pressing her tightly to her chest. Mayuri listened to her heart, the hummingbird-winged thrum of it singing even while she rested. She tried to let it drown out the echo of a child's last breath, a medic's final word, her mother's interrupted plea. She closed her eyes, and tried to recall the color of her siblings' eyes as they smiled at her from a lifetime away.

From over her head, Saya and Kidomaru locked eyes, a challenge and a threat wrapped up in one. Saya pulled Mayuri a little closer and Mayuri, oblivious to the silent communication happening around her, curled further into herself. She did not cry, no matter how much she wanted to.


The battles had begun coming faster, until she was fighting once a day, then twice, then more. She was so exhausted she could barely walk, each muscle sore and her whole body aching until she could feel it even in her bones. The gnawing ache of her empty stomach and the nightmares she had been having certainly didn't help matters.

"They're trying to wear you down," Saya told her. She was watching as Mayuri tried to heal herself, leaving behind a patchwork of faded scars and scabs. Most of the wounds were from opponents, but a good number were from her own bones as they sliced through her skin. She was thankful for her flexibility, or else the ones on her back would have probably never stopped bleeding.

"But what's the point?" Mayuri murmured, her eyes narrowed in concentration and her breaths coming in open-mouthed gasps. Her chakra was running low, stealing the air from her lungs. She already knew that she wouldn't be able to continue on at this non-stop pace, could practically feel her body begging to give out around her. "I've lost fights. I'm nothing special, so why are they doing this to me?"

Saya hummed quietly, her eyes half-lidded as she watched Mayuri's glowing hands move almost mindlessly and her skin bulge and bruise as the bones shifted restlessly beneath it. Her mouth twisted.

"How old are you?"

Mayuri frowned, pausing in her clumsy attempts at healing herself to look at Saya. She shrugged. "I'm probably getting close to six years old, but I'm not totally sure, to be honest."

"That's why," Saya said. "Your skill level is crazy. You've got good control of a pretty strong ability, you're weirdly smart, you can use your chakra in a way that's not normal for your age. I've never actually met anyone able to use medical chakra that wasn't super old, besides Kabuto-san. You might not be great at it, but the fact you can do it at all is enough to have people interested."

Mayuri had gone pale. She hadn't even realized how apparent it had been that she wasn't just another kid. The only reason she had been able to figure out the nuances of chakra control was because it was so integral in the control of her kekkei genkai, and because it was something not present in her other life. She was so aware of her own body now that having chakra had been a bit like waking up one day to find that she had grown a third arm; unwieldy and alien at first, but a part of her. She had to figure out how to use it eventually. With the help of the medics she had spent the better part of a month with (and lots of private lessons and trial-and-error) she had learned how to channel that strange new part of herself into her hands and then into knitting together cuts. It had been such a natural progression that she hadn't even realized that it wasn't normal.

She dropped her face into her hands and took deep breaths, trying to soothe the rising wave of self loathing. How could she not have realized? It was so obvious, now that it was pointed out. She had known that she and Hiroko were at the top of their class, had breezed through the assignments in rudimentary math and writing once they had gotten a grasp on the kanji, and had been at least proficient with their shinobi lessons. She had known that there were whispers of prodigy floating around. She just hadn't realized that, with the addition of medical ninjutsu to her instinctual control of Shikotsumyaku, it was more than just academic prodigy status. She had believed herself so far below Hiroko in terms of ability that she had overlooked the eyes that had fallen upon herself.

It did raise the question though—

"If that's true, then why isn't my sister here, too? Why is it just me?"

"Orochimaru-sama is a smart man. He's a great leader. He can be kind, but he can also be ruthless." Saya pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin on top of them. Her glowing eyes were nearly closed, just a hint of luminescent blue beneath heavy lashes. "The best way to control someone is to have something they want."

Mayuri made a small, hurt noise and pressed her fingertips tight to her hairline, ragged fingernails digging into her skin. She had already known it, somewhere in the back of her mind, but having it laid out before her so plainly still hurt.

"Mayuri, you've been winning a lot of your fights, but you've been refusing to follow the final order to kill your opponent. Whatever grace Orochimaru-sama has been granting you isn't going to last much longer. Next time you lose a fight, it might be your last. Even if you do keep winning, it might not be much longer until someone comes after you outside the arena. Just get it over with."

"I can't! I can't kill anyone! Everyone here is just a little kid. How am I supposed to hurt them?"

"You already have. All you have to do now is finish the job, and believe me, when it comes down to you or them, you'll have to."


Other than Saya, Beru was the one person in the Underground that Mayuri hesitantly trusted not to try anything shady. She was close to Saya, the two of them growing up together in the Underground and rising to Champion status together. Like Saya, Beru could be ruthless in the arena but kind outside it. Unlike Saya, who had a personal interest in keeping her unharmed, Mayuri trusted Beru on virtue that she was just a good person in general. She was the kind of person that Mayuri aspired to be.

Beru was generous, sharing her hard-won food with the newer kids who hadn't had the chance to prove themselves in battles yet. She was talkative and cheerful, kind in a way that made all the other kids look up to her even if she could be frightening and painfully blunt when she was upset. She was beautiful in an almost unsettling way, her eyes too big for her round face, her hair strangely smooth and shiny despite the conditions they lived in, and her skin soft and unmarked by scars. Most importantly, she was strong.

She had earned her Champion status by beating the majority of her opponents with ease. Her body was like elastic, each of her limbs stretching and bending in a way that made Mayuri wonder if perhaps Beru and Orochimaru were related (though she hadn't actually seen him use that particular ability in person yet, now that she thought about it) and then just grab ahold of the person before they could get close enough to bother her. It was hard to beat someone who could clothesline you from 15 feet away, and then use her limbs like a boa constrictor to crush you without ever breaking a sweat.

She soon got used to laughing again, smiling so much that her cheeks hurt. She loved and hated the shaky feeling of stolen happiness that welled in her chest whenever she found herself laughing with these children. It left her feeling guilty for her joy, like she knew she should be miserable and searching every second for a way to return to her sister instead of laughing with the children she may have to fight to the death someday soon. They weren't friends, not really, but they were still companions. With Saya, Beru, and Arata, she found that she didn't feel as lonely anymore. It was after watching Beru give Arata a noogie from 10 feet away (dancing away from the sparks that the red-faced boy spat at them both in his flustered state) that Mayuri blurted out what was on her mind.

"Did Orochimaru-sama…." She paused, unsure how to word her thoughts without offending any of the kids here who revered the man they looked up to as a savior of sorts. Beru turned to look at her, her round cheeks dimpling with her sweet smile as she waited for Mayuri to continue. Arata, freed from Beru's clutches, took the opportunity to duck away. She wet her lips and tried again. "Did he give you the ability to stretch your limbs like that?"

Beru looked confused for a second, full lips pursing, before laughing. She shook her head and said with a smile, "No way! I was born with this. I thought Saya was supposed to have filled you in on what this place is."

Mayuri shook her head a little, uncertain about what the older girl meant. Beru huffed out a little breath, expression caught somewhere between amused and exasperated. Saya would probably end up getting an earful, when (if) she returned from her fight.

"Everyone in here was born with their abilities," Beru said, her smile soft. Mayuri had to bite her tongue to stop herself from blurting out that she hadn't been. "All of us have kekkei genkai. This is one of the only places that will accept us, so we've all been grouped together. It's kind of nice, huh?"

Mayuri nodded. Her thoughts were going in circles, chasing each other around her head. She remembered the night she had been brought to this place, the cells that she had passed.

"What about the other cells?" she asked. "Are those people like us, too?"

"Some of them. They keep the kids away from the teenagers, and the teenagers away from the adults, and the girls away from the boys when they get old enough. So there's a lot of different places people live around here." She kneeled down, and in the dust on the floor, she drew a symbol that Mayuri recognized as the one she had noticed carved next to the cell number. "That's the symbol to indicate that that cell is home to kekkei genkai users."

"What about the ones without the symbol?"

Beru's face darkened. She stood back up and brushed the dust from her knees. She was barely taller than Mayuri despite being almost six years older, yet she still managed to give the impression of towering over her. Mayuri barely stopped herself from backing away.

"Do not go near those cells, not even if you have a guard with you. The creatures inside aren't natural. I don't know why they're here or how they got that way, but they have to have a purpose if Orochimaru-sama keeps them alive." She said the word purpose with a strange sort of reverence, lips curling around it softly, like she was whispering the name of someone precious. Mayuri recognized the look on her face, the same one she had seen in each person who spoke of Orochimaru. It was like he was a divine being; like he was the closest that they had ever come to finding religion in a world that told them they were nothing. Beru's eyes shone briefly, then darkened again as she continued. "They hate Orochimaru-sama and everybody who follows him, though. They wouldn't hesitate to hurt you if they found out that you were trying to join his village."

Again, Mayuri had to bite her tongue from spitting out words she would regret. Instead, she nodded and thanked Beru, and they wove through the crowds of now-familiar children together to find Arata. When Saya came back they braided each other's hair and Mayuri healed what she could and ignored the way that Saya licked the blood from her hands.

The next time she passed by the unmarked cells, she made a point to meet the eyes looking back at her and give them her friendliest smile.


When the lights of the arena flickered on, too bright, too harsh, Mayuri felt her mouth go dry. Orochimaru's golden eyes stared down at her for the first time in weeks, narrowed and cold. Saya stood across from her, fists clenched and face drained of color. Her hair looked even more wild and vibrant beneath the artificial lights, strands curling around her face and shifting with her as she bent her knees and shook her limbs out in preparation for a fight.

There was a hunger in her too-bright eyes and her wild grin. Mayuri knew that she had been waiting for the chance to perform for Orochimaru in person since she had been taken to the Underground. Saya was smart, but her drive and her bloodlust could overpower the logical part of her brain at times. It probably hadn't even occurred to her that something was wrong.

They weren't in the same age group, after all. This wasn't Saya's usual day to fight. There was no way that this wasn't a setup of some kind. The only question was, which one of them was supposed to die?

Mayuri's legs were shaking so bad, she was barely able to keep herself upright. Would Saya hesitate to kill her, if she won? When she won, because Mayuri hadn't been able to beat her in a single spar yet. Her bones might protect her from the worst of any damage, but being incapacitated still counted as a loss.

Mayuri was suddenly wondering if she could be killed so easily, and if not, how they would do it. Would they stab her through the eye, aiming for her brain, or was there bone growing behind her socket, too? Could they slash her throat, or was there armor beneath her skin there? She had thought about it too many times to count, yet it had always seemed so far away, even in the midst of a fight. Faced with such an obvious setup, those faraway musings suddenly became far more important than they had ever been before.

She could feel Orochimaru's cool gaze on her, the weight of his judgement in every tremble of her limbs and each bead of sweat that trickled down her back. Saya was shifting from foot to foot, restless as a caged animal and hungry for blood. It occurred to Mayuri that she had only ever seen the watered down version of Saya's bloodlust and desperation to prove herself, to find a place to call home. Despite nearly a month of what some might call friendship, Saya was still fully prepared to dance on Mayuri's grave if it meant she would get her shot at happiness.

Still, Mayuri couldn't quite seem to find it in her heart to blame her for it.

"Begin."

Saya was moving before Orochimaru could finish the word. Before Mayuri could even blink, she found herself thrown backwards, head bouncing against stone. She cursed, blinked stars out of her eyes, and twisted to avoid the foot aiming to stomp her chest into the ground.

Mayuri bit down on her tongue to stop herself from shrieking as she leaped to her feet, only to find herself knocked to the ground once more as Saya tackled her. Her back met stone, knocking the wind out of her. Mayuri rolled, struggling to get on top of Saya. The last thing she needed was to be pinned.

It was easy to fall into the rhythm of the fight. There was no planning or strategizing in the arena. There was only instinct and adrenaline, and the desire to live to see another day. Even as some distant part of her worried and fretted over the fact that she was facing a friend in such a hopeless situation, her body was moving, her conscious mind almost blank – a fight was the closest she ever got to quiet in her head.

Saya was snarling and spitting like an animal, her eyes shining as they reflected the light even though her face was shadowed. Mayuri snarled back, teeth snapping mere millimeters away from Saya's arm as they wrestled. Neither of them had used their kekkei genkais yet, despite all the openings there had been.

Mayuri knew how easy it would be to will her bones to break through her skin. At such close range and with so many points of contact between them, it would be child's play to kill her. Likewise, Saya had had more than a few opportunities to sink her fangs into Mayuri's exposed flesh. The venom dripping from Saya's teeth would take longer to work on Mayuri – unless of course she managed to hit a joint, one of the few places that wasn't guarded by a thin layer of bone growing just beneath the skin – but with enough bites and enough time, Mayuri would be down for the count.

Maybe the fact that she hadn't bit her yet was proof that Saya would at least miss her a little when she was gone.

Mayuri leaped to her feet and backed up, trying to put distance between herself and Saya. The older girl was flashing that manic grin of hers, and Mayuri could read both panic and exhileration in her expression. She knew that her own expression probably mirrored her friend's, adrenaline and nerves stretching her lips into the gruesome farce of a smile.

She could practically feel Orochimaru's steady gaze on her as she sidestepped Saya's lunge, spinning to avoid her and then jumping another few feet backwards. They were both close range fighters, so the only real options were to either engage or avoid their opponent. It would be hard to gain the high ground.

As she dodged another lunge, ducking beneath Saya's outstretched arm, she could feel her bones shifting and itching beneath her skin. For the first time, it occurred to her that she had an advantage. She could win this fight.

But would it be worth it, if she did win?

The thought stopped her retreat. It gave Saya the opening she needed to land a punch, fist thrown with all the force her small body could muster. Mayuri went reeling back, crouched down and hissing as she cradled her cheek. Her obvious pain didn't make Saya pause for even a second.

She dodged the hand aimed at her face, fingers curled so that the claws would have dug gouges into her cheek. She wasn't able to avoid the kick to the ribs, though. She was sent sliding across the floor, skin tearing and leaving a streak of blood in her wake.

Saya lunged after her, hands outstretched and eyes gleaming. Mayuri skittered to her feet, dodged, tripped and ended up down again. Her eyes caught on the gleam of exposed bone on her calf, the skin ripped away and blood welling sluggishly around the edges.

As Saya swung back around for another strike, Mayuri acted on instinct. She ducked, hands coming up to guard her face and bones bursting from her torso to create a barrier. They unfurled beneath the harsh lights of the arena, like flowers before the sunshine. Saya cried out as her knuckles connected with bone and came away torn and bloody.

Mayuri met her eyes and watched as betrayal flashed across Saya's features. Her eyes hardened, her spine straightened, and her fangs were dripping with poison when she bared her teeth. Mayuri knew that, though unintentional, she had just changed the rules of the fight.

Saya was on her in an instant, speed and strength bolstered by the wild chakra that she had inherited from her ancestors. She could feel teeth as they scraped across bone, breaking skin and infecting her with venom. It felt strange as it slid beneath skin but above bone, burning its way further into her system with every move she made.

Mayuri clenched her teeth and fought to throw Saya off, twisting in ways that would have made both Beru and Juro-sensei proud. Her arm was beginning to go numb. When she managed to buck Saya off, squirming to put distance between them, she saw Saya licking the blood from her lips. There was something like regret in her luminescent eyes.

Mayuri glanced towards Orochimaru, daring to take her eyes off her opponent. He was not smiling as he watched their fight. He met her eye, and though he didn't so much as bat an eyelash, it was easy to see his displeasure in the cold gaze. She clenched her teeth and pulled her eyes away, trying to focus on the issue at hand instead of letting her mind get stuck on thoughts of the look on his face as he killed the Other Mother.

She had to do better if she wanted to live to see Hiroko again. She didn't know if Saya would be ordered to kill her if she lost, but she knew that Saya likely would do as she was told. Which meant that the only way for them both to get out of this alive was if Mayuri won and refused to kill when she was told to.

She had never used her kekkei genkai during a spar with Saya. She had only used it when she absolutely needed to, in fights against people her own age and size, when she had thought that they really would kill her if she didn't fight back.

She couldn't hold back against Saya just because she considered her a friend.

Mayuri took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. Saya was watching her intently, shifting from foot to foot. She was restless and it was easy to see that fighting Mayuri had her on edge, probably because Orochimaru was watching. Maybe because after the initial excitement she had finally realized that something was wrong with the match.

Mayuri met her eye and matched her smile for smile. She was silent as Saya charged forwards, a battle cry on her lips and determination in her eyes. She was silent as she allowed her bones to push through her skin, ribs curling protectively around her chest and head, bone forming on her arms and legs like armor and pushing through the skin of her knuckles to form two knife-sharp weapons on each hand.

Saya's eyes went wide, horror and confusion shadowing her pretty features. Mayuri bit back a near hysterical laugh, because she recognized that look easily. She had seen it time and time again, that look of panic whenever someone got a peek at what her kekkei genkai could really do. She knew firsthand the horror of her abilities, better than anyone else.

Even with the venom working its way beneath her bones and into her veins, burning like fire and slowing her movements, it was easy to land her first hit. Saya was still reeling from the surprise of seeing the monster that Mayuri could become and made no move to dodge the strike.

Mayuri imagined it was probably like getting hit by steel beams. It didn't matter that there was only the force of a five year old's punch when her fists were covered in bone harder than most known metals. Saya struggled to get up, her eyes wide and her cheek bleeding sluggishly. There was blood on Saya's lips and, for once, it was her own.

Mayuri's vision was beginning to waver. She stumbled as she surged forwards and landed on Saya harder than she had intended, her body bowed until she was within striking distance from her friend. Saya took the opportunity and lunged forwards, gasping for breath as she sank her teeth into the center of Mayuri's chest, just below her clavicle. There was desperation and panic painted across her features, her glowing eyes wild as she pumped her venom into Mayuri's body.

Blackness crept around the edges of the world and her head felt like it was filling with cotton. Mayuri snarled down at Saya as she struggled to pull herself away, skin tearing and venom and blood dripping as they fought against one another's hold.

Mayuri dropped all her weight, slamming Saya's head back against the stone floor. Saya groaned, but only bit down harder. Mayuri snarled at her, saliva dripping from her lips as she struggled to remain conscious and her own surge of desperate panic rose to fill her. It took only a second of concentration, the quiet willing of the bones that had become so familiar, and the density of her bones began to change. They grew thick and heavy, an added ten, twenty, fifty pounds of weight. She barely noticed Saya's struggles beneath her anymore, too focused on the strange sensation of change inside her body.

When she dropped her weight a second time, Saya stayed down.

She rose to her feet, her limbs shaking, heart pounding, chest throbbing. The weight of her own bones made her feel like she couldn't support herself. She was swaying slowly back and forth, and when Orochimaru spoke he sounded muffled and far away. She tried to pay attention to him, his words, his face, but she couldn't seem to get her eyes to focus.

She caught the curve of a cold smile, the glint of his eyes. She heard, from a thousand miles away, "kill her." Mayuri shook her head and slurred out her refusal. Her knees gave out beneath her and she landed face down on the ground, nearly face to face with her friend. She watched Saya's breaths stir up the dust around them and wondered where the blood pooling between them came from.

A pair of sandals entered her line of vision. Kabuo crouched before her. He brushed the hair away from her face, moved the torn fabric of her top away from the wound on her chest to get a better look at it. The venom would out of her system in a matter of hours, if she was lucky. Why did he look so sad?

His eyes found hers, cool steel and grey summer twilight rolled into one. He shook his head. There was a tightness about his shoulders and in his posture, like he was trying to hide his feelings and not quite succeeding. He glanced at Saya, then back again to meet Mayuri's eyes.

"It would have been kinder to kill her," he whispered, his voice garbled and otherworldly to Mayuri's ears. She didn't have time to figure out what that could mean.

The venom found its way into her veins. The world around her disappeared.


The room she woke up in was small and smelled of blood and human waste. The shackles were heavy around her wrists and ankles, and no matter how much she fought and pulled, they would not budge. Her sealed chakra rendered her aching bones all but useless for anything besides giving her skin shape. The bite in the center of her chest was pulsing with infection, marks like lightning spreading out from it. From somewhere above her, there was the roar of heavy rainfall. Just inches in front of her nose, a steady stream of rainwater dripped, and the moisture from where it impacted with the ground spread across her bare feet.

The sun had disappeared soon after she had opened her eyes to find herself chained to the wall, leaving her alone in the pitch black of the underground room. She spent the night in various phases of panic attacks, over fear of the unknown, fear of starvation, torture, and death. She was only able to sleep after the pale grey of predawn had filtered into the room from the dripping cracks above, illuminating it just enough for her to see that she was not surrounded by ghosts and monsters, and that her sister's corpse had not somehow shown up overnight.

By the second day, Mayuri had screamed herself hoarse, demanding that someone let her go. As the hours passed and no one showed up, she realized that this could be her death sentence. Despite her pride, when faced with the reality of death by starvation, she began begging for them to let her live. Her wrists and ankles had been rubbed raw by her thrashing and fighting, blood dripping down her arms to pool in her clavicle when her legs grew too tired to support her anymore. The throbbing pain in her chest made it hard to breathe. Her stomach ached hollowly, and it was only the rainwater dripping so close that allowed to her quench her dry throat. Chained as she was she was forced to relieve herself on the spot, cheeks heating in shame.

Still no one came, and she was faced once more with the harrowing reality that she would likely die here, starving and in pain. She didn't bother trying to force her tears back, confident that no one was coming for her. By the third day, she felt too tired to fight any more. She couldn't keep her legs beneath her, and spent the day on the ground. Her arms tingled with pins and needles, senbon and kunai, and then went numb. She couldn't bring herself to care.

She allowed herself to pass in and out of consciousness, glad for the reprieve the darkness brought with it.

She hadn't died in the arena, but she would be killed all the same. She couldn't help but think that it would have been better to die in a battle, instead of chained to the wall. There was no dignity in dying in a puddle of your own piss.

On the fourth day they brought Saya. It took three guards to hold her, snarling and fighting as she was. Mayuri watched with glazed eyes as they chained her to the wall adjacent, trickles of water wetting down her wild hair. Her eyes flashed dangerously as they locked onto Mayuri and she offered one of her manic smiles, teeth flashing, fangs dripping.

Those fangs were the first thing they removed.

The screaming started, and didn't stop as they removed her tongue.

Her fingers.

Her eyes.

Mayuri watched, sobbing, screaming, begging them to stop. There was no bargaining though, nothing that they wanted other than to teach Mayuri a lesson and to hear Saya scream. The sound was garbled by blood.

They moved their way up, the wrist, the forearm, the elbow. The toes, the foot, the ankle and calves, the knee. There was no part of her flesh left unscathed, body parts removed with clinical efficiency and then discarded like trash and left to rot against the wall.

They hadn't touched her hair, though. It still hung long and beautiful around her mutilated face, soaked with blood and rainwater.

Eventually, Saya stopped screaming.

Mayuri watched the guards work from a puddle of her own waste. There was nothing in her stomach to throw up, though that didn't stop her body from trying. She felt empty from shock, numb with the terror of what she was seeing and the thought, I'm next.

She would rather go blind than see any more of this torture. She would rather be deaf, if it meant she didn't have to hear those screams or the wet, broken gurgle of breaths drawn with broken ribs and lungs flooded with blood. Even as the thoughts passed her mind, though, the sobering realization that she very well could be rendered blind, deaf, mute, dead very soon rushed to replace it. There was nothing she could do to help Saya. There was nothing she could do to save herself.

She had run out of tears hours ago. A broken sound left her mouth, her body's last attempt at a scream or the first at half-crazed laughter.

Eventually, there was nothing else they could break or cut or remove without killing Saya. The guards, the torturers, left. Orochimaru and Kabuto came. They did not look at Saya, their eyes trained on Mayuri alone, taking in the emptiness of her eyes and the blood that decorated her arms from hours of fighting to reach her friend.

Orochimaru smiled, stepping forward to stand above her, just outside the mess she had made. Kabuto watched with an expression she could not decipher. She watched him, searching, unable to bring herself to look at Orochimaru.

"Do you want to kill her, pet?" he asked, smooth and soothing despite the rasp of his voice. Mayuri looked at Saya, convulsing, moaning, dismembered, blind and deaf and mute, and in so much pain.

Kabuto's words came to her, his voice so sad, "it would have been kinder to kill her," over and over again, blocking out every other thought in her mind.

"Yes," she said.

The snake's smile grew wider, warmer, like he was a proud father instead of a man who murdered children for fun. She couldn't find it in herself to be disgusted by him. She was too tired, too scared.

The shackles fell from her wrists with a twitch of his fingers, clattering to the sodden floor with a hollow sound. She fell forward, chin scraping the stone below without feeling the sting. The chains binding her ankles together remained.

For a moment she lay where she had fallen, curled in on herself, gasping. Her fingers twitched, feeling returning slowly after hours of numbness and days of strain. She shuddered, feeling like her skin was too small for her frame, like her bones should be growing straight through her flesh even with her chakra sealed away. She wanted to be anywhere but here, anyone but who she was right now. She wanted her mama, her mom, her family and the warmth and love they brought with them.

Saya was the same age as her youngest sister had been.

Mayuri sobbed and began the slow crawl forwards, her legs dragging behind her. She was too weak to stand, too exhausted to even try, so she crawled on her belly like a worm, dragging herself over the blood and stones and waste that had collected in this torture chamber over the years that Otogakure had been a village. Her stomach clenched again, trying in vain to turn itself inside out. She kept crawling even as she gagged, her nose running and eyes leaking.

Outside, thunder crashed and the sound of rain grew louder – the wind screaming her name just like Saya had. Chains rattled and scraped against the floor. She wondered what would happen if she died again.

It was worse up close.

The wounds were clean, each cut precise and cauterized to keep her from losing too much blood. Mayuri tried to remember if she had met any medics who used fire techniques with their medical ninjutsu, but couldn't quite recall. It didn't matter anyways. She couldn't do anything to help her friend, even if she did know the names of the people who had done this to her.

Saya convulsed, her hair spread out around her head, dyed by blood and dirt and rain, a tie dye swirl of color. Mayuri couldn't bear to touch her, not with the way her empty eye sockets seemed to be looking right at her. She wanted to offer comfort, to help Saya in some way, but just looking at her, smelling the blood and the terror that radiated from her, made her feel sick to her stomach.

Another choked noise, caught somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Her eyes burned but no tears came. I really am the worst, Mayuri thought.

"I can't do it without a weapon," she whispered. The only option she had was to strangle or suffocate her, but Saya didn't deserve those last moments of fear. She had to make it fast and painless.

Saya moaned like she wanted to say something, but her jaw was broken and her tongue was gone and her throat had been damaged by all the screaming she had already done. Mayuri felt her stomach flip and wondered how many times someone could throw up nothing before their body got the message that there was nothing left. She rested her hand on Saya's shoulder as gently as she could, and wished she could ease the pain. Saya flinched away from the touch, the sounds she made desperate and terrified. Mayuri tore her hand away and turned towards Orochimaru, eyes wild and desperate.

"Please! I won't try anything, so please! Just...just let me make it fast."

Orochimaru's eyes gleamed with amusement, his whole face lighting up with the silver flash of lightning that made it through the holes in the ceiling. Had no one aboveground heard their screams? Had they just been ignored?

"Kabuto-kun, give her a kunai since she asked so nicely."

Kabuto followed the order without a word. His expression was empty. The blade he handed her was white, lightweight, and perfectly balanced. She recognized the feel of her own bone and barked out a shaky, broken laugh. Of course.

She forced herself to look at Saya's mutilated face again. She tried to picture luminescent blues eyes, shining with mirth. She tried to recall the sound of her laughter, the curve of her smiles, the flash of her fangs.

All she could think of was the way she had screamed as they had carved out her eyes, the way she had begged before they took a scalpel to her tongue. She had gagged on blood, screamed wordlessly as they took her fingers and her limbs, one by one. They had taken everything from her, then left Mayuri to clean up the remains. In this world, this hellish place, Saya would have no future. Maybe in a softer world, things could have been different.

Mayuri's hand was steady as she pulled the blade across her friend's throat.

She watched as Saya gave one final gurgle, and then went silent and still. The thunder crashed and the rain poured down, plastering her hair to her head and shoulders. She thought about the lurch of her stomach as she was pushed into cold water just a few weeks before. It was similar to the lurch she felt looking at the blood that had painted the wall. Red was pooling beneath Saya's body and creeping closer to Mayuri's knees.

Orochimaru's kimono rustled as he stepped closer, his geta clicking softly against the stone floor. She knew he could be just as silent in traditional clothing as he was in his shinobi gear. He was announcing his presence, being careful not to startle her, and she had no idea why he bothered with such subtle pleasantry when he had just ordered a little girl to be slaughtered in one of the worst ways imaginable.

He kneeled before her, the hem of his white kimono brushing the ground. It soaked up the blood, and she wondered if that was some sort of symbolism. He was always soaked in blood, whether anyone could see it or not.

Now, so was she.

He rested a hand on her head, fingers curling in her dirty hair. It was a familiar, comforting gesture. She wondered if he was going to snap her neck. She thought about how her mother's spine had jutted out of the stump of her neck after he had killed her, and wondered what her skeleton would look like once she was decomposed. Would people know she was a monster even after she was long dead?

"The next time you refuse an order, my dear," he said, a voice she had come to love and fear, "it will be your sister chained across from you. Do you understand?"

She nodded. He smiled and gave her head a little pat. She watched Orochimaru and Kabuto leave, Kabuto telling her that they trusted she could find her way back on her own. The threat was implied.

Neither one of them so much as glanced at Saya's mutilated body. All she had ever wanted was for Orochimaru to see her and acknowledge her, but he wouldn't do so even in death. A death that he had ordered. Mayuri's eyes drifted away from Saya's face and landed on the luminescent orb that rested on the ground just a foot away from her knee.

Saya was still watching her.

The bone kunai clattered from her hand and suddenly she was screaming, curled over Saya's broken body, tears making tracks through the grime and the blood on her cheeks. Saya's blood tickled against her knees, cooling quickly and congealing beneath them both.

The rain poured down, the thunder and the lightning crashed, and something inside of her titled, shifted, and broke. She held what was left of Saya close and tried not to think of her siblings in Saya's place, or of what this life would hold.

When she stumbled back into the cell, hurt and covered in blood, every child knew what had happened. Beru asked for details, tears welling in her eyes as she searched the empty space behind Mayuri as though hoping Saya would appear.

"It was quick," Mayuri lied.


There was something different about Kabuto. Something far more cruel in the way his eyes glinted and the way his smile curved, mocking and sharp. It made something in her heart shatter because, despite what bits and pieces she could remember from the show that said otherwise, for those first two years she had really thought that he had been kind. Misguided, a little uncertain about who he was but, at his core, kind.

Now, though, she doesn't know anymore. No one kind could watch children killing each other with a smile like his. He found a kind of satisfaction in sending others to suffer, like he was trying to fill spaces in his own soul, finding ways to no longer be alone in his past pain and current sins.

Once, watching from behind a television screen, she might have thought it sad if she had bothered to analyze his actions further. Living it though, she found that she had no room in her heart for that kind of empathy or kindness for Kabuto. She had to reserve that for the people around her, the scared and desperate children, their hands just as bloodstained as her own. They were together in this hell, all of them understanding that survival was their main focus, that they just want to live and be happy someday and if they had to step on their friends' corpses, then they would.

(A part of her brain whispered that maybe, if she could forgive the others, she could one day forgive herself.)

She made sure to meet Kabuto's gaze whenever he escorted her back from a fight. She did not hide the blood on her hands or the emptiness of her gaze around him. A part of her hoped he would feel guilty, and that he would stop smiling like he had won something every time she bows to his and Orochimaru's whims and slaughters the children they tell her to. Mostly though, refusing to wear the mask he expected and daring to look him in the eye had become her last act of defiance.

She couldn't refuse their orders anymore. The first time she had tried to cheat by intentionally allowing herself to be beat, she had found herself in that place again. The ensuing panic attack had nearly killed her as she struggled and fought, scoring deep gauges in her skin, breaking her own bones, screaming and then hyperventilating and then starting the process all over again until she had blacked out.

(All she could picture was Hiroko being dragged through that door, chained across from her, tortured and mutilated, and then Mayuri having to….

She couldn't.

She couldn't do that.

...could she? It would be kinder to kill her, wouldn't it?

She would have to.)

She was screaming again when Orochimaru swept in through the door, his Akatsuki cloak billowing behind him, his eyes narrowed and flashing. Mayuri was begging before he had even made it fully inside the room, her voice destroyed by her screams and thick with desperation. She would have thrown herself to the floor at his feet if she hadn't been chained to the wall.

As it was, she ignored the pain in her dislocated arms and bowed as low as she could manage. His eyes tracked the way her skin stretched and bulged, the wild look in her eyes as she tried to prostrate herself before him, the way her lips curled around pleas and promises. The cold expression seemed to fade, replaced with a sickly satisfaction.

("I'll do anything! Just not Hiroko. Anyone but her.")

She fought to win after that, and most of the time she did. She killed who she was told to and spared those Orochimaru deemed worthy.

Seiji was killed, his throat cut while he was unconscious at her feet.

Tooru, a bone shaped as a blade cutting through flesh like it was nothing.

Natori was killed as he begged to be able to tell his brother goodbye.

Takashi was spared because he impressed the proctors during their fight. Mayuri cried for hours, the flood of relief overwhelming.

Hinoe wasn't as lucky. Mayuri learned that time that a blade through the eye and into the brain didn't always kill someone right away.

Orochimaru didn't even have to tell her to kill Shigeru. She already knew he wasn't meant to survive their encounter.

Jun killed herself before Mayuri could.

She stopped keeping track after that.

As the days passed and more and more battles were won (more and more children killed and more and more blood staining her hands) there were whispers in the cavern about a new Champion.

Despite the wary respect that most of the children showed her and even though their eyes shone with fear when they faced her in the arena, no one seemed to resent her. It probably had to do with the fact that she was willing to heal anyone who asked. It was the only thing she could think to do, to somehow make up for all the harm she would cause. (The harm she had already caused.)

It was always strange to heal someone one day, and then be faced with the very real possibility of having to kill them the next. Every time she faced someone down in the arena, she could feel herself growing further away from the reality of the situation. She lost a part of herself each and every time those light flashed on, blinding her for that brief second while she waited to see who she might have to kill that day.

Every time she stood over a child's form (shaking, bleeding, gasping for the breath to beg to live) she would stare them down, empty eyed, and wait for the command to come.

"Do you want to kill them?" Orochimaru would ask, and every time she would tell him no. Every time, his lips would curl and his eyes would gleam in the too-bright light. She wished for the flickering shadows of the torches or the warm glow of the sun. "Will you follow my orders, child?" She nodded silently, and could not bring herself to look at her opponent. She felt too exposed in the stadium lights, like every thought and every part of her had been laid out for examination. It made her feel even more dirty when he said, "Kill them."

And she did.

With the blood of children on her hands, she let herself grow numb.


The nightmares were at their worst when the rain came. She would wake up to find Beru pressed close, body wound around and between the bones that had pressed through her skin while she slept. It kept her from thrashing during the nightmares and injuring the children who slept nearby, huddling together for warmth and comfort. The thunder would roll outside, deep enough that she felt it as it echoed through the cavern. The high ceilings amplified the noise, bouncing it around the empty space and turning it into a roar.

The echo of rain as it poured through the holes in the ceiling sounded like dozens of tiny waterfalls. The dark puddles of water reflected the lightning outside, silver and brilliant. They made her think of silvery mirrors made of ice, and of dark blood as it pooled beneath her feet. When Beru held her close, soothing her after a nightmare with gentle words and soft touches, it took everything in her not to flinch back, not to remind her that she had killed Saya. She had to bite her tongue not to confess the horrific things that had been done to their friend, the things that Mayuri hadn't been able to save her from.

It was on one of those nights that Kidomaru tried to kill her.

She had only been asleep for a little while when the slap of skin on stone sounded directly next to her head. She startled awake, eyes wide, bones shifting beneath her skin, and mind whirling with the residual terror of her dreams. Before she could get her bearings about her, Mayuri found herself yanked upright by the threadbare collar of her tunic and slammed back against the wall. Kidomaru leered down at her.

She stared back, blinking slowly as she tried to clear the fog of sleep from her brain. She was boxed in by his body, a hand on either side of her head. Two of his hands were curled in the fabric of her tunic, knuckles pressing hard enough into her shoulders that she could almost feel the pain of it. There would be bruises, she was sure. His two free hands hung loosely at his sides, his fingers flexing slowly as she stared unflinchingly back at him, waiting for him to say what he wanted. Some distant and buried part of her thought that maybe she should be scared, considering what she had seen him do in the past, but she just couldn't seem to find the energy required to feel anything at all.

"Let's play a game," he said, his twisted smile showing sharp incisors. He seemed to be waiting for some sort of reaction. Maybe he wanted her to start crying or begging for her life. It would make sense, since that seemed to be the usual reaction to his intimidation tactics. She couldn't fault the other kids for it, really. He had killed more people than most, and he was one of the Champions for a reason.

But so was she. Numb or not, she wasn't about to let some brat who had been brainwashed into thinking any of this was normal or okay scare her.

Mayuri tipped her head back and mustered up the sweetest smile she could manage, wide enough that she knew that, when she spoke, he would be able to see the bones she could feel growing in the back of her throat. His eyes narrowed, head tilting forward slightly, and suddenly she noticed that there was a third eye hidden beneath the curtain of his dark bangs. That made trying to meet his eye suddenly a little awkward, because she wasn't quite certain where to look anymore as she asked, "can I help you with something?"

Kidomaru jerked back as though he'd been hit. His smile turned to a scowl. He jerked her up to meet his eyes, her bare toes just barely scraping the stone floor. She knew that all the extra bones growing beneath her skin made her heavier than anyone else her size. Lifting her up like this was an impressive feat, considering that he was only a few inches taller than her and she had gone completely limp. Even so, she kept her smile stubbornly in place even as her head lulled bonelessly to the side.

There was a flicker of something across his face – suspicion or annoyance, perhaps. She didn't know, and she didn't particularly care. She had no interest in indulging his fucked up little games, even if he had shown her some kindness in the past. Playing along while he tried to make her suffer wasn't how she planned to repay him.

She let her smile fall.

"What do you want?"

He gave her a harsh shake. She stayed limp, head flopping back to show the seemingly vulnerable line of her throat. She couldn't seem to find the energy to so much as twitch a finger in response, too drained from weeks of bloodshed and nightmares. She just didn't care right now.

"I said we're going to play a game, you brat."

He dropped her, and she crumpled to the ground. His smile was back as he kneeled beside her and trailed one hand along her cheek, the touch feather light. She kept her mouth shut, watching him with the one eye that wasn't half hidden by her curtain of long hair. Every shallow breath she took stirred the dust on the ground beneath her cheek and rustled the strands of white that had fallen into her face. She was so tired.

"You've noticed by now that you can't move, haven't you?" His hand trailed down to press against her throat. It was a taunt, proof that he could do anything he wanted and she wouldn't be able to stop him. Mayuri didn't respond. His grin stretched wider. "You really shouldn't leave yourself so open to attacks. You're vulnerable to all sorts of things when you sleep."

"Are you saying I shouldn't ever sleep?" she deadpanned, unimpressed and a little baffled. He froze, childish confusion flickering across his face.

"What? I...no? No!" He scowled and shook his head, and she felt the first flickers of amusement welling in her chest and twitching at the corners of her lips. "I was just saying that I put one of my spiders on you while you slept. Now, we're going to play a game!"

"Is it the same game you've played with those other kids? The one where they have to guess where the spider is before the paralytic venom reaches their lungs and makes it so they can't breathe anymore? I just have to say where the spider is and then you'll cure me, right?"

"How did you—!?"

"This cell isn't large, Kidomaru-kun. You've done this same thing with other people right in front of me before. You do know that I have eyes, right?"

He was frozen, three eyes wide and mouth hanging open. The hand closest to her head was curled into a white knuckled fist. Then one of his hands was tangled in her hair and tugging her head up so she had no choice but to look him in the eye, neck craned at a painful angle. A sick kind of satisfaction curled in her gut at the look on his face. She smiled.

With a sound of rage he hoisted her up and slammed her back against the wall. Mayuri laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation; she was being bullied by someone who was trying to kill her, and she couldn't find it in herself to feel anything worse than prickling annoyance.

She focused on her chakra, trying to find something out of place within that all too familiar itching inside her veins. When she focused hard enough, she could feel it. There was the pulse of something cold and wild on her hip, a slight tingling just beneath her skin that had not yet moved beneath the bones to enter her bloodstream proper. If he had let her sleep longer, unaware of the threat, he might have succeeded in killing her.

As it was, Mayuri let her eyes slide closed for a brief second. Beneath the cover of her tunic her flesh bulged and tore as the bones pushed out from her skin, trapping the spider and expelling the venom that had been pooling just beneath her skin. Kidomaru hadn't known what he was getting himself into when he targeted her, apparently.

"I'm not interested in your game, Kidomaru-kun." Her false cheer didn't waver even as he slammed her against the wall again, her skull bouncing against the stone. There, where skin stretched so close to bone, she did feel the impact. She forced herself not to wince – if anything, her smile only grew.

"What are you so happy about, you freak?" he snarled. Two of his arms were braced against her torso, a forearm pressing into her solar plexus and another into her stomach. The bones beneath her skin, though strong, were more like cartilage than normal bone. They gave ever-so-slightly beneath his weight, forcing the breath from her lungs.

"Your spider is on my hip," she told him, wheezing slightly. She watched his eyes go wide, then narrow in fury. He shoved harder into her stomach and she retched a little at the pressure. "I won, so let go of me."

"You guessed right this time," he said, his lips curling like Saya's once had, half-scowl and half-smile. "You win this round, but what about next time? And when you're gone, what's going to stop me from getting to Otogakure and finding your precious little sister and killing her, too?"

Mayuri froze, her eyes going wide with horror even though her teeth stayed bared in the mockery of a smile. A cold fury curled inside her chest, filling her throat and numbing her heart. Any amusement she might have entertained disappeared in an instant. When she spoke, her voice was low and dangerous despite her breathlessness.

"You wanted to play a game, right?"

Kidomaru did not respond, staring at her with wary suspicion as he tried to wrap his head around her reaction. Mayuri curled her toes and swung her legs a little, just to be sure that she could. Then, she allowed her smile to turn cold.

"New rules."

She grabbed ahold of the two arms pressed to her chest, forcing them to stay put with an iron-like grip, assisted by too-dense bones and the ability to lock her joints. She saw the flash of confusion, of panic, as he struggled against her sudden hold. It wasn't enough to stop her from swinging her legs up into his stomach, bracing herself, and shoving.

She heard the sharp intake of breath, the crack of bones, and then his screams. She let go, watched him collapse to the floor as she landed easily on her feet. She smiled down at him.

"The game is simple, Kidomaru-kun: We see how many bones I have to break before you beg for me to kill you."

The cavern had gone quiet with his scream, the soft murmurings of children disappearing beneath the sound of anguish. There were dozens of curious eyes on them, waiting to see what would happen next. Mayuri caught sight of Beru in the crowd that was beginning to gather, her long hair still wet from a bath. Arata was pressed close to Beru's side, and she could tell by the glow of his cheeks that he was worried enough that the lava was sliding up his throat on its own. There were so many children watching her, and just a month ago that would have meant something.

She ignored them and turned her focus back on Kidomaru. He was cursing through his sobs, clutching his broken arms close. He looked like he was going to get up, like he was going to try to run away. She tilted her head, her eyes empty and her smile showing too many teeth.

"Don't you want to play anymore, Kidomaru-kun?" she taunted, sugary sweet. She ignored the curses he spat at her and the many eyes trained on her as she knelt down to grab his leg. It snapped easily, the same chakra she had been teaching herself to use to heal brutally efficient in hurting, too.

Mayuri could remember, through a haze of drugs and pain and confusion, the feeling of chakra being pushed into her bones years before. They had snapped as easily as twigs. She wondered if Emi had felt powerful, back then.

Kidomaru was writhing, tears streaming down his pallid face. She couldn't make out his words over the rush of blood in her ears, pounding like war drums. Adrenaline and anger mixed inside her chest, filling her to the brim with emotion for the first time in weeks. It was a heady rush, filling her with a manic sort of glee as she let it overtake her and fill her head with the static of fury as she snapped the bones of another of his arms.

The flame of her fury only lasted so long, though. It had run out after another three bones, leaving her painfully aware of the yawning emptiness inside her chest and the gnawing sense of guilt that had taken up residence there. Kidomaru's sobs echoed inside her head and she pulled away like she had been burned, cursing quietly. She had killed before, but this was different.

The ugly, barely healed wound on her chest throbbed in time to her heartbeats. Kidomaru's cries sounded like Saya, desperate and hurt and terrified. She choked on the bile that rushed to fill her throat, disgusted and horrified by her own actions.

A few stumbling steps backwards and she turned to run, breaths coming fast and heart pounding. Kidomaru's soft sob stopped her cold. She froze, felt the chakra buzzing inside her veins and the warm pulse of it in her hands. Her bones shifted beneath her skin.

Mayuri took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down and turn back towards the boy she had hurt. When she kneeled beside him, he flinched away. Guilt writhed like a serpent inside her chest, making her feel hot and sick all over.

Kidomaru couldn't escape her as she pressed a hand into his shoulder to stop him from moving as much. The breaks were all mostly clean, and none of the bones had broken through his skin. If he kept moving, though, they might. She pressed a little harder on his misshapen shoulder, feeling the movement of muscle and ligaments beneath her palm. There were soft sounds of comfort falling mindlessly from her lips, not at all paying attention to what was being said but just knowing the sound might help soothe his fears.

Looking down at his face, young and open and helpless as he cried with the pain she had caused, Mayuri felt the numbness creeping in again. How many terrified children would she have to stand over while their lives were held in someone else's hand and their deaths rested upon her head? Watching Kidomaru sob and flinch away from her touch, she wondered if it would be kinder to kill him, too. What was there in this world, aside from pain and suffering?

But no. There was still a chance for him. Mayuri hadn't healed anyone's bones besides her own, but she was hoping that it wouldn't be that much different to heal someone else's. After all, bones were supposed to be her thing, weren't they? She could handle this, in one way or another. She had to—it was her fault he was hurt, after all.

Kidomaru groaned as she delved deep, her chakra worming its way into his body. She could feel its path through his veins, an extra sense similar to how she imagined feelers or whiskers might gather information. Not a clear picture, but a tickle at the edge of her senses that gave her an idea about what was happening.

Kidomaru's chakra was wild and cold as it brushed against hers. It reminded her of mountain streams and the sensation of being followed while walking alone in the forest. She watched him sweat and squirm beneath her touch and wondered what her chakra felt like. Apparently, it was nothing like the warm, soothing touch Kabuto used. Maybe it felt like a knife pressed to the throat or like splintered bones beneath the skin. Maybe her chakra reminded those she touched of betrayal and loneliness. She had never dared to ask, too afraid of what the answer might be.

She found the first break, his radius snapped cleanly in two. He cried out again as she reset it like she had been taught in Otogakure's survival class. He shuddered in what she could only imagine was disgust as she forced her chakra into his system, bypassing the skin and muscle that she was used to healing to focus on the the bone beneath.

It wasn't the same as her own, of course. His bones didn't respond to her will or to instincts and dangers she hadn't even been consciously aware of. With a bit of prodding, though, she was able to feel the life in the bones. She could feel the chakra running through Kidomaru's veins resonating with her own. After that, it was just a matter of finding enough common ground to be able to convince his bones to do what she wanted them to.

His two main eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and a distant part of her noted how long his eyelashes were. Sweat was beading on his forehead, where the third eye was open and staring intently at her. She offered it a quick smile, trying to be reassuring and probably failing, before turning her attention inwards once more. The first bone was healing and the drain on her chakra was immense. Why was it so much easier to hurt than to heal?

She spent the next three hours mending what she had broken, Kidomaru watching her with narrowed eyes and a scowl almost the whole while. Occasionally, when he thought she wasn't looking, his expression would turn to something more thoughtful. Even in pain he was sizing her up, his sharp mind assessing her and drawing a list of possible conclusions she would probably be more comfortable never knowing.

"You good?" she asked, her chakra running dangerously low and her stomach twisting with hunger. She was ready to sleep for the next 20 hours, if she could somehow manage to get away with it. Kidomaru drew his arm back from where she had held it in her lap, examining the bruised flesh. He poked at it curiously, as though testing to make sure this arm really was healed. He had done the same with every other break, too.

"You broke seven of my bones." He didn't sound upset about the fact, but Mayuri still winced. "You healed all of them, though. Why?"

Mayuri shrugged. Her eyes were fixed on where her hands rested in her lap. Her fingers were swollen and her palms red with the strain of using her medical ninjutsu for so long. The scar in the middle of her chest throbbed with the beat of her heart. She couldn't seem to find the words to apologize, a mix of pride and shame and leftover fury welling in her throat and refusing to let sorry's slip past.

"If you had killed me, then I wouldn't be a threat anymore."

"You were barely a threat in the first place." The words slipped out before she could stop them and she immediately felt her face heat up and her stomach drop. What an awful thing for her to say.

Mayuri forced herself to look at him, swallowing down the roiling emotions with the intent to let apologies spill from her lips instead. She was surprised to find him grinning at her, wide and wild and his eyes shining feverishly bright. It was hard not to reach forward and rest her hand on his forehead, just to check to make sure she hadn't somehow fried his brain. Before she could, though, he was leaning forward to capture her hands in three of his. His grip was painfully tight, like he was keeping her from running away. She would have bruises in the shape of his hands encircling her wrists later.

"You're going to be fun to play with," he said, grinning wide. Mayuri groaned, but otherwise didn't acknowledge his words. She allowed the ball of bone to detach from her hip. It fell to the ground with a sound loud enough to break Kidomaru out of whatever strange reverie he was in.

"Your spider is in there," she told him, watching the misshapen lump of bone roll to a stop. Kidomaru reached out and grabbed it, cradling the tiny cage in his hands like it was something precious.

"You didn't kill her?" he asked, all three eyes wide.

Mayuri used his moment of shock to pull her hands away from his loosened grip. She rolled to her feet, using the momentum to get herself to the wall just in time to keep from falling. Her vision blacked out as the exhaustion of the last few hours overtook her and she was left clinging to the wall for support as she tried to blink fast enough to clear her vision.

When her sight came back, Kidomaru was hovering mere inches away, the spider sphere held to his chest. He was watching her with thinly veiled concern, and a fair bit of uncertainty. That was surprising.

"Are you okay?" he asked. His eyes were wide, his hair a mess, and his many hands fiddled nervously with the sphere in his hand and the hem of his shirt. Despite the fact that he had been fully prepared to kill her just hours before, it struck her in that moment that he was nothing more than a baby.

"How old are you?" she asked, already knowing that she was going to hate the answer. Kidomaru frowned at her, face scrunching up adorably and she already knew she was screwed by the time he held up seven fingers.

Mayuri covered her face with both hands, her curses muffled and in a language only one other person in this world would know. Emotions she had been working hard to keep locked down came back to her, a flood of guilt and horror and disgust. He was a baby. She had tormented a seven year old. She was no better than the people who had hurt Saya—

She stopped that thought in its track, shoulders hunching as she tried to force away the nausea that churned her stomach. Maybe it was true that she was just another monster amongst the many that Orochimaru had hoarded or created. She refused to allow herself to become that kind of monster, though.

She forced herself to face Kidomaru again. When he grinned at her (too wide and far too real, considering they had been trying to kill each other just hours before) she offered a shaky smile in return.

Somehow, after that, Kidomaru ended up becoming something like a friend. As the days passed, she found herself waking up not with Beru's gentle voice and soft touches but instead Kidomaru's wide grin and rough shoves. She wasn't sure which she preferred, but a part of her was glad for the change. As much as she liked Beru, she couldn't help but be reminded of Saya every time she saw her.

He seemed to view her as a rival of sort, a challenge that he wanted to overcome but also someone he could be friendly with. He hated being bored and had apparently decided that Mayuri was a good source of entertainment. She didn't trust him to watch her back or have her best interests at heart, but she did trust that he was interested enough that he would at least hesitate before trying to kill her again. It was painfully close to the kind of relationship she had had with Saya, and it hurt if she stopped to think about it long enough. And so she did her best to push aside all those memories and emotions and just focus on here, on now, on Kidomaru and the strange and ugly relationship they were beginning to form.

He called her bone girl. She called him bug boy exactly once, got an hour long lecture on the difference between arachnids and insects (which was actually extremely interesting and well informed, considering his age), and then decided to just call him Kido-chan in the most condescending tone she could. She learned that she just had to ask him to tell her more about spiders whenever he seemed to be getting too riled up, and it worked as a wonderful distraction every time.

She got to meet his spiders. There were 13 of them in all, each with a name and a personality all their own, and he hid each and every one of them in her hair every time she did anything to make him angry. He thought the way she twitched and shrieked was hilarious and Mayuri kept it to herself that the only reason she hadn't killed them was because the oversized arachnids were probably sentient and she didn't want to have the others seeking revenge if she killed one of their friends.

It was after he had introduced her to his largest spider that the creeping feeling of dejavu finally solidified into a memory of just who Kidomaru was. With it came an existential crisis, wondering why it was that she had seen this boy's grown-up form in the anime but never her own. Did it mean that she would always remain in the background, content with C-Ranks or missions that weren't important enough to show? Did it mean she would die sooner than later? Or did it mean that, like a stone tossed carelessly into a still pond or a butterfly's gentle flight, she had already irreversibly altered this world's course?

She couldn't imagine herself being anything so important. She hoped that it just meant she had always remained in the background, a filler character that she and no one else had ever noticed. She didn't want to be anything more than that. She was content with being one among hundreds of faceless extras, if it meant she and Hiroko would get the chance to live.

Kidomaru managed to frustrate her more than anyone else had. When he made snide comments or pushed her around after days of locking her emotions away, sometimes she would snap. He loved it when she came after him with the intent to maim or kill. He screamed as she broke skin and bones, watched her with bright eyes as she healed him afterwards, and laughed with her as soon as it was all over.

She liked to think that it would help him, somehow. She wasn't the most talented, but she was more durable than most. If he faced off against someone he couldn't down easily enough, then maybe he would stand a better chance of surviving longer. Every time she saw his chubby little face, his mischievous smile or full-bodied laugh, she was reminded that he would die some day. She couldn't remember the details – only that he had been a villain on the show at some point – but there was a large part of her that fervently hoped that he could somehow avoid that fate.

When they inevitably started sparring, he tested out his slowly developing abilities on her. Apparently he had been abandoned by his parents when he came out with four too many arms and had never known what clan he might have come from. Therefore, each and every ability he developed was discovered entirely by accident. It made things exciting, because that meant that Mayuri never quite knew what was going to happen on any given day. One day it could be an orange and black spider that had grown overnight to the size of a golden retriever charging at her, intent on tearing off her arm with it fangs. The next it was a weird, goopy, web-like liquid he accidentally spit up all over her when she hit him too hard in the stomach. It ended up drying in her hair and proving next to impossible to wash out.

She cut her hair with a sharpened bone, deciding it was far too much work to save it. Her hair had been matted and filthy, anyways, she assured Kidomaru. He laughed at her and told her she looked like a boy with all her hair gone. She would miss the dual colored strands, but it was better this way. Long hair was impossible to manage even in the best of circumstances, and in a place without brushes or shampoo (and where there was always blood in her hair) it just took too much effort to bother keeping it clean and untangled.

Kidomaru was one of the only ones who could make her feel anything at all. She lived in constant fear that he would be the next one she was told to kill.


For her sixth birthday, Mayuri's present was to see her sister.

Afterwards, she came back to the cell with haunted eyes and bloodied hands and her stomach sliced open. She looked like a corpse with its autopsy half done. It was as if her soul had abandoned her, leaving just a body behind.

Beru, Arata, and Kidomaru were there to greet her when she stumbled her way to their usual resting spot. Kidomaru was the one to usher her towards the bath, snarling at the others when they tried to follow. Mayuri did not react to the show of possessiveness. She just stared straight ahead and stumbled along behind Kidomaru as he took her by the hand and led her through the cavern.

The kid in the pool took one look at the approaching Champions and scrambled out, leaving a dripping trail behind him as he disappeared naked into the crowds. Kidomaru glared at anyone who stood too close, teeth bared and eyes blazing. Mayuri would have been the only one capable of seeing the worry buried beneath his ferocity, if she had been present enough to see anything at all.

Kidomaru lowered them into the pool together, Mayuri held close to his chest. He brushed a hand soothingly through her hair, his words worried and low enough that no one else would be able to hear him. Three of his hands were splayed over the cut running along her torso, tendrils of blood leaking between his fingers and lingering in a cloud for a few seconds before being swept along by the gentle current at his feet.

The cut was messy, desperate work. It split the skin of her torso, ending just a few centimeters beneath the starburst scar she had received from Saya's venomous bite. Her clothes were ruined and hanging loosely off her thin shoulders, spread out on one side and crumpled against his chest on the other like a broken wing. The exposed bone moved with each of her breaths, even and deep despite the zombie-like stare she was directing towards the root covered ceiling.

"C'mon, bone girl," Kidomaru muttered, hands pressing a little harder on the cut. Mayuri didn't even flinch, her mind too far away and the stinging pain enough that she barely noticed a little more. "You're stronger than this, you little brat. Get it together!"

The cold water did nothing to shock Mayuri back into awareness. After he had rinsed the blood from her skin and cleaned the wound as best he could, Kidomaru dragged them from the pool. The blood had already been washed away by the time he turned his back on the pool, Mayuri still held close.

He had seen more people die than he could count on all his fingers and every toe. He had killed most of them himself. Yet Kidomaru had never felt the kind of fear over their deaths that he did looking at Mayuri's empty expression and gaping wound. He hated the feeling.

"Wake up!" he snarled, throwing her to the ground. Her head struck the stone, setting her eyes rolling and the skin of her bisected stomach bleeding again.

Kidomaru watched as she blinked slowly up at him, eyes squinted and watering. She looked lost and weary in a way he hadn't seen before. She wasn't completely there yet, but he prefered that to the creepy staring. She sat up slowly, fingers gliding over the open wound.

"You gonna stop being a goddamn freak yet?" Kidomaru snapped, fingers curled into tight fists and teeth worrying at his bottom lip. Mayuri gazed up at him, numbed and lost, but not yet empty. Not yet dead.

"I can't fix this," she said. Her hands were shaking and her teeth were chattering. Whether from the cold or the fact that whatever adrenaline she had leftover from the fight had finally drained from her veins, he didn't know.

"That's not an answer," Kidomaru said. Then, he sighed. "Lay down on your back. I'll fix it for you."

Mayuri's brow furrowed, but she didn't protest. Once she was laying down Kidomaru bit his thumb, drawing blood. A spider the size of his fist appeared in his hand, surveying the cavern with jewel-like eyes. Once the spider was satisfied that he was safe, she turned her body towards Mayuri. The soft clicking sound she made showed her concern for the girl.

"I know," he murmured, stroking a finger over her prickly abdomen. "We're going to do what we can for her. I need some of your strongest silk." He took another look at Mayuri, who was still prodding at her wound with a sense of muted interest and muttering to herself, and grimaced. "A lot of silk. Do you think you can do that?"

The spider clicked her affirmation and set to work immediately. Kidomaru gathered the silk with a free hand, winding it carefully around his fingers to keep it from getting tangled. Before Orochimaru had found him, he had shared an alley with a woman who had been a seamstress before her shop had been destroyed and her body crippled in some war. She had taught him the basics of sewing despite her dislike of anyone with unusual traits or abilities. He had only had to use what he had learned to make sure he still had something to wear after difficult fights, but figured that sewing a person and sewing clothes had to be pretty much the same thing.

"Make me a needle," he demanded, crouching down beside Mayuri. She turned her head to look at him and he was relieved to see that her eyes were clearer and more focused. Whatever stupidity she had been going through seemed to be fixing itself at last.

"I can heal myself in a little bit," she told him with a sigh. She sounded tired.

"And I can sew your skin together now." His grin was back full force now that Mayuri was herself again, and his mind was already going through ways that sewing people up could become a new game. Would it be fun to watch someone try to scream once he had sewn their mouth shut? As if she could tell what he was thinking, Mayuri smiled back at him.

"What happened?" he asked as he watched the exposed bone bubble and twist until a curved needle had formed. For just a second he could see the red of her guts beneath, before her bones filled the gap left behind. He filed the information away just in case he ever had to fight her in the arena.

"My sister…." she trailed off for a second, pausing to take a deep breath. "My sister saw me kill. I never wanted her to see me like...this."

Kidomaru scoffed. "That's stupid. If you wanted to see her again, who you are now is all that there is. What did you think she was gonna see when you two met again?"

Mayuri didn't say anything to that. She just turned away, chewing at the skin of her lips until it bled. Kidomaru rolled all three of his eyes, but set to work on fixing the girl who was better than any toy and more interesting than any game. His spider nestled itself in the dip between Mayuri's neck and shoulder, churring softly to comfort her, and Kidomaru noted with satisfaction that Mayuri didn't flinch away.

He was a little disappointed to find that sewing together skin was not as easy as sewing together cloth. He was more disappointed when Mayuri didn't scream every time the bone needle pierced her skin. Still, looking down at the patched together flesh and the silvery glint of his spider's thread, Kidomaru couldn't help but feel proud. His mark would be forever imprinted in his toy's flesh, a reminder for her even if he died. Just like Saya.

Only his would be bigger and far more impressive than the scar that girl had left behind. Kidomaru's mark would be another reminder that she owed him, and that he owned her.

Kidomaru's smile was bright as he pulled Mayuri to her feet and offered to sew her clothes back together if she gave him her dinner that night.


A few days later, Mayuri woke to find Kabuto standing over her. It was still dark, not even the grey of predawn illuminating the cavern in pockets of light yet. Kidomaru was sleeping beside her, two arms thrown over her waist. Beru was on her other side, Arata pulled close to her chest. (It had already been over a month, but sometimes, when she was still half asleep, Mayuri still wondered why Saya wasn't resting with them.)

Kabuto's lips curled into what could be a smile. "Hello, Mayuri-chan. I see you've made some friends."

Despite the alarm bells blaring in the back of her head at the mere sight of Kabuto, she still had to resist the urge to roll over and go back to sleep. The fight the previous day had been exhausting and she had used a good amount of chakra healing herself afterwards. She wasn't in the mood to be polite right now.

Mayuri blinked the sleep from her eyes and told him bluntly, "It's not my day to fight."

"Oh, you won't have to worry about that anymore."

Mayuri stared at him for a second, hope and terror warring inside her head. His words could mean that she was either about to die, or that she was going to be taken away from here and returned to Otogakure proper. The thought of going back to the village both thrilled and horrified her; She wasn't sure she would be able to face anyone outside this cell again, scared that they would look right through her masks and see the monster that she had become lurking underneath.

She didn't have any choice in the matter, though. If she was going to die, she would die whether she did what Kabuto said or not. If she was to live...well, she would definitely need to do what she was told. She really only had one option, if she didn't want to be slaughtered right on the spot.

Careful not to wake the children around her, Mayuri wriggled out of the pile. Kidomaru mumbled something as she slipped out of his hold, but otherwise didn't stir. The air was damp and chilly and she wished immediately that she could go back to sleep. Instead she stood as straight and tall as she could manage and met Kabuto's eye, waiting for him to announce what her fate would be.

He watched her for a few long seconds, face unreadable and eyes narrowed. She couldn't tell what he was planning. Would her blood paint the sleeping bodies behind her or was she about to be led to freedom? She curled her hands into fists and was surprised to note that they weren't shaking at all.

"Follow me," he said at last, turning on his heel and beginning his march towards the front of the cell.

For a second, Mayuri hesitated. She wanted to say goodbye, to tell the children that she could almost consider friends that she was alright (whether it turned out to be the truth or not). Would it be kinder to just go? A clean break was always the easiest to heal, after all.

Kabuto was disappearing into the darkness of the cavern, his footsteps silent among the piles of sleeping children. If she couldn't catch up to him, would he leave her behind? Mayuri bounced on the balls of her feet, nervous and uncertain. Then, wincing as her skin bulged and split, she forced a slender bone out from her forearm. She had been hiding it there for a while, keeping it a secret the only way she could in this place. She wiped the blood off the trinket and her hands using the hem of her tattered top, then kneeled down.

She brushed Arata's hair out of his face and straightened the threadbare blanket around Beru's slender shoulders. She did not touch Kidomaru. She watched him, the way his breaths ruffled his messy hair and his fingers all twitched with whatever dream he was having. As gently as she was able, she pressed the hair stick into his hand.

The bone glistened an eerie white against his dark skin. She had been working on it for almost a week, carefully carving the crude images of flowers and spiders along its length. She had been waiting for what felt like the right moment. She supposed that that would have to be now.

She hesitated just one second longer, allowing herself a last lingering glance at the dirty faces of the children before her. Would it haunt her, never knowing which of them lived and which would die?

She couldn't afford to wait any longer. Mayuri did not allow herself to look back as she ran after Kabuto, her bare feet silent as they carried her across the length of the cavern. She caught up to him just feet away from the cell door.

"I thought you might have chosen to stay here," Kabuto said. He sounded amused at the thought.

"I promised Hiroko I'd come back," Mayuri told him. It was soft as a prayer; a warning and a plea wrapped up in one. Kabuto huffed out a soft laugh as he opened the door, locks and bars grinding against one another as his burst of chakra forced them into movement. It was a selfish and silly thought, but she couldn't help but wonder if Kidomaru and the others would be alright without her.

"You don't have to worry, Mayuri-chan. You're not about to be killed."

The relief his words brought wasn't as overwhelming as it might have been two months ago. She nodded and followed him out into the passage beyond. When they turned the opposite direction from the arena, she felt her muscles begin to relax as tension she hadn't realized she was carrying drained from them.

She was silent as she trailed behind him, trying and failing to keep track of every passageway they turned down and every hidden entrance and chakra locked door. As the cool, damp air was replaced by the stale air of Otogakure's vents, Mayuri wondered if she would ever see these halls again. She wondered if she would ever feel sunshine on her skin or a breeze tickling her nose again in this lifetime. The Underground had been a special kind of hell, but there were things she knew she would miss.

"Why now?" Her voice echoed throughout the empty hall, swallowed up by the darkness between torches. Kabuto paused, turning back to look at her with an expression of mock surprise.

"You haven't heard?" he asked, his voice full of lilting shock, sugary sweet and fake as anything she had ever heard.

"I've been a little preoccupied," she replied, dry and unimpressed. "We tend to be a little out of the loop down in the Underground."

"You've become far more valuable to Orochimaru-sama," he told her, his stony eyes catching the light of the flickering torches.

Mayuri wet her lips and tried to quell the fear swelling in her belly as she whispered, "Why?"

Kabuto smiled, and it chilled her to the bone.

"It would seem that that's just what happens when a powerful clan gets wiped out overnight."


It's been a while, huh? My wonderful beta (who doesn't want to be named at this time, but she knows who she is and how much she is appreciated!) probably wanted to throw me off a cliff the entire time I was writing this. Every time I thought I was done, there were suddenly another 2,000 words that needed to be written! In the end we've got more than 26,000 words, so I hope it was worth the wait!

A special shout out to Ice, who I had many long conversations about Kabuto, Orochimaru, and Otogakure with. I got a lot of fun ideas talking to you!

Thank you to everyone who comments, favorites, follows, and reads this. You all mean the world to me. Let's hope the next chapter comes a little easier.