A/N: The mood in the dungeons dampens. Arata has a close call.
End of chapter trigger warning for blood/injury.
The air in the dungeons was musty and stale, dark and dank and depressing. Every two-man cell was filled, and the amount of space in each one was just enough for two cots and a hole for relieving yourself. The walls were barred and there was little privacy to be had - if someone looked from their cell directly into yours, there was a good chance they'd be able to see what you were doing. If you wanted to be shielded from a curious gaze, you had to conscript your cellmate into helping.
After only a few days, Deidara was beginning to go stir-crazy in the confined space. He'd already taken to trying to scratch tallies into the back wall and playing tic-tac-toe on the floors with a piece of stone fallen from said wall.
Hidan had already been taken away to be questioned, but he'd proved too formidable to get anything out of. The first time they took him away, he'd come back with several bruises and looked quite pleased with himself. Apparently once they found out he got off on torture, they immediately decided to bring him back.
Miya was next. The shellshocked girl had to be dragged out of the cell, and it had only been half an hour of interrogation before they brought her back, throwing her back in with disgusted faces. She never even reacted to the cold, gross floor. All she did was stare at the tiles.
He almost felt bad for her. The poor girl had been through too much for a fresh-faced recruit. Not only had her troop been targeted and taken out in a single night, but the second she was in more secure hands, she and the two others had been spotted and captured by highly-trained agents. If he'd gone through the same thing in his first three months, he'd certainly have gone catatonic too.
But then he'd been taken in her place, and the interrogator must have been more frustrated than usual, because their session was hard to get through. Deidara had barely hung on to the bits of information that he did have. For the first time, he really resented her. He resented the fact that she'd been blessed with a disassociation so strong that she didn't even flinch when manhandled so roughly.
He'd come back tired and grumpy from that, and the second his body hit the cot he slept soundly until dinner. Nobody said a word to him for a while after that, Akari's eyes filled with pity and Hidan blatantly ignoring the body on the ground next to him.
And now, he, along with Hidan and Akari, were trying to make escape plans. Since he had no clay and they all had chakra-negating cuffs, they'd have to rely on their wits.
More than once, Akari had suggested using the tiny hole in the back of the cell they used to relieve themselves in. She'd suggested digging it out into a hole big enough to fit inside, and then trying to dig a hole to the outside. But getting through a layer of concrete, especially without chakra, and with their own bare strengths, definitely wouldn't work. Still, it was worth a try.
Then Hidan suggested breaking their bones to fit through the cuffs, and when both Deidara and Akari were visibly disturbed by it, he attempted to break his own hand to demonstrate - but the guards came through at the moment he was about to slam his hand into the wall, and they were ordered to stand at attention.
Deidara was beginning to feel frustrated. He'd relied on his clay bombs for so long that he'd been slacking on his own physical strength, and against fighters like Hidan (who fought hand-to-hand on a daily basis) and Akari (who had been trained by her father in martial arts), he was left feeling like he had nothing.
He sighed, catching the redhead's attention. When she brushed her foot against his, he looked up into her sympathetic eyes.
"We'll think of something," she promised in her rasping voice. With a smile, "I promise."
All he could do was hope she was right.
Meanwhile, in the capital, Mebuki was walking home with her son. The two of them were hand-in-hand, her bags hanging from her other arm. Both bodies were drooping as they walked, their grip slack on each other.
Even though visiting relatives usually brought inner peace, this visit was turbulent and her sister had all but denounced the protests as 'warmongering traitors'.
The sun was still low in the sky so early in the day. The people in the streets had their shoulders tensed, their eyes sweeping across the area more often than usual, or so the boy noted. He locked eyes with an older boy, and the older just gave him a grimacing smile before turning away as he walked in the opposite direction of them.
The world was changing, and he wasn't sure if he liked it.
He looked up at his mother, watching her wary stare flicker around the street. Her and Papa had been more tense and prone to irritation lately. Although they hardly took it out on him, he still found himself walking on eggshells around them whenever he could sense them getting into a mood.
Suddenly her grip tightened on his hand. Her hurried exclamation of "Watch out!" made him freeze for a moment as she threw herself in front of him.
He heard her hiss in pain and the clatter of a kunai hitting the ground behind them both. He felt the wind passing by his scalp as something passed overhead, its direction abruptly changed. His head whirled from staring at the metal splattered with blood, to his mother cupping her injured cheek with her free hand.
"Mama?" He asked, tugging his hand free of hers to try and see. He grabbed her arm and stared up at her cheek, watching the bright ruby blood trickling down underneath her hand.
"Are you okay, ma'am?" A young shinobi hurried over, his eyes full of concern as he checked the blonde. "Were you hit?"
Mebuki's troubled eyes narrowed further and she opened her mouth to speak. "Numb," she spoke strangely, as if she couldn't properly figure out how to move her tongue.
"Numb?" The shinobi echoed, puzzled. "Let me see your cheek."
Wordlessly she pulled away her hand, and the man winced at the sight. Arata stared, his heart filling with panic.
There was a deep gash in her angular cheek, bright red blood slowly seeping down her skin. There was already a discoloration to her tanned complexion, an ugly shade of purple-green all around the gash that was beginning to bead the site with little greenish dots of pus.
"Oh shit," the young man cussed, pulling out a handkerchief. "Stay still, ma'am, I'm so sorry."
He dabbed at her cheek while turning and shouting over his shoulder, "TANABA! I told you to be careful where you aim! You hit a damned civilian!"
Arata continued to stare at the stranger, his hands clenching and unclenching into fists.
Suddenly the shinobi finally seemed to see him standing there and his expression softened. "Hey buddy, your mom's got a little issue but we're gonna take care of it, okay?"
All he could do was nod.
Mebuki reached for his hand and he took it, hers engulfing his in warmth and cold sweat. He resisted the urge to pull away, seeking comfort more.
"Ow," she said next, at a particularly-harsh dab on her face.
"Sorry," the man apologized, checking the wound over. "You're lucky it was just a low-level poison. It should work its way out of your system with a day of bed rest and medicine."
Mebuki's brow furrowed at him.
"You won't have to go to a clinic, but you will experience numbing in the face." The young man looked deeply apologetic as he bowed to them both. "I'm sorry for inconveniencing you, ma'am. Can you get home alright?"
She nodded, gripping her son's hand tighter.
To his credit, he lasted until the shinobi walked away and his mother turned to go home.
Then the realization of what just happened jumped out at him - in the gleam of the kunai still on the ground, still stained with blood - his mother's blood. He looked at her puffy cheek, hidden by gauze that she'd been given. Already stained with blood and pus, already leaving her with a disgruntled expression.
The realization hit, and when she looked down at him with sympathy in her eyes, he blinked his own as they watered, and he began to cry.
A/N: Please tell me what you thought.
