The next morning was rainy and cold. It seeped even through the thick walls of the dungeon and seemed to shroud the cells with a heavy chill.

Another day of no ideas, another day of fragmenting hope.

For those who had been wasting away long before the members of Akatsuki, it was just another day of running a routine. Wake up, be counted, eat breakfast, wait, be counted, eat dinner, and fall asleep.

For Deidara and the others, it was another day of clinging desperately to any chance of an escape.

Miya had long since been taken out of the cells. Her refusal to eat, nor speak, nor do anything, really, had branded her as an emergency case. She had been whisked away to another location, one the other prisoners had murmured of, where nobody was ever seen again.

To say he cared would be an overstatement. It shocked and disgusted him how little he cared for the traumatized young woman, but now as he thought of her, he could hardly even recall the sound of her voice. All memories he had of her now were of her catatonic state; the mindless husk of what once was a woman lying on the cold stone floor, curled up into an unresponsive ball.

Even Hidan was silent now; his foul mouth and even fouler attitude had earned him quite a few 'interrogations' from the guards. Now he sat quietly, staring up at the ceiling with shadowed eyes and a blank stare.

"There must be something, anything," they'd said more than once to one another in desperation. "There has to be some kind of way out of here!"

But no way ever presented itself. Days passed, weeks passed, and still they remained in the dank, musty dungeon.

Today, however, as Deidara leaned against the wall, he startled when he realized it was a bit more crumbly than the rest of it.

"Akane!" He whispered, and when he had her attention, he gestured to the part of the wall. "Here, c'mon, maybe this will give!"

"I don't think we'll be able to do anything about it," she replied just as quietly.

Yet still she helped him scrape at the rock with jagged fingernails. Her chopsticks had long since broken, all other ways of attempting a breakout confiscated or lost due to their impracticality. All she had now was herself, and Deidara as a willing partner.

"We should just give up," Hidan piped up quietly from the next cell over. Both paused in their work to stare at him as he lay on his cot. His jaded pink eyes glanced over to them for a second before going back to stare at the ceiling. "It's really fuckin' obvious we're never getting out of here."

"Hidan, my man, what happened to you?" Deidara finally asked after a few moments of stunned silence.

He sighed. "What is there to try anymore? Not even Jashin-sama sees fit to free his most loyal servant. If not even he will come to help me, then there is no more hope for us."

Akane's lips parted, and the blond's brow furrowed.

"We can't just give up now," he argued. "Not when we're so close."

Hidan turned his head to stare at them now. His half-lidded eyes searched their dirty faces for a few moments, before he kissed his teeth and turned back to look at the ceiling.


There are two more graves today. Two more unmarked plots of land where two more souls had been laid to rest.

Aoi stood over them in solemn silence, one hand balled into a fist, the other holding up an umbrella.

Two more people that could not have been saved.

"This is hell," they muttered with a harsh sigh, clenching their eye shut.

At their side, Aika agreed silently, her hands clasped over her mouth in a desperate prayer to the gods.

Though they were out of Morino, the nightmares wouldn't stop. The nightmare could not end. Every day, every new life lost, was yet another reminder of that.

"(I hope Karin can recover,)" Aika signed with a sad shake of her head. "(The poor girl shouldn't have had to work herself into her sickbed like this.)"

"I don't know of any other choice we had," they replied. "A lot of the medical corps were taken out in the ambush."

She nodded. There was no arguing with that. It was true.

A soft wind blew, whistling past them and tousling their hair in the rain. Though they stayed relatively dry under their umbrella, the chill still seemed to seep into their very bones.

"Is this the mourning of the dead?" Aoi wondered to themself. "Could it be that the gods themselves are just as anguished to watch over this as we are to be living it?"

Aika gently patted their arm, and when they glanced over, she signed, "(We need to leave soon.)"

Another reminder of their fate had their face souring, and they gave her a firm nod. "I know… I hate to leave this soon, but if we want to make it in a timely manner…"

Her eyes softened, and she reached up to cup their cheek. Their eye reflexively closed at her touch, blindly trusting her as they stood together in the rain.

In the darkness of their thoughts, a familiar face popped into their mind's eye. A sickly pallor, much unlike the healthy tan the boy had once sported, limp, greasy ginger hair, his eyes closed in what seemed like an eternal sleep… The very thought of what the once-exuberant young man had become was like a slap in the face.

He was practically dead already, why couldn't the others see it?

"It's as if he's just… given up on his life," they reflected. "I almost wish he would die, just to spare her the grief of watching him continue to wither away into nothing."

They broke the silence with a murmur. "He'll be the death of her."

Aika turned to them for a second in confusion, before their words sank in and her eyes widened in understanding.

Aoi stared once more at the two graves, their gaze hard. "I can't stand it. To think all of this amounted to nothing…"

Aika patted their cheek again to get their attention. "(We can't give up on him yet. Perhaps the gods will send us a miracle, or perhaps they'll spare us the grief and spirit him away. We cannot do what they alone must decide upon.)"

They sighed once more. "I hate it when you're right."


The screams had long since died down in the dungeons. Deidara had long since stopped moving on the ground.

Akane knelt beside his prone body, gingerly wrapping up his arms the best she could with ripped swaths of her shirt. Her toned stomach grew thinner with malnutrition and she could hardly suppress a shiver as another chill went through her own aching body.

"I told you that you should've given up," Hidan's quiet voice piped up again.

This time, the blond couldn't dignify him with an answer. The blinding pain of his shattered bones stole away his breath, leaving him gasping quietly in agony as he tried to keep from screaming.

"Maybe it is all hopeless," Akane murmured. The sound of her voice, so desolate and resigned, broke his heart. She tightened the knot around the sling and stared despondently into his painful stare. "All we can do is wait until we die, can't we?"

A million thoughts ran through his mind. He so desperately wanted to rebuke her, to tell her that she was wrong, that help was surely coming. But weeks in the dungeons had shattered his hopes, had beaten down his determination until only whispers of the once-proud fighter remained, too stubborn to lie down and die.

What was taking them so long? He thought as he lay his head back and clenched his eyes shut. What were they doing? Were they coming to rescue them at all?

Would anyone even remember them?