Under the Heel

[Jinan B]

Kinsue's head was pounding.

He could feel the cold embrace of the hard wooden floor beneath him as he came to consciousness. The light, as he tentatively opened his eyes, shone dimly through cracks in the walls and the roof of a seemingly ramshackle shelter; yet to him was blinding all the same. His clothes felt uncomfortable and unfamiliar, rags that had been wrapped over him while he was out. The smell was wretched, sweat and blood and despair.

The man blinked and lifted his head ever so slightly; ignoring the shooting pain that came with the movement. As he began to adjust to the light, he saw bars of iron enclosed around him. A group of scarred, filthy people seemed to be on guard; most of them armed with short blades. Yoshin users, it seemed, the hallmark of Waterfall Country.

"Ha. Look at that, the fucker's finally awake," one of them said. He was the largest among them, muscular and with a great beard as marked by grime as it was by grey. "You look surprised… Weakling." He spat. "Woulda seen this coming if you weren't."

Kinsue had no response. How did he get here? The man tried to think back but couldn't grasp the memories he was searching for. He had been taken; that much was clear. Had he been drugged? Had he really let his guard down so much to make that possible? Regardless, how it had happened didn't change his position. He had to compose himself; think; find a way out.

Kill the people that had taken him, hopefully.

He looked around and saw that he was not alone in his cage. Another figure was with him; wrapped in similar rags and no doubt with a story of her own as to how she found herself in such a poor position.

[Taiga]

Mariya's hand brushed the side of her face as she came to- a crusty substance running from her forehead past her temples and all the way to the bottom of her jaw. In confusion she instinctively scraped at it and raised it to her nose for a quick whiff, confirming it was dried blood by the distinctive iron scene before stirring further. Without much light it would be hard to honestly tell whether it was her own blood or not but her head did not seem to hurt. Pushing herself up to a sitting position she would hold still, looking at her surroundings.

Dark, dank, dungeon was a rather accurate set of words for describing the situation she was in. She looked at the sorry excuse for clothing that the guards had put her in and nearly shuddered at the thought that the filthy men out there had... seen her... touched her. She only prayed they did not do anything more than change her. Her mind racing at the possibilities she stayed quiet- noting that someone else in her holding cell, if you could call it that, had also seemed to come to.

The guards seemed to have a particular dislike of him and gave him a generous gift of spit... something she hopefully assumed was not the cause of the floor being damp. She glanced at the man and prepared to say something until she once more looked at the guards... Perhaps they would not take kindly to their prisoners chitter-chatting.

She'd tap the ground a few times hopefully drawing the mans attention... though how she would communicate from there she was unsure.

[Jinan B]

The woman seemed to have come to at the same time as Kinsue. By her reaction she must have been as recently captured as he was; though the dried blood that caked her face showed that they had each been taken down in a different manner. Kinsue came to each conclusion slowly, with far more difficulty than he had any right to. Whatever he had been dosed with was still affecting him. Controlling Chakra would be impossible in this state; he had to hope that the effect wouldn't linger too much longer.

She shifted herself into a sitting position, taking in her situation with surprising calm. At least that was how it appeared to Kinsue, expectant as he was that she would be some kind of ordinary civilian taken by their captors. She took note of the guards, and tapped the floor in order to get Kinsue's attention. The message was clear: could they talk?

The man who had noticed him seemed to have left the room. When Kinsue looked again there only seemed to be 4 of the thugs remaining. Arranged around a small table by the only entrance to the building, they were playing some kind of game. One of them, tall and gaunt, shook a collection of dice in a cup before rolling them; groaning a moment later as one of the others eagerly scooped up her coins.

Perhaps, if they were careful, they could speak without being noticed? At least for the moment it was worth the attempt.

The man would begin to shift across the floor of the cell; moving ever so slowly, ever so carefully. Moving his right leg brought about a different, familiar pain. Apparently physical force had a place in his capture as well. Thankfully, it didn't seem so bad as to make him think it was broken. He would reach the wall of the cell, and sit up with his back against it right next to the women. Close enough that they could hear each other at a whisper.

"You took a hit; is it bad?" He asked. Getting information on her state was crucial. Based on her actions so far Kinsue hoped that she might have experience in combat. If she was only lightly wounded, cooperation between both of them would clearly be paramount to their escape.

[Taiga]

While this was an unnerving situation, particularly the question of how she got into the rags she now wore, Mariya had still been trained since birth to be a Black Ops operative. As such, she was keeping it together for the time being. Taking a deep breath in the young woman brushed the side of her face once more- a different emotion coming forth.She had a desire to make whoever had assumedly knocked her out with a blow to the head pay. Emotions were hard for her- except for those of rage or spite. Banri had done will to instill those in her. As she waited reply from the man in her cell with her- she began to build up chakra hoping she could burst through the cell walls only to find a strange numb feeling.

They had done something to her.

She blinked slowly- her doujutsu revealing no genjutsu or trickery here. Giving up on that plan of action Mariya gazed out to a group of guards who seemed to be gambling. Likely for their possessions if she had to take a guess... though further examination would reveal they gabled for tender instead. Her eyes darted quickly to the corner of the room as she noticed the man began to move. Mid-start he seemed to be in pain... his leg was potentially injured.

Right leg. Injury. If not ally, weakness. she jotted mentally, all the while biting her tongue to stop from nearly cursing aloud in disapproval of his attempt.

Miraculously though, he had pulled it off and managed to whisper to her. She looked carefully out at the guards who were still too busy gambling then back to the young man next to her.

"It would appear I was struck on the head... I don't recall much beyond having been in the market... I went into one of the back alleys with a gentlemen to make a deal for a valuable item..." she said as her eyes darted back to the guards to confirm they were still safe.

"I'm guessing that was a trap, and well, a strike to the temple and quite a few hours later and we're here."

She tried mustering up some chakra again, to no avail.

[Jinan B]

Whoever this woman was, it was becoming increasingly clear to Kinsue that she was no ordinary commoner. He saw the calm he had noticed before show no sign of abating as she began describing what had happened to her. The way she spoke was clinical, precise, disciplined. It all spoke to the combat experience that Kinsue was hoping she possessed, and potentially towards her being more than one of the thugs that littered Waterfall Country. Was she a Samurai, perhaps?

Then he looked her in the eye, and saw an intricate pattern spread across her purple sclera. He tensed instinctively. It suddenly seemed certain that the woman was no mere samurai, but a shinobi instead. The Kekkei Genkai was unmistakable. The only question that remained was who she was. Or perhaps, far more importantly, to whom did she owe her allegiance.

Kinsue knew he was far from friends in Waterfall Country. The nation bordered the lands of three great shinobi villages; two of which were certainly hostile. If they were sworn to rival villages, how long would it be until she decided that acting against him was more important than coordinating an escape? Surely even a shinobi of Konoha or Kumo would favour reason over such an act?

He let out a breath, forcing himself to calm ever so slightly before, glancing back to the inattentive guards. They were still secure it seemed, at least for the moment.

"I think I was set up as well. They drugged me; I can't remember much of what happened..." He looked once more at his leg, splayed uselessly in front of him.

"I must have resisted."

The woman must have noticed his reaction to her bloodline, and he knew that saying nothing about it would only raise her suspicions further. A moment passed before he spoke again: "You're a ninja, right? That's why your eye is... like that?"

The attempt at ignorance was a feeble deception, perhaps, but the Karagata was hardly at his best. He could feel the cloudiness slowly begin to ease, but he could tell it'd take time before he felt fully himself again. He grimaced; hopefully whatever it was they had dosed him with didn't have permanent affects.

[Taiga]

Mariya blinked slowly as she listened to the man who spoke to her and observed his strange reaction to her eyes. Lest he try to fool her, she was already aware gears were moving in his head.

Her hand gently raising to her chin she pondered it for a moment. Why would her existence, especially one that confirmed her as a shinobi put him on edge? Reacting to an ocular doujutsu like that showed a little more knowledge than that of a humble country samurai or even a thug. Her mind raced towards the logical conclusion: this man was likely a shinobi.

In this area that mean one of three things: either he was Konohagakure, Kumogakure, or a missing ninja. By the looks of this man he was not any of those. He held a pallor completely foreign to anywhere but the north-most mountains of the Lightning Empire, but his accent was far different than the barbarians who called the snowy mountain tops home. From what she could see at her angle his clothes didn't give anything away- the Karagata crest on his back completely out of her range of vision. There was no forehead protector evident either- though ninja acting on mission often hid such identifying objects.

She could only assume he was from a hostile state, but she really didn't have time for it.

"Aye- that is true." she said as she went back to surveying the room with precision as her eyes darted at a break-neck pace methodically around the room like some sort of mechanical scanning device. Shaking her head slightly and noting what she was picking up on she blinked once more, her eyes returning to their dull black natural state as she craned her neck back to the whispering cell-neighbor.

"The drugs were strong- but worse is the fuuinjutsu embedded in the wall that prevents chakra usage." she whispered, her finger pointing up. Mariya took a deep breath.

"Looks like we'll need to do this without our chakra." she said in a matter of fact tone. Whether she was looking for a response or state an objective truth as she saw it was ambiguous- her tone dry.

"Either we find a way to break through a few feet of stone, or we find a way to unlock these doors." she said as she looked about her cell. Perhaps something that could find it's way through a guards eyeball was around, or at least something she could form a garrote with.

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