Day One

About a month away from his twenty-fourth birthday, Kakashi felt twice that. He'd been in Anbu for nearly ten years now, and it's become clear that he was tired of it.

It was all he knew, though, so what else could he do?

The weight of his sword got heavier each time he had to strap it on. His mask was too tight. He missed the sound of his name. 'Taicho' was good, but it was limiting and impersonal. The only way he ever got social interaction now was if Gai came looking for him, and after the third time that Kakashi went looking for Gai, he knew something had to change.

His time in Anbu was up, and he'd made a good run of it. None under his command ever died while on mission. Sure, they died on others and he lost several (Itachi…) but Kakashi thought he had done his duty, done what he could do to protect his village and his colleagues. Now it was time to hang up the mask.

He was prepping Falcon for command, and thus needed another squad member to keep his squad balanced.

Sparrow was a slim thing, only a year or two younger than he was, but unnervingly silent. Almost like she didn't have a tongue, but Kakashi thought that was a rumor more than anything else. She was capable at her job, however, specialist and all though needed to work harder at her physical abilities.

The mission was a success, Inu-taicho and Sparrow delaying an hour to make sure that the target mission was accomplished and that's when, on a quick, routine equipment check, Sparrow slapped an Uzumaki-grade seal on him.

Kakashi dropped silently and immediately, pain screaming in all his nerves until white blanked his vision and his body gave up. Hopefully he tagged her with that instinctual backhand swing, but Kakashi was down and unconscious too quickly to tell if it landed.

He didn't wake up for hours, and when he did he felt like it had been days. Stripped naked and with his arms and legs cuffed together with strong iron bars, Kakashi couldn't grab hold of his chakra and couldn't do more than struggle like a worm. It was humiliating, infuriating, and he burned with cold rage.

Blindfolded, the only reason he knew the kick was coming was because of the sound of coarse voices and the rustling of a man's pant leg. The impact hit him in the stomach hard enough to make him cough. Civilian, his mind parsed. Not chakra reinforced and with only so much strength as an especially beefy non-trained male.

"Hatake-fucking-Kakashi." Someone snarled, and Kakashi wanted to swear. They knew who he was, which meant they undressed him for a reason, which meant Sparrow knew who he was, and Sparrow was a fucking traitor. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

Hopefully, Sparrow wouldn't be able to create a believable enough lie or crime scene to lay Kakashi's disappearance on anything other than foul play, but it could take days for Konoha to catch onto the fact. Falcon wouldn't be able to authorize any kind of rescue parameters without the Hokage's explicit order. And that meant returning to Konoha as fast as possible.

Kakashi had to get himself out.

With this seal, it would be tricky, but it would be manageable. Especially since these assholes seemed to be entirely civilians.

"Not so great, is he?" One laughed drunkenly – yes, good, drink up you fucker it will make his job so much easier – "Not scary or nothing, Copy-nin Kakashi, hah! Got no cock, does he?" Kakashi was quite sure that his member was intact, so he could only conclude it was mindless posturing.

Plebian.

"We got somewhere nice and comfy for you, shinobi, where your fancy fuck chakra power will mean nothing and real men can have a piece of you."

Something liquid and luke warm was dumped on him to a chorus of raucous ugly laughter. Either it was piss or it was such bad beer that it smelled like piss.

Fuckers.

"Hold still, you piss-ant." One spat on him before something pricked his shoulder, a needle. Drugs. Fuck.

While his body became unresponsive, Kakashi's mind was still operational. It was a terrible feeling but he tried to convince himself it was a good thing. He could still figure out where they were heading.

Wherever they we retaking him wasn't very far from the mission location, and that still meant Fire country. The road got bumpier, but Kakashi was left with only one or two fuckers on watch, they'd take turns kicking him until he wheezed, laugh about it, and then kick him again citing he was 'struggling too much'. The road was just so bumpy and half hazard that Kakashi was flopping awkwardly from side to side. Eventually the…wagon? Donkey-pulled if the braying of abused animals was what he heard, came to a rickety stop somewhere that smelled like pine and frozen water.

Mountains. There were two small ranges at the North Western end of Fire country, nearly at Iwa's lap but not quite as far as…Kannabi bridge.

Noise seemed to be funneled into and out of an opening, and upon behind ragged from the wagon and forcefully walked, barefoot, over grass and into gravel and stone, Kakashi felt the sky disappear from overhead.

He was underground now, and so were a lot of other people, unwashed, reeking people.

"Welcome to your new hell, shinobi." Another man that smelled of sour milk and body odor hissed into his ear, gripping his arm tight enough to bruise.

Kakashi refused to answer.

"Ah!" A new voice broke in, making the two gripping him come to a reluctant stop. "Our new arrival. I hope it's the one I wanted?" He didn't have the same rough, lowborn voice as the other's Kakashi has heard so far. "He really was such a pain to gain rights to, but everyone has a price." He spoke as though Kakashi were a betting horse, and his words implied that he'd been sold.

Kakashi hoped it had been Sparrow herself. That would make it so much easier for Ibiki to rip it from her.

The hood was taken from Kakashi, and he didn't even have to blink in the low lighting. Torches hung on the roughhewn walls, and it seemed like a small cave dressed up badly to look like an ante chamber or waiting room. Badly, because the wall hangings were crooked, the only desk had no chair, and the only people here were Kakashi, the two holding him, the man speaking, and a woman, curled up and silent in the corner.

She was naked too.

"Ah, yes, beautiful." The smooth speaking man was dressed in a simple, cleanly yukata with rather dramatic sleeves, and he looked incredibly dull. Brown hair, brown eyes that seemed permanently bored, medium attractiveness. Kakashi could have passed him by in the market nad never remembered his face. Uninteresting, save for the earring that dangled from his left lobe.

The crooked, scratched black lines of the black market – a slave merchant with enough status that he warranted an obvious mark that outed him to the world. Fuck, this was supposed to be Squad Delta's target. Who the hell had they framed?

"Yes, you framed my good brother Okoro Tetsume. My name is Okoro Testuo, and I asked for you specifically Hatake-san." Tetsuo smiled genially, teeth bright in the limited light. Kakashi didn't like that he could be read so easily by a civilian, the lack of his mask was incredibly irritating. "You're worth your weight in gold, you know."

"Mhm." Kakashi grunted, more irritated at the fact that his squad had failed to realize they got the target's brother rather than the actual fucking guy. That'll be a mark on his record.

Tetsuo sucked air through his teeth, and made a strange noise, like one makes after they taste something delicious. His eyes dropped, taking in Kakashi's body and stopping on the way back up at his throat.

"Look at this," Tetsuo brought his hand up to hover over Kakashi's neck, and that made every hackle he owned rise in disgust. "This was nearly worth your weight in gold, but thankfully, I merely had to promise your presence at my entertainment faire to obtain it. I'm glad it worked."

Kakashi glared.

"Oh, you don't want to speak?" Tetsuo pouted like a stage actor and waved. The man to Kakash's left handed him a scrap of paper, which he took and gawped at exaggeratedly. "Maybe you'll change your tune if I do this…?"

He made a hand sign, awkward and funny in his civilian hands and Kakashi was about to become amused (A civilian lighting a seal? Give him a break…) when the seal came to life without a scrap of chakra setting it off. It wasn't immediate bright pain, but it buzzed and gripped his chakra network so tightly, Kakashi felt himself lose control of his own limbs. He shook, leaning heavily until the men dropped him, snickering.

Spasming because the buzzing was becoming painful, every inch of his skin alight with the feeling, Kakashi's teeth chattered and he tried to move his hands, his arms, anything, until he felt close to blacking out because he wasn't even breathing—

And Tetsuo released the sign.

The pain dropped from Kakashi in an instant, leaving him breathless and tender. Fuck. Fuck.

"Almost invaluable to me and my company, did you know, Hatake-san? That it can control a specimen like yourself, well. That's even better." Tetsuo's voice came from above with a strange distant tinny sound to it. "But please forgive me if I don't rely on just that, Man of a Thousand Jutsu." His title was said mockingly. More hands grabbed him, and Kakashi wanted to struggle, to fight harder this time, but a new pinprick on his shoulder heralded a new drug-induced fog that made Kakashi swim in his own body.

He could see the stone where they dropped him though, feel how they turned and twisted him releasing his restraints, hear as they closed what sounded like an iron cage door. There was a rank stink in the air, waste and urine that had time to dissolve, and a more concentrated smell of sweat and blood.

There was a reason the Uzumaki clan had dominated fuinjutsu and rarely, if ever, gave out their secrets to non-family. It gave too much power into someone's hands, made worse with what these assholes were using it for. Torture, cruelty, control. Kushina-sama would be so disappointed. Well, more like she'd feel murderously mad, but Kakashi had that part covered for her.

The instant he had control of his legs and arms again, Kakashi was at the cage door – because it was a cage, metal bands encasing the relatively small cave. Interlocked steel even covered the ground, which was a little ridiculous in Kakashi's opinion. Why go so far? The only relative weakness he could spot, beyond the inherent weakness in welded metal, was a small hole drilled into the side of one wall. Probably what passed for a toilet here?

Against the metal door (with chakra he could have burst right through this shit), Kakashi tried not to let his face twist in disgust. No mask meant he had to be more vigilant in his facial expressions. He'd been given something like a hotel suite if what was across the corridor suggested anything about the living arrangements here.

About twenty men, all absolutely filthy, were shoved into a larger cave than Kakashi's. It had larger bars that stretched nearly fifteen feet, one corner of which had a similar hole to act as a toilet that Kakashi's had. Theirs, however, either couldn't keep up with them or they'd decided they didn't want to use it, because they'd desecrated both the hole and a three foot radius around it. The dirt on their faces and bodies took on a whole new meaning. Kakashi would have preferred not seeing it, or smelling it, but right now nearly all of them were standing at their door leering over at Kakashi.

He'd outgrown the instinctive reaction to be embarrassed when naked, but the way these fuckers were looking at him made Kakashi want to do some violent things to their eyes.

"Look at the prissboy." They jeered. "Hatake himself, come to show us lowborns our rightful place, hey fellas?"

"Guess we'll show him won't we."

"You'll beg for my cock by the end of it, Kakashi-boy."

"I wonder what they'll give me if I choke the life out of you. Maybe they'll let me keep that hair of yours, bet it draws a lot of bitch attention?"

"I'll teach you in the ring how to be a man, won't I?"

They laughed, they banged on the bars, a fight broke out between two and the thud of fist into flesh, breaking jaw bone, came to Kakashi's ears. Hearing his name in their mouths felt disgusting, and the more he didn't answer, the more riled up they got.

Fucking animals.

Kakashi roved his new home, investigating it until finding the best position to watch the door. He figured it wouldn't take long until Tetsuo came calling. If this was the underground he thought it was, then there was only one reason he would be here.

True enough, Kakashi was taken out of his cell to the jeers of his new neighbors, and walked down the corridor passed what smelled like the communal latrine. Perhaps it was where the cage toilets drained to. Fucking disgusting.

The so called 'ring', at least, had a wooden barrier to keep the crowd out, seats like one has at a stadium, and a sandy pit floor. The sand was coarse and discolored from death, blood and other fluids staining it until it had mottled brown and yellow.

Already, a crowd had formed and Kakashi was rocked to his core to find so many people there, many who didn't look like the regular underground degenerates that he'd, foolishly, expected.

Indeed, many were dressed in merchant-like clothing, delicate handkerchiefs held to their noses so they could smell their perfumes. A few scattered women in the crowd had powdered white faces, red lips that glimmered even in the ugly torch light. Men in peasant clothing, men in military clothing, men who looked like they could have walked right out of Konoha's downtown civilian core.

And all of them were crying for blood.

A man claps twice loudly, and the crowd parts for him. Tetsuo.

"Here is a newcomer to my establishment, I must introduce you immediately." Tetsuo beamed like he was bringing Kakashi to meet all his friends at a dinner party. "It took quite a lot to get him to come, you understand, and he's absolutely itching to get started. Many of you might recognize him, hard not to with that hair, am I right?"

The crowd laughed like it was the most hilarious thing they'd ever heard, and more than a few of them were devouring Kakashi with their eyes. His fists clenched and he glared, but that only made them more excited. Fuck. Fuck. Hatred sprung bright within him, and he struggled to smother it. He needed to pay attention.

"This here, my lovelies, is Hatake Kakashi, the Copy nin. A-ranked Konoha Black Ops Captain with a serious kill number under his belt, along with something else, am I right?" Tetsuo smirked suggestively, putting a coy hand in from on his mouth. The crowd whistled and howled, most if not all with eyes fixed on Kakashi being shoved to the center of the sand pit.

"It took a great deal of work and money, but I've procured his services for a very special, high intensity tournament!" Tetsuo spread his arms wide, his smile taking on a darker edge.

There's a fucking tournament? A round robin style kill circle where men like Kakashi were pitted against others for high paying entertainment? Kakashi wanted to growl, but bit his tongue to keep his face as impassive as possible. While he tried to watch Tetsuo as much as possible, get a proper reading on the man, the surging of the crowd and the screeches from all sides was distracting.

Kakashi spotted a few security plants, tall men with stern faces and self-assured smirks scattered throughout the stands. They had a good security plan, all exits covered by clearly non-drinking 'employees' and with the best vantage points. The fact that one of Kakashi's escorts held his hands ready to create the sign for Kakashi's seal was carefully noted, scowled at, and dismissed.

"See, even now he picks out his opponents, and look!" Tetsuo cried like he was on a microphone calling out sports plays, "Here is our first challenger, one of our best and brightest!"

The look on the new man's face, leaping over the wood boundary in a show of muscle and agility, was confident in the way of arrogance. Scars littered his body, obvious open wounds that would have killed most men, but which healed left designs across his pecs and abs. He was all muscle, heavy weight.

Kakashi noted quietly that he favored his right knee. Even the strongest of men fell to weak joints.

"Heeeere's our very own homegrown Ishi no Atama!" The crowd roared their approval, and 'stone head' spun slowly to show off his twitching muscles. He ended the turn facing Kakashi, and slammed his fists together with a loud thump and breathed heavily through his nose, like he was a bull. Kakashi wanted to raise an eyebrow, but gathering the glee of the crowd, Tetsuo's continuing commentary, and the way that Ishi no Atama started menacingly forward, he kind of got the picture.

Was this what he was supposed to do? Fight the man, hurt him, down him, and then trot happily back to his cell?

Yeah, no.

The first few bouts went something like this: Stonehead would approach, let a fist fly, but Kakashi would duck or step sinuously away. The man would miss and have to center himself, before turning even more irritated that his quarry dodged and try again. Kakashi would make a show of looking around almost ignoring Stonehead before bending away from his attacks without breaking a sweat.

He didn't even raise his fists.

The booing and hollering of the crowd were secondary to how Tetsuo slowly lost his smile. Making eye contact, Kakashi made it clear that he wasn't going to play along. Tetsuo allowed him this victory, before raising his hands up, hidden by the dramatic sleeves of his kimono. Something flashed in the man's eyes.

Kakashi's seal sparked, and the pain caused him to stumble, white crashing behind his eyes blinded him but in a second it was over.

But Stonehead was inside his guard and his body was still too twitchy to react fast enough.

The meaty fist snapped Kakashi's head sideways, and a following punch to the ribs made him grunt. The man telegraphed all his movements, so Kakashi knew where he was going to hi, but for the life of him he couldn't do much better than seize hold of Stonehead's elbows.

But he could draw his knee up in a quick enough snap to make Stonehead double over. Breaking free of the man, Kakashi paced to get feeling back, watching darkly as Tetsuo gaily accepted bets and money from all sides.

Kakashi's head swam.

Stonehead ran at him, and this time Kakashi met him with a block, deflecting and striking with a fast foot against that weak knee. The man flinched, leg collapsing a bit, but he went forward with a head-butt connecting with a glancing blow that made Kakashi step back. The crowd surged, but Kakashi regained his footing faster than Stonehead did, and slammed a knee into his face.

Stonehead's nose was bleeding freely, and his eyes were focused. Kakashi jabbed once with a tight fist, and then followed up with such a right hook that Stonehead was spun violently and fell face first into the sand.

He didn't get up.

The crowd roared and pounded on the wooden barricade, but Kakashi ignored them and looked for signs of life. The pile of muscle was breathing, but didn't move beyond a few finger twitches.

Right.

Kakashi reached down and tore the pants from his opponent, leaving him naked. Drawing them on and lazily tying the knot, Kakashi turned to stare straight at Tetsuo. Uncomfortably, Tetsuo was smiling victoriously, like he'd got what he wanted. It was a quick fight, Kakashi emerged triumphant but with a sour disposition.

Someone started a chant: "Death" "Death" "Death"

Were they calling for his death?

"Kill him!" A woman shrieked.

"Cut his throat!" A man screamed, feverous with his bloodlust. More started pounding on the boards, voices going louder and louder until it was deafening. All their eyes were on the downed man, their great Ishi no Atama.

They wanted Kakashi to kill him when he was unconscious, and they wanted it bloody. When it was clear Kakashi wasn't going to move to do the deed, the crowd made many disappointed, angry noises but started ignoring the ring in favor of retrieving the money they'd won. Or lost. Several fistfights erupted and Kakashi stared in shock at this cesspool of humanity.

Tetsuo gestured, and Kakashi was shoved out of the ring and down the side corridor where he'd emerged. This time there were four surrounding him, one pointing a sword at his back.

Clearly he'd unnerved them.

All the way to his cage, Kakashi remained still. Highly aware of one of the fellow who held his hands in a ready position, Kakashi cursed in his head when he realized he was being on his best behavior to avoid the pain of the seal. Already they'd started to…to fucking train him!

It made him angry enough to growl and make an aborted motion to attack. The hand sign was completed, and Kakashi seized, hands going to his own neck in an instinctive move to get it off. He didn't feel it when they stuck him with the needle, but the strange separation of his mind and his body told him he'd been drugged again. Many hands forced him down, the seal ended so that everything tingled in an unpleasant way, and a boot in the face made him see darkness.

He woke to the jeers of his neighbors, and found he'd been dumped just inside his cage door in full view of the fuckers across the hall. The stiffness in his limbs and core said either the seal was affecting his muscles or he'd been kicked a handful of times when he was unconscious.

"Hey sleeping beauty, you hurt, you gonna cry? Roll over this way so I can shoot over your pretty fucking face!"

Fuckers.