Uzumaki

Refrain

Ino fell into darkness, and waited.

'What a stupid thing to do,' she thought. 'How could I have thought jumping down here was a good idea?'

But even so, Ino knew better than to blame herself. This oppressive landscape had overcome her for a mere moment, and she'd been consumed by the idea of just throwing herself into the darkness without a thought for her survival, and perhaps a couple of thoughts to the contrary.

'How horrible. To think that those were some of Naruto's true feelings...'

Ino curled deeper into herself. She was uncertain she was falling: there was no atmosphere to rush past her ears.

Great brass pipes faded in by dim orange light, and Ino blinked, before she emerged from the water and gasped for air she hadn't known she'd needed.

Heaving for breath, Ino stood herself up and twisted the water out of her hair. She looked around. The alley was empty of all but the pipes, the water, and a way forward shrouded in darkness. The water felt heavy and resistant, as though she were pushing through thick grass.

'Or perhaps it's this atmosphere,' she thought, thinning her lips and leaning onto the wall. 'Making me feel weaker and weaker...'

A corner glimmered in the darkness, and Ino forged towards it, clasping it with her fingers and leaning past it.

In the darkness, she made out bars. They reached up to a ceiling she couldn't see, and were sealed in the middle by a piece of paper that read just so.

She frowned, stepping forward and squinting through the darkness.

And then Ino saw it.

There was what could be called a face behind those prongs of metal, though it was simply too humongous to be anything close. It opened a single eye to look at her: the eyelid it shifted sucked itself from the flesh of the lower eye audibly.

A fox.

"Human."

Ino held her chest and did all she could to not pass out.

'I thought I'd seen all there was to see in Naruto's mind,' she thought, trying to steady her wobbling legs. 'How... How does a human mind even come up with this kind of scale?'

She felt a consciousness behind the bars. This thing was alive. There was an entire other mind in here.

What the hell was going on?

"Where is Naruto?" she said, mustering all of her courage. The beast scoffed at her.

"You'd dare question me?" it said, eyes narrowing, "You tiny, pathetic bug?"

She suppressed a squeal and clenched her fist. "Where is he?" she said again, with more force.

The stomp of her foot made tiny ripples in the water. But the simple derisive sneer the fox shot in response flung waves half her size rumbling back at her, threatening to topple her over, and Ino's fingers trembled in their grip.

The fox, its breath forcefully blowing Ino's hair out of her eyes, seemed to brush her off, setting its head down and closing its eyes.

"O-Oi! I'm talking to you!"

The fox did not stir.

Ino took a deep breath, and looked around. She couldn't see anything but the cell, and she bit her lip.