In twelve years of ninja life, Asuma had never run into anything so instantly panic-inducing. It was like having a vice clamped around his head, stealing light and noise and sense. He couldn't breathe.

Pain helped. It was hard to feel unreal when your body had an alphabetized series of complaints it wanted to discuss in detail. Anger helped a lot more. The second he got out of this cage he was going to break someone--

Then Tsume tripped over him, bringing a welter of frantic touch and sharp toenails. Half-crouched, half-fallen where he'd landed, Asuma scrambled into a position that felt upright, catching a grip on the first bit of Tsume--god, he hoped it was Tsume--that wouldn't earn a punch on a normal day. A frantic pulse hammered beneath his fingers. The body pressed against his was small and naked, curved in all the right places. It had to be Tsume.

She couldn't fight. She barely had any chakra. They were trapped at the bottom of a hole on a ship captained by vengeful ninja, crewed with men he doubted could even spell the word 'moral'.

He wrapped his arm around Tsume's narrow shoulders, hauling her closer, and pressed his free hand against the nearest wall. Swept his palm over iron, ignoring biting scratches from bared rivets, until he found the nearest corner.

It would help if he could remember more than half a dozen phrases in Konoha's basic chuunin code. The Guardian Twelve had had their own language, but that was worse to useless here.

Against her biceps, his fingers stumbled out a message. Stay--still.

Then he shoved her behind him, backing her into the corner, feeling her hands drag over lash marks until she found his shoulders. He clenched his teeth and set his own hands against both walls, forcing himself not to grab her back. If they wanted her--if they wanted either of them--they'd have to come within reach first, and he could damn well break necks blind.

He tipped his head back, hoping he looked at the grating, and snapped out an insult he couldn't hear.