Captor

A week into their forced cohabitation, Amarah found herself digging through her closet one-handed, looking for anything that might help pass the endless hours of confinement. The kids were going stir-crazy, their trained bodies unused to such prolonged inactivity. Even their whispered chakra control exercises could only occupy so much time.

That's when her fingers brushed against her old PS4, buried under a pile of scrubs she hadn't worn since her intern year.

"Hey," she called softly, careful not to raise her voice too much – they never knew when their captor might be watching. "Want to learn something from this world?"

Three curious faces appeared in her doorway. Naruto's eyes immediately locked onto the gaming console as she awkwardly extracted it.

"What's that?" he asked, taking an unconscious step forward.

"It's called a PlayStation," Amarah explained, handing him the console. "It's for playing games. Different from the ones you might know – these are digital. Virtual."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed with suspicion, but she caught the flicker of interest he couldn't quite hide. "Games?"

"Here, help me set it up. I'll show you."

They worked together to connect the console to her bedroom TV, Sakura proving surprisingly adept at understanding which cables went where. Amarah dug out her collection of controllers and games, grateful she hadn't traded them in during her last move.

"I have different types," she said, spreading the games out on her bed. "Racing, fighting, adventure—"

"Fighting?" Naruto perked up immediately.

Amarah couldn't help but smile. "Not quite like what you're used to, I'm betting. Here."

She loaded up Mortal Kombat, then immediately second-guessed herself – maybe something less violent would be better, given their situation? But before she could change it, Naruto had already grabbed a controller, eyes wide with fascination as the character selection screen appeared.

"How do you—" he started, fumbling with the buttons.

"Here, let me show you the basics."

The next hour was spent teaching them controls, watching them figure out combos, and – surprisingly – laughing. Naruto took to it with his usual enthusiasm, mashing buttons and yelling in triumph or frustration. Sasuke approached it more methodically, practicing moves until he could execute them perfectly. Sakura watched them both, analyzing patterns before jumping in herself.

"No fair!" Naruto protested as Sakura's character executed a flawless combo. "How did you—"

"You're too predictable," she said, a genuine smile lighting up her face for the first time since they'd arrived. "You always start with the same move sequence."

"Hn," Sasuke grunted, but his eyes were focused intently on the screen. "Let me try."

They switched controllers, and Amarah watched in amazement as they began applying their actual combat training to the virtual fights. They discussed strategy, pointed out openings, debated the efficiency of different moves – treating it simultaneously like a serious training exercise and a game.

"In a real fight, leaving yourself open like that would—" Sasuke started to lecture, then cut himself off as Naruto's character caught his in a spectacular finishing move.

"HA!" Naruto jumped up, pointing dramatically. "Not so perfect now, are you?"

"It's just a game, dobe," Sasuke muttered, but his fingers were already moving to select a rematch.

"Wait," Sakura interrupted, her voice dropping to barely a whisper. "He's here."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop as the masked man materialized near the door. Amarah's broken arm throbbed with remembered pain as he surveyed the scene.

"Playing games?" His tone was unreadable behind the mask. "How... childish."

None of them spoke. The game's menu music felt suddenly too loud, too cheerful for the tension filling the room.

"And yet," he continued after a long moment, "perhaps some... distraction... is necessary. To prevent other, more troublesome attempts at entertainment."

Was he... allowing this? Amarah hardly dared breathe as he studied them.

"Two hours per day," he finally declared. "No more. And only if other tasks are completed satisfactorily." He turned his masked face toward Amarah. "I trust you understand the consequences of abusing this... privilege?"

She nodded quickly, unconsciously cradling her healing arm closer to her body.

"Good." He began to spiral away, then paused. "Oh, and Naruto? Your form is still sloppy, even in a virtual fight."

Then he was gone, leaving them all staring at the space where he'd been.

"Did he..." Naruto broke the silence first. "Did he just critique my gaming?"

A choked sound escaped Sakura, something between a laugh and a sob. Sasuke's hand found her shoulder, squeezing gently.

"He's weird here," Naruto continued, voice dropping to a whisper. "Like, obviously still totally evil and scary, but... weird."

"He's adjusting," Sasuke said quietly. "Just like we are. This world... it changes things."

Amarah thought about that as they carefully returned to their game, tension slowly easing from their shoulders. The masked man was adapting, allowing small freedoms that served his purposes – keeping them compliant, preventing desperate actions born of total confinement.

But there was something else too, something in the way he'd lingered to comment on Naruto's form. Almost like he couldn't help himself, couldn't quite suppress some ingrained instinct to correct a student's technique.

She filed that observation away carefully, another piece in the puzzle of their captor's identity.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of virtual battles and tentative trash talk. Amarah taught them about different game genres, watching their faces light up at each new discovery. Racing games quickly became a favorite – something about the speed and competition speaking to their ninja training without the uncomfortable parallels of combat.

"Can you imagine if we had these back home?" Naruto asked during a break, sprawled on his back on her bedroom floor. "Like, at the Academy or something?"

"They'd never let you graduate," Sasuke said dryly. "You'd skip all your classes to play."

"Would not! I'd just... you know... practice extra hard to make up for it!"

"Sure you would."

"I would! Tell him, Sakura-chan!"

Sakura, who had been quietly mastering a particularly difficult racing track, just hummed noncommittally. But Amarah saw the smile she was trying to hide.

These moments of normalcy were precious and fragile, like soap bubbles that could pop at any second. But they were real. Despite everything – the trauma, the displacement, the constant fear – these kids were still kids. They could still laugh, still play, still bicker over who got the next turn with the controller.

Later that night, after they'd reluctantly shut down the console at the two-hour mark, Amarah heard them whispering in their room again.

"—different today," Sakura was saying. "Almost like..."

"Like he's lonely too," Naruto finished quietly. "Did you see how long he watched us? Before he said anything?"

"Don't," Sasuke's voice was sharp. "Don't start feeling sorry for him. He's not our friend. He's not our teacher. He's keeping us prisoner and hurting people."

"I know that! I just... I don't know. Everything's weird here."

"Yeah," Sakura agreed softly. "Everything's weird."

Amarah pulled her blanket tighter around herself, thinking about their words. The masked man was a monster, yes – her broken arm proved that. But he was also trapped here, living in a world that didn't work quite right, with powers that didn't behave as they should.

Even monsters could be lonely.

That didn't make him less dangerous. If anything, it made him more so. Lonely monsters were unpredictable, desperate for connection even as they destroyed any chance of receiving it.

But maybe... maybe understanding that loneliness was important. Maybe it was another crack in his armor, another piece of information they could use to survive this nightmare.

For now, though, Amarah would focus on the small victories: the sound of children laughing over video games, the brief moments when they could forget their trauma, the tiny spaces of joy they carved out of their imprisonment.

Tomorrow would bring new challenges, new threats, new attempts to navigate their impossible situation. But today, they had raced virtual cars and fought digital battles and remembered, just for a little while, what it felt like to be normal.

It wasn't freedom. It wasn't even close to enough.

But it was something. And in their situation, something was everything.