Captor

After another dinner of slightly overcooked stir-fry, Amarah caught Naruto trying to secretly feed his portion to the houseplant when he thought no one was looking. She couldn't really blame him – her one-handed cooking attempts were mediocre at best, and that was being generous.

"I saw that," she said, making him jump guiltily. "The poor plant doesn't deserve that."

"I wasn't—" he started to protest, then deflated at her raised eyebrow. "Sorry, Amarah-san. It's just..."

"Terrible?" she finished for him. "Yeah, I know. Cooking's never been my strong point. But..." She glanced at the clock. It was still early enough. "Want to see what I'm actually good at?"

The kids exchanged curious glances as she started pulling ingredients from her cabinets: flour, sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla extract. Her movements were more confident now, even with the healing arm – practice had taught her how to adapt.

"Are we making poison?" Sasuke asked, watching her measure ingredients with more precision than she'd ever shown while cooking dinner.

Amarah couldn't help but laugh. "No, though my cooking might qualify. We're making brownies."

"What are brownies?" Naruto leaned forward, sniffing curiously at the cocoa powder.

"Only the best dessert ever invented," Amarah said, cracking eggs one-handed into a bowl. "Here, someone whisk these while I melt the butter."

Sakura took the whisk, her movements precise and measured like everything she did. Sasuke, surprisingly, was the one who stepped forward to help measure dry ingredients.

"Level measurements," Amarah instructed. "Baking is chemistry – it has to be exact."

"Like making soldier pills," Sasuke muttered, then tensed as if he'd revealed too much.

Amarah pretended not to notice his slip. "Sort of, I guess. Though these are a lot more fun. Naruto, can you get the glass bowl from that cabinet? Carefully!"

They worked together, the kids following her instructions with the same focus they brought to their training exercises. Even Naruto managed to contain his usual boundless energy, though he practically vibrated with excitement when she let him lick the spoon.

"This is amazing!" he declared, eyes wide. "The batter alone is better than anything I've ever—" He cut himself off, glancing guiltily at Sakura. "I mean, except ramen, obviously."

"Obviously," she agreed dryly, but she was eyeing the remaining batter with equal interest.

As Amarah slid the pan into the oven, she felt the familiar chill that preceded their captor's appearances. The masked man materialized near the doorway, taking in the scene with an unreadable tilt of his head.

"Baking?" His tone held its usual coldness, but there was something else there too – curiosity? Confusion?

"Yes," Amarah said carefully, setting the timer. "Since my regular cooking is... subpar."

He said nothing for a long moment, watching as Naruto tried to sneakily get another taste of batter while Sakura swatted his hand away.

"The sugar content in their diet should be monitored," he finally said, as if discussing prisoner rations was perfectly normal. "Once per week, at most."

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

"Did he just... give us permission to bake weekly?" Naruto asked incredulously.

"I think he did," Sakura said slowly. "That's... weird, right?"

"Everything about this is weird," Sasuke muttered, but Amarah noticed he was still licking chocolate off his finger when he thought no one was looking.

The timer seemed to take forever, but finally, the kitchen was filled with the rich scent of chocolate. Amarah showed them how to test for doneness with a toothpick, then made them wait the excruciating ten minutes for the brownies to cool enough to cut.

"These are better than the games," Naruto declared through a mouthful of chocolate. "Can you teach us?"

"To bake?" Amarah blinked in surprise. "I... sure, if you want."

"It's practical," Sasuke said, as if he needed to justify his obvious interest. "Knowing how to make food properly is a survival skill."

"Right," Sakura agreed quickly. "And understanding the chemistry could be useful for... other things."

They weren't fooling anyone – their chocolate-smeared faces gave away their true motivation. But Amarah played along, pretending not to notice how they each snuck seconds when they thought she wasn't looking.

Over the next few days, baking became their new routine. Amarah taught them the science behind it – why certain ingredients reacted together, why temperature mattered, why precise measurements were crucial. They soaked it up with the same intensity they brought to their training, treating each recipe like a mission to be mastered.

Naruto, surprisingly, showed a natural talent for it once he learned to control his enthusiasm. Something about the precise measurements and careful timing appealed to him, giving his restless energy a focused outlet.

Sasuke approached it like a tactical exercise, analyzing each step for maximum efficiency. He was particularly interested in the chemistry aspects, asking detailed questions about reactions and temperatures.

Sakura, true to form, memorized every recipe perfectly, but struggled with the intuitive aspects – knowing when something "felt" right, when to trust instinct over instructions.

They made cookies, cupcakes, bread rolls. Each success built their confidence, each failure became a lesson in what went wrong. And slowly, something else happened: they began to relax around each other.

Baking required focus but left room for conversation. As they worked, stories began to slip out – carefully edited, but real. Naruto talked about the first time he tried to cook for himself, how he'd nearly burned down his apartment trying to make instant ramen. Sakura shared memories of helping her mother in the kitchen, voice catching only slightly at the mention of home. Even Sasuke occasionally contributed, usually to criticize someone's technique but sometimes offering quiet memories of family meals long past.

One afternoon, as they waited for a batch of snickerdoodles to cool, Amarah found herself humming an old song her grandmother used to sing while baking. To her surprise, Sakura joined in, making up her own words when she didn't know the real ones.

"My mom used to sing too," she said softly when they finished. "Different songs, but... it reminds me of her."

"Hn," Sasuke contributed, but his expression was softer than usual as he carefully arranged cookies on a cooling rack.

That night, after the kids had gone to bed with full stomachs and slightly sugar-buzzed brains, Amarah found a note tucked under her pillow. The handwriting was careful, precise:

"Your cooking is still terrible, but the baking is acceptable. The sugar content remains a concern, but... the activity appears beneficial for their mental state. Continue as scheduled, once per week. - M"

She stared at the note for a long time, trying to reconcile its clinical tone with the fact that their captor had apparently been watching them bake, had seen their moments of almost-normalcy, had maybe even... approved?

The next morning, she found another note, this one in a different hand:

"If you make those chocolate things again, make extra. For... monitoring purposes. - T"

She burned both notes immediately, but their implications haunted her. Their captor was watching, always watching, but he was also... participating? In his own strange way? The duality of it – the monster who broke her arm and threatened children, asking for extra brownies – was almost too much to process.

But that was their reality now: a world where ninja children learned to bake cookies, where monsters left notes about sugar content, where simple acts like measuring flour or cracking eggs became lifelines of normalcy in their abnormal situation.

Later that week, when she taught them how to make her grandmother's secret recipe chocolate cake, she pretended not to notice that an extra slice disappeared when no one was looking. Just like she pretended not to notice how the kids were slowly starting to heal, how their nightmares were less frequent, how they were finding ways to be children despite everything.

It wasn't enough. It could never be enough. But in the warm kitchen, surrounded by the scent of vanilla and chocolate, watching three young ninjas argue over proper mixing techniques... it was something.

Sometimes, something was all you could ask for.