Time was irrelevant here in the dark, Harumi discovered. At first, she tried to keep track of time by when Madara would visit, but since he would just pop in, set more food down and leave, it was difficult. Especially since she wasn't hungry which meant either she hadn't been there long, or she was just not hungry due to the situation. The small candle never seemed to move, it stayed the same height, Harumi even measured it once. Her cup of water was never empty for long, and always arrived at room temperature. When tea was given to her, it didn't get cold inside the cup or tea pot. Harumi checked, both had a small seal on the bottom that would keep the contents at the same temperature with a small amount of fire until the container was empty again.

Trying to meditate didn't help either. Since mediation by its nature meant that she would lose track of time, it wasn't in her best interest to purposefully lose track of time. Instead, she set her mind to formulating different questions to ask Madara when he would come back. So far Madara hadn't answered any of her questions, nor had he shown any signs of even hearing her. Each time he would always say the same thing.

"Don't worry, you will know when Kakashi comes, after all, he needs to see that I have kept my word that you are alive and unhurt. You will be free to leave once the fighting begins."

"Keep asking questions, Harumi," she whispered to herself, "Eventually something will change, or if nothing does, at least I will have kept myself occupied."

The soft sound of a foot falling in the dark had Harumi sitting up and staring at the doorway. The now familiar orange swirled mask of Madara walked into the light. Harumi stared at the masked figure in front of her. He looked the same, he was wearing his black cloak with the red clouds on them, the orange swirl mask over his face, with the large black cloth that wrapped around his head to keep the mask in place. However, something was different. Madara moved to the table and set down the tray in his hands. When he turned around, that was when Harumi figured out what was wrong.

Madara was moving differently. Instead of the graceful, almost floating, silent walk that Madara had the previous times he walked in. His movements were now sloppy, his foot dragged on the ground slightly, like he injured it recently. The tea pot, cups and plate on the tray rattled as he came closer.

Harumi summoned a smile when Madara glanced her way, "You are awake!" Madara squealed, his voice high pitched, just like it was when he wanted to play tag. "Tobi is glad, that means Harumi-chan can play with me! Our game was interrupted by those mean Konoha shinobi!"

Harumi could feel her eyes blink slowly as her brain tries to make sense of this new development. This is definitely a different Madara than the one that had been coming to see her and the one that told her the story about Kakashi. This one also called himself Tobi. Were there two men that wore the same clothing? Or were they the same person? Is this some kind of genjutsu? "Hello Tobi-san, was it?" Harumi answered.

Tobi's head nodded quickly, "Tobi is a good boy, Harumi-san!"

"I'm glad to meet you," Harumi replied secretly pleased that her voice sounded pleasant to her ears. "You said you wanted to play a game?"

Tobi's head nodded frantically as he set the tray down and began to wave his arms around as if to emphasize his words, "Yes, Tobi does. Our game of tag was interrupted, but we can play now! I know lots of places to hide around here."

Harumi tried to stand up, a sharp pain in her arm made a sharp hiss escape her mouth.

"Harumi-chan should be more careful, you got hurt while we played tag."

Harumi looked down at her arm and saw a bright red line around her bicep, "How did I get this?"

Tobi shrugged, "I don't remember, Madara took over our game, so I don't know."

"Do you want to continue our game?" Tobi nodded excitedly.

"Am I allowed to leave this room?" Harumi asked, working hard to keep her voice even and just a little excited.

Tobi tilted his head, "Tobi doesn't know, maybe we should ask."

Harumi stood up slowly, not at all shocked when she felt the gentle tug on her legs from the chakra threads tying her legs to the wall behind her. Madara would have been stupid to leave her free to move. Although the threads were significantly longer than they usually were. "I can't come with you to ask, so you will have to do it by yourself," Harumi told Tobi, making sure her voice held some regret in it.

Tobi nodded, "Tobi will be right back, don't go anywhere!"

With a wave of his hand, Tobi went back the way he came.

Harumi stared at the food and the tea pot, should she try the food and tea? It would probably be smart to gather her strength, but to be honest, she wasn't too sure that the food wasn't poisoned. Although, she could probably figure it out before she tried to eat it. The question was if she wanted to put forth the effort and chakra. There was a double edged sword, she needed the energy that the food would provide, but could she afford to lose the chakra it would take to determine if the food is safe to consume. Maybe she could trick Tobi into sharing the food with her, he seemed like the type who would be driven by the idea of fair and sharing.

Standing up, Harumi began to stretch as far as the restraints would allow. She was just able to reach the small table in front of her, if she reached, and her fingers could just meet the tray. Using her fingers to slide the tray closer to her until she could wiggle her hand under it, Harumi slowly brought the tray over to her bed. Then she slowly gathered her chakra to see if she could sense any poison. Then she took a small bite of the sandwich, infusing her taste buds with chakra to help detect any trace amount of something that shouldn't be there, she chewed the food and let it sit on her tongue while she waited to see if her tongue would go numb from any poison.

Counting down the minutes in her head, Harumi took stalk of her reactions, and nothing happened. She concluded that the food was safe to eat. Taking a bigger bite, Harumi focused on her body and the reactions to the food. She also worked hard to eat slowly, because it wasn't until she was eating that she realized just how hungry she really was.

Shortly after she finished the food and had started to drink the tea from the teapot, the masked man appeared in front of her.

"What are you filling Tobi's head with?" Madara asked, his voice only raised slightly.

Harumi swallowed her tea, like she didn't care that Madara was glaring at her, "I didn't do anything, Tobi was complaining that we didn't get to finish our game of hide and seek and then he said that we should try and finish our game now. I told him that I would love to play hide and seek with him, but first we had to ask your permission, since," Harumi pointed to her restraints, "I'm here as a prisoner."

"Hn," Madara replied, barely glancing at her legs. "I suppose if I were to take you to an isolated part of the cave, that you and Tobi could play hide and seek. I would have to put barrier seals," his voice tapered off, as if he were talking to himself, "the seals would be simple, but where would we put them? How much room would Tobi require. We would have to make sure the seals kept him in as well."

Harumi watched as Madara turned and walked back towards the opening of her cell. Only to have his head jerk up and look towards something only he could see. "Ah, it would seem that your game with Tobi must wait. Kakashi has entered my land, with some friends."

"Kakashi," Harumi whispered.

"Soon you will be able to go home," Madara turned to Harumi and bowed his head, "It has been fun, but our time together is coming to a close. Kakashi should be here in a few hours, I have some preparations to make. Just be patient for a little while longer." With another bow, Madara turned and left Harumi's sight.

Straining her ears, she couldn't hear a single sound to tell her where he went, not that she was really expecting him too, after all he arrives and leaves like a ghost each time. After a few minutes, Harumi sighed and began some stretches and as many katas as she could with her limited mobility. One never knew what could happen and she was determined to help or at least not be a burden.

AN: Hello everyone! And Welcome to everyone who has joined this group of people reading this story. As promised, I have finally finished the whole thing, with two endings. I will start posting chapters as I edit them. Once we get to the different endings, each will be posted as separate chapters, so I'm sorry in advance for the long chapters. I am thinking that between the two endings will be the Naruto and Kakashi birthday omakes. I am still writing those, but I didn't want to hold off posting any longer since editing doesn't take as long as writing the whole thing.

Thank you again to everyone who has continued to read this story. Thank you to everyone who has commented. I do read each one and they mean the world to me.