DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN NARUTO AND ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS/PLOTS. I ONLY OWN MY OC'S.

"When today fails to offer the justification for hope, tomorrow becomes the only frail worth pursuing."

Death of Salesman written by Arthur Miller

Escape

It had been months since Tobirama and Izumi were kidnapped, and in between these months the two had become somewhat friends. Tobirama couldn't help but like the girl, she was so innocent. He felt responsible for her, even though she came from the clan he hated. It probably didn't help that Izumi reminded him so much of his little brother Itama. She reminded him so much that it hurt. That's why he always hated the days that she would get taken and interrogated.

"Come on brat, let's go." The man beckoned for her. Izumi stood up and looked at Tobirama. He still saw fear and sadness in her eyes, but also a type of darkness that a five year old girl shouldn't have. Tobirama prepared himself, he may have told Izumi to go to her happy place whenever this happened but the screams still happened. A few minutes after she was taken, the screaming started, beginning hell for Tobirama.

"Happy thoughts Tobirama, happy thoughts." He said, whispering to himself as he clutched his head. 'Everything will be over in an hour.'

But something was off today, her screams were… different. They contained too much pain. They never really hurt her, maybe besides the occasional bruise. He knew something was wrong when they came back with her in 30 minutes instead of the usual hour.

"Izumi, are you okay?" She looked at him and Tobirama was shocked, he saw cuts all over her face, especially near her eyes.

"…The man cut me with a kunai." Tobirama saw her hands shaking. "Then he healed me." She started crying out loud. "A-And he cut me again, making me say his name over and over again!"

Then she did something that shocked Tobirama. Izumi ran into him and put her arms around him in a hug. At first, Tobirama stood there frozen as the girl sobbed into his shirt, but he slowly put his arms around her, trying to comfort her. He didn't know what to do; people usually avoided him and he only let his brother's do anything like this with him. Tobirama looked down at the black-haired girl and decided that rubbing her back would be a good thing to do.

"We'll get out of here soon okay? You just need to be…" He thought of an acceptable word. "Strong, like a shinobi." Izumi looked up at him, her eyes already red from crying.

"Like my father and brothers?" Tobirama's voice softened, even though she was talking about the Uchiha.

"Yes. Just like them." That seemed to cheer her up, so Tobirama moved her arms away from his chest and sat her down behind him against the wall. "Now, let's heal those cuts." He mustered up all the chakra he could with the seal still activated and healed Izumi.

It was few weeks from that day when Tobirama came up with a plan to escape. He realized that the usual interrogators were different and these new ones were tense and nervous. He knew it wasn't because of him immediately because one of the guards kept looking at the door periodically, like he was worried that someone would barge in. They didn't know his habits, they basically underestimated him. He knew that his plan would work; now he just needed Izumi's help, even if it was something he didn't like.

"Izumi, I want to ask you something." The little girl looked up from her makeshift toy that Tobirama made for her.

"What?" Tobirama took a deep breath.

"Can you activate your Sharingan?" She froze at his question. She looked back down at the doll and started fidgeting with it.

"…I don't know." She said, quietly. In all honestly, Izumi didn't want to try. Those eyes were connected to the death of her brother.

"I need you to try for me." Tobirama said. "And we need it to run away." He whispered carefully. He didn't really know much about the Sharingan besides the things the Senju taught him like how they can see chakra through walls and objects, and how it differentiates each person's chakra.

Tobirama could see the conflict in Izumi's eyes when he asked her to do this. He wasn't sure how she got the Sharingan, but he knew it was connected with a boy named Katsumi. The only reason he knew this was because she would cry out for this boy in her sleep sometimes.

"I can t-try then." She closed her eyes and concentrated on her chakra.

As Izumi opened her eyes, Tobirama braced himself for the sight, he wasn't going to flinch. But in the end, he unconsciously flinched anyways when he saw the kekkei genkai in her eyes. He tried to hide his discomfort, but Izumi wasn't stupid, she could tell. "I-Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, everything's fine." He said with a smile. But in all honesty, it wasn't fine. Those eyes were the same eyes that killed his mother, his friends, his clan members. But he put all those thoughts aside because this girl was still innocent, she hasn't killed anyone with those eyes.

"My e-eyes hurt, can I s-stop the Sharingan?" Izumi asked him, disturbing his thoughts. Tobirama realized that in the past few months she had developed a stutter.

"Huh? Oh, of course you can. You don't need to ask." She closed her eyes and reopened them, revealing the dark brown, almost black eyes that Tobirama was used too. He thanked the girl and leaned up against the wall, smiling.

This could work. His plan might just work.

There was something off today and not knowing what was frustrating Tobirama. Waking up this morning, he didn't see the usual breakfast of rice and water. Well, he didn't really know if it was morning or night outside, but the food came whenever they both woke up. Touching the walls, he could tell that whatever jutsu they used to block his chakra from sensing anything wasn't working either. Actually, if he thought about it he could feel his chakra, meaning his seal was broken. That would mean that the man who did the fuuin was dead…

"Something's not right Izumi." Tobirama whispered, not sure if anybody was listening.

"If I think about it, our food isn't here." She said. It seemed like his plan was going into action a littler earlier than planned.

"Remember the thing we talked about a few days ago?" She nodded. "Well, I'm going to need you to do that again for me. This time, do you think you could turn it on and off at different times?"

"I c-could try." Ruffling the girl's long hair, Tobirama smiled and looked through the bars to make sure they were the only ones. Finally being able to use his chakra felt… amazing. He spread his chakra throughout the place and found that they were underground, alone, while all the enemy-nin's were upstairs. Their chakra was off though; it kept fidgeting, almost like they were nervous. "I d-did it Tobirama."

"Great." Just to make sure, he asked Izumi if she could see chakra through the walls and she said she could.

"It's all colorful, especially upstairs."

"We're going to have to avoid that area-" He stopped midsentence when he heard a large explosion from the room's upstairs.

"W-What was that?" Izumi said, slightly panicked. Her Sharingan deactivated, but Tobirama decided that they didn't need it for now. He pushed chakra into his nose and took a deep breath.

"I can smell smoke; we're going to need to leave now so we don't breathe it in." Looking through the bars, Tobirama noticed that it was already flowing through a door in a hallway. "That's the door we need to go through." He pointed at it. He took the blanket, (bed, whatever you want to call it) ripped it and soaked it with water. He handed one to Izumi and told her to use it when they opened the door. "Take a step back." She clutched the wet cloth in her hands and ran towards the back. Tobirama grabbed the bucket and downed half of the water in it.

As he gathered his chakra into his stomach, he went through the handseals tiger, ox, tiger, and rat.

"Suiton: Mizurappa!" Tobirama aimed the water to the bars, effectively breaking them. He checked his chakra level and noticed how much this jutsu had cost him and that worried him. Looking behind him, he saw Izumi staring at him with shock in her eyes.

"T-That was so cool!" He smiled at the girl and walked out of the cell.

"Careful, you might slip on the water." He said.

"O-Okay." Carefully walking through the cells, Izumi stared at the boy that she had been trapped with for the past few months. She never realized how strong he was until now… But then again, he was a shinobi, unlike her. Yet.

Tying the wet cloth against his mouth, he helped Izumi do the same.

"You ready?" She nodded her head. Standing up, he walked towards the door, Izumi following closely behind him. Tobirama opened the door and the moment he did, smoke came pouring into the hall, cutting off his sight. "You're eyes are going to hurt a little, but it's only because of the smoke, okay?" He said, voice muffled from the makeshift mask. Grabbing her hand, he walked up the stairs. Despite the masks, he was coughing from the amount of smoke in the building. 'Damn, what the hell happened here?' He asked himself.

Tobirama touched the ground and sensed that there were more shinobi's than before. 'They're getting invaded... This could go in my favor if I'm careful.' He walked through the halls, careful to avoid the fighting.

He wished that they could hide their chakra, but Izumi being four (five?), he knew that it was impossible to do. He could try, but he wanted to be as prepared as possible and concealing his chakra at the moment would take a lot of concentration and time, something he didn't have much of at the moment.

As they reached the door that would lead outside, he could feel Izumi slowing down from all the smoke that surrounded them. After making sure that there was no one right outside the door, he pushed it open, only to be brought to a bloody battlefield. All over the field, there were people fighting each other. One man's head was cut off while another was being burned to death. "Fuck." He grabbed Izumi and told her to close her eyes. After she did, he grabbed her and started carrying her. At first he groaned from her weight, even though she wasn't that heavy. Before he got kidnapped, he would've been able to carry her fine, but after his stay downstairs he lost a lot of weight and muscle.

Tobirama carefully ran away from the burning building and he realized was a compound surrounded by a forest. He ran into the forest that surrounded it, realizing it was their best chance at surviving. He could hear the screams of men dying as he ran by.

"W-What's happening Tobirama?" Izumi asked into his ear while she coughed.

"I'll tell you later so keep your eyes closed." He so desperately wanted her to use her Sharingan to help him move throughout the forest, but he knew that she would see the dead bodies. At first, he thought that she would be fine looking at them but he realized that the way they were killed were cruel, too cruel for her to see.

"Damn it, the brat's are running away!" He heard one of the shinobi say. He felt Izumi freeze at the voice.

"T-That was Hiro, the one t-that c-cut me!" Izumi said to him. Cursing, Tobirama started pushing more chakra into his legs, making him run faster. He could hear that man, Hiro, running after them, but he got cut off halfway through his chase by a wolf. Tobirama thought that that was weird, but would question it later. After running for a few minutes, he thought that they were safe. But just to make sure…

"Izumi, I need you to use your Sharingan now." Tobirama said as he came to a stop at a large tree. "Do you see anybody?"

"Y-You mean the colorful lines?"

"Yes." She narrowed her eyes and looked around.

"N-Not big ones. I only see little ones." She said looking at him, showing the size of the thing with her hands.

"Thank goodness. Those are just animals, nothing to worry about." Looking down at the girl, he noticed a bulge in the back of her shirt. "Izumi, what's that on your back?"

"Oh, t-this? It's the toy you made me." Izumi said to him with a smile. She took the doll out and handed it to him. Tobirama laughed despite of the situation they were in. He ran his fingers across the "doll". In all honestly, he just tied placed rocks into a shirt and tied it in certain placed to give it an appearance of one. He handed the doll back to her.

"Well, let's get going. Do you know where your compound is?" He asked her.

'It's east from here.' The voice said to Izumi in her head.

"Um… it's in the e-east from here."

"Are you sure?"

"Um… yeah." Tobirama narrowed his eyes at the fidgeting girl.

"I hope so."

A/N: Well, here's chapter 5! I'm not sure if the escape scene was very good but... oh well! I'm super sick right now, so I can't promise when the next chapter of In Time or this story will be uploaded.

And I thank every single one of the new followers and favorites for doing exactly that! Especially the reviewers! OMG I was so happy xD

Other than that, until next time~

Also, please forgive any mistakes xD