| Chapter 3 |

Waking up in a dingy little cell was not what Satomi expected. From now on, she wasn't going to try to be clever. The Uchiha weren't worth being knocked out.

"Well, well, well," It was the man who threatened to slit her throat. "If Satomi-chan has not finally decided to join us! How are you, a little tired?" he mocked.

Satomi pursed her lips and looked the other way, a blank wall meeting her line of vision. Izuna continued regardless, "I do not see what is so special about you. You are plain, unskilled, ordinary, too quiet ... everything a man does not need."

When he failed to rouse a response from Satomi still, Izuna added, "Tobirama would hardly miss you. Women probably threw themselves at his feet all the time; it is just a matter of selecting the right one."

Satomi snapped. Rolling over and sitting up, Satomi retorted, "How would you know? What do you know about love? The Uchiha do not have feelings!"

Whoosh!

Suddenly something cold and thin was pressed against her throat: the blade of a tanto. Her breath hitched in her throat. "How would a Senju know that?" crowed Izuna, his hot breath fanning the back of neck, creeping down the edge of her kimono and making her skin crawl. "You are not worth rescuing – you are worthless. Tobirama must have been fooled by genjutsu if he felt anything for you but repulsion. What man could you satisfy?"

"Izuna," Madara's voice cut through the tension like a shuriken through the air. "Let her go." Izuna heeded his command and moved back to his brother's side, peering at Satomi beadily. "Get up," he ordered Satomi. Out of fear, she did as she was told, keeping her eyes downcast like Tobirama had instructed her. "Look at me."

"I cannot."

"What was that?" barked Madara impassively. Because of the lack of emotion in his voice, Satomi couldn't tell if he was angry or curious. She hesitated a guess at the first estimate and focused on the concrete floor of the holding cell.

"I cannot look at you, Madara-san."

"And why is that?" There was an emotion creeping into his voice, one which aroused goose bumps to appear on the back of her neck even though she wasn't cold.

Satomi remained silent.

"Izuna, could you leave us, please? I think your presence intimidates her." Izuna shot Madara a look that he quite easily ignored. "You just need to stand outside for a minute."

"I will be counting," were Izuna's departing words.

Quite ironically, Satomi was now unsure whether not having Izuna in the cell with her was the most intimidating situation, or having him and the other man. At least she was not on the battlefield. She had heard stories of what men did to women they came across lying in the dirt, defenceless and weakened. Then again, what was she? Alone, unarmed, in a cell with an unknown male – he could be anyone, do anything.

She gasped.

"I do not take to being ignored very lightly," murmured Madara into her ear, his chest inches away from her flushing face. "You would be in a better position if you cooperated with me and my brother. Do you understand? Now, look up."

"I-I—"

"I do not have a lot of patience, Senju," Madara told her firmly, although he didn't sound annoyed. "Look at my face."

Swallowing a lump in her throat, Satomi dared to peek at him; she caught black eyes and black hair, nothing defined. She looked down again quickly, observing Madara's chest quiver as he chuckled.

"You are quite shy," he noted light-handedly. "I have not got my Sharingan activated, so you are quite safe. Just look."

But Satomi didn't want to look. She was scared, unused to such a situation, clueless. Stealthily, Madara hooked a pale, slender finger under her chin and pulled her face upwards, forcing her to meet his gaze. However, she squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

Then the door shifted open, followed by Izuna calling, "Your minute is up."

"Wait outside," instructed Madara, not removing his hand from under Satomi's chin, nor looking over his shoulder at his brother.

"Why?"

"Simple: she talks when you are not here." Madara responded nonchalantly, as though talking to a petulant child about something as trivial as not reading a bedtime story for one night. "So, in order to aid our investigations, I ask you to please leave, Izuna."

"How ironic."

"Is it not?" derided Madara, keeping his eyes fixed on Satomi, "Now, vacate."

Scoffing and mumbling a comment that earned him a "now!" from Madara, Uchiha Izuna departed from the cell and when the door slammed shut behind him, Madara's full attention was directed entirely upon Satomi. With his finger looped under her chin, he could feel her quivering feebly. No, she was not a Shinobi. She was a civilian, most probably naive to the ways of war – but she would learn. She was their hostage, the leverage needed to bend Tobirama, and later his brother and his clan. War was in the Senju and the Uchiha's blood, the blood of brothers. Given time, she would learn the art of war.

"Look at me," he murmured softly, his breath brushing across the skin on her face, whispering against her lips and eyelids. "Open your eyes and look. My Sharingan is deactivated."

"How can I trust you?"

Her reply was in such hushed tones, he almost missed it. "I cannot give you proof to trust me when your eyes are closed. Open them and you will see."

Surveying her every move, from the downward tug of her pursed lips to the little dents in her smooth brow as she squeezed her eyes tighter, he waited – he waited until the eyelids fluttered open and captivating amber met inexpressive obsidian black. The space between Satomi's lips widened a little bit. She stared, captivated, into his fathomless eyes; it was the closest she had ever been to an enemy, never mind an Uchiha.

"Do you understand now? My intention is not to harm you."

"But to utilise my connections within my own clan?" countered Satomi almost silently. Madara's lips thinned. "The Elders might not allow a rescue mission to take place or even a deal to be made, Madara-san. You would have gone through the trouble for a result you thought valuable but in the end be the opposite – worthless."

"Tobirama will come for you," His voice held confidence, bordering on arrogance. "Otherwise you are as good as dead."

"As good as dead?" Satomi didn't fail to pick up on the lack of her definite demise. If Tobirama failed to rescue her, she would be dead, would she not? Izuna would see to it especially.

"I may not kill you immediately," Madara's eyes glinted like a sword caught in the light. "I could simply hand you over to my men as entertainment."

Her stomach tied itself into knots and she felt rather sick all of a sudden. Madara must have seen the dread in her eyes because he smirked sadistically and muttered, almost smugly, "You better pray that your lover truly loves you, Senju. The alternative is far from forgiving."

Then he dropped his hand, as though her mere skin had burnt him, and moved away. With his back facing her, he called, "Izuna, will you open the door?"

The door opened and Madara disappeared through it. That was last Satomi thought she would see of him, as two guards shifted outside her door, closing it after him.

On the grey stone wall, to the right of her, hung a cloth with the Uchiha symbol emblazoned into the fabric, almost mocking her, while to her left, a small square of stone was cut out, allowing few precious rays of sunlight into her prison. Ahead of her bed was the prison door, with a guard each side.

Apparently the hall that led away from the cells was directly in front of her cell, as she often heard the Uchiha dragging a new inmate or an old one in by. Most of the time, the prisoners were screaming for death. Satomi wondered vaguely when she would reach that point, the point where death was preferable, but she failed to reach an answer. So far, she had been left alone and untouched, although not entirely unseen. Hours after Madara and Izuna had finally left, one of the guards made a—err, impious?—comment aimed at her. She had tensed and flustered and since then, she has been facing the wall opposite the door.

At present, there was no light sidling into her cell. Well, should she call it hers? Claiming the cell made it sound she was making a home there. No, the cell was not hers per se – it was her prison, her incarceration, her confinement from everything she knew, but not hers. She was not going to stay here, nor was she going to allow Tobirama to jeopardise himself for her sake; she had to escape.

There were no sounds either. Everything was shrouded in darkness, like she was entombed by these four unmovable walls, and not even a mouse scurried across the cold stone floor. Nothing but black evaded her vision. She could not even make out the outlines of the floor from the bed she was lying on. Her eyelids drooped, heavy with sleep.

She didn't want to fall asleep, though.

If she fell asleep, it would mean that this cell—the confining, suffocating cell that was not hers—was real. Her imprisonment was real. And she did not want that reality – she wanted comfort, familiarity and ... she didn't dare think of it. The word departed, scarcely formed, from her drowsy mind.

It had been years ... almost twelve ... since she last saw ... since ...

Sluggishly, her eyelids closed.

A cough, followed by a rasp of indecipherable mutterings, woke her the following morning. Well, she should say daybreak as light was only faintly breaking through the square glassless window.

Stiff-backed, Satomi yawned and stretched her arms above her head, sore. Reality didn't set in as swiftly as she had imagined. At first it took her a moment to even recognise what her surroundings were and when she did, her shoulders sagged. She was still captive. The threat of 'entertaining' Uchiha Shinobi still loomed upon her in the same way that an axe loitered above the condemned's head. But she couldn't allow Tobirama to seek a deal. She didn't know how the Uchiha worked, but she could guess and she wasn't going to allow it to happen.

Suddenly Satomi stopped rustling her bed sheets. Footsteps echoed down the hallway and the guards outside shifted. Someone was coming. Someone authoritative, because those with authority seemed to be more relaxed in their posture and walk. She realised that when dealing with Hashirama so frequently. The shuffling of the guards indicated that whoever was coming was intimidating, thus most likely to be powerful. The Uchiha clan's leader, maybe?

The footsteps grew louder and then began to fade, as the person headed to the right of Satomi's cell. Outside the guards breathed a sigh of relief. And then there was screaming. Screaming that bounced down to her— no, the cell she was contained in, coming from the right passage.

With the screaming playing on her nerves, as she was unused to hearing such agonised shrieks even on the medical ward, Satomi hid under the covers, pressing the pillow over her head, desperately trying to ignore the screaming. She didn't want to hear it. She didn't want to know what being a prisoner entailed. She didn't want to know war. That's what it came down to at the end of the day. The deaths, the causalities, they were the result of the constant war that was happening around them.

The screaming continued for what felt like hours, but may have only been one hour. There wasn't any kind of time-keeping device in the cell. The closest kind was the sunlight through the window.

In attempt to distract her mind from the current situation, Satomi went back to memorising her boudoir; from the mirror to the ornaments resting on her shelf, to the insignia of the Senju clan that adorned the room above her bed and the portrait that hung beside her mirror, reminding her of the times she had with— no, she couldn't go that far. If she dug up the memories, then she would be forced to relive them. No, it was best that she left them untouched. Out of sight, out of mind – that is what they said, is it not?

All right, then, there's another chapter up! Yay! :) I hope you like it, peeps. Also, thanks to the Guest who reviewed and—of course—xGuiltyXGigglesx03. Thank you very, very much!