Chapter 6: Interlude

In the end, they hadn't traveled far away from the location of the incident. Sakura blearily gazed ahead at the great river across from her. A river like this would be easy to cross for a ninja. But their chakra was near gone and Sakura felt dead on her feet. Sakura slowly brought up an apple and woodenly bit in to it.

It was the only thing keeping her awake at this point. Eating.

A moment later and Sakura dropped her eyes down to Sasuke's head. The greasy black hair made her wince, even as he laid on her shoulder like a dead thing. Sakura cursed herself for letting her heart beat so hard against her ribs just for the action itself. The time for that was really long past.

"Boys are such a pain…" Sakura mumbled to herself. With an apple in one hand, she used her free hand to trace the pages of the map once again. They had left those two short-not-adults behind in the woods, and had made off with the book that had originally belonged to the dark one. Before Sasuke had descended in to his exhaustion, he had briefly described the inciting event that had him raining tree branches on the unwitting.

Sakura had puzzled out her location, and ran her finger tips over what had to be the name of the river. The letters were so strange and simple. Well, simple compared to the beautiful characters of her own language. The decorative dotting was pleasing to the eye, but other than that Sakura was a tad but unmoved.

She sighed and snapped the book shut with a snap and left it on her lap. They were sprawled against a large tree trunk, and lounged in the shade. The scent of the greenery was heady at the river front. And just out of sight around the bend was the ferry. Sakura knew that under the cover of darkness they'd take a hold of the ferry. It was a simple wooden platform with a rope posted to either side of the river to haul one's self along. A simple contraption. But useful when one had chakra exhaustion.

Sakura's eyes inevitably landed on Sasuke's greasy hair again.

Sakura had left behind some clues and hints to Sai and Naruto on where they were going. She had drawn out a copy of this map on a few trees, near the top, and was hoping for the best. There were large forests beyond a set of tall mountains, according to the map. A large forest sounded pleasant right now.

"Be safe, Naruto…" Sakura prayed that the wind took her message to the blond man, and delivered him safely in return for stealing away her words.

Naruto woke with a jolt of pain, and gasped and he flopped over the wooden pole in front of himself. A jerk of his hands and… manacles? Groggy, Naruto raised his eyes and gapped at the man standing over him—"you're ugly as a bag of dicks, asshole." Naruto choked out, before he shrieked and narrowly dodged the downward flail of the man's whips.

A quick, rushed voice to his left spoke softly in words Naruto couldn't understand. But a rough hand at his elbow prompted Naruto to push. Naruto did so, and watched the filthy man saunter away. Slowly, Naruto looked to his left and found a long row of chained men. All of them filthy, too thin, and exhausted.

Smell return, and Naruto flinched and gagged a little, edging away from the men before he stilled.

… he was surrounded by a lot of noise. The sea… and…

Slaves. This was a slave ship.

… Sakura was going to kill him for this. Or at least hit him until he regretted every life choice he had ever made since he saw her last. Naruto gave another effortless shove of the wooden oar he was chained to and considered his escape options.

As if he was going to sit here and be a slave. And damn anyone to even think he'd let these poor assholes be slaves either!

… although maybe he should figure out how he got on the ship first. He didn't exactly walk on, after all.

Bilbo silently fussed over Frodo's curls. The night was thick outside, and Frodo was wincing even in the soft candle light of the kitchen. Samwise Gamgee had appeared after sun down, carrying an unconscious Frodo.

"I still can't believe you scolded him so, uncle." Frodo murmured, speaking softly if only to spare his head the hurt that talking could induce.

Bilbo sighed, "and that is the fifth time you have scolded me in return." Bilbo casually didn't lead himself further in to that conversation, because he knew where it would lead. After all, this was the fifth time that they had started this speech pattern. Bilbo would rather not be the picture of insanity and repeat such a thing again.

Frodo let out a puff of air, before he winced and rubbed at his knee. "You're just a bit bruised, dear nephew. A bit of rest and you'll be right as rain." Bilbo lowered his voice to a more pleasing octave due to Frodo's sensibilities. Bilbo often warred with himself between coddling Frodo or throwing the young lad out in to the world and telling him to live. It was difficult, finding the middle path.

"I believe that's enough adventure for the evening. I'll run you a bath. And then let's put this day behind us." Bilbo gently squeezed Frodo's shoulder and then helped the boy shuffle out of the kitchen and down the dark hall. Bilbo deposited Frodo in to his bedroom and Bilbo left to enter the bathroom. He drew a hot bath and added a few oils to help with aching heads.

On the way to shuffling Frodo to the bathroom, Frodo paused for a moment before quietly thanking his uncle for his continued kindness.

"It's no trouble, Frodo. Do you need me to wash your hair?" Bilbo offered, making sure the boy was steady. Frodo shook his head slowly, and in mutual silence they separated. Frodo to his bath, and Bilbo to the kitchen once more.

Bilbo settled down with his new book—the one he started to pen since Frodo had lost the original book. Writing it from memory would be a task, but that was fine. It occupied Bilbo's hands even as he kept an ear out in case Frodo fell.

It was long past the point of decency by the time a flurry of panicked knocks sounded on the door. And kept sounded. It sounded like the walls were shaking!

One pounded frantically at the door—it seemed like the kind of place to go. There was a glowing mark on the door. And a light on. Those two things made it stand out on a hill of darkness. One wasn't really paying attention to the inky landscape. He had better things to do. Like use his fist to pound the door in to oblivion.

"You're probably scaring them away!" Hissed Five. One paused briefly in pounding the door to stick out his tongue at Five before resuming.

Five snorted, and Eleven hushed him.

"They've gotta open the door! He is still breathing, right?" One demanded, words almost lost under his frantic pounding. Why was this doorway so squat, anyway?

One didn't even think as the door was hurriedly jerked back. One didn't think hard about shoving the door the rest of the way open and shouting out, "please! Our friend needs help!"

The short grey not-man squawked some gibberish and tried to shove him out. So, One promptly grabbed the grey man's chin and yanked the other to look at the prone form of Sai, held up between Five and Eleven. The not-man's squawking died out… but he still spoke gibberish.

Well, that was a problem.

One got down on his knees, held his finger woven hands together and up—although they were on eye level more than anything else—and begged, "please, you gotta help him. He needs help, so please!"

The grey man's old face wrinkled slightly, before he motioned them further in. One smiled and scrambled inside. Five and Eleven quickly followed suit. And the rest found hiding spots around the property, hidden in the dark. The short man hurried them in to… a kitchen?

One cleared off the table with a casual destruction of metal dishware and books and pens. And Five and Eleven eased Sai on to the table. "Oh no… is he breathing?" One asked, horrified as he rushed over to Sai's head and checked his breathing.

"I think there is something even more—"

"What's more important than breathing!?"

"Look at his stomach, moron! He'd gunna die for sure!"

They squabbled for ten intense seconds before the grey haired man shoved a crude drawing of a house and a letter in hand and pointed outside. Five stared dumbly at the letter, then at the man. It took One a little bit to piece together what it was, before he booted Five out by the ass and demanded he find the house in the picture and deliver the letter.

It was hard, communicating without words… but soon One and Eleven were running around preparing towels and hot water… and…

Well, when Five returned with a series of men and women who had steely expressions… One could almost believe that things would be okay.

A/N : ... I'm not dead. Would you guys believe me if I said I wrote this while passing out from exhaustion? I'm not really in a good place financially, and haven't really had the time to devote to writing much of anything. But I still have the ideas for this and my other stories. But most times I just pass out rather than write... I work six days a week, so I know I'll regret this tomorrow when I go to work. Anyway... I hope there is some enjoyment from you guys. I really need to go back and edit all of my typos in the other chapters. But that will be for another day, I think. It's been a few years... and I really am sorry for the wait. I know how it feels to like something that hasn't been updated in years. It's easy to lose hope. But I hope to finish this.

... and by the way, I haven't finished reading Naruto the manga. I've never seen the anime. I don't think I'll ever have the time to devote to actually finishing it. So if something if off in that... well, there is the reason.

In short. Not dead. Here is an interlude. I'm sorry.