Disclaimer: I don't own Riddick or Naruto.

A/N: This occurs during Pitch Black. Just so you know… I went off the original screen play instead of the movie version because I believe it's better/longer/awesomer… I also, of course, had to twist a few things around. You know how it is when you add an extra character to a universe he was never apart of… Hope you enjoy, Tara.

Warning: This is definitely guyXguy… I am a yaoi fan :P

They say most of your brain shuts down in Cryo-sleep... All but the primitive side. The animal side.

No wonder I'm still awake.

Transporting me with civilians... Sounded like forty-- forty plus.Heard an Arab voice: Some hoodoo holy man. Probably on his way to New Mecca. But what route? What route?

Smelled a woman... Sweat, boots, tool belt, leather. Prospector type. Free settlers. And they only take the back roads.

And here's my real problem. Mr. Johns... Blue-eyed devil. Planning on taking me back to slam. Only this time he picked a ghost lane.Long time between stops…Long time for something to go wrong.

'I've heard that most of your brain shuts down during Cryo-Sleep…' The blonde thought to himself, letting the movements of the ship jostle him in it's hold. 'All but the primitive side… The animal side… No wonder I'm still fucking awake.'

The shaking didn't really bother him so much; he'd taken worse rides. Longer ones, too. The second he'd heard the alarm, though, he knew his ride would be landing ahead of schedule. He was in a state of half awareness, and nothing really seemed to faze him as the ship thrashed about more violently. Nothing ever seemed to truly faze him anymore…

He'd gotten on this boat with the hopes of going to New Mecca and maybe finding a new calling there. He'd been so bored with life as of late. It had lasted for far too long to stay interesting—not to mention the fact that he still couldn't manage to find someone that could anchor him down to his age. If he didn't soon, he'd be eternally blonde, tan, and a year younger than this era's legal drinking age—Which was not something Uzumaki Naruto was looking forward to after picking up the horrid habit of overly consuming the addicting liquid fire from Tsunade some thousand years before.

He inhaled the air slowly, letting the smell of fear and sweat consumed his senses as one of the Cryo-Lockers blew open; spitting out a woman onto the harsh metal grating of the floor. The scent of blood wafted in the air, and he felt a sharp change in emotion as holes were riddled into the hull of their boat. Another crew member tumbled onto their co-pilot. Naruto listened in his half-awake state, eyes shut because his body was asleep, but his mind wasn't.

"Why did I fall on you?" A man asked, completely disoriented as panic settled into his bones.

"He's dead," The woman hissed, her voice cracking in distress. "Cap'n's dead… Christ, I was looking right at him, when—"

The man stumbled to his feet, raking his hands over his head as he looked around like a frightened animal. "I mean—I mean, chrono's showing we're twenty-two weeks out… So, gravity wasn't supposed to kick in for another nineteen. I mean… I mean—I mean, I shouldn't have fallen at all."

The woman stood as well, looking over at her friend with confused eyes. "Owens! Did you hear me? Captain's dead."

Owens glanced at her, then their recently deceased captain, and then back to her. He gulped back the fear in his throat, his brown eyes wide in horror. Soon, they were stumbling into the nav-bay, alarms blearing loudly all around. She slid into the pilot's seat, checking her screens as Owens activated their exterior view.

"1550 millibars, dropping 20 MB per minute, shit, we're hemorrhaging air," She hissed. "Something took a swipe at us."

"Just tell me we're still in the shipping lane," Owens muttered, almost to himself as he looked up to see through the opening windshield. "Just show me all those stars, all those bright, beautiful, deep-space—"

The sight of a planet right before him was all he saw. They were headed straight for her; being sucked in by the planet's gravitational pull. It was a horrific sight to behold. Air seemed to rush by as their ship shook and thrashed against what gravity was telling it to do: Plummet and crash. The sun was shining brightly above them, as their ship began falling to pieces as it hit the planet's upper atmosphere.

The woman flew forward, hands landing on the controls as her heart hammered away in her chest. It thumped against her lungs and battered her ribs as she tugged at the levers and switches this way and that.

"They trained you for this, right?" Owens asked over a headset while he settled into the back, trying to level everything out, too. "Fry?"

She didn't say anything back.

"Fry?!" He yelled into the receiver.

She still didn't answer.

She harnessed in, and started running switches. Fumbling a few times, she cursed both mentally and out loud. After a few trial and errors, she hit a sequence of switches and buttons and she relaxed into her seat. Finally, she got the crash-shutters before her to open and reveal cloud strata sweeping up past the windscreen like floor-lights on a dropping elevator.

It made her stomach float up into her mouth. Swallowing back her fear, she tensed and gripped the controls tightly. They were shedding big altitude, and she needed to slow them down now. If she didn't… They were all as good as dead.

Fry ran more switches, causing the jettison doors to close around the ship. She flipped a security latch, and yanked the lever down. There was a sudden blast around the ship's skin, blowing away the non-essentials that were hindering their aerodynamics. It sent the ship twisting into a dangerous roll, causing Fry to throw the actuators as a way to level them out.

The airbrakes deployed as she killed the roll, but the ship was still going in nose high. Fry winced, fiddling with more controls before looking around and realizing what she had to do. Running switches, she closed her eyes and pulled.

Owens spun around as the jettison doors closed behind him. He stared at them in horror as they separated him from the passenger compartment. His panic escaladed, and he fumbled with his headset before he finally getting it just right.

"Fry? What're you doing?" He asked shakily, still staring at the sealed doors behind him.

He doesn't get a response.

"Fry?"

"—Can't get my fucking nose down," She ground out through her own head set, blonde hair sticking to her forehead with sweat. "Too much load back there…"

"You mean that 'load' of passengers?" Owens' voice strained, and he ran a hand through his short, brown hair.

"So what?" She snapped back. "We should both go down, too? Out of sheer fucking nobility?"

Owens fell silent this time. It was torture for both of them. To live, or not to live… That was the question. Owens closed his eyes, his mind debating a million miles a second on what he should or shouldn't do.

Fry was ready to pull it, but her body wouldn't quite let her. It was wrong, she knew. But she wasn't going to give her life up for a dozen or so strangers. Biting her lip, she clenched the handle of the lever painfully tight. She bounced her leg, waiting for some sign from her partner.

"Look, Fry," His voice echoed over her com. "Company says we're responsible for every one of those—"

"Company's not here, is it?"

"When captain went out, you stepped up—Whether you like it or not." He practically growled. "Now, they train you for this, so—"

"On a fucking simulator!" Fry cried out, fingers twisting around the handle.

She heard the distinct click of a seat belt over the intercom, Owens' voice echoing back through. "Don't touch that switch!"

Overcome with a strange sense of guilt and nobility, she pulled her hand back from the death switch. She blinked back the tears in her eyes, and looked around blindly for something—anything—that could save them. A sudden jolt to the ship had her hand back on the switch. A sort of snarl formed on her lips as she mumbled softly, "I'm not dying for them."

She yanked it, waiting for the update on her screen. She waited for the firing bolts, and the separation to take place as they screamed down through the clouds. When an alert appeared on the screen, Fry almost screamed in frustration.

Owens had opened the jettison doors locally, blocking them from closing, and keeping Fry from separating their passengers from the ship. An enraged yell echoed through his head as he got back over to his monitors.

"Owens!" Fry shouted, rage bubbling within her.

"70 seconds," He said right back. "You still got 70 seconds to level this beast out, Fry!"

Fry was seething in anger and guilt. Popping more airbrakes, she shed some speed, and more heat. The ship finally leveled out, but it was still being pounded hellishly as they descended down and down to the planet's crust. She tried to get a stable view out the windscreen as they broke though the cloud-bottoms. There was a glimpse of landscape before an airbrake fails.

It tore off with the velocity of their drop, and pin wheeled right into the windscreen. Fry winced, staring with wide eyes as the glass cracked into a thousand silver spider webs. Impossibly, it held… For the moment.

"What the shit was that?" Owens asked over the com, having heard the loud crack of steel against glass.

Fry didn't say anything as she stared at the windshield, trying to get a good visual. Sunlight flared from every fractured edge; blinding her. It was like looking into burning diamonds, and Fry could only get a bare impression of the outside world. Now she had to rely on a ground-mapping display.

120 meters altitude. And dropping.

Blue eyes snapped open in a passenger Cryo-Locker, and a tall, pale man clawed at his safety restraints as the ship rattled. He was in some kind of shit-storm, and he had to get out. A single thought ran through his mind, as he stumbled out of his locker and onto the ground. He looked over to where his prisoner should be, and felt a shock of relief wash through him as he saw those black goggles.

The ground-mapper told her everything. Told her how close they were to dying: 60 meters. Then, collision alarms kicked in. Fry glanced up and out the fractured windscreen, noting the huge, dark mass rise up into view. Land.

40 meters… 30… 20… 10…

Fry braced herself for impact. As soon as it hit, the already wounded windscreen imploded, sending shards of glass flying about the flight deck. It streaked across her skin, leaving small tares littered on her cheeks and forehead and clothes. Air hurricaned in, whipping about the room as she held her arms in front of her face protectively. She hadn't died… she was alive even as the boat went shearing across the dirt and rock.

Owens chair jerked with a loud thump, his seat belt holding him securely into his seat. He seemed to stiffen as the ship impacted with the planet, and chairs around him ripped from their moorings. His eyes widened, and suddenly, he was thrown into the ceiling. Falling back down, metal around him, and a dazed, half dead look came over his brown gaze.

The man on the grated floor looked around worriedly, thankful to be out of his locker as the shit storm seemed to fully hit their boat. Though, a second later, he wished to God he'd stayed inside because just beside him the hull was cracking open. It was like a nightmare.

A huge section of the cabin tore free, skittering and crashing along the planet floor behind them. Sun blared down above them, streaming brightly into the once darkened main cabin. Forty cryo-lockers vanished with it, and disintegrated out of sight. Forty cryo-lockers… Forty lives…

He clung to a support beam for his life, hoping he could hold on long enough for the goddamn ship to slow to a stop.

Back in the flight deck, Fry was being hammered by the wind that flooded into her space. She opened her eyes experimentally, the harshness of the air making her eyes water. A vortex of motion, of speed, of blurring debris flew by. The ship is finally burrowing in. Burrowing under.

She has to shield herself again as dirt avalanches into the cockpit. She couldn't see anything. She couldn't even open her eyes to check if she'd sustained any injury. Instead, she kept her face buried in her arms; trying without fail to keep herself safe.

They were all choking on yellow dust. Ghostly silhouettes in a cloud of debris coughing, moaning, and calling out to other survivors in English and, surreally, in Arabic. A man by the name of Johns stumbled to a cryo-locker; his ears red with the blood that ran from them. The cryo-locker was empty…

Johns reaches for his holster, tuning everything that had just occurred out. The fact that he'd almost died a moment before was erased from his memory as he found his weapon gone. It'd been torn right from his belt. No prisoner and no weapon—A spooky combination.

Nearby he saw the light of a cutting torch. Someone was using it to open a jammed cryo-locker. The plexi is torched away to reveal a young boy, maybe fourteen if he was lucky, completely unscathed. There was another scream next to him, and he looked over to see a locker shift beneath the rubble. Johns was distracted a moment, reaching down to clear the debris away.

Suddenly, a pair of chained feet swung into view and over Johns' head. The chain caught on his neck, and twisted hard using the chain as a kind of choke-collar. Johns flicked open a baton as he struggled to breath, and swung it up at his prisoner. The bald man above was still wrapped in body chains and a mouth bit. He clung to the ceiling for support, riding out the baton blows with ease.

Seconds from blacking out, Johns strained forward. He went further and further, and finally broke the man's hold on the support above. He kept hold of the chained feet so that the well ripped man slammed headfirst into the deck. Johns laid the baton on his neck.

"One chance and you blew it, Riddick," Johns rasped out, rubbing his throat. "Never cease to disappoint me."

Chaining Riddick to a beam, he left the man there to wait. He had other things to do first…

He turned his attention back to the movements in the cryo-locker still on the ground. With smooth movements, he knelt down and wrapped his knuckles against the little bit of plexi he could see beneath the metal and rocks on top of it. A loud knock came back, followed by a low, seething curse from inside the prism. Johns moved quickly, clearing the heavy objects from off the top of it, only to reveal a pair of burning blue eyes starring at him through the glass. The blonde seemed to be panting madly, like he'd run a marathon, and his hands were pressed securely against the plexi before him. His muscles were taunt as he shoved against it in anger; trying to escape. Johns made eye contact with him, and held up his index finger as a silent signal.

"One second," He muttered, looking around for a way to pry the locker open.

The blonde rolled his eyes, waiting impatiently for the man on top of him to help him escape this new prison. "Get. Me. Out."

Johns nodded, sliding off the box and running off to get help. He'd almost gotten to where everyone was gathering when a voice called out to him. He spun around at the sound, searching for where it came from when it echoed back again.

"Hey!" A feminine voice shouts.

"Hey, who?" Johns asked, stepping forward cautiously.

"Hey, me." She said. "Over here."

His light found it's way to a headrest sticking up from the dirt. Johns came closer, checking the other side of the headrest and finding her there. A blonde woman buried to the gills in debris, rubble, and dirt.

"Amazing," He muttered, looking her predicament over. "I'm Johns."

"Carolyn Fry," She shot him a quick, bitter smile. "I'd shake hands, but…"

He managed to smile back before he began to dig her out. Johns helped her out of the rubble, and through the carnage. She'd been stunned but it all, but especially the blast of sunlight where a hull used to be. As if she'd been hit by a brick, Fry realized just where she was.

The nav-bay was littered with metal as she dashed through, digging like a mad search dog. Eventually, she uncovered Owens, still strapped into his chair. There was a metal rod piercing his chest close to the heart. He was dead. Obviously dead. His eyes were open, though, and staring straight up at the ceiling in a dead daze.

She reached out to touch him, when he yelled. "Out, out, out—Get it outta me!"

She recoiled hard, falling back onto her ass with a horrified look pasted to her face. He was still alive. The other survivors seemed to bungle over as his screams echoed across the territory. A murmur of different voices, different opinions laced through the small crowd. Her breath was shaking as she reached out to grip the rod.

"Don't touch it!" Owens screamed. "Don't touch that switch!"

Fry jerked her hands back, and scuffled closer to her dying ship mate. "Awright, awright… someone, there's Anestaphine in the med-lock. That end of the cabin… next to—"

She cut herself off, looking to where she'd been pointing with a frown. There was no more 'end' to the cabin. She looked back in horror as Owens screamed on in exquisite pain. Everyone seemed to cringe back away, none of them having seen such raw suffering before.

"Get away," Fry's voice cracked. "Everybody."

The others left her, then. Except for the young boy who stayed behind to watch in morbid fascination. Johns doubled back, catching him by the collar of his shirt. Leaving, they passed Riddick who'd previously been cuffed to a bulkhead. His eyes were hidden by goggles as they tracked Johns and the boy towards daylight. His attention is drawn to a scream of frustration that emitted from a case not too far from him. Johns had forgotten… The blonde inside struggled, his safety belt already off, as he beat his hands against the glass. The smell of earth and blood crept into his senses, and he knew he had to get out of this locker soon or he'd suffocate. His oxygen levels were already low.

With a low growl, he kicked the plexi harshly, causing a small crack to spider web it's way along the filthy glass.

The survivors straggled outside, and Johns surveyed them all with a keen awareness. There's a male-female team of obvious bushwhackers; partners in life. The woman has a kind of tough sexiness about her. Her hair was long and her eyes were bright as she checked over her husband once again, making sure he was completely intact. The man's face shows his aboriginal blood as he scratched the brown beard on his chin. He soaked up the attention his wife gave him, telling her again and again 'Shazza, 'm alright'.

Johns looked over to another man. Overfed and over groomed. He was a puff pastry of a man in his fourties. His glasses seemed to be cracked as he muttered curses in an accented Latin. He was well dressed, and his feathers seemed ruffled about the obvious inconvenience of being crashed on some remote planet.

His blue eyes snapped over to four male "Chrislams". They were pilgrims on their way to New Mecca it seemed. Three of them were young, excitable teens. The fourth, however, was a schooled, pillar-steady man in his late fourties. Johns seemed to chuckle at the sight of them, an odd irony befalling his mind as he thought of how much they'd most likely prayed for a safe trip.

Shaking his head, he turned his attention to their landscape. All around them was a stark and unforgiving terrain. The valley floor was relieved only by low hills to one side, spiked with earthen spires. Scorching down on everything were two suns—one red, one yellow.

"Well," The overfed peacock spoke with a slight British accent. "Our own little slice of heaven…"

The Chrislams fell to their knees, confusion crossing their features as they tried to orient themselves. "Please," The older man said, his own accent lilting with his words. "Which way to New Mecca? We must know the direction in order to pray."

North? South? East? West? Nobody knew. Johns snapped open a compass, finding the needle swaying rudderlessly. The screaming from inside the ship finally seems to fall silent, much to the relief of the passengers' consciences.

Fry held Owens' now dead head in her lap. Tears streaked down her cheeks, and she staggered to her feet. Blinking away the sorrow, she found her way out, passing Riddick with a weary expression. She barely heard the sound of a yell from a person trapped in a box, but she heard.

Freezing, she wandered over to the cryo-locker, only to find matching tear filled blue eyes. She cursed at the sight of the boy in there, and knocked loudly on the glass to get his attention. The boy himself was frantically clawing at the door and the walls that held him in. He would not die like this. A loud sound caught him, and he looked up hopefully; seeing a woman hovering above him.

His breathing finally calmed, as she gave him a soft, reassuring smile. "I'll get you out."

It was a promise he knew she'd keep even as she walked away.

She climbed out, onto the back of the ship. Johns was already there with a few of the survivors. She looked between all of them, counting them up in her head before looking over a few yards away to spot the Chrislams praying in four different directions. She nodded at the sight, sniffing back the rest of her weaker emotions to face Johns.

"Paris," He started, pointing at the bolstering older man. "Shazza, Zeke, and—"

"Jack!" The young boy cut in, holding out his hand for Fry to take.

She shook it without hesitation, glancing between all of them. "There's one missing."

"Who?" Johns asked, confusion in his voice.

"Another boy," She said, her voice was rough. "He's trapped in his locker. We need to get out before he suffocates."

Johns cursed to himself, rushing off the back of the ship, and back into what was left of it. They all seemed to follow, Shazza carrying a blow torch with her like the time before. Johns kept them as far from Riddick as possible when they passed him. Soon, they were at the cryo-locker, and Fry was waiting for the torch to heat up enough to cut through the plexi. It was quick enough for them, but not for the blonde within the case. His breath came in shallow pants, and he looked at the group above his limp form with bleary azure eyes. Suddenly, the air was flowing back in, but even then it was hard to really get a good breath. The plexi was lifted up and off, and the blonde woman he'd seen before reached in to help his sit up.

He jerked right up, shaking his head like a wet dog, his chest heaving softly. His lips were parted as he inhaled slowly, trying to calm his rapidly beating heart. He glanced at all of their faces, already knowing their names—because he'd done research before boarding this vessel. The thing was… It threw him through a loop as to why they had crashed when he'd picked the best boat there was.

"You alright?" The blue eyed man from before, Johns, asked.

His eyes narrowed dangerously, and he swung his fist around, clipping Johns on the jaw. He stumbled back, falling to the ground with a harsh thump, and his lip bleeding softly. With a low snarl, the boy sprung from his box and to his feet. Everyone looked up at him in shock and awe as he dusted off his olive green cargos and his black t-shirt.

"What the fuck was that?" Johns leapt to his feet, glaring down at the short man before him.

"That, Mr. Johns," He hissed, stepping forward threateningly. "Was for fuckin' forgetting me."

Johns seemed to shrink back into himself at the comment. All eyes were on him suddenly, and Fry knew just what the young man had to be talking about. She stood, too, and stepped between the two of them with narrowed eyes. She shook her head at him a moment before looking to the shorter of the two.

"What's your name?" She asked softly.

He scanned her a moment, internally pouting after realizing she was taller than him—a known complex of his ever since he was a child. "Naruto… Uzumaki Naruto."

tbc