A/N: Waraji and Zori are two of the few named men working for Gato. They were the two mercenaries who tried to attack Haku for grabbing Gato only to have their own swords turned on them. Waraji is the tan one with tattoos and an eyepatch while Zori has the black hat, light skin and white hair. They're both samurais and mercenaries in the series.

Last time: Naruto was kidnapped and taken to Gato's underground child labor camp, where he forces the children that he's kidnapped from the village to work themselves to death for his benefit. Sasuke and Hinata, having noticed their comrade's absence, are now searching for him.

Chapter 14: Prison Break

"GATO!" Naruto screams aloud as he burst through the door with an army's worth of shadow clones behind him.

"W-What the?!" Gato gawked, staring wide-eyed at the wave of orange and blonde that was quickly beginning to fill the room.

"It's a ninja!" Zori pointed out, being able to recognize the clone jutsu as a technique only a shinobi could do. While the brat didn't seem to be anywhere near as dangerous as the rogue ninja that nearly decapitated him with his own sword just a few minutes ago, he placed his hand on the hilt of his sword, prepared to draw at any time, should the ninja get too close to his employer. "You may want to stand back." The white haired man warned, stepping in front of Gato.

"A ninja…?" The crime boss repeated aloud. "That's impossible! There are no ninja in this part of the land!"

"WELL THERE ARE NOW!"

Gato immediately rose his head to see the real Naruto in the air, lounging at him with a kunai in hand.

"DROP DEAD YOU COWARD!"

"I don't think so!" Just as the orange clad shinobi was prepared to cut down the grey-haired tyrant, Zori unsheathed his sword, countering Naruto's blade with his own before using his superior strength to push the younger male backwards.

Though he was caught off guard, Naruto only stumbled back a couple feet, his knife still in hand, wearing a fierce glare that indicated he would strike again. However, the look on his face softened as he heard a few strained coughs. Looking down, he saw the poor brown haired boy, who was being beaten earlier. It was horrifying for Naruto, looking at such a kid up-close. His arm and leg bones were visible through his skin, his cheeks were caved in, making him appear as a much older man, and with only a baggy pair of ragged brown kapris to wear, the ninja got an unsightly eyeful of the boy's back where, not only was his spinal cord poking out, but there were several lash marks, a few fresh, a few scabbed over. The sight sent a cold shiver up his spine.

How could anyone do something like this? Naruto himself was anything but innocent. He knew even back when he first joined the academy that ninja lead dangerous lives and often were brought to do things that would cause the average person to question their morality. Heck, Naruto had just killed two people in his jail cell without a second thought. He thought he was prepared to deal with just about anything as a ninja. But this…this was torture, this was inhumane, this was a fate worse than death. Kidnapping small children from their homes and forcing them to work in some sort of twisted assembly line with no food or water until they die? All of this while having people whip them if they're not doing something right. Adding to this, Gato's oppression of the villagers. This man was absolutely unforgiveable in the Uzumaki's eyes.

"Don't worry kid…" Naruto kneeled down next to the malnourished boy, patting his back lightly. "I'm going to get you out of here as soon as possible." He then turned his head towards the other children, who had all huddled into a corner in the far sight of the room to avoid getting caught up in the battle. "And you all too!" He promised. "I'm going to free you all and get you home!" The blonde then focused an intense glare towards the crime boss, who flinched in response. "And you…! You're going to pay for this!" He screamed, charging towards Gato again.

The older man was already making his way towards the door.

Naruto reaches into his back pouch, taking out several knives before throwing them at Gato. However his attacks were all blocked as Zori stepped in between them and deflected each projectile with his blade.

"If you want Gato, you'll have to go through me." He announced taking a quick glance backwards, ensuring his employer made it to the door safely before turning around to block another one of Naruto's attempts to stab him. "You'll have to do a lot better than that kid." He remarked smugly much to the genin's irritation.

"Fine! But remember, you asked for it!"

Naruto leaped back as he prepared himself to fight the white-haired samurai alone while his clones took care of Waraji and the guards.

With Gato…

The older man was leaning his back against the closed steel door that lead to the work room(aka, the current battlefield), taking a moment to catch his breath. After a few seconds, he turned around, standing on his tip-toes, he was able to take a peek through the small glass window at the top of the door to see utter chaos going on inside his precious work room. The clones had taken down several of his guards seemingly without much effort. Waraji was covered in slash marks and looked like he would fall soon, meanwhile Zori was holding his own against the real Naruto, though he was only fighting one opponent. However, the tide of the battle was quickly shifting against him as two clones rushed to aid the real Naruto after they had successfully killed Waraji. Gato ducked down underneath the window, hoping that none of the clones looked over the see him.

He had to get out of this base and fast. Luckily, Gato wasn't just some ordinary coward, but he was a smart one. Knowing ahead of time that countless people would very much like to see him dead, he had long ago developed a plan of action if he should ever be assaulted by an assassin in one of his own bases. No matter what the function was for a base, he would always make sure that it included several emergency exit routes that only he and few select others would have knowledge of.

The closest exit from here though would be through the boiler room...Gato thought before he turned to make his way down the hall. As he traveled he began to grow uneasy. The thought of being trapped with a ninja on his tail in this particular base, even though there was an exit, concerned Gato, for the main fact that it was a large, underground facility with four spacious floors. And he just so happened to be all the way down in the lowest floor. So unlike his other bases, he couldn't escape by climbing out a window if the ninja suddenly appears in the hall to chase him quicker than expected. The escape routes were his only way of getting out of the building. And if something terrible happened, then it was likely he'd be buried alive. Or worse, if something was wrong with the escape route in the boiler room, he'd have to go back through the war-zone work room to get to another one on the other side of the building.

Jogging down the hall way, Gato was beginning to see several steel doors which stood out among the brown, cavern walls of the corridor. These were the rooms where the guards slept overnight. It was also a common place where a few other lowlives he employed would call their temporary residence when they were on the run from the law. It was as he approached the string of doorways that Gato slowed his steps, walking as quietly and stealthily as he could, suddenly remembering two particular employees he had irritated earlier, whom he did want to see him without any guards to protect him. As their door approached, he halted his breathing as well. Even though their door was closed, he knew they had expert instincts, and wasn't about to take a chance. He began walking(and breathing) normally after he had gone past their door, not looking back as his eyes and focus became completely fixated on the boiler room door at the end of the corridor. He grabbed a hold of the knob.

"Tch. Locked." Gato glanced over his shoulder, making sure that no one was there, before he pulled out his keys from his pocket and quickly unlocked the door.

Like the other rooms in this facility, the boiler room was huge, almost as large as the work room area. However, it remained relatively empty, except for the giant boiler and a few pipes of course. It was also almost pitch black except for the small amount of light coming from the boiler's furnace. Speaking of which, there was a pile of coal with a shovel sticking out of it just outside the open furnace on the boiler. I have to remember to fire someone for leaving that furnace open. He mentally noted. The escape chute was on the opposite side of the room, in the corner of the left hand side not too far away from the boiler itself. It was a tunnel with a ladder that shot straight up through all four floors which would let him out in the forest, behind the entrance to the base. Though normally he despised long climbs, Gato's only focus at the moment was getting himself to safety. He didn't want to stay body-guardless for too long. Making his way across the large room, his fancy heeled footsteps echoing as he walked across the brick floor, he finally finds himself at the base of the ladder. At which point he stops to listen for any noise, to his comfort, he heard no sign of that noisy ninja.

Good…at least those guards managed to keep the little brat busy for a while…and I can cross them off the payroll. He chuckled darkly to himself as he hopped onto the ladder.

"Going somewhere?" A cold voice echoed throughout the room, sending immediate shivers up the cowardly crime boss' spine. He turns around slowly, to find himself looking at a less than friendly figure which, thankfully, was standing in the door way on the other side of the room.

"Haku…" he muttered under his breath.

"I guess I was right in assuming that something had happened…it's not often I hear so much noise here." Haku continued. "It's even rarer to see you without your bodyguards to protect you…all alone in such a...vunerable state."

Those last few words made Gato cringe a little. Being alone in a room with a ninja who he had previously insulted without any means of protection was hardly a comfortable state for him to be in. Still, he wasn't about to show fear, knowing good and well that the very same ninja still depended on him as a cover. Attempting to save face, Gato cleared his throat, forcing himself to find his voice before he began to speak in his usual, smug tone. "A ninja showed up and attacked the base. Seeing how healthy he looks, I can only assume that it was one of the four foreign ninja that you and the big lug head failed to kill along with the bridge builder."

Haku raised an eyebrow.

"Most of the men here are dead. And the battle going on in there has likely destroyed my merchandise. This base is a lost cause…" he continued. "…however, there still may be time to salvage what's left. Here's your chance to get back in my good graces kid. You go back into the work room and kill that brat-ninja then try to round up as many kids as you can so I can transfer them to another base. Understand?"

Haku nods his head slightly.

"Excellent. Now if you'll excuse me…I have my own skin to save…" Grabbing a hold of the ladder, Gato quickly hustled his way up each stair, climbing a couple dozen feet from off the ground floor before finally reaching the top which was covered with a camouflage leaf blanket, which he effortlessly pushed off before pulling himself out of the hole, ending up in a small clearing in the forest. The daylight gracing his light tan skin. He then looked down at the chute he had climbed, seeing a figure which could only be Haku, staring up at him from the base floor. Feeling cocky now that he was out of the shinobi's reach, Gato pushed a release button on the ladder, causing it to collapse behind him. It was another feature he added in case any assassins chasing him tried to follow of course. Obviously, Haku backed away from the collapsing ladder in time to avoid being hit by it, but not before giving his employer a swift death glare.

"You can take the ordinary exit! If you live!" Gato shouted, his voice echoing down the chute.

Haku looked down at the pile of metal that used to be a ladder, left collapsed on the ground in front of the only escape chute in the room.

Look at me…I just warned Zabuza against killing him…but here I am, ready to take his life at the first chance I get. He shook his head, playfully disappointed at his own intentions. Of course he could still walk up the walls of the chute, hunt Gato down and kill him before he could even get to another base. However, it wouldn't be wise to blow their cover before Zabuza was fully healed. It seems he would have to continue to bide his time, for now.

Meanwhile, back in the village…

"Please! Don't kill me!" A grown man whimpers, sitting on the ground with his back pressed hard against the brick wall behind him. It was quite a sight for the average person to see. A grown man with a rough look, scarred right eye, tanned skin and giant Mohawk wearing only a baggy set of black pants was cowering at the feet of two relatively short children. If there were people brave enough to be walking the streets around this time of day, no doubt they'd be laughing at him. Then again, these very same "children" had just killed his two partners before disarming him and one of them was now holding his katana to his throat.

"Quit your quivering and answer the question already!" Sasuke demanded as he began to press the tip of the blade to the man's skin. "Where are all the missing kids?"

"Wh-What are you talking about?"

Sasuke resisted the temptation to roll his eyes, instead choosing to press the blade further into the man's neck. "Don't act stupid. You know what I'm talking about."

"It'd be better if you just tell us the truth." Hinata added softly, feeling a bit sorry for the pathetic man.

"I…I don't know why G-Gato has us rounding up all these little brats. I don't ask any questions!" He spits out. "He just pays me to pick up whoever I can and we take them out to a small base in the middle of the forest."

Sasuke raises an eyebrow. "A small base?"

"Y-Yeah…it looks like just a tool shed on the outside, but that's just a cover…the rest of the base is underground…I think it goes pretty deep down."

"Is that all?"

"Th-That's all I know! I swear!" He puts his hands up defensively. "C-Can I go now?" This man's pride was clearly non-existent at this point as he begged the two genin for his life.

"Nope."

Hinata looked the other way as Sasuke killed the cowering man, having to remind herself that he was a ruthless thug who kidnapped children to make a living.

"Y-You…don't always have to k-kill them you know…" She muttered under her breath, still turned around.

"The less of these thugs there are, the less trouble it will be for the village." Sasuke replied cooly. "Besides…if we let them live, they may try and warn Gato before we can even get there."

Hinata didn't respond as she silently turned around to help her teammate dispose of the bodies. Being in somewhat of a hurry to find their teammate, they simply decided to take turns throwing the men, one-by-one into a nearby dumpster. Sasuke considered setting fire to it, but he wasn't going to sit there and wait for the bodies to burn, and if he left it alone, it would likely spread out to the villager's houses. Especially since it didn't look like anyone would be going outside to see anything soon. After dumping the last body, and closing the dumpster top, the two genin headed towards the nearest exit of the village, and began their journey into the forest.

Hinata activated her Byakugan as soon as they exited the village gate, searching through the trees and bushes for any sign of man-built structures. "I hope everyone is alright…" She muttered to herself in a low breath, though it was loud enough for Sasuke to pick up on.

"Seeing as no one has ever seen their missing child again after they were kidnapped, I doubt it." He replied pessimistically.

"S-Sasuke…"

"Gato doesn't sound like a very kid-friendly man. I doubt he'd waste money feeding or taking care of the children he's kidnapped. It's very likely that he just lets them rot in a jail cell until they die."

"But that's—!" cruel. She stopped herself from saying anymore, immediately remembering that this wasn't any academy simulation, this was a real life kidnapper. Though she didn't like to think that way all the time, Sasuke was right. Gato has no use for children. It's very likely he'd kill them the moment they started to take up too much space. It was a grim thought, but the most realistic and likely to happen in her opinion. The more she thought about it, the more it disturbed her. Just how many children had been kidnapped? How long have they been missing? It takes about a week to starve to death, doesn't it? And it wasn't like these children were exactly getting fed three times a day to begin with. "I wonder what we'll find when we get there." Images of underfed children and small skeletons filled her head, causing a sickening curdle in her stomach. And what about Naruto?

With Naruto Back in the Work Room…

"Come on guys this way!" Naruto ordered, as he and his clones ushered the children from their places in the prison cells, through the workroom filled with their slave-driver's bodies, and out the door Gato had used to escape earlier on. There had to be some sort of exit this way right?

While the real Naruto stayed ahead of the children, leading the way, a few clones lagged behind to help those who would collapse from the strain running put on their malnourished legs.

It wasn't long before the group found their way down a corridor with a ton of closed steel doors on either side and one, much larger open door that led into a dark room at the very end of the hall way.

"I guess that's the way out…" Naruto stated after seeing how the other doors seemed to be locked. As he approached the open doorway, he noticed a small light on the other side of the room. He squinted his eyes to see that it was an open furnace. Though it only illuminated a small portion of the room, Naruto could clearly see that it was connected to a boiler. He was also able to spot some sort of collapsed ladder just a few feet away from the boiler, though nothing else was visible.

Is this a dead end? He wondered. Maybe there's another door in here. He squinted his eyes in vain, as he couldn't see anything too far away from what little area the fiery furnace illuminated. He took a step into the darkened room.

"M-Mister…are y-you sure th-this is the w-way out?" A shaky young boy asked.

"Yeah, definitely!" He replied with a confident smile on his face, too prideful to admit that he had absolutely no idea where he was going. "Uh…lemme just try and find the door…" He muttered, walking a couple steps further into the room. "You kids uh, stay there…" he ordered, leaving the children standing in the hall with a few of his clones as he took a few more steps into the room.

There's gotta be another door in here somewhere. Naruto thought as he walked towards the middle of the room, looking around in vain with hopes of spotting something else in one of the further corners of the room. His sandals echoed eerily off the stone ground with each step he took.

Clack, clack, clack.

A few swift-moving footsteps echoed throughout the darkness. Naruto instinctively turned to look behind him. The children were still in the hallway, staring into the dark room. What was that?

SLAM!

The dark room suddenly became much darker as the boiler room door slammed shut, cutting off the small amount of hallway light that allowed Naruto to see his way back to safety. He could hear a few kids shriek in fear at the sudden jump scare. He could also hear as a few of his clones called out to him from the other side.

"What's going on here?!" A chill went up his spine as he noticed the temperature eerily began dropping.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

The footsteps were getting louder. Closer.

Fear gripped the young genin's heart, which began beating rapidly. Unable to see the danger which was obviously lurking in the shadows, the Uzumaki immediately darted towards the boiler, his only source of light. Once he had his back against the steel of the boiler and he was standing comfortably in the light of the fire, Naruto pulled out a kunai, preparing himself for whatever might try and surprise him.

"Q-Quit being a coward!" He yelled, his voice a littler shakier than he would have liked. "C-come out w-where ever you are!"

"My, aren't you brave?" An amused voice spoke.

T-That voice…

The footsteps were getting louder. Having somewhat calmed himself, Naruto was able to deduce that they were clearly coming from the front. He looked up and waited as a figure was slowly becoming visible with each step it took forward.

A pair of sandals. Pale lower legs.

Wait…

Long, dark green shorts. Dark blue haori with white trimmings.

…that looks like…

Bone-white mask with a bloody red wave design at the mouth and the Kirigakure symbol etched in the top.

"IT'S YOU! You're that masked freak that was with Zabuza!" He shouted, pointing at the mysterious shinobi who ceased walking just a few feet away from the younger shinobi.

"How nice. You remembered me."

"So you…you're working for Gato too…!" Then Zabuza has to be alive. That's...really bad...

"I see you've decided to play freedom fighter." Haku remarked, pulling out three senbon. "Though it would have been better for you if you would have just minded your own business."

"I won't let you keep those kids down here!" Naruto affirmed.

"Those children can leave, YOU may not."

A/N: Sorry for the long wait. College classes have started again. So, yeah. But don't worry, I'm nowhere near done with the series. And I haven't forgot about it.