-Grand Line-

-Third Fleet Convoy-

-Lead Battleship-

After being captured, Sasuke had been loaded onto the ship without argument. He cooperated at every turn. When the Marines asked him to kneel, he knelt. When they placed shackles on his wrists, he accepted them without complaint. They were altered handcuffs, the chain between the two wrist restraints replaced with an iron rod that prevented him from bringing both hands together. Like this, he would be unable to use all but the simplest of jutsu. Still, he didn't put up a fight.

In short, Sasuke behaved. In return, they treated him with courtesy. They helped treat his wounds, and they didn't strike him as they stored him in the prison cell across from the unconscious form of his best friend, Naruto. He was told that it was because he had demonstrated an ability to restrain him if Naruto should transform again.

Sasuke assumed that they also wanted Naruto to know that if he transformed then he would attack his friend first.

He saw no other Straw-Hats during his stay. Most likely, they had been split up among the three ships in the Navy convoy. From what he had heard, he, Naruto, and Robin were being kept in the lead ship where the Admiral and Commodore could keep an eye on them, but if so, Robin wasn't in the brig with them. He wondered what that meant.

Once he had established the basics, Sasuke fell into a deep sleep. When roused, he claimed that the effort of subduing the Kyuubi had nearly killed him, and he would be helpless for the next few days. This wasn't exactly true, but they didn't need to know that.

He ate, he drank, and he conserved his energy. About a day into the journey, the Admiral visited him, and Sasuke slowly answered a few questions about the Elemental Kingdoms, shinobi politics, as well as gladly sharing everything he knew about Akatsuki. He told them a great deal about Orochimaru, Danzou, Deidara, and what little they knew about Akatsuki's mysterious leader, Tobi. As far as Sasuke was concerned, any enemy of Akatsuki was, if not a friend, then at least a weapon to be used against them. He only regretted not learning more about what had happened with Hidan during the rest of the crew's fight with him on Jaya, but he did remember learning that the man was a regenerator who used a chained scythe. Aokiji agreed, having witnessed as much himself.

After answering these questions, Sasuke fell back into a stupor. This was apparently sufficient, and the Admiral left, satisfied for now.

About a day and a half into their incarceration, Sasuke learned that they had changed destinations without him realizing it, docking at a place called Water-7. For some unknown reason, the Admiral had gotten off at that stop on his way back to the World Government Headquarters at Mariejois, which was something the guards couldn't help chatting about. The fleet had stayed barely a few hours more before they were off again. As they left, someone else was brought down to the brig, yelling and grumbling in a nasal voice.

"OW! Quit it, you goons! I've seen the inside of a cell before! I can damn well walk myself there!"

The Marines unceremoniously deposited a giant of a man into a reinforced cell just a bit further down the hall. The blue-haired man in the row opposite his was clearly another one of the strange mutants that lived out here. He was in excellent shape- which was clear since he was wearing only a bright-red floral shirt and a tiny pair of underwear- but his legs were scrawny compared to his muscled upper-body, and his forearms were at least twice the size of his upper arms. He had what looked like a metallic nose, but strangest of all was his chin, which was pointed in three places.

Sasuke almost felt like engaging the man in conversation just to find out what was up with that chin, but he changed his mind quickly. He had to conserve every last bit of energy.

It wasn't long before the other man started pacing the confines of his cell. Grumbling and cursing under his breath, he continued like that for nearly an hour before he began whistling. Sasuke twitched in annoyance, but said nothing. Then the man started singing.

"Ohhh~! I got the blues~! The prison blues~! I got the 'they took my goddamn guitar so I can't play any prison music blues~!'"

Sasuke clenched his teeth and seriously considered plugging his ears.

"Oh, hey, I guess they didn't take this thing away," said the other man. There was a strange clonking sort of noise, and then when Sasuke turned to look the man had produced a harmonica as if by magic. He immediately began playing it, and the ninja moaned in frustration when he turned out to be even worse at the harmonica than he was at singing.

Eventually, the playing stopped. "Shit, I never was any good with this anyway," he said. "Don't know why I even installed it. Hey, kid! What are you in for?"

Suddenly being addressed as 'hey kid' from out of nowhere, Sasuke considered saying nothing, but the answer came to him without effort.

"Tried to set fire to an Admiral," he said, sounding bored and tired.

The man raised an eyebrow. "Shit, man, and I thought I was stupid." He grinned, showing off a set of brilliant white teeth. "But at least you're alive, huh? Name's Franky. Call me a deviant- call me a cyborg- but I'm always Franky."

"Sasuke," he stated, simply, "Sorry, but I'm still recovering. If you're looking for a lively conversation partner, I'm not your guy."

"Psh, whatever, kid. I don't need your company anyway."

That said, Franky settled in to occupy himself and time continued to pass just as slowly as it had before. Eventually, food was delivered, and Sasuke carefully and politely took it, thanking the marine guard and not making a fuss. This was in stark contrast to Franky, who was a one-man prison riot even with his heavily reinforced restraints.

Afterwards, the other man had nothing but disdain for his quiet acceptance of this situation.

"Shit, kid, you're useless. Got no spirit. You're just a no-balls punk brat. I'm supposed to believe you got involved with an Admiral? Don't make me laugh."

Sasuke said nothing. He just conserved his energy and watched for Naruto's awakening.

En-route to Enies Lobby, mere hours after their departure from Water-7, Flounders received an update from Captain Weber. They were being followed.

Of course, they had been suspecting this was the case for some time now, but it was good to finally be sure. Their pursuer had been getting sloppy, and they'd glimpsed another hint of a sail when Captain Saldicci's ship had dropped some leagues behind the rest of them to take a look. Somehow, their pursuer had managed to stay over the horizon from them for however long they had been chasing behind.

Captain Weber, of course, had been coolly furious at the thought that he had missed some important hidden variable, but the more important question was their identity. If it was Akatsuki following them then that was one thing, but if Akatsuki wanted to follow them right into Enies Lobby then Flounders would be happy to oblige them. After all, the majority of CP9 was on-board and ready to respond to any disturbances from the prisoners, which made him almost- almost- wish that the rogue ninja group would try something.

No matter. They were only five hours out from Enies Lobby. Time was running out for whoever their mysterious pursuers were.

-Grand Line-

-Five Hours From Enies Lobby-

-Third Fleet Battleship-

Sasuke was trying to fall asleep when Naruto finally awoke. Stirring for the first time in days, Naruto tried to sit up and then hit his head on the metal plate suspended right over his bed.

"Ow!" he shouted, his voice hoarse, but still startling Sasuke out of his fitful nap, "What the hell is this?"

Once he realized what was happening, Sasuke returned to full consciousness.

"Naruto! You're awake!"

"Yeah, yeah I know. Why the hell are they keeping me in this shitty little box?"

Naruto's cell had a modified bunk with its own set of bars and reinforced plating to prevent him from leaving his bed.

"You impressed them so much with your Shadow Clone tricks that they decided not to give you enough room for two people. I think someone up there had the bright idea of making sure your clones couldn't help you even if you could summon then." He raised his shackled hands, and Naruto examined his own restraints with disgust.

"Shit! Wait, we're in prison?! Oh man… The Kyuubi… What the hell did I do when I was out?!"

"You kicked our asses, Naruto, that's what." Sasuke grinned. "Don't worry about it."

Naruto rearranged himself so his head was pressed against the bars of the cell.

"Oh man, you're still hurt… Did I do that to you? I'm sorry- I knew it was a bad idea to listen to that thing, but-"

"No way," interrupted Sasuke, "You left me alone. It's Luffy you should be apologizing to. When the Admiral gave up, he fought the Kyuubi single-handed until I got you calmed down."

"Shit!" Naruto now looked puzzled in addition to worried. "Wait, he fought me like that?! I didn't think that Luffy guy was all that tough—I didn't kill him, did I?!"

All of a sudden, Sasuke laughed out loud, feeling a wave of relief that his friend was alive and well. "Don't worry- I think he's still alive. Apparently he's not just a goofball after all. He did a better job duking it out with you than I would have—it was like two beasts battling."

"Oh man… that's a relief…" Naruto sat back. "But, come on! Prison?! I mean, I guess it's better than dying or killing everyone, but-"

"I said don't worry about it. I'm just glad you're still alive."

Hearing the commotion, Franky decided to interrupt them. "Hey, little dude! You're finally awake, huh? Your friend there is trying to play this all cool, but the fact is he's been super useless this whole time. Just sits there playing nice and barking when they pat his head like a good little doggy."

Naruto stuck a thumb out past the bars, pointing in Franky's general direction.

"Who's this guy?" he asked.

"The name's Franky, kid."

"You sound pretty weird, but I can't see you from here," replied Naruto, smooshing his face through the bars in an effort to get a look at the other man.

"Hah! Kids these days and their goddamn manners, I tell you. I'm not weird—I'm a cyborg, and don't you forget it."

"Sounds pretty weird to me," said Naruto. "What the hell's a cyborg?"

Inside his massive cell, Franky posed, visible only to Sasuke. "OW! A cyborg is a man who's half-machine, and I'm the greatest one alive."

"You still got caught though," said Sasuke.

"Yeah, don't remind me. It doesn't matter. I'll be getting out of this pickle one way or another."

"How do you figure that?"

Franky grinned. "My gang is gonna be right on my heels, and you'd better believe it. Besides, I'm about ready to kick the ass of some of the traitors who stabbed me in the back myself."

Naruto decided to continue his earlier line of questioning. "So you're half-machine? What's that about? Which half is the machine?"

"Naruto," started Sasuke, "That's not what he means when he says 'half-machine'. It's more like-"

"No, he's right," stated Franky with no small measure of pride. "I'm half-machine- the front half, actually. But that half is really something else, let me tell you!"

"Wait, so I'm gonna hate myself for asking this, but the 'front half?'"asked Naruto, "If you replaced everything does that include your...you know?"

Franky laughed, slapping his sides as he did so. "I've got one word for you, kiddo! 'Hydraulics!'"

"Hydraulics? What the hell does that even mean?"

Franky switched to an incredulous expression. "What kind of guy doesn't know the greatness of hydraulics?! Shit, whatever, kid. I'll tell you when you're older."

"Why the hell does everyone keep saying that to me?!"

Sasuke laughed, surprising himself after two days of self-enforced restraint. Franky continued talking like he hadn't heard a thing.

"Even if you don't know about hydraulics, I've got guns, armor, rocket fists… Shoot, I can even fly!"

"Bull. Shit! No way can you fly," said Naruto, but now he was really trying to squeeze his head through the bars to take a look.

"I'm not pulling your leg, kid. It's true! Push me off a cliff if you don't believe me!"

"Yeah, I'm not seeing any cliffs around to test that on, old guy."

Franky grinned, "Does that look like my problem to you?"

There was a voice from the end of the hall. "Hey! Get the Commodore on the comms! It sounds like the prisoner's awake!"

Naruto sat up again and turned his head to listen, then looked back to Sasuke. "What's that about?"

Sasuke frowned. "They want to talk to you so they can compare what you have to tell them to the information I gave them, but you've been out this whole time. Listen, Naruto, I have something you need to know-"

Suddenly, Naruto's eyes widened and he assumed a far-off gaze, as if lost in a memory. His head dropped back down to his cot for a moment. Sasuke was very familiar with this expression- he often saw it when Naruto was absorbing a lot of new information.

It usually meant that a shadow clone had just vanished.

That wasn't part of the plan, but it was actually more convenient. When Naruto sat back up again, the blond boy grinned at him in astonishment.

"Sasuke! You magnificent son of a-"

"Shh!" he hissed, before Naruto could say anything else. "Not the time!"

Naruto chuckled, almost making it a cackle. "Okay, okay, but he's ready to go whenever you are!"

From down the hall, the guard shouted at them to keep quiet. Sasuke sighed, filled with an intense rush of relief. He had spent all this time waiting, conserving his energy, and playing nice until he could be sure Naruto was awake, but he hadn't been certain that stage two would be successful until just now.

"Naruto," he asked, "Are you ready? Can you do this?"

From the boy's cramped quarters, Naruto flashed him a thumbs up.

And just like that, their plan could advance.

To the side, Franky was looking on with curiosity. "You two little screwballs aren't gonna let me in on this, are you?"

Naruto laughed. "Nope! That would spoil the surprise!"

From down the hall, the guard shouted, "Hey! Quiet down!"

Sasuke wasted no further time. With a moment of meditation he drew upon his training, summoning lightning chakra to his cuffed hands. Doing this without performing hand seals made the technique too slow and inefficient to use in battle, but sometimes it was handy in a pinch.

Abruptly, he worried that he had made a mistake. He had known going into this that he wouldn't be able to regenerate any of his chakra, and after two days' incarceration he was down to almost nothing remaining. Even this relatively minor application of lightning had nearly run him completely dry.

Still, he kept it together, and as his hands became wreathed in lightning his metal cuffs tore themselves to pieces. The slagged scrap clattered as it fell to the floor.

"HEY!" shouted the guard, stalking down the hallway, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN THERE?!"

As the lightning subdued, Sasuke flashed his fingers through the seals of one of the many basic cantrip jutsu he had copied from Kakashi, then grabbed a chunk of scrap metal in his palm.

The iron began to glow a very soft red in his hand as fire-element chakra convinced the metal to reshape itself without the need for intense heat. Sasuke gently pressed the scrap piece into the remains of the cuff locking mechanism, concentrating as it flowed inside the lock. When it finished, he removed a crude but functional key.

Sasuke hid the key just as the guard approached. When the surly young marine looked in and saw the wreckage of the ninja's handcuffs, his jaw dropped open. He shouted to alert the other guards standing outside the door and then raised his rifle. Sasuke interrupted him by darting forward and grabbing the man's gun, pulling the marine to slam him against the cell. What followed was a half-hearted, one-armed effort to wrest the rifle from the Marine's grip. Reaching his other hand out past the guard's line of sight, he tossed the makeshift key to Naruto, who caught it and quickly stuffed it into his mouth.

The struggle for control of the rifle ended just as five more guards rushed into the corridor. Sasuke let go, causing the young marine to stumble backward.

Franky watched the spectacle with a furrowed brow. The key was useless to him, as his massive cuffs were entirely custom-made, but this was very interesting nonetheless. Why was the little wimp acting so tough all of a sudden?

Swiftly, the guards surrounded Sasuke's cell. The black-haired ninja stepped back from the bars with a smug sneer and hands raised in mock supplication.

"Hey! Maggot!" shouted one of the guards, "You think just because you've been on good behavior you're gonna get away without a beating for this?"

"Sorry, man," said Sasuke, dripping with insincerity, "I guess my hand just slipped, huh?"

Naruto snickered, and the guard turned to one of the Marines still hanging back in the hall. "Hey, you there! Grab another pair of cuffs, and go get the Lieutenant-Commander to authorize the seastone ones. I'd like to see him break out of those." Turning back, he smiled. "Alright, asshole. We've been nice to you so far, but that's all over now. It's clobbering time!"

"Oh, I'm trembling," smirked Sasuke, "You think you pansies can hit like an Admiral? You don't have the balls to come in here with me."

In the background, Franky laughed raucously, slapping his metal thighs with clanking noises. "Bahahah! I take it back, kid! You're super alright with me!"

With red faces, each of the Marines did their best to regain control of the situation as Franky continued guffawing. Three of them stood in the cell corridor, rifles at the ready, while two more dropped their rifles outside and opened the door They approached Sasuke with clubs raised, careful not to block their friends' lines of fire.

In his cell, Naruto was stifling a laugh as Sasuke backed up until he was at the wall. Finally, the beefiest among them stepped forward and yelled, bringing his club around to begin the beatdown. Sasuke saw the attack coming a mile away.

He didn't dodge.

Sasuke took the hit without flinching, and then he disappeared with a gentle poof. All that was left of the young ninja's shadow clone was a small cloud of white smoke that dispersed harmlessly in moments. The guards were left staring at the wall of his empty cell, dumbstruck.

Franky raised his eyebrows. Had the escape attempt just failed or succeeded?

Naruto began openly laughing. "Ahhh, man, you've done it now! Didn't your boss tell you to be careful with the prisoners? You went and blew him up!"

-Going Merry-

Naruto was alive.

Sasuke breathed a sigh of relief as the rush of his clone's memories and the barest scraps of its remaining chakra filled him. His real body was standing in the crow's nest of the Going Merry, and the sun was slowly setting on the sea. Taking one last look up at the jury-rigged kite and mirror contraption that he had been using to follow after the Navy convoy, he began reeling it in. The kite was carrying a mirror that had let him see over the horizon to follow the Marine convoy while remaining out of sight himself. It was a technique that required the pinpoint binocular vision of a Sharingan user matched with incredibly fine wire-control skills.

Sasuke chuckled to himself. Guess he really was doing the job of a ship's Lookout.

Yawning, he rubbed the bags under his eyes. He hadn't had much chance to sleep during the last three days, but had managed a bit of shut-eye while the convoy had remained docked at the place he now knew was called Water-7. Judicious use of his limited supply of mission-stimulants had seen him through the rest of the long nights. He'd had no other choice. He had no Log Pose, so losing track of the Marine convoy even once would mean being stranded and dying at sea.

The Shadow Clone technique really was a marvelous skill. Kakashi had taught Naruto a number of techniques designed to take advantage of his pupil's immense amount of chakra, and the Shadow Clone was certainly no exception.

The technique worked by evenly splitting one's chakra between yourself and any number of constructed chakra-bodies, which were then completely indistinguishable from the real thing, even using the Sharingan. Once the clone destabilized, it returned all the chakra it had left. The real trick, though, and the one that very few people knew about, was that when a clone destabilized, its memories transferred back to its creator as well.

Sasuke was lucky to keep just one or two going and still remain useful, but Naruto's endless reserves let him perform truly unusual feats that most shinobi could never replicate. After all, Naruto still had a number of clones active. As a team, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura had already discussed the benefits of leaving some of Naruto's clones out of combat, but this time it was a complete accident that twenty clones had been busy lugging puppet parts back to the ship when Aokiji had attacked. When the Marines had arrived, the clones had hidden the crews' valuables and transformed into pieces of furniture.

Seven had exploded when Naruto began growing his third tail, the Demon's energy infecting the strange link they all shared. One more had been lost at sea when it had overexerted itself fighting a stray sea-monster. Finally, three more had exploded over the next two days when their wells of chakra had run dry, but that still left nine Naruto clones up and running.

Stowing the kite device, Sasuke leapt down to the deck below, dodging rigging as he fell, and several ragged-looking copies of his blond teammate stopped their duties to look his way. He hurried to fill them in.

"My shadow clone finally ended! Naruto's okay!"

The assembled Narutos shared excited glances and cheers. "Awesome! Not gonna kick the bucket after all!" one shouted.

Another Naruto added, "Good timing, too. We're running on empty over here. I mean, sometimes it seems like the ship is sailing itself, but we lost one guy just a little bit ago from overwork."

"Yeah," grinned Sasuke, "He noticed when it happened. I had to keep him quiet."

"So what's the plan, man? What are we dealing with?"

Sasuke paused to consider. His clone had thought up a number of possible breakout plans during his enforced downtime and had committed several possibilities to memory, but there was still a lot of information for the real Sasuke to sort through. He rarely had to deal with shadow-clone downloads at all, much less one of this size.

Finally, he gave his answer, "Naruto and Robin, along with another prisoner who seems like a cool enough guy, are on the lead ship with the bigwigs. Robin's not in the same prison area with him, but she's on-board somewhere. The rest of the crew are split on the two other ships."

"Shit, that ice-man's on the lead ship too?"

"No, looks like the Admiral got off at the nearest island. A place called Water-7. I don't know why, but it works out well for us. Without him on board, we'll be able to take them on, no problem.

Sasuke regarded the clones of his best friend. "What do you think? The original Naruto's trapped in a tiny cage with a handcuff key and no tools. There are maybe five-hundred Marines on-board. Can he make a safe getaway?"

Each of the Narutos laughed. One said, "Man, I can think of- like- six different ways to get out even from here. Remind me to tell you how I did it."

"Good. Okay, so here's what I'm thinking…"

Together, Sasuke and the Naruto clones worked out a plan, of sorts. In the cover of the approaching darkness, Sasuke would approach from the rear, catching up with the convoy by running along the waves. He'd already tested their relative speeds and found he could make good time compared to a Navy ship, though he couldn't keep it up for long. Meanwhile, the real Naruto would escape from his cell and either rescue Robin or get off the ship, depending on his situation. Then, Naruto would infiltrate one of the other ships to rescue the imprisoned crew.

Naruto would jam a kunai into or otherwise mark the rear of ship he had called dibs on, and if there was no such mark present then Sasuke would assume that he was still imprisoned in the lead ship. If he had marked one, Sasuke would take the other ship. If Naruto finished first, he was to swarm that ship with clones, destroying it or disabling it for as long as possible, then carry the crew across to Sasuke's ship, thus reuniting the Straw-Hats. With that done, they could all launch a rescue to save Robin if she still needed it.

The clones would do their best to follow along and maneuver the ship to safety if they ran out of chakra. If they lasted, they would wait for his signal flare and then bring the ship in to rescue them.

Not Sasuke's best work, but Naruto would get frustrated with anything more complicated. The chosen clone was already glaring at him to get on with it.

With a smirk, Sasuke raised his hand, and the two of them bumped fists. Then, Sasuke brought his other arm around and slugged the clone in the face. There was a POOF, a cloud of smoke, and then the clone was gone.