IMPORTANT AN: Yeeea, Another chapter out! Thank you all for your reviews so far, I love to hear what you think of it! I know that I have made Sasuke ooc, but I asked myself, `how would he act and be if there hadn't been a massacre? If they lived in historical times and he wasn't a ninja? Not got an older brother?´ And so on… I've also made Sasuke older, a bit more mature to give him some experience and authority.And if we all think about it, Sasuke talks quite a bit in both the manga and the Anime, he isn't just sitting in a corner looking cool as ice, kicking asses all the time, and the only answer he can give is a "Hn".
...but I admit that even if all that, we still want and gotta see something more 'Sasuke-ish' soon. This is still my fic, so I will write it my way, so that you don't think that he goes from my version to mainstream version in a second, which could be confusing… Anyway, I will try my best ^^ Hope you all will like it anyway!

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"I have to give you credit, Orochimaru," Anko said and checked Naruto from head to toe, as if she was evaluating the quality of a horse. "This one will do just fine. A really young and beautiful boy."

"And he also seems to be a virtuous young boy." Orochimaru answered and ripped of the priest collar from around his neck with a satisfied sigh. "You are a virgin, aren't you, dear Natsuo?"

His reddening cheeks and shocked expression was the only answer they needed, and a satisfied sneer took form over his face, who Naruto thought had looked quite harmless and humdrum up until now.
His sudden change in tone and voice was both scary and confusing.

"There must have been a mistake," he said coldly and took a step in their direction. "I will leave right away."

"Oh no, you won't," Anko answered. "You will not leave this room until we are ready to send you to London." She turned around to her brother. "When will Kabuto come and pick up the next order?"

"He let someone drive a carriage along the route now and should be here the day after tomorrow."

"London? What are you guys talking about? You have to release me right now." Naruto tried to keep his voice steady and confident, but despite his efforts it shook. The siblings seemed to grow in front of his eyes until he only saw their evaluating stares, amused sneers and the way their eyes looked all over his body.

"You go when we send you. You belong to us now. In one or two days you will be with your new master, on your way to your new… home." Anko said coldly.

"Belong? What are you talking about? I already have an employer…"

"You will soon get a new employer. Yakushi Kabuto, the biggest man in the capital city, specialized in the fields of organized prostitution, will pay a huge price for a beautiful virgin like you."

"Prostitute… What?! No!" Naruto backed away until he abruptly stopped when the backside of his legs hit the bed. "You are wrong about me. I'm a respectable man, not some…"

"No, not yet." Orochimaru seemed amused by Naruto's lack of comprehension. "Not yet, but you will soon be. You will learn everything you need to know in one of Kabuto's houses, and you will bring him a fortune. Someone will pay ridiculously large amounts of money to have a virgin with such beauty, and even more will pay good just to watch."

"No!" Naruto was going to give them an awful answer, but slapped his hand over his mouth. He felt the bile rise in his throat, he was going to pass out and then wake up and discover that this was a nightmare. He felt a hysterical laugh bubble up, but kept it down.
Orochimaru's words were incomprehensible to him, except that it contained an awful, horrifying threat. `How could they even imagine such…?´

He struggled to find some courage and think straight. "I said that I was a governess and that I was alone in this world. That is not true. I've escaped from home and have a really wealthy and influential family. They will look for me, and they will pay to get me back."

He paused and surveyed the two greedy faces. They looked like they were calculating the situation, and for a moment he dared to hope, but then Anko spoke:

"No. Obviously he only says that to buy himself some time. And even if it would be true, if we let him go, he has already seen our faces. But after a few months in Kabuto's care his family, if it exists, will not want to have him back. It would be too shameful for them."

She took the bag from her brother's hands and opened it to check out the contents of it. She removed anything that could be used for escape or as a weapon, before she tossed it into the room.

"Here. Make sure to rest and not make too much noise. There is nobody who can hear or help you out here, and I guarantee that you don't want to disturb Orochimaru. He would of course not leave any marks on you, but you will still be sorry."

The door closed and Naruto heard them lock it from outside, where after they also bolted the door. Shaking all over his body, he slumped down on the bed and tried to think, tried to plan, tried to put up a new strategy, but all there was in his head was the sinister words. `Someone will pay to… to… No!´ He buried his face in his hands, but the siblings words pushed through, like an assault by itself. `Pay to be able to watch… Pay good money to be able to watch when…When…´

It was impossible. Although some men went to brothels, knock-shops or whorehouses or whatever they were called, that much he knew. But they must surely go there because they want men and women who knew what they were doing, knowing how to give them pleasure, right? How could they even like to watch as a terrified man was raped, or even forced to carry out the act itself? The perverse and evil in the situation calmed him a little bit when he tried to reason.
There were people who enjoyed being cruel towards animals, and there were also evil people who treated their servants badly. Maybe this was an extreme example of one of those cases. But just that there were so many men, so many that a brothel owner could get rich, was appalling. Had he met such men? Could they move around freely in society and hide their sinister nature behind a respectable mask?

The thought made him to return to his own fate, and despite his bravery he gave in for a heart aching cry, laid down crouched in fetal position on top of the filthy blanket, where he suspected that other boys and girls had cried before him.

Other boys and girls.

Naruto sat up from the bed and wiped his wet eyes with his hands. Other boys and girls. If he didn't do anything it wouldn't only be him who was doomed to this hell, but all the other men and women who would come here after he was gone. He wouldn't be worthy of Sasuke under no circumstances if he gave up now.

Naruto wiped his nose and eyes and examined the room. His legs felt shaky now, and he let another sob escape from his throat, but he forced himself to look for something. There was nothing that could be used as a weapon. The bed was bolted down to the floor, the sheets were worn by age and would easily break. The washstand didn't have a jug and underneath the bed there was a potty that was made out of such thin porcelain, that he didn't even think it would leave a bruise if he hit someone in the head with it.

The door did not move at all when he pressed against it, and there was no doorknob on his side. The window was blocked with iron bars that were screwed on securely.

Naruto stared out onto the front yard where he saw a glimpse of the road behind the fence. Could he draw attention if someone passed through? No, He wouldn't know when they were coming because the hedge was too high.

He couldn't get away, in other words. Then the escape had to happen when the carriage arrived, when he was in it. Orochimaru and Anko had said something that implied that there were other young men and women in it, men and women who were in the same situation. But that would be too easy. A carriage full of hysterical men and women would be hard to have any control over. If he had been like the siblings downstairs, which were very hard to imagine and gave him shivers at the thought, he would drug the prisoners. That meant that he couldn't eat or drink anything, throw away everything they gave him and then pretend to react the way they expected him to do at an unknown drug.

`Tough…´ Naruto went away from the window. The practical problem of escaping luckily shut out the true horror in his situation, but it still lingered in the back of his mind and showed up now and then to give him paralyzing strands of fear before he regained control.

`Sasuke… What would Sasuke do if he was captured?´ The thought calmed him, gave him courage and something to fight for. If he would never see him again, if these evil people defeated him, he would at least know that he had done everything he could and that he wasn't a helpless victim.
He would give them a show to remember.

He sound of wheels could be heard from the driveway and he ran to the window. `Kabuto can't already be here to pick me up, could he?´ But all he could see was a wagon with the reins wrapped around the beam, and two beautiful dark grey horses who stood and breathed out mist with lowered heads.

Probably a friend of Orochimaru and Anko. But what if it wasn't? What if it were an innocent neighbor or a family passing by? Naruto looked wildly around the room. The vague sound of the doorbell could be heard from outside. How could he open the window? The door under him must have been opened, because he could hear manly voices speak from outside. Desperate, Naruto grabbed the sheet from the bed, wrapped it around his fist and punched a hole through the window.

"Help! Please help me!" he screamed out and punched the window again so shards of glass rained down over the front door. "For Christ's sake, help me!" Naruto didn't even know what he was screaming anymore.

There could be heard noises from a short fight outside, and then silence.

Naruto grabbed a long shard of glass from the floor and ran over to the door, where he stood next to it and desperately tried to quiet down his ragged breath. He could hear footsteps from the stairs and then how the bolts were removed.
Was it the visitor? Or was it Orochimaru? If it was Orochimaru he would stab him, he didn't doubt it for a second and wouldn't be sorry for it either. The back was the best place to strike. Or the face.

The door opened, and he took a step forward, ready to strike, when a voice he thought he imagined said:

"Naruto?"

"Sasuke?" he must be hallucinating, be delusional, because it all was like a dream. Then he showed up in Naruto's field of vision from behind the door and he stumbled forward into his arms, while the deadly shard of glass fell unnoticed to the floor. He was saved, miraculously saved by the man he loved.

"Sasuke… How did you find me? These people…" From over Sasuke's shoulder he could see Anko with a large knife in her hand and her arm raised, ready to strike. "Watch out!"

Of course Naruto had been in fights before and seen some. When he was what, like, eight years old?
He had never seen grown-ups fight, but he could appreciate the efficiency and the brute force in the one blow Sasuke effortlessly gave out when he swiftly turned around. It hit Anko straight in the jaw and she fell to the floor with a thud.

"Hn, I've never hit a woman before." He leaned over the fallen woman.

"I hope that you broke her neck," Naruto said heatedly, surprising Sasuke.
Sasuke had expected some tears, and maybe even him feeling faint, not such ferociousness. `He must have been terrified,´ Sasuke remembered how Naruto had trembled when he had hugged him tightly just a few seconds before. "Where are Orochimaru?"

"I knocked him. He is unconscious down the hall, don't worry about it. They haven't…?"

"I'm fine, thanks." Naruto answered and observed Anko suspiciously. He didn't seem to understand what he really asked about, but he didn't push it. There was time for that later. "Sasuke, we can't risk that these guys escape before we can get the police over here. You have no idea of how evil these persons are."

Sasuke had a pretty well painted picture in his head of what he had to deal with, as soon as he heard the hostess story from Crown & Anchor about the nice priest and his sister, and the series of unfortunate young people who all have been robbed in the stagecoach. The last kilometers he had urged on his tired horses, while he struggled between his imagination and years of disciplined composure under extreme pressure.
Now he didn't only accept Naruto's words, but without questioning him as well.

"Is there a room where we can keep them and lock them up?"

Naruto put his head around the door next to them. "This one, the window isn't broken. Oh…" He paused and turned himself towards Sasuke with his eyes wide with horror. "…Look."

There were handcuffs screwed into the wall over the head of the beds and along the wall, with some other creepy tools on the nightstand. Naruto was so pale that Sasuke was afraid that he would faint any second. He put his arm around Naruto, who looked up with his eyes filled with red burning anger, to Sasuke's surprise.

"Put them in here," he said vehemently. "Chain them by the bed."

Before he could even answer Naruto ran down the stairs with the knife in his hands.

"Naruto, stop!" during a terrible moment he thought that Naruto would stab the unconscious man who was lying on the dirty stone floor, but he only leaned over him and looked for signs of whether he was going to regain consciousness soon or not.

Sasuke bent down and tossed Orochimaru over his shoulder before he rose in a smooth motion without any signs that the man was heavy at all. Naruto walked behind him, and when he turned around after he had tossed Orochimaru on the bed, he was already in the process of dragging the sister in to the room.

He lifted the unconscious woman and put her in bed next to her brother, and then he cuffed both their hands to the wall. "There are the keys." Naruto said. He had searched the room thoroughly for objects that could help the siblings escape, other than the horrible tools that were on the nightstand, and grabbed the keys from the empty washstand. He bended over Anko and took out all the hairpins from her hair before he grabbed the bag she had on her belt. "They could try to pick the locks," He said in a matter of fact. "What does the slimy creep have?"

Sasuke raised his eyebrow at Naruto's relentlessly practical side, but if it helped Naruto he wouldn't distract him. He removed Orochimaru's tie pin and patted him on his pockets, which were filled with a roll of money and two wallets.

"That's my wallet!" Naruto reached for the more well-kept and stylish one and grabbed it, squeezing it hard in his hands. "He stole it from me in the stagecoach."

"I know." Sasuke answered with a low and calm voice, suspecting that it wouldn't take much to push Naruto over the edge. "Let's go downstairs. They are securely cuffed now."

"Lock and latch the door close first."

"Of course." He let Naruto turn the key while he latched on the metal bar over the door. Sasuke let him make sure that the nightmare was securely locked away.

"Come on, let's go downstairs now and see if they have something we can drink in the kitchen." Naruto let Sasuke help him down the stairs and his arm trembled under his. Then he suddenly stiffened.

"Mr. Orochimaru! Lady Anko!" a thin voice called from the backside of the house and came closer to the sound of shuffling steps.

Sasuke put Naruto behind himself and called out in a hard voice: "Who is it?"

"It's just me, mrs. Shigura, Mr. Orochimaru. Oh! Who are you, sir?"

It was a lady in her mid-fifties or older, skinny in a worn out dress that was covered with a big, baggy apron and her gray hair was done in a knot at the back of her head. She stood and twisted her hands in front of her, apparently completely unable to comprehend the unexpected sight of two strangers in the hall. Sasuke noticed how red and sore her hands was.

"Do you work for Orochimaru and Anko?"

"Yes, sir. I come here three times a week to clean."

"Do they have any other servants?"

"No, sir. Just me." She seemed unable to bring herself to ask what they were doing there, and just settled at staring at them.

"Well, Shigura…" Sasuke gave her a short and concise summary of what sinister crooks Orochimaru and Anko really were, and that they will be brought to justice by the police.

"Oh, how horrible, sir!" Her eyes went wide. Sasuke didn't believe for a second that she didn't knew what was going on in this house. He narrowed his eyes.

"I am Colonel Uchiha Sasuke and this young man is my… friend. Can you show us to the living room?" It was meant as a question, but the tone in his voice sounded more like a command.

"Of course, sir. Right here," She opened a door to the cleanest and most well-kept room they've seen so far in this house. Sasuke steered Naruto towards the couch. He moved when Sasuke steered him, but didn't make any effort of taking a seat.

"Can you go and give my friend here something to drink, Shigura?" The woman nodded, but he could see the anxiety in her eyes and that she started to twist her hands again. "Don't worry. No one will probably believe that you had anything to do with this. How much do they pay you?"

"About six pence once a week, sir."

"And when did you get paid last time?"

She frowned in deep thought, apparently having a hard time to remember.

"Three weeks ago, sir."

Sasuke picked up a small bundle of banknotes from one of his pockets. "Here." She gasped at the large amount of money. "This pays for the last three weeks, plus more for your inconvenience today. Can you now go get that beverage?!" She nodded and hurried off to the kitchen.

"That was nice of you." Naruto said in a weak voice when Sasuke gently pushed him down on the couch.

Sasuke sat down next to him and tried to not touch or bump into him. He was perplexed over the fact that the blonde didn't seem surprised to see him here. Maybe he was in too much shock to question a somewhat familiar face.

"Naruto, did he touch you?" Sasuke asked and this time he noticed that Naruto understood the question.

"Oh, no. There is no worry for that." His voice was calm and clear, even if it was weak. "You see, he wanted a virgin. He even explained why in great detail, and that it was there my value was."

Sasuke had suspected something like that, as soon as he realized that a woman was involved in the business. Orochimaru wasn't some crazy loner, who kidnapped young men and women for his own pleasure without gaining anything else from it. No, he was a tradesman involved in human trafficking, who was selling a very special product.
Sasuke had however hoped that Naruto wouldn't understand it and that nothing had been said to crush his naivety. He wanted to do something when he saw the tremors run through Naruto's whole body, but didn't know what. His skin was so pale compared to his usual bronze skin, almost transparent, and his eyes seemed unfocused.

`How would he react if someone tried to touch him now?´ Sasuke felt anger rise dangerously in his gut.

Naruto didn't react when Shigura came in with a cup of tea. Sasuke nodded and told the woman to continue with the tasks she usually did and leave them alone, and not go upstairs, no matter what she heard.

He pushed the cup into Naruto's hands, but he couldn't keep his hands steady, so he put the cup back down on the table again for it to cool. A few seconds later Naruto turned his head and looked at him, even if he couldn't judge if Naruto really understood who he talked to.

"He said that they would get a lot of money from the man who… the man, who…" He paused and bit his lip. "And also a lot of money from those who would watch. They said that a man named Yakushi Kabuto would come and get me with a carriage. I believe that there could be other victims in that carriage." Naruto paused and met Sasuke's eyes.

"How can it be possible?" Naruto wondered and his face reflected his desperate need for understanding. "I know that men go to brothels and have mistresses and lovers, I get it. And I'm not so stupid that I think men and women would choose to live a life like that if they had better alternatives. But… Don't men want someone who knows what they're doing? Wouldn't that give them more pleasure?" Naruto blushed, but continued. "But there must still be a lot of those men that they spoke about, how else can the brothel holders and people like the siblings earn money on them? How could it be worth the risk?"

Sasuke wished that he didn't have to answer his questions. He would much rather be surrounded by the enemy at war than be in this moment right now. How bad it all could turn out if he explained it in the wrong way…

"Most men really are decent and what you would call normal," He said in a matter of fact tone, but still trying to sound gentle. "And then, just like you say, there are some who enjoys being cruel, enjoys inflicting pain on others. It mostly is about feeling power, that weak, cowardly men likes to dominate someone defenseless. Some people are worse and more extreme than others, but they are not many of them, Naruto, so don't think that half of the people you meet and know in the society is hiding their fangs behind a humanly smile. Those who like that stuff will most likely pay for it, and they will pay good to get exactly what they want."

He looked at the blonde and noticed that his eyes started to focus, and knew that he had listened and understood. While Sasuke watched him, he could see Naruto's rigid calm start to falter and how tears welled up in those arctic blue eyes.

Without stopping himself to think about whether he would fight back, he leaned forward and pulled Naruto in a hug. He could feel how Naruto tightened the hug.

"You are smarter than to think that everyone is hiding an evil side, otherwise you really are an idiot. Most men respect their partner and people in general. Men like your father, like Neji, like you, and like Kyuubi will grow up to be."

Sasuke could feel how his shirt started to get wet. He cried silent tears. Then he nodded and Sasuke could hear his muddled voice: "Like you."

"Yes, like me. I would never hurt you, Naruto."

For some reason, it only seemed to make it worse.
He sobbed violently in Sasuke's arms. Not knowing what else to say, or if the best thing was to just wait for him to let it all out, he held him close in his arms and was shaken by his crying. Never in his whole thirty years of life had he felt such a strong feeling of protection towards another human being, and never had he felt such powerful and destructive wrath.
He knew that he couldn't open the door upstairs without someone who could hold him back, because he wouldn't hesitate to kill them.

Finally the sobs died away, and he gently let his arms fall to his sides. Naruto sat up more straight, but otherwise he made no attempt to move away from Sasuke's side.

"Come on, drink some tea." Naruto nodded and reached for the cup and took a few sips. After a while he putted the cup down and turned towards Sasuke, his eyes and lashes still wet from tears.

"He didn't touch me, but it still felt like…" He tried to find the right word for it. "Like I was violated."

"That's because he forced in the words in your mind, and made you watch the scenarios in your head?"

"Yes, exactly. You get my point. Now I just can't get them to disappear."

Sasuke thought before he spoke, and decided to trust his instincts. "Those were just words, only pictures and not reality, since you didn't allow it. You fought back, you weren't a helpless victim. None of that would have happened, for you would never have given up."

"But, you did save my life." Naruto pointed out.

"Only because you let me help you. If I hadn't been here today you would still have made up plans and endured." He gave Naruto a small smile. "Where do you find your courage, Naruto?"

"I thought about the other victims," He answered simply. "And what… what somebody who is very important to me would have expected from me."

For some reason Sasuke felt like he just got punched in the gut. Of course, the mysterious man who had made the blonde so upset at the duchess prom so everything had all escalated from there. He couldn't really blame the bloke for giving Naruto the strength to fight back, but why did he waste his emotions on that damned man? He was worth much more than that, this perfect debutante who revolted.

"Remember that you had the courage to fight back," Sasuke said when he managed to suppress his anger. "And talk about it with someone, don't keep it inside you."

"But who can I talk to about it?" the blonde asked.

"Me. Tenten. Neji."

"Neji? Absolutely not!" Naruto sounded almost normal again. "I'm afraid of Neji."

"Why on earth would you be afraid of him? He usually had to fend off a lot of his admirers, both male and female, at least before he got Tenten to handle it for him."

"He just look so… sardonic, if you know what I mean?" Naruto explained. "Tenten told me that her chambermaid in Malta thought he looked like a beautiful, fiery saint. She told me he became furious when he heard it."

Sasuke smirked and told himself to remember the description so he could mess with Neji in the future. It seemed that it was good talking about their friends, it seemed like Naruto had recovered a little bit.

"Will you be okay if I go and talk to Shigura? I want to know where the closest magistrate is." Naruto nodded, so he carefully let the space expand between them, gave him a clean handkerchief from his pocket and went to find the handmaid who scrubbed the kitchen floors.

"A magistrate, sir? That would be Mr. Gedding, sir. He is a very fine man, helped my son when…" Sasuke let her blabber on and felt relived. A down to earth magistrate with a firm grip and a good wife was exactly what he needed.

"How far away does Mr. Gedding lives?" He asked and interrupted Shigura in her blabbering about how good and kind Mr. Gedding is.

"Less than three kilometers, sir. In the middle of the village."

"Really? That close?" Sasuke said in relief. The faster he could hand over Naruto in respectable hands and the siblings in jail or worse, the happier he would get. There could be heard muddled calls from upstairs and Shigura twitched nervously.

"Don't worry, Shigura, they cannot get out. Do you want to accompany us in the carriage and show us the way to the village? We can drop you off where you live." She nodded anxiously. "Then go and make sure that everything is put out," Sasuke continued, "I will lock the doors before we leave this place."

They soon went outside. The two grey horses stood and waited patiently, too tired to show any tendencies of wandering off. Sasuke helped both Naruto and Shigura up on the carriage and seated himself between them, thankful over that Naruto was slender and Shigura bony and skinny.

The trip to the village didn't take very long, even if the horses were tired and dusk was rapidly falling. Shigura pointed at a cabin at the side of the road, and Sasuke helped her down from the carriage. A younger woman came to the door with a baby in her arms and another child who clung to her skirts. They observed them in surprise.

"There you go, Mrs. Shigura. Thank you for your assistance. The magistrate will probably want to talk to you about this, but under the meantime you will have to keep quiet about it.

When they had left and once again were on the road, Sasuke glanced worriedly at Naruto, who now started to wobble when he didn't have Shigura to lean on to. Luckily there wasn't very far to the magistrate's house, and it was easy to find thanks to Shiguras description. When he drove into the graveled courtyard at the front, a stableman came from around the side of the house.

"God evening, sir, May I take care of your horses?"

"yes please. Is the magistrate home?" Sasuke put a supporting hand around Naruto, who's eyelids were about to shut close.

"Yes, sir, both he and his wife is home. Will you stay the night? I can take the horses to our stable and feed them. Sasuke nodded, but were too focused on getting Naruto into the house to care about introducing himself to the stableman.

"Thanks. Would you hold the reins while I help this young man down?"

"Of course, sir."

Sasuke lifted Naruto from the seat. Sasuke weren't sure if Naruto had fainted or just fallen alseep, but his head fell against his shoulder when he carried him, and Naruto's face pressed against the front of Sasuke's coat. A violent wave of protective instinct swept over him, and scared him with its intensity.
Some way or another, he would make it all right for him.

A maid with sensible countenance opened the door for him, glanced at Naruto in his arms, and concluded: You want to see Mr. Gedding, sir."

He followed after her along the hall and through the door and saw a large, grey-haired man who sat on the left side of the fireplace with a plump and gentle-looking lady, apparently in a lively conversation. She broke off when she saw them on the doorstep before she jumped up on her feet and ran forward to them.

"I'm sorry for troubling you at this hour," Sasuke began. "My name is Sasuke and…"

"You need help," She finished for him. "Let's bring the young man to a guest room, everything will be all right."

And Sasuke didn't know when he last had felt such relief. Maybe it would be all right.