Dammit, I still can't seem to turn of the fnord filter!

Naruto: Ninja Burger Chronicles
Scroll Three, Part Three: Short People Got No Reason to Live
By Kaori

Frodo Baggins was having a wonderful day. He'd woken up in his spacious apartment (when you're half the size of a normal person, a normal sized apartment is big), taken a steaming, hot shower, and called his girlfriend to find out if they were still on for dinner tonight. Breakfast had been an unhurried affair of two omelettes, hash browns, eight slices of toast with jam, four glasses of milk, half a fruit basket, and an anti-psychotic pill (special formulated for those who had been in possession of or been possessed by magical objects).

After that he'd gone into town to do some shopping which was followed by a scrumptious lunch and an hour of smoking pipe weed while waxing philosophical about rings' symbolism apropos (1) life in general.

Now he sat on the window seat admiring the view and contemplating one of the universe's greatest questions: what to have for dinner. Too bad this train of thought was derailed by the unpleasant sensation of being knocked unconscious by a blunt object.

Uchiha Sasuke, while having been given a senior level assassination assignment, had no training whatsoever in this area. Oh he knew how you theoretically go about assassinating people, but since he didn't have the tenure to request a sniper rifle, or the time to wait until the target was in a less conspicuous location (neighbours tend to get nosy when they hear loud noises, furniture being knocked over, and high pitched screams of "OH MY GOD!"), he had to settle for the bloodless method of knocking Frodo unconscious and suffocating him with a cushion. Too bad for Sasuke that hobbits, rather than masticate (2) and swallow, skip the first step and inhale their food. Thus, it takes quite a lot of time to suffocate a hobbit as Sasuke was finding out.

The hobbit woke up about three minutes into it and started thrashing about, eventually wriggling out from under the pillow as Sasuke had preferred not to sit on the hobbit on the off chance his teammates walked in and Naruto decided to use the opportunity to procure blackmail.

Frodo whirled around to face his assailant, and blinked in surprise that it was a teenage boy. Then he spotted the Ninja Burger uniform and his eyes widened in horror.

"Please! Don't kill me!" whined the terrified Halfling. "I'll give you anything you want!"

"Can you give me the satisfaction of seeing my brother utterly humiliated?" deadpanned Sasuke.

"Um…well…no."

"Then you must die." And Sasuke took out his wakisazhi and prepared to inflict stabbity death on the hobbit.

"AAAAAGHH!"

Downstairs, Sakura and Naruto were engaged in the ancient art of breaking and entering. Naruto, having much experience breaking into the Instructor's Lounge back at Konoha Ninja Burger Academy, was picking the lock on the apartment door while Sakura acted as lookout.

"Okay, we're in." whispered Naruto, slowly opening the door and rolling inside SWAT style. Sakura rolled her eyes and followed in a crouched position, shutting the door quietly behind her.

The apartment was dark; the only light came from the digital clock on the DVD player that was flashing 12:00. Some decidedly Emo music was playing on the CD player; Sasuke would like it. Feeling their way around, and banging their knees on the coffee table, they tiptoed into the kitchen and quietly placed the delivery bag on the counter.

"All right, let's find this guy's wallet and get out of here." Hissed Sakura. "This place gives me the creeps."

"I think the bedroom is over there." Naruto pointed to his left even though Sakura couldn't see it.

Carefully, they made their way to the bedroom of the client: one Samwise Gamgee (3) who was currently curled up on his bed muttering ineffectual curses in his sleep.

You see, after the adventure with the ring Sam had expected Frodo to stay with him forever and ever. But alas, it was not to be and instead he ran off with his crazy uncle and the elves. Now the little bastard was back and what does he do? Go out and get himself a girlfriend!

"You're my best friend dammit." The hobbit growled in his sleep. "You're not allowed to love anybody else! She doesn't know you like I do! She doesn't know all the little things about you. Like how you prefer you butter spread in a counter-clockwise motion on your toast, or how much starch to put in your sheets, or that you brush your hair exactly two thousand and forty-six strokes before you go to bed. No, she knows none of this! And yet you still insist on seeing her. Well, I'll fix you. I'll make sure she can never have you…" he broke off into a litany of rather angry sounding snores.

Sakura and Naruto, found the wallet in a hurry, took exactly $10.46, and went to find their teammate before things got really weird.

Speaking of the raven-haired boy, he was chasing his target around the apartment in what appeared to be a demented parody of Pop Goes the Weasel.

The duo would run around the apartment in a large circle before Frodo would dive behind some piece of furniture. Sasuke would take out a shuriken and throw it behind the offending object, painfully flushing out the hobbit and beginning the chase anew.

Lap forty-two and Sasuke was running out of time, shuriken, and patience. If he couldn't do this the clean way he'd do it the quick way. As he chased the small man, he started planting explosives at key points throughout the room. Frodo noticed none of this, too busy running for his life. Once he had exhausted all of his medium grade explosives (even though he was just a newbie Deliverator, he was still required to carry explosives in the event of pirate attack) he dashed towards the door.

Sakura and Naruto had just entered the hallway when Sasuke suddenly came out of one of the apartments, slamming the door behind him.

"Run!" he yelled, once he'd spotted them and made a mad dash for the stairwell.

Following the rule that when you see people running that you start running too (preferably in the same direction), they followed at a slightly slower pace and not a moment to soon because the apartment exploded with a deafening "KABOOM", causing all three Deliverators to tumble down the stairs, out of the apartment complex, and into the awaiting Ninja Burger Van.

Noting the strange look the driver gave them but refusing to say anything, the sore and somewhat freaked out Deliverators returned to the franchise office in silence.

Next chapter: with the shift change, Sakura and Sasuke go home. Since Naruto lives at the Ninja Burger, he gets to hang around during Team 8's shift. What shenanigans will ensue? Find out in the next chapter of Naruto: Ninja Burger Chronicles!

1) You all have no idea how long I've wanted an excuse to use that word.

2) Another word I've wanted to use for a long time. It sounds dirty but it's not.

3) Watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy again and then watch some of Legendary Frog's LOTR flash movies on Newgrounds. You'll believe Sam has an unhealthy fixation with Frodo too.