AN: Does this seem like a good fic? Obviously there will be changes to characters if they grow up in different environments such a Naruto. Once again I hope you like the Uzushio I am creating, and the history behind it. Read and review. Enjoy!

Anata: 'darling', it is used as a term of endearment in Japan to refer to boyfriends or husbands.


Chapter Two: My Bride


Sasuke is eight years old on his second trip to Uzushio; his father stays behind attending to Clan business. Only his mother and brother are with him, they are on a personal trip to visit Sasuke's future parent-in-laws.

Now an Academy student, Sasuke is more confident (or arrogant as Itachi-nii calls it). He is the top student and his instructors only have praises about Sasuke and his future as a shinobi, they expect him to graduate at the top of his class or maybe even a year earlier. Sasuke is infinitely proud of himself; he trains hard and puts his all towards becoming a better shinobi. He must show that he is strong and able to make a living for Naruto, that Naruto will be well cared for and live a comfortable life as his wife. Even though he has not seen his Naruto in three years, he knows that his bride only thinks about him just as Sasuke does. His mind is often on those beautiful blue eyes he has longed to see since his last visit.

They settle in their hotel room, on the other side of the Three Clan Island, and Uzushio once again astounds Sasuke. The buildings rise tall into the sky at almost ten stories high, with the view of the wide sparkling, blue, river as their view. Sasuke and his mother head down to meet with Kushina-san at the front of the hotel, Itachi-nii staying behind saying he still has to relay a message for Uzukage-sama. Kushina-san is lovely as always and Sasuke hurries to properly bow to her.

"It is a pleasure to meet you again, Mother." Sasuke does not rise from his bow until his mother pulls him from it almost forcefully. "I can't wait to see Naru-chan."

Kushina-san is flushed a bright red, her hands are clenching at her side as she tries to steady her breathing. Sasuke's mother glares at him but turns to Kushina-san with an apologetic smile. "Kushina-chan please forgive him, he hasn't got the notion out of his head after all these years." And Sasuke will not get the 'notion' out of his head, Naruto is his bride and no one will deny him that claim. Not even his own mother.

Kushina-san forces a smile onto her face and starts leading them away from the hotel and into one of the many alleys of Uzushio. Sasuke loves Uzushio, the people are still bright and cheery and loud, and the sea of redheads is endless as wherever he turns there is someone with bright red hair. Kushina-san takes them into a restaurant not far from their hotel, it's a simple and modest joint, but Sasuke can already tell the food is going to be delicious if the smell of barbequed meat has anything to do with it. The table they are shown to already has two people: Minato-san and his precious, beautiful Naruto.

"Father, it's once again nice to see you in good health," Sasuke bows deeply and rises. "I hope you will look on me favorably."

Minato-san just stares at Sasuke in shock, his blue eyes darting to Sasuke's mother.

"Minato-kun, please forgive my child. He doesn't seem to be in his right mind at the moment." His mother apologizes but Sasuke is no longer paying attention, Naruto is sitting so quietly that it reminds him of the first time they met. He wants to see Naruto get angry again, he wants to see that thunderstorm in those blue eyes again. He takes a seat next to Naruto and leans into him, he wants to see bright blue eyes look only at him but his precious bride seem too shy, he keeps looking down instead of looking at Sasuke.

"Naru-chan, I've come back," Sasuke forces Naruto to look at him. "My one and only bride." Bright blue eyes widen and plump cheeks flush, but Naruto smiles at him nonetheless and Sasuke wants to see him smile more.

The meal is delicious just as Sasuke thought but his attention is mostly on the small blonde sitting next to him. Naruto likes to eat, Sasuke finds out, he eats almost twice as much as Sasuke but that's okay with him because Sasuke will be a great ninja and will provide Naruto with as much food as he wants. Sasuke feeds Naruto from his plate; he likes to see Naruto happily eat from his chopsticks.

"So Sasuke-kun, how are you in the Academy?" Minato-san asks him suddenly. Sasuke has been waiting for this moment; he will finally show his future father-in-law that he can provide for Naruto.

"I am at the top of the Academy, my grades are unlike my classmates and my instructors only have praises for me. They think I might be able to graduate a year earlier." Sasuke proudly informs Minato-san, his chest puffs out in pride. "I've already started training in fire jutsu."

Kushina-san and Minato-san look at him with surprise in their eyes and turn to his mother as if they don't believe him. His mother only signs at her son's lack of humility.

"It's true, Sasuke has been training diligently with Itachi and Fugaku. Although, I'd rather he not graduate a year earlier but he's expected to become a great ninja." His mother explains. "He keeps saying he has to become a great ninja so he can provide a plush lifestyle for Naruto."

Kushina-san spits out all of the water she was drinking and straight at Minato-san, Sasuke pulls his Naruto closer to him to avoid the spray of water. Sasuke didn't know why they were so surprised, of course he was going to be a great ninja, he couldn't let his bride live a poor life! Naruto started laughing and it was the most beautiful sound Sasuke had heard in his life, it was the sound of the wind playing with bells.

"Mama, you made a mess!" Naruto laughed loudly. "Ne Sasuke-chan, did you see that?"

Sasuke-chan…?

Sasuke suddenly grabbed Naruto by the face and made him look at him in the eyes. "Naru-chan, you can't call me 'Sasuke-chan'!"

The adults all stopped to stare at Sasuke, whose face was flushed red. Naruto suddenly pulled away from him, his eyes a thunderstorm as he looked at Sasuke with a frown on his plump lips. "Why not? You've been calling me 'Naru-chan' all this time, why can't I call you Sasuke-chan?!"

Sasuke glared at the blonde and crossed his arms across his chest. Didn't his lovely bride know how humiliating it sounded to be called 'Sasuke-chan'?! Sasuke was a proud member of the Uchiha Clan and to be called 'Sasuke-chan' was almost insulting!

"Teme, you better tell me or I'm not going to be your bride!" Sasuke almost gave himself whiplash as he turned to stare at Naruto in shock. He was finally accepting he was going to be Sasuke's wife, his bride!

"I'm going to be your husband, it sounds humiliating to be called 'Sasuke-chan' by my bride." He murmured quietly, his eyes staring at the table. Naruto was suddenly in his arms; a bright smile on is face. "You should call me 'anata'."

He kissed Naruto on the lips.

"Sasuke!"

"My baby!"


Over the course of the week, Sasuke spends as much time with Naruto as he can, he wants to learn as much as he can about his beautiful bride. And he learns a lot, Naruto is loud and boisterous, he likes to make friends and is naturally curious about anything and everything under the wide blue sky. He shows Sasuke his favorite places in Uzushio and introduces him to a lot of his relatives, all of whom are in possession of beautiful, red hair. Sasuke, in return, tells him as much as he can about the Uchiha Clan and Konoha and the wide, green forests surrounding the village. He tells Naruto that he doesn't like to interact much with people, he is naturally quiet and prefers to observe then talk. But he likes talking to Naruto; he wants Naruto to know just as much about him as Naruto tells him about himself.

On the last two days of the trip, Sasuke and Naruto are at one of the small docks by the river with their feet barely dipping into the water when out of nowhere Naruto suddenly slips into the water with a frightened scream and Sasuke is on his feet just as fast. He turns around and delivers punch at the red-haired boy, sending him flying back and immediately dives into the river with fear in his heart.

"Naru-chan! Where are you, Naruto?!" Sasuke turns and finally spots Naruto hanging onto one of the posts and swims as fast as he can to him. "I'm coming!"

Naruto is scared, his wide blue eyes are frightened and tears are mixing with the clear water of the river. Sasuke carefully wraps his arm around Naruto's chest and swims with difficulty back to shore but never lets go of Naruto. Once on shore, he shakes himself and pulls Naruto into his chest, who keeps crying in fear and clings to Sasuke with trembling hands. Sasuke looks to the dock and immediately tenses up, there are now three boys along with the one he had punched earlier, and they are all sporting red hair.

"What do you want?" Sasuke struggles from untangling Naruto from him but pushes him to stand behind him. Naruto keeps a tight grip on his wet shirt and is sniffling, he steps closer to Sasuke.

"Naruto isn't even a real Uzumaki, his hair isn't red!" One of the boys says, he points at Naruto with a vicious glare in his eyes.

"Yeah, he's an outsider just like his dad!" The other boy says, and all three nod. "We don't like outsiders in Uzushio!"

"I am too an Uzumaki! Mama is one of the most important Uzumaki and I'm going to be just as important to Uzushio like her!" Naruto shouts at them, his eyes are like a thunderstorm and he's no longer standing behind Sasuke, his hands are shaking with fury and his cheeks are flushed a bright pink. Sasuke smirks, this is the Naruto that he wanted to see and even though Sasuke is ready to defend his bride at a moments notice, he likes to see that Naruto is able to stand up for himself. He loves the maelstrom that Naruto becomes.

When Sasuke suddenly catches sight of one of the boys making hand seals, his own move faster and into a familiar jutsu he had been training with his father and brother.

"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" His lungs are full of air and he starts to feel the chakra in him come forward in a rapid motion. When the air leaves his lips, a great, ball of fire erupts and heads straight for the three boys who dodge just in time and jump straight into the muddy banks of the river. They don't even wait to see what Sasuke will do next and instead turn tail and start running up the hill and into the main road.

"Sasuke, that was so cool!" Naruto clapped him on the shoulder and smiled widely, his face taking on the vulpine look Sasuke was coming to love. "That was such a powerful jutsu!"

Naruto had no idea how powerful and advanced that jutsu was, Sasuke had managed to master it last year after multiple failed attempts and burned lips and hands. Sasuke was just glad he had managed to control the strength of it as it usually was of a bigger size.

"I know but Naru-chan why didn't you tell me you were getting bullied?" Sasuke asked and almost a changed occurred in Naruto, he went from happy and excited to embarrassed and shy. "No one should be bullying my bride, especially not for that beautiful golden hair of yours. It's one the things I love the most about you, Naru-chan." It really was one of the things Sasuke loved about Naruto the most, his hair was like gold and shone beautifully at any time of the day, the very thought that someone was making fun of Naruto because of his hair made no sense to him. His bride was otherworldly.

"My cousins just think that because I don't have red hair, I'm not a real Uzumaki." Naruto said, his eyes averted to the ground. "Mama says I shouldn't listen to them but I get jealous sometimes because I wish I had pretty red hair like theirs."

Sasuke suddenly grabbed Naruto by the shoulder and shook him a little to make him look up. "Naru-chan every single thing about you is beautiful and while I love all the shades of red hair that I see in Uzushio, you are the only one with hair that looks like gold and eyes so blue, it looks like you trapped the sky in them!"

Naruto was staring at him with wide azure eyes and suddenly burst into laughter, breaking free of Sasuke's grip, he stepped up to him and gave him a small peck on the lips.

"Anata."


That night as Sasuke laid awake on his bed, Itachi-nii on the one right next to his, he thought about what Naruto had said earlier about his being just as important as his mother was to Uzushio. Every ninja was precious to a village but the way Naruto had said it made him think that it was beyond just being a ninja.

"Itachi-nii?"

"What is it?" Itachi-nii sounded tired but he was a light sleeper and Sasuke felt slightly guilty at having woken up his brother who seemed to finally be catching up on much needed sleep. Still, if Sasuke didn't ask, he was going to be the one to not get any sleep.

"Is Naru-chan's mother important in the village?"

There was silence from the bed and for a second Sasuke thought his brother had gone to sleep but when he heard his brother sit up in bed Sasuke did the same.

"Kushina-san is one of the most important people in Uzushio, she alone holds one of the most powerful bijuu in the Hidden Nations. Uzumaki Kushina is the second jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune after Uzumaki Mito-sama." Itachi-nii said it in the most monotone voice possible but Sasuke was frozen up in thought. He knew all about the Kyuubi and its incredible power, able to create tsunamis with a swish of one his tails and flatten mountain. It was said that it had been a great feat of Mito-sama to have been able to capture the demon and seal it within herself, the seal work that went into creating the prison for the Kyuubi was historic in and of itself.

"Uzumaki Naruto is rumored to be next in line to be the holder of the Kyuubi no Kitsune after his mother. People say that he has shown an incredible talent for chakra ink, his own chakra is different from the normal one and thus affects his fuuinjutsu."

His precious bride was a candidate to be the next jinchuuriki of Kyuubi. His Naru-chan would contain one of the most ferocious and dangerous creatures in the Hidden Nations.

"Don't think too much on it, it is, after all, only a rumor." Itachi-nii laid back down and turned his back to Sasuke. "You'd still love him either way, no?"

Sasuke laid back down as well but his mind was going a million miles a minute about this new information but found that he didn't care whether Naruto would come to contain Kyuubi or rabbit as long as he was still Naruto, Sasuke would love him. He would love everything about Naruto and as a good husband would protect his bride with his life if necessary.


His mother shaking him roughly awakens Sasuke, she is trembling and crying and all the sleep that Sasuke felt vanishes at the sight of his mother. He looks to the bed over and his brother is gone, there is no trace of him having slept on the bed at all. He fears that his brother has gone nuke-nin but there would be no reason for that to happen and when his mother is crushing him to her chest, he doesn't hesitate to wrap his arms around his mother.

"They're all gone, Sasuke! Over night, everyone was killed!" His mother sobs and the cries she gives out are soul wrenching and painful. "The whole Clan is gone!"

"What?"

His mother pulls away from him and holds him at arms length, her face is blotchy and tears keep running down her face.

"We received word from Uzukage-sama that the entirety of the Uchiha Clan has been massacred over night, there were no survivors! Sasuke, your father is gone! Everyone is gone!"

He thinks that maybe it's a prank that his mother is pulling a prank on him, a rather cruel one but he knows it's not true. His mother rarely ever pulls a prank on him and she has never been very good at acting, so everything she just said is true.

"Was it Itachi-nii?"

She shakes her head; her hands are trembling on her lap.

"He left for Konoha as soon as he heard about this, he wants to see it for himself."

The rest of the day is a blank for Sasuke but his mother and himself have to depart for Konoha as soon as possible. He can't wrap his mind around the image that the Uchiha compound is empty, that every single one of his relatives is dead. The cousins that he played with a week ago are now dead; the babies that were born were all dead. That his father, the man who seemed happier over the past few years, was gone. Every single one was vanished from the world for whatever reason and now it was only Sasuke, his mother and Itachi-nii.

The last three Uchiha.

When they get downstairs, Kushina-san and Minato-san are there with Naruto in between them and his mother breaks down in tears again in her friends' arms. Sasuke has been keeping silent since the morning and feels not like talking, Naruto seems to understand this and hugs him. His precious bride cries for him in his place, big fat tears escaping bright azure eyes. The world has crumbled around him, his Clan is gone and his mother, brother and him have been left all alone in the world but he has his bride still with him. His bride with golden hair, azure eyes and the vulpine expression that Sasuke loves.

"Sasuke, let's go." His mother reluctantly pulls from the warm embrace of Kushina-san and turns to Sasuke with tears in her eyes. Sasuke pushes Naruto gently away from him and frowns at the tears staining scarred cheeks. Gently wiping the tears away, he caresses the golden hair and stands and looks at Naruto intensely, Sasuke knows he will not be returning to Uzushio for a while but he wants to remember his bride clearly. With bright, azure eyes on his mind, he turns around and starts walking with his mother and he doesn't look back nor stops even when he hears light footsteps come after him but stop.

"Anata, I'll be waiting."

Sasuke gives a small smile and starts running with his mother down the road.