Naruto's Shadow
Chapter 2
It was a little over a week later that Sasuke had learned to appreciate all that was Namikaze when he suddenly found himself down two. While he and Naruto's had slept soundly that night, they're parents had been in an awful accident, they had told them. No one really went into details around the children. They spoke in whispers around them, but Sasuke was there, hiding around a corner of the hall leading into the sitting room the night after as they gathered to talk adult business and arrangements. They'd thought him to be asleep upstairs alongside Naruto as it had been an exhausting emotional day for all three children who'd had to be explained to as gently as possible that mom and dad were never coming home again.
He'd heard them speak of a drunk driver and something about an eighteen-wheeler truck that couldn't stop in time. There had been two impacts. Sasuke knew what an eighteen-wheeler looked like. He had a toy replica standing on a shelf around the corner in his playroom. The thought of what an actual sized truck would look like made him flinch.
Two days after that Naruto had crossed yards and went back home under the care of an aunt. Karin Uzumaki. Sasuke had never met her before. He didn't think that Naruto had either.
Today was the first that he'd seen of Naruto in a week. Sasuke had been as down as anyone would expect him to be. A four year old child that had lost his parents tragically. There was a lot that he still didn't understand, but the mood in his home had been somber and cold. More importantly, he had gotten the gist of things, that being that he'd never see his parents ever again.
He'd been anxious to see Naruto here at their parents' joint funeral. To get a glimpse of those sunshine locks to see if they would make up for the sudden lack of warmth that had went missing from his life. He understood that Naruto might be hurting too but maybe he could manage one of those blinding smiles so that Sasuke wouldn't have to watch his brother suffer. So he wouldn't have to watch Uncle Kakashi, now his guardian, try and fail to mask his hurt of loosing his older sister in an effort to be strong for them.
He'd counted on him to be his usual loud self to maybe distract Sasuke from all the silence.
But as he gazed across the aisle the boy sitting there was almost unrecognizable. He was still just as colorful as his genetics would always demand him to be, but the similarities stopped there. The boy just didn't shine as bright, he was much too quiet, and his eyes were too cloudy for Sasuke to be able to decipher the emotion lurking behind them. It was like the boy was in a daze. He couldn't help but think that the boy reminded him of something very familiar.
As he looked behind himself, around his family's side of the big old church, at the many Uchihas that had come to pay his parents their dues, the familiarity struck him.
Naruto was acting way too Uchiha for Sasuke's liking. He sat there so perfectly Uchiha that Sasuke found it appalling.
Before he knew what he was doing, Sasuke was slipping out of his brother's arms and heading to the Uzumaki's side of the old church. There wasn't too many of them as neither of Naruto's parents had come from big families and the little that sat here today was the last of Kushina's. There wasn't even enough of them to cover even a quarter of the rows of seats, but the Namikaze's were loved by publicly that there wasn't enough seats to hold all the people who had came to see them to rest.
Behind him he could feel the comforting weight of Itachi over his shoulder trying to tug him back around and back to his seat but he'd just shrugged him off. Deep deep blue skies looked up at his approach, cloudy and dull. He placed his hands on each of the boys shoulders and stared into him with an intensity not common of a child his age.
"You still have me."
It was something that Itachi had told him earlier. His brother had promised him that he'd look after him no matter what, but Naruto didn't have an elder brother. He didn't have anyone to look after him but the lady sitting next to him with the red hair that didn't shine so prettily like his mothers used to. Her chocolate brown eyes weren't warm like Kushina's had been and did nothing to melt the stiffness of her brow and her mouth.
He'd have to look after Naruto then.
So he took the boy into his arms and hugged him tight. It was all that it took for Naruto Namikaze to live up to his name as he held on to his friend affectionately, sobbing while his eyes shinned brightly with fresh tears.
Sasuke made a vow to himself then and there that he would protect what he could of the last Namikaze, the littlest one, that he held in his arms. He'd do what he could to keep him loud and affectionate and bright because he realized now that people like the Uchiha needed people like the Namikaze to warm them when life got cold and guide them through dark times like these.
He would hold on to the little piece of sunshine in arms and keep him for himself.
