Fate's Garden

Part 2 - Fox Den

Chapter 2 - Profound

Over the course of their first few weeks a good many things were discovered about their 'new life'. Most of the acquired information came from Naruto's fox relations he inadvertently ran into, and then the rest came from his swift returning memories. There were several things they found out that startled Naruto at first, but didn't necessarily make him feel too bad. But then he would relay the information to Sasuke via claw in snow and the brooding avenger would practically explode. It was as if he decided to hold Naruto accountable for all of this Naruto's actions. They were different people! How could Sasuke be angry at him for it?

The things Sasuke would be angry at him for were things like Naruto's significantly extended 'fox family'. According to the somewhat imperious fox hierarchy, Kyuubi was no longer bound to him and was in fact the reigning fox demon in their territory. Then, second to him was Naruto. They had a tenuous co-ruling status over all of the females and lesser males within their land. There was a set of females that he and Kyuubi shared and then one for each of them marked as only theirs. These marked females were known to them as 'mate' or 'bitch' and to everyone else as Ruko and Shii. Ruko being Naruto's and Shii being Kyuubi's. Ruko and Shii were the ruling females who kept the others in line and made sure they didn't leave the territory to mate with any other males. While Naruto and Kyuubi were responsible for chasing all renegade males out of their territory or keeping them in line so all they did was find food for the females.

As it was, with this sort of set up, the potential number of progeny Naruto had produced over the years of him being a fox was impossible to count. Any of the vixens on his land that he had spawned simply stayed to find food for the mating females or they left along with his sons. After a few dazed minutes of his human brain trying to comprehend this situation he relaxed entirely as his fox mind told him it was perfectly acceptable. Really, in this society it was expected and perfectly normal. So, Naruto went with it, while Sasuke remained disgusted and disapproving. After a week or two of Sasuke acting this way towards the foxes Naruto had to pull him aside and inform him of the delicate situation he was in. The only reason that he was alive and safe here was because he had Naruto protecting him. While Naruto would protect him from the others he would really not like to have an all out fight for dominance come about. If he went around bad mouthing the giant fox demons that were kindly not eating him, this fight would happen sooner rather than later. There was only so long that a clan of demons would put up with their lord's 'pet' and his snide words.

The other things that Sasuke would be angry at him for were the things that Naruto had yet to tell him. The things he hadn't told him were big too. Not things that should be kept but are out of all consuming fear. The back history of this world was not one that Naruto was proud of. It had followed the same timeline as his for the most part. He'd chased after Sasuke all those years and finally met up with him at Orochimaru's base. But instead of dying he'd finished out the fight and returned to Konoha. Then…then he'd given up. That was the only way to say it. He'd withdrawn into himself after this decisive encounter. Though Sasuke didn't know, and couldn't know, that day Naruto had lost Sasuke again. Not lost to him, but lost him. Again. This Naruto began planning various suicides until Kyuubi intervened and offered him another way out.

This way out involved Naruto leaving in the middle of the night and working his seal backwards about halfway. Much like his second life Kyuubi was bound to him outside his body. This was the first part of the plan. Then, Kyuubi took him back to the lands of the other fox demons. He strode before them and demanded that they recognize their true ruler, him, and his kit as their prince. So they did. They broke the binding on Naruto and Kyuubi. There was one problem, and Naruto briefly wondered if this was true in the life he'd just left behind. It was that with Kyuubi bound to him and then leashed to him outside his body, they'd been spliced. Naruto had the smallest trace of fox DNA woven in with his. It was so slight that it didn't affect him on a day-to-day basis. But in this world it made all the difference. With their demon magic they drew upon that one strand of fox genes and used it to turn him into one of them. That was the beginning of his life as a fox demon.

This led to Jiraiya and Tsunade coming after him to beg him to return. But, once they realized he was fully turned there was no way for him to come back to their world. So it was worked out, a tenuous pact between the fox demons and Konoha. Kyuubi would not wreak havoc upon any human lands and would remain within his own society. Naruto's crimes, notably as being a missing nin abandoning his village, would be forgiven as long as he acted as a liaison between the fox world and the human world. Twice a year, once in the spring and once in the winter, he would travel to Konoha and stay there for a week in his human form, or 'demon form' as Naruto found out in his memories. A man with fox ears and one long fox tail, slit pupils and slightly longer than normal canines. His senses remained enhanced and he had dual sets of vocal chords that allowed him to speak both fox and human. Everything else about him was completely human.

So for the next few years, up until he turned nineteen in human years, this was the life he lived. He stayed with the foxes and carried on as usual, and twice a year he would return to the human world to appease the humans that he'd left. But this arrangement was disrupted in the year he turned nineteen, when Sasuke had been brought home and thusly enlightened to the situation surrounding Naruto and his 'new life'. That had been the most awkward moment of Naruto's life. The last Naruto had heard on the subject of Sasuke was that he'd been captured by Akatsuki during Naruto's seventeenth year and was presumed dead. When Naruto had returned home that year he had alerted his clan of the loss of his human mate and the clan had grieved with him for a year. There was nothing more serious in the society of the fox than that of losing a mate. For foxes mated for life. To lose one's mate was unbearable. This was why in fox society there was no such thing as mate thieves, and when there were, those thieves were shunned, if not outright killed by their fellows. To be a mate thief was to be the lowest of the low, the single worst crime one fox could commit against another.

But then, there was Sasuke very much alive. Naruto's memories of that day were filled with a whirlwind of vivid emotions: relief so profound as to be indescribable, joy, excitement. Then there was confusion, shame, embarrassment, grief.

Naruto had been in Konoha for three days of the week he spent during the spring. He found out later that Sasuke had been there already for a few months and that they were just trying to figure out the best way to tell him. Then was the day that he found out, Sasuke was alive! He was fine, he was there, and he was…standing right there. Naruto was in Tsunade's office speaking with her on the state of his clan and his latest children when the door to the office opened. Naruto's ears had twitched at the sound of two pairs of footsteps in the hallway. But only one had come into the office. He saw that it was Sakura and smiled. The only way he'd been able to describe his relation to her to his clan was that she was a litter mate. Telling them she was a friend or a team mate made no sense since they did not understand such words and she was female. If he said he loved her they would presume she was an old bitch of his.

Sakura smiled back weakly and looked to Tsunade with anxiety on her face. "Tsunade-sama, do you think…?"

"Has he agreed to meet him?"

"Yes, but…"

"Then bring him in."

"Yes, o-of course Tsunade-sama."

Naruto sniffed the air. He'd caught the scent of course, but he'd passed it off as him being wistful, nostalgic. But now he smelled it again. His eyes widened and his ears tensed as he heard the door to the office open and a second pair of footsteps enter the room. He turned to face the new arrival and thought for sure his heart would stop. Sasuke was standing at Sakura's side, his eyes just as wide and disbelieving.

"Um, Naruto…"

Naruto couldn't peel his eyes off of Sasuke, even though Sakura was talking to him at that moment. She was telling him something, probably important. But he couldn't bring himself to pay attention to anything else. Finally he couldn't stand it. Naruto sped across the room and gathered Sasuke in his arms, holding him close. In his joy he reverted to speaking fox. He panted and whined and whimpered as tears leaked from his eyes. He was alive, he was alive…Naruto practically howled as shivers rolled through his body. His shoulders shook as he cried.

A pestering voice interrupted him, it was Sakura. "Naruto, Sasuke's having trouble breathing…"

He let him go and stepped back a few paces. Then he looked to Sakura, a wide smiled lighting up his face. But, then it seemed some of her words from a few moments ago were just then registering. Sasuke had been there for a few months and no one had sent for him? No one had told him? He snarled at her, his words first coming out in fox speak, but he forced himself to speak human so she could fully understand his anger.

"He…he was here for a few months and you didn't think to tell me?" Naruto growled.

"Naruto, we know you're busy during that time of the year and we didn't want to disturb you…" Sakura started.

"Disturb me? Sakura! How could you think you would be disturbing me? I would have left Ruko in charge while I was gone, everything would have been fine! You know that! How could you not tell me he was alive?" Naruto felt his eyes glaze over with more tears.

"I'm sorry Naruto…"

"Do you know that in fox society losing a mate is the most terrible…thing…?" Naruto was wheezing his words as his tears started affecting his dual vocal chords, "…when I got home my whole clan grieved with me. And for these past few months he was here and you didn't think that maybe I'd want to know…?"

"I'm so sorry." Sakura looked like she might be crying too.

"So does mate mean rival and enemy in fox or something?" Those were the first words Sasuke said to him in four years.

The embarrassment didn't really sink in until later. Naruto blinked away his tears so he could see Sasuke clearly. He didn't even think to be embarrassed. It wasn't an emotion that foxes ever felt. Their lives were much simpler. Sasuke had simply stood there during Naruto's outburst, staring at him with that impassive mask. He was wearing his forehead protector again, the one with the scratch mark in it. At the moment Naruto wasn't embarrassed he was amused and slightly confused as well.

"Of course not. Though it has a broader meaning and importance than it does in human it generally has the same definition." Naruto answered easily.

Sasuke closed his eyes in exasperation. The awkward silence that befell the room alerted Naruto to what he was saying and the implications therein. He blinked and then wondered why this was so surprising. He didn't realize he'd asked that question aloud.

"Surprising? Naruto…since when have I been your mate? Ever?" Sasuke asked incredulously. Naruto shook his head and honestly thought about it. This conversation was only so easy because he was thinking mostly with his fox brain, as his human mind had all but left him.

"Well, I'd say since that one day on the unfinished bridge. When we were still a litter." Naruto replied honestly.

Sakura smiled to herself as Naruto spoke in fox terminology, and also at the memory.

"I remember, when the ice man had blocked us in, and was hitting us with so much ice, I remember seeing you fall to the ground presumably dead." Naruto felt his lip curl up to reveal his sharp teeth at the thought of Sasuke dead, "I remember being so angry, and sad, and that I was thinking only fox then…I had to kill that ice man, he'd killed my mate."

"But I started thinking human again somehow and you know how the rest went." Naruto waved one clawed human hand in the air.

"But…why would you think that? Naruto we hated each other." Sasuke sounded like he couldn't believe Naruto was even thinking such things.

"Oh, of course on the surface we hated each other. Humans worry so much about trivial things. They are more complex than they need to be. But think Sasuke; was there a time when you worried so much about anyone else? Not your brother, that's not the same." Sasuke glared but said nothing.

"There are so many things that affect humans when they choose a mate, whether they are male or female, how they look, if they get along with their mother or father, or their litter mates…" Naruto trailed off, "But in fox society it's not like that. It's so much easier."

"Well it's a good thing you turned your back on us humans, right?" Naruto's brow knitted together as he heard the underlying statement, 'I'm angry at you.'

"You're angry." Naruto said simply.

Sasuke's jaw stiffened and he merely glared. There was nothing he could say to that. He couldn't say he wasn't angry but he was never the type to openly explain his feelings, for that would be to admit he had them. Naruto cocked his head to the side and surveyed his mate.

"You're angry that I didn't wait for you."

"No!" Sasuke retorted. But the way he crossed his arms said otherwise.

"I can apologize but not excuse my behavior. During those few weeks before I turned, I was still human. I'd lost you again and I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't lose you again. You should be grateful that I am what I am now, if I wasn't, I'd be dead instead."

Sakura gaped at him, "Naruto…?"

"Oh, I'm sorry Sakura; I forgot that I hadn't told any of you." Naruto yawned.

Naruto was getting a bit tired of all of this. He'd forgotten how difficult humans were, and how overly complex. He gave Sasuke an imperious look.

"You are my mate, and I am taking you home at the end of the week." Naruto told Sasuke. He did not ask, nor demand: he said. To this statement, Sasuke said nothing.

That was that, well, mostly. Naruto remembered there being a lot of political frustration and hoops he had to jump through, both officially and emotionally. Getting Sasuke to come with him was a large leap. Eventually when it came down to Naruto telling Tsunade he would turn back into his fox form and forcibly take Sasuke with him the elder council forced Sasuke to leave, for the sake of keeping the peace between the two allied societies. This single memory of both how to assume his demon form, and of his giving up on Sasuke, were the big secrets Naruto was keeping. Of course he was hiding them for entirely different reasons. Giving up on Sasuke hit too close to home, since that's what he'd done when he hadn't dodged in his first life. His demon form enabled him to talk to Sasuke in human speak. Not being able to speak to him had its advantages. When Sasuke was berating him for some such he could ignore him and use the excuse of not being able to talk. Naruto rather liked having that excuse.

But, as winter started changing to spring Naruto knew he would have to tell Sasuke about their visit to Konoha. The first week of spring they were supposed to start making their way to their old village. Naruto knew from his memories that he couldn't arrive alone. Sasuke acted as any spouse of a political dignitary would, and was meant to come with him. Apparently it'd been five years since Sasuke had left the human world. They were twenty six in human years.

Naruto was woken up the morning they were supposed to leave by his mate Ruko. They slept curled up on one side of their cave with Sasuke resting on his back. She stretched and yawned widely before nudging him with her nose. Naruto yawned and blinked up at her.

"Mate, it is time for you and your pet to make your trip to the human village." Ruko told him.

"Yes, I know. Thank you for waking me, mate." Naruto rolled his shoulders to wake up Sasuke.

"I'm up, I'm up." Sasuke groaned.

Naruto's human mate climbed down his side to the cave floor. He headed for the mouth of the cave so he could start about his morning routine. Naruto waited for him to finish such necessities. Ruko licked his snout before telling him she was going out to find some breakfast and check on the females. Naruto nodded weakly, and then saw Sasuke come in.

Sasuke gave his hair a weak tug to get any extra water from it as he reentered the cave. The one thing that he hated about this life was that they were in fact in the middle of nowhere. The things he knew from going on extended missions and camping out, he didn't necessarily enjoy having to do. Such things were using the outdoors as your bathroom. Digging small holes for your waste and burying it like a cat would, and bathing in a different water source than the one you drank from. What fruit and plants were edible and how to balance it with any meat intake you had. He was used to it now, having to wake up every morning and go outside to do his business. He still detested it a bit.

There was one thing about this mortal as opposed to child of a god business he detested. Though Sasuke did gain some memories from the other Sasuke's life, they were far and few between, and vague, abstract. Naruto gained them in leaps and bounds, vivid memories. Sasuke knew there were some that Naruto was hiding, and he couldn't imagine why. What could be so horrible that the dobe would be ashamed to tell him?

Another thing about functioning in this life was communicating with Naruto. The snow was fading as they moved into spring, and writing on cave walls and trees wasn't the greatest system of communication. But, even though Sasuke had admitted he would never be able to speak fox, he was starting to have a disconcerting grasp of what meant what. He would never form a coherent sentence out of their strange sounds but he could get a general sense of what they meant. So when Naruto turned to him and let out a short set of barks and wide mouth pants Sasuke gathered that they needed to have a talk. An important one.

Naruto got up and exited the cave, barking once he was outside. Apparently they were going to walk and talk. Sasuke followed him out and across the territory he had come to know quite well. On their way they ran into several of the clan members. Naruto would snarl at some, or yip at others. Sasuke gave them all a brief nod. Finally they reached the very edge of Naruto's land, and Sasuke became confused as they crossed the border and made their way farther out of the forest.

"Dobe, where are we going?"

A jovial yip and a short bark, punctuated by a pant and a fox smile. You'll see, it's okay. Sasuke nodded. When they came to a small dirt path they stopped, Sasuke could see a village in the distance, not one he knew, and not a ninja village. Then, all of a sudden there was no giant fox beside him. Sasuke stepped back, startled, until he realized what he was seeing. There was a blonde, blue eyed version of the Kyuubi's human form standing before him...and he was stark naked.

"Sasuke, can you understand me?" This last fact didn't seem to bother the dobe in the slightest however. Or he merely didn't notice. Either was likely.

"Y-yeah." Sasuke started slightly at hearing the dobe's voice again after all this time without it. It was a little deeper and more grown up, but definitely Naruto. Sasuke couldn't believe how comforting it was to hear it.

"Hey, wait, how long have you known how to do that dobe?" Sasuke shouted.

"A while-"

"A while?"

"Sasuke calm down, I need to tell you some things…that are kinda important."

Sasuke nodded. So it was that Naruto enlightened him to the things that Sasuke figured were being kept from him. The mystery of what shamed Naruto so much was now there for him to see. The reason they were out here. Sasuke stared at the ground beneath his bare feet. He…didn't really have anything to say. He wasn't angry, or upset really. He was just sort of nothing. It seemed that as soon as Naruto had told him what had happened, his head was filled with memories of the other Sasuke.

"I'm sorry…I gave up on y-"

"It's fine." Sasuke felt the words leap out of his mouth before he could stop them. He didn't want to hear Naruto say it again. He couldn't…they should just go. They were expected in Konoha in a few days by Sasuke's now all too clear memories.

For a while neither of them could bring themselves to say anything. Thankfully they didn't have to start a conversation as Ruko caught up to them and began speaking to Naruto. The dobe answered in fox and Ruko nodded before heading back the way she came.

"She wanted to know if we wanted to eat with the clan or if we were going to stop in the village and eat before we headed out."

"And you told her what?"

"We were going to eat in the village. As you know by the way you're beet red I'm going to need some human clothes to wear while we're around other people. I'm sure you've been lusting after some human food."

Sasuke had been. He nodded. Naruto quickly returned to his fox form and lowered himself to the ground so that Sasuke could climb up onto his back. Then they started towards the town Sasuke had noticed earlier. Though now the mystery was gone, Sasuke felt he wished he was still in the dark.

TBC…