If someone had told Gaara that morning that there would be a drunk leaning on him in order to stay upright and that he wouldn't kill the man for having had the gumption to do so, he would have killed them in hopes that their insanity didn't spread and make him even crazier than he already was. That was what was going on at that moment however. He was sitting at a campfire in the woods outside of Konoha where the Uzumaki were holding some sort of wake for those who had died during that day's invasion, and there was indeed a drunk leaning up against him.

The wake the Uzumaki were holding had mainly involved a great deal of drinking to those who had been lost, and sharing stories of loved ones that were no-longer with them, several of whom had died that day.

"Don' worry about the fac that yer not a Uzumaki. Ya loo' enough li' un that no-one'll notish." the drunk slurred as he settled even more of his weight on him which his sand swiftly moved to support.

He hadn't been too aware of what was going on during the Invasion due to the fact that the demon which had been sealed within him had been taking over his mind. When he had become aware of what was going on, everything had been just about over, and he'd had a life-changing epiphany thanks to the Head of the Uzumaki Clan who had somehow managed to defeat both him and the demon he'd called "Mother" in battle.

He, Baki-sensei, and his siblings had been hiding, hoping to make a break for it when the coast was clear and run back to Suna as fast as possible. But, the Uzumaki wake had found him while he'd been relieving himself and somehow managed to suck him in. He felt vaguely guilty about being there, as if he were spying on something private. And, to make matters worse, he had been part of the cause of the wake.

While the incidents that had led up to the invasion had started rolling long ago, everything culminated in what had started that morning, and ended with the demise of Orochimaru who had been impersonating his father.

For Orochimaru to be able to impersonate his father, his father had to be dead, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that.

When the bottle came back around, he drank a toast to the father he'd both loved and hated. The alcohol from his first drink burned going down, hurt his stomach, and made him feel ill, much as his relationship with his father had.

Despite Tsunade's unexpected arrival, Orochimaru had decided to go through with his plans in the end. He was confident that the element of surprise would allow his team to get the barrier up before Tsunade could come to the rescue of their former sensei. A further loss of someone important to her would further weaken her, making her a negligible opponent after their sensei was dead, making her less of a potential risk factor than she would've been way back when she'd been 100%.

After a rather interesting fight between the head of the Uzumaki and Hyuuga Neji in which the Uzumaki showed that he was trying and so far failing to reconstruct his father's signature technique, and a rather dull fight between the Nara heir and the Yondaime Kazekage's eldest, the fight that was the signal to start the invasion took place. When it was time, Orochimaru had thrown the smoke canister that was the signal for Suna's forces to invade and brought his former teacher up to the roof of the arena where his Sound Four promptly put up a barrier that would cause anyone who tried to breach it to suffer a very painful death. The Sound Four hadn't been fast enough to keep Tsunade out of the barrier though.

One could spend days, weeks, months, or even years deconstructing an invasion that had taken less than an hour from start to finish. There had been a number of important skirmishes which had changed the future of a number of families, Konoha as a whole, and even the Elemental Nations to a degree. Kidnapping the Hokage and putting up a barrier which trapped the Sandaime Hokage, Orochimaru and, as Orochimaru was soon to discover, Tsunade inside had taken mere seconds. While that was going on, one Uchiha Sasuke set off pursuing a fleeing Gaara and his siblings, and Hyuuga Hinata was kidnapped from her grandfather's side by some opportunistic Kumo ninja. Seconds later, a giant serpent made a hole in one of the village walls through which Suna's troops poured in while a number of ninja fought members of the enemy who had disguised themselves as ANBU in the arena, while Neji, his teammate TenTen, and Kiba went after Hinata's kidnappers and Kakashi sent Uzumaki Naruto and a few others after Sasuke.

As force met force, the entire Uzumaki contingent, including those who just arrived, leapt in to join the fray on the side of Konoha. As the fighting started, one witty member of the clan yelled "We're here to kick ass and take names, and we're overstocked on names!" as he engaged a force of seven Suna nin on his own.

As all of this was going on, the Hokage was fighting Orochimaru on the roof of the arena, with Tsunade by his side while real ANBU tried to break through the barrier to get to them.

The fight had been long and intense, and was now all but over. Tsunade ignored the pain in her gut, and the blood that poured from her wound, knowing that she would die alongside her sensei soon. She had gone into this fight, not wanting to watch someone else who was important to her die, but nothing could stop that now. The only solace she had was that she would join Dan and Nawaki soon, since her sensei would be going to a place where she could not follow. She had one last gift she could give her sensei though. One last thing to help him defeat her wayward teammate who was pulling away, sapping the last of her sensei's strength.

She called forth her Chakra, and poured as much as she could into her old sensei, hoping that it would be enough to allow him to finish his final task.

It had been a long and difficult fight leading up to this moment, and it could be argued that nobody had won. Orochimaru had brought her grandfather and her great-uncle back from the dead, and forced them to fight her and her sensei. The fight had been difficult on a physical level as well as an emotional one, especially since the bodies her noble ancestors had been given had the ability to regenerate, and she hadn't been able to summon her larger slugs since the roof wasn't structurally sound enough to support its weight. A fall through said roof would have, at the very least, added more hazards that could've made the fight that much more difficult.

Eventually, her sensei had come to realize that the only way to end this was to use the Shiki Fuujin to bring his former senseis back to where they belonged before they were forced to destroy what was left of Konoha after the last of their Successor's strength was drained and the fight ended with Orochimaru the victor. She had tried to argue against this option, but even she could see the futility of the situation, and that this was the only way to get rid of Orochimaru for good, considering what he had become in the years since he had fled Konoha.

As her sensei prepared the seal, she wept for her sensei, and her grandfather, her great-uncle, and the kind boy she'd once loved who had grown to become the twisted monster before her.

Soon, after a couple of words of farewell, her grandfather and great-uncle were gone. When it came to be Orochimaru's turn, Orochimaru sent Kusanagi at their sensei's back knowing that the injured King Enma wouldn't be able to get there in time. She had gotten there in time to prevent her sensei from being skewered however, and Enma had managed to grab the sword before it could go through both her and her sensei who was now focused on pulling Orochimaru's soul out of his body.

After what seemed like forever, three bodies finally fell. Two dead, and one unconscious and nearly so. Seeing that their master had been defeated, the Sound Four dropped their barrier and fled, calling for a general retreat as they did so. Their leader was gone, and Konoha, which had the home ground advantage in this situation, had clearly won.

"This is all your fault!" one of the ninja who was sitting on the battlefield that had been his home prior to the invasion which they had just driven off said to one of the ninja who had pulled the Uzushiogakure spiral off of his vest before the Hokage had cracked down on those who were doing so. The ninja then punctuated his statement with a punch to the other ninja's face.

"How was this my fault?" the stricken ninja asked as he rubbed his jaw where his comrade had punched him.

"Because Suna, which used to be our ally, just decided to get the first punch in before we went and left them in the lurch at the most inopportune moment." the first ninja said.

"Do you want to know why they did this...?" the first ninja continued.

"Why?" the second ninja asked, dreading the answer which he strongly suspected he already knew.

"Because of you and the rest of that whole Anti-Uzumaki lot put the fucking idea that Konoha leaves their allies to rot in their fucking heads you goddamn moron!" the first ninja yelled before he leapt upon the second ninja and proceeded to pummel him into thei dirt.

None of the other ninja in the area went to aid their comrade who was being whaled on. They too blamed him and the others who had pulled the symbol of an eternal alliance off their vests for Suna's part in the invasion. While their comrade was being beaten by one of their own like many of the others who'd pulled the Uzushio spiral from their vests were, they turned a blind eye to what was going on and started picking up the dead, enemy and ally alike.

Edited 2-27-17