Fate's Garden

Part 2.5 - Living With Rabbits

Chapter 3 - Swatting

"Pet."

Naruto turned on the one who uttered the name. They yowled and whined, bowing their head respectfully. The ring parted to show him 'pet'. Naruto padded to the river's edge and stared across, where at the base of a blood stained tree Sasuke's body was bent in half. The back of his head was a bloody mess, hair and bone and so much blood. Naruto walked into the water and across the span of Sasuke's private bathhouse, his paws shaking as they reached the other shore. He nudged Sasuke's lifeless body with his nose; he nuzzled it, getting sticky red all over himself. Naruto rubbed his forehead against the corpse, moving it onto its side where it then rolled over on to its broken back. Soulless eyes stared up at him. He was dead. He'd left him, he'd…

He howled, collapsing to the ground, his head laid over the body.

His clan howled and pranced about, kicking up dirt and whimpering. The grieving began then, and every morning they would spend the first hours of their day with this mourning ritual for an entire year. Every day he would remember him, remember his death, and he would be one step closer to recovering from it. He knew it was important but Naruto didn't want to grieve. He wanted to keep going. He'd done this before when bad things happened. He would get frustrated and see them as a distraction, something he didn't want to deal with. Then he would move on, keep going until he eventually broke down. But now he didn't want to think of the inevitable. He wanted to move.

For all he knew, Sasuke had asked Yurei to kill him.

Sasuke lay alone in the dimly lit room. The bed he'd been met with was surely big enough for the dobe's fox form in the life he'd just left. Now he lay in the center of it, relishing in the silence. The chatter was distant now, down the hall and to the right and then a left. Finally he could be alone and relax. The dirt ceiling was interrupted by the occasional gnarled root, and the door to the room was surprisingly small with a wooden handle in the shape of a heart. There was a large claw foot tub on the opposite side of the room from the bed. To Sasuke it required a ladder to climb into, and it was the size of a small pond in width, but ten foot deep. How he was supposed to bathe himself while treading water he wasn't quite sure. But, he didn't suppose that he'd get too filthy in the gods' realm. He hadn't really been hungry earlier; he'd just made breakfast out of habit. So who knew?

He wanted to sleep. He was so tired when he first arrived. Sasuke rolled over onto one side, and then back onto the other. He lay on his back, on his belly; he curled up into a ball while embracing his knees. He couldn't seem to make himself tired. He watched as a blue ball of light fluttered about, just barely eluding his lazy swatting. He inched himself across the bed without getting up onto his hands and knees, using one hand to paw through the air at the teasing light that kept moving about. He sighed.

Sasuke found himself distracted from his pursuit of sleep by a tentative knocking on the door to his room. When he was too lazy to provide an answer the door opened to reveal a short girl with curly white hair and long jack rabbit ears. She shuffled her rabbit feet, trying to find her voice.

"Um, Sasuke, the others were wondering if you'd like to help us…we were going to make cakes next…"

Sasuke stared down at her from the lofty height of the bed and sighed.

"…sure."

Her smile was shy and small, but it seemed to light up the whole room. She waited for him to come all the way down from the bed before taking his hand in her tiny one and leading him down the hallway.

Sasuke really did lose track of time, or rather, the concept of it. There was no time here. He slept when he wanted, ate when he wanted, swam about in his bath tub when he wanted. He hung out with his 'cousins' a great deal either because they forced him or because he grew bored. Sasuke eventually decided they weren't that bad. They were annoying like the dobe was annoying. It was a necessary evil. They entertained him for the most part. If they weren't playing tag, wrestling, or cooking they were playing hide and seek. Or sometimes they just sat around talking about the lives they'd gone through. Sasuke found out during one of these discussions that each set of children had one more life to go through than the other depending on the tailed demon who was their parent. Sasuke and Naruto had three lives to go through, and then Yumi and Jinn (Yuuta's children) had had to go through four lives. Eventually this led up to Gaara who had been through the most at eleven lives before he came to the gardens.

But Sasuke had wondered how they all seemed to be showing up at once if they all had a different number of lives to live. Again he was met with that exasperated explanation of timelessness. When Sasuke tried to think of all the expressions that were related to the word time itself it was mind boggling. He had finally learned, after a while, to stop asking the gods what time it was. It was such a strange feeling. Either he felt like he was in a hurry, like he was running late for something or he was so tired that he slept for what felt like forever. There were those blessed moments where he would forget about time all together and simply relax into the atmosphere of being with his cousins. They were all so mature and wizened from their lives lived, or they could suddenly be playful and childish. It was this acceptance of their situation and their family, and themselves that confused and eluded Sasuke. One thing he noticed that made him feel like he was getting a bit closer to their level was how he'd felt in the life he'd just left. He'd been nearing fifty, and he felt physically worn, but he'd never stopped feeling like himself. He didn't feel old, he didn't feel young he felt like himself. It was hard to explain.

As Sasuke had finally settled into the timeless routine of playing, sleeping, baking, eating, Yuuta disrupted it with a sudden announcement. Sasuke was leaving.

They were all settled just outside the burrow in the meadow, playing tag in the rose garden surrounding the short stump entrance to the house. The air was sweet the sky was a misty grey as if they were never quite out of a calm bright morning and the grass was soft on his feet. Sasuke liked it immensely. Now, he didn't want to leave it. He didn't. He caught himself before he stomped his foot in indignation. His cousins immediately surrounded him. He was on the receiving end of licks and hugs and affectionate ruffles to his hair. He surprised himself by not being bothered too greatly. Gaara was the last to bade him farewell, and he instead of hugging him he offered a hand, and a warm smile.

"See you back here, cousin." Gaara murmured as Sasuke took his hand and shook it firmly.

"See you," Sasuke replied.

He stepped up to 'Uncle Yuuta'. The cousins all cheered at him, 'good luck!' he heard and 'we'll see you!' and 'when you get back do you wanna make pie?' All voices were happy and accepting.

Sasuke shook his head and allowed Yuuta to pull him by the neck into a hallway he remembered much differently. He stared around in wonder. The floor was made of soft clean carpet that was a fresh cream color. It was nice on his feet. He shuffled them playfully, not even thinking about his actions. It's what his cousins had taught him, to not think as much. Everything was so much cleaner than it had been last time. The walls were painted instead of them having wallpaper that was peeling. They were a baby blue color with a childish trim along the top that had bunnies chasing each other. The doors had heart shaped door knobs and were plank wood with large cartoony numbers on them instead of peeling stuck on stickers. He noticed further down the hall way there were stuffed animals littered about the floor. He had the sudden urge to play with them.

"Alright little one, it's this door." Yuuta reached forwards and grasped the heart shaped knob pulling the door in front of them open.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes in confusion when he saw that the door knob was farther up than he thought it should be. Why did Yuuta look so tall to him? Had the hallway grown in size to accommodate the rabbit god's true form that Sasuke had previously been in the dark about? He looked down at himself to reassure himself that he looked normal. But there was no brown shorts from the previous life. He was wearing baby sleeper with bunnies on it, it was a pale yellow and quite comfortable. Wait, no, this was wrong. Yuuta reached down and took his hand, leading him over to the door. He tried to fight him.

"Yuuta!" His voice sounded different, no, this couldn't be what he thought it was.

"C'mon, your mate is waiting for you."

With that he was pushed roughly out the door and into the fading black, falling, falling, into a new life.

End of Part 2.5.