DON'T PANIC: I realize that this chapter is pretty epic, in the true sense of the word. Do not fear, the happy ending does in fact await. And the explanation that Kyuubi is getting to is going to be explained some more in the following chapters. If I confuse everyone I am sorry, I will attempt to rewrite it to make it no-thought-friendly. But for now...I hope that...ugh...enjoy?

ALSO: I'd like to point out that there is a new link in the 'fan art for my stories' section. A picture of the scene from chapter 8 of anomalistic 'meeting the in-laws' has been uploaded to dA. It is very well done, and you get the chance to see what the gods and the godlings look like. Take a look, it's really quite the impressive picture.

Fate's Garden

Part 4 - Hysteria

Chapter 4 - Discord

The knock at the door startled them both, but probably it bothered Sasuke more than it did Naruto. After all, Sasuke had only had to really interact with someone other than his mate once or twice and that was at the hospital. They'd made their way through town to Naruto's apartment as quickly as possible.

Naruto wearily pushed himself up off of the floor, telling Sasuke he'd answer it. His mate nodded, his chin pressed to his chest. Naruto left the kitchen, wheeling to his left and heading straight for the door. Not sure who he thought it might be he peeked through the peep-hole. Standing on his doorstep was the sandaime. Naruto quickly opened the door and greeted the old man.

"Good morning Naruto, how are you faring?"

"We're doing fine, hokage-sama," Naruto answered.

"Ah, so Sasuke-kun is here as well?"

"He's in bed at the moment, sleeping off the trauma from yesterday."

"Trauma…?"

"Waking up without any eyes…?"

"Ah, right."

Naruto was not unhappy to see the sandaime, but he wasn't exactly ecstatic either. He knew that this was the point in time where most people would invite the leader of their village into their homes, but Naruto was not going to unless the old man was stubborn about it.

"Perhaps I could speak with him?"

"A little bit later would probably be for the best, sir."

"Ah, so maybe we could meet for lunch then?"

"That would be fine."

"You can find me at the office and we can figure out where to eat from there."

"Sounds good."

"See you soon," the old man's face was crinkled into a falsely happy mask that concealed his displeasure. Naruto could smell the frustration on him.

"Yes, see you soon." Naruto shut the door in his face.

That was the most awkward, disrespectful conversation Naruto had ever entertained with the third hokage. The sandaime had always been a man Naruto respected and looked up to. He still did, if only slightly. But at the moment he didn't have the patience to endure a discussion between his mate and a nosy old man who was completely insensitive. I'm over reacting, he won't be insensitive, Naruto told himself.

Amiably he returned to the kitchen to inform his mate about the 'lunch' they would now have to attend. Upon such a return, however, he saw that his mate was asleep on linoleum, snoring away.

Sasuke barely managed to stay long enough to nod in response to Naruto's statement. He was going to get the door. That was nice. But just like that he was yanked from that reality and into the garden. He blinked once, twice…he…had eyes! He rolled them and looked at everything he could. At first Sasuke had thought that he'd been taken back to the fox life, his surroundings so largely resembled the forest he'd spent two decades in. The only difference was how tall the trees were. They seemed to stretch on forever, their leaves a vague idea portrayed as a distant mass of green.

"Hello, son-in-law," a familiar husky voice greeted him.

Sasuke tore his eyes away from the far off canopy and focused them on the enormous nine-tailed fox standing before him.

"Hello, Kyuubi," Sasuke answered.

"There's something you need to know, about your mate, and the circumstances of things."

Sasuke arched a brow at the ominous words, finding it a bit melodramatic for the usually frank fox god. He figure that perhaps this would be a long conversation so he settled himself down onto the soft grass. Kyuubi himself lied down in front of him, his forearms neatly set before him. The fox was so large he beat out Naruto's fox form. Looking up at him, Sasuke for the first time actually felt as though he were speaking to a god. Before the family, the garden, had all been so relatable, so familiar. But as he sat, and noticed the largeness, the oddness of things, he felt more out of place than he'd ever felt there. He had to be calm, everything seemed to be growing fuzzy around the edges, as though his mind was having to work harder and harder to portray a world that wasn't really there. Things were becoming less and less like things and more like the ideas of them. Ideas that had been only half remembered.

"Us Gods, such a lofty title for the children of Fate, our say in things is so very remote that it is laughable to make us seem so entitled," Kyuubi intoned with a bitter chuckle.

"What do you mean?" Sasuke asked.

"You recall the fuss made by your aunts and uncles, don't you? Everyone was quite upset that you were to come to the garden in the end, become one of us when all this time you have been a mortal."

"I recall," Sasuke assured him, though he wasn't quite sure what the fox god was getting at.

"We all had mates too, you know, just as my son has you," Kyuubi's gaze was the only thing to not become less, if anything it burned brighter, becoming clearer as everything else distorted, "but they were not to come with us, they were to stay mortal and be a lesson for us, as life was, to teach us the virtues we had not, to prepare us for our divinity."

"My father said that through an acquisition of all the virtues and all the sin in the mortal world, we could have an understanding of his creation. We would be ready to inhabit this heavenly garden; we would be ready to watch over the mortals in their chaos."

"Were you ready?"

"We were ready, godling, for the inhabitance, not for the chaos."

"I don't understand."

"Fate is the creator and catalyst of all things, he is everywhere at once, he is responsible for the workings of things. Nothing would happen if not for Fate, so is it not expected that his children are the creators of chaos?"

Kyuubi's tails were enormous, much like the rest of him, but Sasuke's eyes could not stop staring at them. They swished, back and forth, all nine of them. They flowed through the air as if they were under water. Everything they touched became warped and twisted, and changed.

"That night, that fateful night in my last life, when I was about to enter the garden, I did not know what I was to become," Kyuubi growled, "I did not know that my soul would be split into infinitely small pieces and spread into every world, every universe my father created. I did not know that I would become this demon, this force of discord and horror."

"We're going to be demons too?" Sasuke felt as though someone had put a rubber stopper in his throat.

"No, you will not."

"Then what's going to happen? Why are you telling me this?"

"There is to be a cleansing, Sasuke, of all the worlds, a sort of, 'do-over' if you will," Kyuubi explained, "we, the gods, will create new worlds in place of the old, Fate will die and my son will become him, and you will remain by his side for the rest of eternity."

"You're going to die…?"

"Not quite, we will divide, as we have before, and become the new worlds, and the people, and your cousins will become the seeds of change, and you, you and my son will be a new Fate for a new world."

TBC…