HARHAR: I'm on a roll. C: Aren't you excited? I might just have another chapter up today. The beginning...of WHAT? *gasp* Why don'tcha guess?

Fate's Garden

Part 4 - Hysteria

Chapter 5 - The Beginning

"There is to be a cleansing of all the worlds…"

Sasuke awoke to the chill floor, back in his darkness. However horrible it was to lose sight, to be teased with having it again if only for a few moments, Sasuke was glad it was gone. He would rather be shrouded in darkness than forced to watch everything he knew and understood be warped and changed as in the forest he'd just visited.

He yawned and stretched his arms up above him. His fists ran into something and he remembered he'd fallen asleep under the kitchen table. Sasuke grumbled as he crawled out from under the table and stood up, feeling better at having the soft cloth of his blindfold pressed against his face. He turned left and kept a simple spool of chakra thread on his left hand to make sure he wouldn't run into things. It would take him a while to remember where everything was.

His mind was reeling at what he'd just been told. Naruto wasn't to become just a god, he was to replace the grandfather? He was to become Fate? His cousins, those annoying, rambunctious, obnoxious godlings that he'd grown so used to….they were to become the new monsters? The new seeds of discord in the world? They were the most frustrating, infantile 'godlings' that Sasuke could possibly have imagined but…they were his cousins. All they were going to become were mindless demons, vile creatures, that's sole purpose was to be a source of chaos in the world? But Kyuubi, his Aunts and Uncles, they all joined the garden somehow after that suffering…

"Good, you're up," Naruto's voice made him jump, "I was about to wake you."

"Dobe-"

"We have 'lunch' with the sandaime in half an hour and you should get dressed."

"Naruto-"

"God damnit, sorry dad, I can't believe I let myself get dragged into this, I bet all he's going to do is interrogate you for hours, and try to separate us or something, and I don't care what grandpa says, I'll kill him!"

"NARUTO!" Sasuke shouted.

"What?!"

Sasuke shook his head; he loosed some of his chakra threads and threw them in the direction of the dobe's voice. When his webbing told him where Naruto's face was, Sasuke tried to face that direction.

"There's something you need to know, I just had a vision of your father," Sasuke started, "our life in the eternal garden isn't going to be exactly what we thought it was going to be."

"What's happened?"

"It's not what's happened, it's what's going to happen."

With the chakra webbing still tangled and twined around the dobe's form, Sasuke could see Naruto's face contort into a grimace. He was expecting the worst.

"These worlds we're in are going to be gone, they're going to be destroyed and your father and your aunts and uncles are going to become the new worlds."

"I won't…I won't even get to live with my family?" Naruto bit out, "All this time my dad, and you, have told me that I'll get to have a family and I won't? I'm going to lose them to some sort of apocalypse?!"

"Our cousins will become demons in those worlds and you…you're going to replace your grandfather."

"What? Why?" Naruto was staring at him dumbly, "Replace him as what?"

"As Fate."

Naruto gaped at him at first, and then he sobered. He shook his head and let out a bitter laugh.

"What will that make you, huh? Mrs. Fate?" Sasuke's jaw clenched, "Will we have little godlings too? They'll grow up and have children, and their children will replace us, and worlds will be born and will die for the rest of eternity…"

"Naruto, shut up-"

"…what kind of eternity is that? What's the point? What's the meaning? If all we work to create will die? What's the point of being Fate, of being a god, if you still die in the end?"

"Naruto, stop."

Naruto sighed, and stared at the floor, "Sorry, I suppose we have to keep playing these parts until we leave, right? Go get dressed."

"Dobe, you're not, you're not listening to me," Sasuke walked over to him, "It'll be fine, stop thinking about it. Why don't you think about this stupid lunch we're going to?"

"What, you want me to be even more angry?"

Sasuke smirked, a laugh growing in his throat, finally escaping as a mere chuckle. Naruto smiled and kissed him.

"What are you doing, teme?"

"Experimenting with my chakra webs."

"By putting them in your feet?"

"Yes."

Naruto rolled his eyes. They were walking through town now, heading towards the Hokage's tower to meet up with the sandaime. He was happy his mate had found a way to cope with his blindness. But it was getting annoying that they were moving so slow because Sasuke wanted to test some things out. At the moment he was pushing his chakra threads he'd been using to see through his feet and into the ground. It meant that he moved at a snail's pace, his head turning this way and that as the webs in the ground brought into view everything around them. He couldn't see anything past the tops of the buildings they passed, but it was pretty good for someone without eyes. Naruto admitted it was a pretty impressive feat. At this rate however they'd be at the hokage's tower three hours late.

"Sasuke, can't you limit the scope of those threads enough that you don't move so slow?"

"Shut up, dobe, if the hokage cares so much he can wait."

"Don't make me carry you."

"You wouldn't dare humiliate the cripple, would you, crazy boy?"

They glared at each other. Well, Naruto glared, Sasuke just turned to face him, his mouth twisted into a scowl. Their shuffling continued all the way to the tower, and though they weren't three hours late, as Naruto had predicted, they were a fair forty minutes late. Sasuke's pace had improved after the first few minutes of his experimenting and they'd been able to move at a leisurely walk.

"Ah, there you are," the sandaime greeted from behind his desk, "I was beginning to wonder where you'd gotten off to."

"Sorry to keep you waiting, sir," Naruto smiled apologetically while Sasuke smirked at him, "now, where would you like to eat?"

"Oh I think Moritake's will be fine, have you heard of it?"

"You could say that," Naruto nodded, thinking back to his second life and how his mother took him and Sasuke there. The food hadn't been bad.

The old man rose out of his chair and edged his way around the desk. Together the three of them left the office and made their way to the base of the tower. Idle chit chat flitted between them slowly and awkwardly. The air was stagnant due to Naruto being the only one of the two that made an effort at conversation with the old man. Sasuke remained silent because he knew there was nothing to say.

Once they'd been seated by the host, thoughtlessly Naruto and the hokage began to scan their menus. It took Naruto a moment to realize that Sasuke's head was turned so the blindfolded face was staring impassively at him.

"Tell me what there is to order," Sasuke said dryly.

Naruto flushed with embarrassment. Sasuke had been so functional on his own so far Naruto had forgotten that his webs couldn't read for him. Idly he started going over the menu for his mate, and after he'd finished, Sasuke decided he didn't want anything, except for some tea, and ice water. Naruto rolled his eyes, but otherwise didn't say anything. Inwardly Naruto decided to order dumplings for his mate to pick off once he'd realized that he was hungry and being bitchy would get him nowhere.

"So," the sandaime started, "have you two thought about what you're going to do as civilians?"

Naruto wanted to shake the man. When would they have thought of this? Sasuke had only been out of the hospital for a day now. But still Naruto made an effort to be mature and simply answer the question.

"Well, we honestly haven't decided yet, considering we've only had a chance to be home together for a day now."

"It's nice to see you two so close, though it's unfortunate the circumstances that brought you together."

Naruto was saved from responding to such a statement by the arrival of their server who asked them if they were ready to order. Sasuke remained silent while the hokage and Naruto ordered. The server collected their menus and hurried off to tend to other tables and to fetch their drinks.

It was easy to forget that they weren't supposed to be this comfortable with each other. Technically they were supposed to hate each other and be bickering constantly. They still bickered, but they didn't hate each other.

"Well, you know there are plenty of perfectly respectable careers for you two to pursue in the civilian side of things-"

"Maybe we don't want careers, don't you think?" Sasuke interrupted gruffly, "He can't be hokage now, and I can't avenge anyone. I have all the money I could need in this lifetime from my inheritance, we can live as bums."

Naruto snorted, his lips rolling inward as he restrained from laughing. The server arrived with their drinks, and Naruto gladly took his soda and hid his amusement by sipping from it. Sasuke ignored the Hokage's blithely inquisitive babble as he figured out how to pour his own tea. He draped the table in chakra webs and set some tea leaves into his cup before pouring scalding hot water into it, not spilling a drop onto the table.

The rest of the visit continued on with Naruto being polite and respectful, evading questions or statements he wanted to avoid. Sasuke spoke only when it suited him, and only in the bluntest of ways.

Naruto thanked the Hokage for covering the tab and bade him goodbye. He watched the old man stride from the restaurant with a distinctly stiff posture. That didn't go very well, he thought.

"C'mon, teme, now that you've annoyed the crap out of him I'm sure you're just all fun'd out."

"Hn." Sasuke smirked.

Together they made their way outside, and as Sasuke turned and started heading for home Naruto stopped. Everything was a dark charcoal grey, and hard to see, when he looked up, the sky was gone.

TBC…