Hey! Here's chapter 3!

*Warning* there is character death in this chapter (well, the aftermath of a death and mentions of previous deaths) and hints of dark themes such as rape/torture and suicide. Nothing is explicitly said but they are heavily implied. If these things offend you or you are sensitive to these topics, I would advise you to continue no further in reading this fic (there's a lot more to come).

Also, drunken Naruto is angsty.

I suppose here is where I would deal with any guest reviews... but there was only one... and it was a flame... I addressed it in my A/N at the beginning of the first chapter. I'm not going to delete it- it amuses me to look at. XD

Also, I realised that all my beautiful formatting from word disappeared in the first two chapters. TT_TT I'll go back and fix it later. :)

I don't own Naruto! :')

Enjoy! (and please review)

Chapter 3

Sasuke stood at Sakura Rock's grave the longest, longer than the Hokage, longer than her own family, even. No one had blamed him for her death; it had been a freak accident, they said, Sasuke could never had known what would happen. It just made him feel all the worse- he knew it was his fault.

It seemed that only Sasuke blamed himself.

He spent time walking around the rest of the graveyard, some names, names he had never heard of before, more familiar than they should be. He couldn't face going home, going home would mean he would have to listen to his father telling him that the Ninja way was evil. Sasuke sighed, it hadn't been the ninja way that killed the village elder, it had been a little boy.

Instead, he started towards the arms of summer and ramen- the only place he knew he would be able to find some comfort- Naruto's house.

Sakura…thank you… for everything…

It was no surprise to find the Hokage's door wide open; the smell and sobbing coming from inside the house was an indicator that its owner had been drinking. The boy cautiously entered, shut the front door quietly behind him and removed his shoes. He peered through the kitchen archway to see a desolate looking man swigging a sake bottle and looking at what appeared to be albums. The boy cursed as he forgot the squeaky floorboard, drawing Naruto's attention

"Heeeeey! Shasuke! Come here, m'boy!" Naruto hiccupped and attempted to smile though his heart wasn't in it.

Sasuke went to stand next to him but didn't put up too much of a struggle when the far stronger man lifted him up and placed him on the seat next to his at the wooden table. The older man pointed to his photo album.

"This here's your Granddad Shasuke, he's holding your Da'! God, you look like him, all pretty like the bastard he was. Y'know, he had this glare- that's the one-dattebayo!" he said excitedly as Sasuke turned to give the drunkard his family's signature glare.

"I've said it once, an' I'll say it a thousand times more, Shasuke, but your Granda' was a hero-dattebayo! He died after rescuing your father from- from hundreds of Kiri-nin-dattebayo!"

Dobe…. There couldn't have been more than 20….

"And this young lady next to him is Sakura-chan!" the man frowned, "And the god-like being to her right is me-dattebayo!"

Sasuke snorted. He pointed to an older man with grey hair, "Who's that?"

Kakashi….

This time it was Naruto's turn to snort, "Come on, brat! Y'see that mask every day on Hokage Mountain-dattebayo!"

Sasuke huffed.

Says the one that didn't realise he looked almost exactly like one of the photos hanging in the Hokage's office….

Sasuke blinked; why would he think that?

When Naruto turned the next page, his playful smile fell and he took another swig of sake.

"Tha' there, is Yuuki Uzumaki, my daughter and her genin team. I was tempted to apply to be her jounin sensei but your bastard of a grandfather got there first. Didn't trust me to teach his god-daughter properly, I suppose." He sniffed and rubbed his eyes with his sleeves, "I shouldn't say that, he taught her to be badass."

You're right. I wouldn't trust you…. You're the type to think that a toad is a good babysitter…

"Sasuke wasn't the only one I lost that day…."

Sasuke sat, bolt upright. What did he mean? What had happened that Naruto lost both his best friend and his daugh-

Sasuke stood, panting and clutching the bundle to his chest with his good arm. The kiri-nin before him stood across the clearing with a kunai at the throat of a young woman with black hair and ice blue eyes. He tried reassuring the girl with his eyes but she couldn't stop the tears leaking from her eyes. The kiri-nin spoke just one, terrible word;

"Choose."

Sasuke balked. What had he just seen in his mind? It had seemed so real….

"She was beautiful, my girl. And so, so very brave. But she never thought before she acted. That night-" Naruto swallowed, "The night we got news of Sasuke's son being kidnapped she somehow caught wind of it. I- I taught her Hiraishin-no-jutsu as a gift for making jounin. She loved your father, Itachi, from the moment she held him in her arms and so she placed a marker on him."

The girls's eyes softened as the precious bundle started to wriggle, "Save Itachi!" she yelled as the veins around her eyes strained. Not able to leave her behind, Sasuke gripped the sword in his other hand and ran to her, in a futile attempt to save them all. He hadn't made it halfway there before he felt a piercing pain through his torso.

Thankfully, the blade had missed the child in his arms and it was all Sasuke could do in his dying moments was to keep holding him until arms the smell of summer and ramen came and held him as all faded to black.

Sasuke stared, wide eyed at the man next to him, his mouth suddenly feeling very dry. What was happening to him? What had happened to-

"What happened to the girl?" He found himself asking.

The elder man suddenly looked very tired he took another couple of gulps of sake. Sasuke shifted so he was sitting on the table, facing Naruto but it seemed the man couldn't see him anymore and was looking at someone else.

"I found her on the ground, Sasuke. I found her there after you died. All broken, her lovely blue eyes just staring at the sky. They had done things to her, things that should never be done to any man nor woman's daughter and left her there for me to find. My beautiful, beautiful daughter. My little dove…."

Blonde hair covered the man's eyes as they leaked tears. Sasuke didn't quite understand what had happened but he felt that he was somehow responsible for what had happened- just like how he felt responsible for what had happened to Sakura.

"Oh, I made Kiri pay. I never understood how revenge could become an obsession until it took me just like it did you, Sasuke. Oh, and I made them pay good-dattebayo. A lot of good it did me too. Hinata, remember her? She didn't take Yuuki's death any better than I did but with me on a rampage, a dead daughter and someone else's baby to look after, her grief channelled into something else."

Naruto looked up. He didn't see a little boy sitting in front of him anymore, just his long gone, best friend, Sasuke. He smiled wistfully at the vision.

"Hey, Bastard, did ya know that people can die from sadness? 'Cause my Hinata did." The man suddenly looked his age despite his middle aged features.

Sasuke felt an ache in his heart for the man before him something terribly, terribly wrong had happened- that much he was sure of. He had seen the images, memories that suggested something awful to come and while he had never seen them before, they seemed so familiar, so right, that he didn't doubt them.

"And now Sakura-chan has left. I had hoped… I had hoped that her seal…. Remember, Sasuke, when you told me that the Uchiha are cursed to love? I think the Uzumaki are cursed to love too… just in a different way."

And that caught Sasuke's attention; echoes and flashes of other images came from the same, deep place those thoughts came from. Showing him a night not unlike this with a younger Naruto.

Sasuke sighed, glancing at the man sat next to him on the roof of his house, "Wouldn't understand… Curse of hatred…. Naruto…."

"What do you mean?" he asked both himself and the Hokage, his childish voice rung through the house.

It was as if a spell over the room shattered. Naruto suddenly remembered who he was with, "Nothing, Sasuke-chan~! Just an old man's ramblings-dattebayo. Now, we must let your father know where you are-"

"I'll help with paperwork. Just don't make me go back there…." Sasuke pleaded, knowing he would get nothing more out of the old man by pestering him.

"And how will you help me with the paperwork, Brat?

"Hn. I'll make ramen."

"Deal." Naruto, seemingly now sober, "What do you want me to tell your father? I don't think he believed the 'we caught the plague and had to be quarantined' excuse we used last time you stayed over…."

"That was your idea, Dobe."

"Hey, brat, don't bite the hands that save you."

"It's feed, not save."

"Whatever, just remember who's Hokage in this room."

"Hn. Drunken idiot."

"You little Bastard!" Naruto leapt up and started tickling the youngster.

Sasuke bit his lip, trying to stop the squeals that threatened to leave his lips; this was the Naruto-jiji he knew and he would do everything he could to keep him happy.

If you want me to explain it I'm not really sure how to put it.. It's just that when I hear you blabbering about carrying everything on your shoulders.. I can kinda.. feel the pain too.

Okay so Naruto was a little bit OOC in this chapter... I blame it on the alcohol... ¬¬

I know that the idea of Naruto loosing it and taking it out on an entire village is a little bit far fetched but Naruto has almost lost himself to hatred before (think when he was fighting Pein). The only times Naruto seems to get really, really mad to the point of wanting to kill people seems to be when he thinks (or has) lost a loved one. It is usually another person or big shock that'll snap him out of this. With loosing both his best friend (who Naruto spent so much energy trying to keep) and his daughter, his wife falling into depression and a random baby to look after, I don't think it is too hard to imagine he would find it hard to cope...

Feel free to disagree but for the purposes of this fic, Naruto had a full blown momentary loss of sanity- the kind that pre ch699 Sasuke would be proud of. :')

The events behind Sasuke, Hinata and Yuuki's deaths are really important to how many of the OCs see the world *cough* Itachi the second *cough*. Idk if I'll ever go into why he is the way he is but be assured, there is a lot of angst and tragedy involved! :O Be aware, the man is not evil! He's just trying to do what's best for his family- sorta like Fugaku...

Anyhoo! Thanks for reading! :3

Please review! :D