Okay, I have a serious question for you guys, since I hadn't originally considered it but I'm now trying to figure out whether to do it or not, since it's been brought up in the most recent chapter I've written and I can't make up my mind.

Should I change up the Genin teams, or keep Teams 7, 8, and 10 the same as canon and just add the Karura/Neku/Sakumo team?

I've got a lot of fixing-up to do before I have to write the next chapter, where they find out their teams and meet their senseis, so if you want to submit your opinion, you should have a good amount of time.

That said, this chapter does a lot of skipping through time. However, as nothing important happens in between, I can't be bothered to write filler crap.

I don't think I've done this yet, so... I own nothing but my OCs!

Enjoy! (And submit your opinion if you can be bothered.)


Sunadokei
Chapter 3

"I'm home!"

Minato smiled, even though he'd been nursing a headache, and stood up. "You sound happy," he said, wrapping an arm around the wider-than-usual waist of his wife. Kushina smiled.

"Mikoto agreed to fake twins if they made it. Tsunade's gotten her into the hospital and is keeping Fugaku out under guise of an illness she wants to be sure of before she risks it being contagious or harmful to the baby. He's not happy, but he'll never know either way," she reported. Minato smiled.

"Good, because they're supposed to be here very early tomorrow morning. Hyosuke's already gone out to the clearing where we found him. Kakashi went too, although it took quite a bit of convincing for that to happen," he said. "He's to take Sakumo to the hospital. Hyosuke will be slipping Neku in here and will bring Karura to me, under the cover of a powered-up Henge. Something our son taught him, apparently."

Kushina took a deep breath and smiled. "Looks like everything's accounted for, then. If Neku and his father really did have blonde hair and blue eyes, no one will have to know they aren't twins."

Minato nodded, all traces of his earlier smile now gone.

"Minato? What's wrong?" Kushina asked, brushing blonde bangs out of her husband's face. Minato sighed and shook his head.

"Kakashi told me something today... in case he can't do it, for one reason or another."

"Minato?" Kushina sounded almost scared, and it was no wonder. Minato didn't usually slip up and call the sixty-four-year-old Hatake by his birth name. But that tone of voice, she knew he couldn't possibly be talking about the old man's fifteen-year-old counterpart.

"He wouldn't tell me the details, he wouldn't tell me much at all... Just said... 'If I can't get there to do it, when you use the Shiki Fujin, split the Kyuubi's chakra, seal the yang half into Naruto, and give the yin half to Karura or her chakra coils will over-develop and kill her.' Kushina..."

Dark blue eyes widened, and Kushina's grip on her husband tightened. "If it gets out and there's no other option, do it," she said. "But please... try to save it as a last resort."

Minato pulled her close and closed his eyes. "Kushina... I think Kakashi's planning on using it regardless."

Kushina was quiet for a while. "He said he wouldn't be around if he succeeded. I think... I think we need to allow him this... If all else fails."

Minato nodded. "Let's just hope that he's wrong, and we can keep it contained."

*-.-*-.-*-.-*-.-*

A soft knocking at the window caught Tsunade's attention, even past the pants of the woman in labor before her. "Shizune..."

"Yes, Tsunade-sama!" the dark-haired teen said quickly, running over to the window and opening the blind, before then opening the window and holding her arms out as if to accept something. When a baby, bundled up a one of the white blankets Hyosuke had left with, was placed in her arms, Tsunade's eyes widened slightly, and she turned to Mikoto.

"Sakumo's here," she told the mother. "It's time Sasuke joins his brother..."

Mikoto nodded slightly as Tsunade went back about what she'd been doing. Which was, mostly, making sure nothing was going wrong from an angle where she wouldn't have to see the blood. Shizune held out the boy in her arms, and Tsunade accepted the bundle for a moment while the teen took over with the mother.

After running a quick scan over the boy to make sure he was perfectly healthy and wrapping him up in a blue hospital blanket, she turned to Shizune... Just in time to hear a baby's cry.

Mikoto and Shizune smiled at each other, and the teen started cleaning up the newborn. Tsunade looked down at the boy in her arms, even as Shizune started bundling up the boy who would be his brother.

Dark eyes opened slowly, and stared up at Tsunade warily before the baby started making sounds that might have been mistaken for crying, but which Tsunade had a feeling were really signs of his anxiety, since she was a stranger.

"Hush, little one. Your lungs aren't as strong as your brother's," she murmured to the boy. That was what she hoped he'd understand, at least. He made a few more pathetic sounds before trying to look around.

Shizune was finished cleaning up, and had handed the newborn Sasuke to his mother already. She looked up at Tsunade, who nodded, before she left.

A moment later, Uchiha Fugaku and his five-year-old son, Itachi, walked in carefully. Tsunade was continuing to gently rub the chest of the little one in her arms, much like she would if his lungs really were weak, while Mikoto smiled up at them.

"Twins..." she said breathlessly.

Itachi looked up at the boy Tsunade held—the blonde woman looking suitably concerned about the infant in her arms—then up at his mother, and back to Tsunade. "Twins... I have two little brothers?"

Fugaku looked almost as stoic as always. "Which is the elder?" he asked. Mikoto giggled.

"I want this one to be Sasuke," she said, obviously referring to the boy she held. Fugaku looked like he was about to groan.

"I take it that is the second-born twin?" he guessed. Mikoto nodded, then looked up at Tsunade.

"Is Sasuke's brother going to be alright?" she asked, again pointing out that she wanted the boy in her arms to be Sasuke.

Tsunade paused her rubbing and took a moment to check the babe's breathing. "He should be alright. I'd like to check up on him again in a week to make sure, but it looks like his lungs are doing fine, now that we've gotten the amniotic fluids out of his chest," she said.

Fugaku looked between Sasuke and his twin before stepping over to Tsunade and slowly lifting his hands, silently asking to hold his son. Tsunade carefully placed the boy into the Uchiha Head's arms before she walked over to Sasuke to double-check him herself.

"So, if my youngest brother's name is Sasuke, what's his twin's name?" Itachi asked. Mikoto had been looking thoughtful, and rocking back and forth slightly.

"Sakumo," she said after a moment. Fugaku frowned.

"Hatake Sakumo—"

"I didn't come up with Sakumo because of him. Besides, it's not like it will bring dishonor on the Uchiha Clan if our Sakumo becomes a better ninja than he was," Makoto said. Fugaku looked down at the boy in his arms.

"Uchiha Sakumo... And Uchiha Sasuke. Yes. I think Sakumo will do nicely."

And if Tsunade's smile was a bit sneaky, he didn't notice.

*-.-*-.-*-.-*-.-*

Minato should have been running to the safe-house he'd set up for the birth, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. In his arms was a red-haired baby wrapped up in a sandy-colored blanket. Karura's eyes were a very dark blue-green, even at this young age, and Hyosuke had said they'd fluctuate later on in her life, eventually being an indicator of her sanity level. But her hair was certainly red, and they'd had no difficulties passing her off as Kushina's niece.

Except, she'd been crying a lot lately, and Hyosuke had said it was because her chakra coils were trying to expand to accommodate chakra that wasn't there. He'd said the only way to fix it would be to make her a jinchuuriki.

But that would require the Kyuubi escaping Kushina, which would kill her, and...

Minato had had to force himself to simply stop more than once already tonight.

Neku had been taken to the safe-house by Biwako. No one would have to know he wasn't Naruto's twin. Though, Hyosuke hadn't mentioned the fact that the boy's pupils didn't show. Kushina had gone into a minor panic over that when Hyosuke had brought Neku to her, but the old man had explained that his pupils would darken over the course of the first year or so, only disappearing after that when he activated the Byakugan.

It still baffled Minato that his son, his Naruto, had fallen in love with a Hyuuga. Hyosuke had refused to surrender the name of the girl, but as Hyuuga Hitomi was the only female Hyuuga currently pregnant, he had to assume that it would be a girl.

Still... Hyuuga Main Branch?

Minato shook his head and looked up before undoing a seal to slip inside the barrier. Once inside, he gently placed Karura—currently asleep, thank heavens—on the ground, before turning and reactivating the barrier... along with a number of others.

Then he picked up the redhead and continued on to the safe house.

Where, if the cries of pain were any indication, Kushina was already in labor.

"Dammit, Minato, where are you?!"

Minato finally started into a run, slipping into the small building and placing Karura in the crib next to Neku, whose wide, still-pupil-less eyes were trying to watch everything around him... literally, if the slightly bulging veins meant anything.

Minato forcibly shrugged that off before slipping over to Kushina's side and placing a hand on her stomach, adding chakra to the seal there to help solidify it.

Two hours later and starting to understand why Hyosuke's Yondaime had had to use the Shiki Fujin instead of an alternate seal, Minato finally lifted his hand from Kushina's belly and looked up at Biwako, a smile already spreading across his face.

Except, the old woman's face held an expression of horrified shock, and as she slumped to the ground, bleeding heavily, Minato saw the reason why.

"Naruto!" Kushina cried, seeing her son in the arms of a man in dark clothes and an orange mask. Minato leapt to his feet, and the stranger stepped back, allowing Taji, the second midwife, to slump to the ground the way Biwako had.

"Ah, ah, ah! I don't want the boy, Yondy-sama. I just want his kaasan."

Minato had a sinking feeling this had happened before, too, and he glanced down at Kushina.

The grim resolve in her body language almost broke his heart, even before she spoke.

"Take me. Just give Naruto back to his tousan," Kushina said, voice strong despite everything that had happened.

Baby Naruto was roughly shoved into Minato's unprepared grasp as the masked stranger dropped into a crouch and then disappeared.

"Minato!"

The blonde looked up, saw Hyosuke, and started to stand, only to have Naruto slipped deftly out of his hands. "Sorry," the old man added, flipping his eyepatch up.

Minato shouldn't have looked, he knew that the moment he did.

Because how often had Kakashi gone after Hyosuke for not saving Obito?

Red and black spun, and Minato slumped to the ground as Hyosuke turned to the two in the crib. The commotion had woken Karura, who, despite having no pain tolerance, was doing her best not to cry.

Neku's eyes, showing wisdom beyond even the years he'd lived before, watched as Hyosuke scooped up the redhead and left.

Hyosuke wasn't far away when the Kyuubi broke out and started on its rampage, and he spotted a familiar head of white hair not far away.

"Jiraiya!"

The Toad Sage glanced over his shoulder and paused, long enough for Hyosuke to slip one of the babies into his arms.

"Is this my godson?" he asked, an almost light tone to his voice. Hyosuke smiled.

"Yes. That's Naruto. When we get there, I need you to summon Gamabunta to hold the Kyuubi off, alright? I'll worry about the kids and the sealing," he said. Jiraiya frowned.

"You sure about this?" he asked. Hyosuke chuckled.

"Positive. Believe me, I've gone over this particular jutsu dozens... probably hundreds of times in the last twenty-five years of my life. I know it better than Minato does."

"Right... Be careful. Hiruzen's still too far out to make it in time. How long is the kid gonna be out, anyway?"

"Three days. Jiraiya!"

Naruto was passed back to Hyosuke.

"Yeah, I know. Good luck."