Iruka had thought he had gotten the whole raising a toddler thing down in the couple of months since he had taken his age reversed former student in. There had been a number of surprises early on, but they had settled into something resembling a routine, which led to him believing that he'd sorted out all of Naruto's quirks and becoming complacent. That had of course been until one day when he was about to bathe Naruto, and the naked toddler squirmed out of his hands, dropped to the floor and ran out of the bathroom before he could get up from the kneeling position he'd been in when he'd been about to clean the small child who had been rather liberally coated in his lunch which had mostly gone on him rather than in him. Naruto then proceeded to dive out of the nearest open window before he could catch him.
His heart had nearly stopped when that had happened, and as he made his way to the window faster than he thought possible, he'd had visions of a broken toddler whose head was cracked open dancing through his head, visions that fortunately turned out to have been incorrect.
When Naruto hit the ground outside, he'd been stunned for about a second or two before he ran off giggling madly, apparently unharmed. This had of course led to a chase around the village, during which, much to his embarrassment, he soon lost his charge. It was as he fruitlessly searched for a naked two year-old who should have stood out like a sore thumb that he remembered that the only reason he had been able to catch the boy who had outrun both the ANBU and the Military Police before his accident was that on some level, the boy trusted him not to hurt him and was willing to be caught by him. While this Naruto also trusted him, he probably wanted to explore all of the places he hadn't been able to since he was usually securely strapped into a stroller every time he left the apartment, when he wasn't in his playpen at either the Academy or the Missions Assignment desk that was. There were far too many dangers present in the village for him to allow the small child to explore to his heart's content however, and he had to get him back before something unfortunate happened.
He finally found a dirt covered Naruto near a Genin team that had come from Suna to attend the Chunin exams after a couple hours of frantic searching. The filthy child was holding his arms out to a red haired boy with a gourd strapped to his back who was around the age Naruto should have been wanting him to pick him up. He was less nervous about the boy being around these kids than he would be about him being around shinobi from other foreign countries, since Suna was an ally of Konoha. He could only imagine the sort of disaster that would have happened if the boy had run into someone from say Kiri or worse, Iwa.
"Naruto wants you to pick him up." he told the boy who was looking at Naruto in confusion and annoyance. "Would you help me get him back to my apartment, if you don't mind?"
The boy apparently hadn't minded, because he picked Naruto up rather uncertainly, as if he had absolutely no idea how to hold a child. He gave the boy a few pointers, and soon Naruto was no longer being held out at arm's length. He wondered if he made the right decision when he saw the looks of shock on the boy's teammates' faces though.
Gaara had been mildly irritated that he had to tell Kankuro to put the small child that had run into him down twice. The naked child who was obviously a boy couldn't have been more than two or so, and undoubtedly had worried parents out looking for him, parents who would cause trouble if they saw Kankuro manhandling their son. Instead of running away like he expected it to, the instant he was set back down on the ground, the toddler had stared up at him with a pair of impossibly wide watery blue eyes, held its arms out to him, and said "Up".
He had absolutely no idea what the kid had wanted until a few seconds later when a Konoha Chunin with his hair up in a ponytail and a scar across his nose had told him that it wanted to be picked up. It had wanted him, the demon of the sands that children ran away from screaming in terror to pick it up. Not only that, but the man who was supposed to be tending to the child was actually willing to trust him to carry the child all the way to his apartment.
After the shockingly trusting man informed him of the correct way to hold a child, he introduced himself. His name was Umino Iruka, and he was an instructor at the Ninja Academy. The blond haired, blue eyed, dirt covered toddler was named Uzumaki Naruto, and Iruka had taken him in after some sort of accident had left him without a suitable guardian. After the introductions had been made, he had spent the next several minutes carrying the small, slightly squirmy, and surprisingly heavy bundle that was Uzumaki Naruto to the man's apartment. When they had reached said apartment, he and his teammates had been amazed at the fact that the man had continued to be so stupidly trusting as to actually allow them inside, his comments on resetting the traps as soon as they left notwithstanding.
When they had entered the Chunin Iruka's apartment, he offered him and his siblings some food and drinks before requesting that he help wash the child that didn't seem to want to be put down yet.
Konoha was a strange and very foreign place, and he wasn't sure how to deal with the trusting people who inhabited it. When it came to most of them, killing them wouldn't verify his existence and would therefore be pointless, so they could safely be ignored much as most of Suna's inhabitants were. But, how do you ignore someone who was trusting enough to allow you to pick them up? How do you ignore someone who was willing to allow you into their apartment with very few reservations, even if it was only "just this once"?
How did you ignore people who didn't attack you, or run screaming, or quake in fear at the sight of you?
Sasuke tried once again to get into the Hyuuga family library which was forbidden to uninvited Non-Hyuuga and children under the age of five. It wasn't like he had anything else to do at the moment. He had usually been rather unflappable since the Massacre, not letting anything affect him while he focused on vengeance, but he found himself using a particularly nasty swearword after what had seemed to be his hundredth failed attempt at entering the library. Hyuuga Hiashi, who had been passing by at that moment, had obviously heard him, because the man had promptly picked him up and swatted him on the behind a couple of times saying "You will not use that sort of language in my home" while he did so. Much to his embarrassment, he found tears welling up in his eyes from the shock and the pain as the Hyuuga set him down.
He was not going to cry. He was going to get revenge for this. He was not going to cry.
"I'm beginning to wonder why Fugaku and Mikoto didn't drown their kids at birth." he heard Hiashi mutter as he effortlessly walked into the library that so frustrated him.
Yes, he was most definitely going to get revenge.
Raising a young Ninja was tiring the first time around, and even moreso during the second and the third...It was especially difficult when you were old enough to be great-grandparent, and therefore should have been spending your twilight years doting on said great-grandchildren until your grandchildren came by to take them home. It was for this reason that Sakura's parents found themselves dipping into their rapidly dwindling retirement funds to hire Genin teams to watch their child who should have long-ago left the house and started a family of her own.
Today, the Genin team that was looking after Sakura who was once again a toddler while Mr. and Mrs. Haruno got some much needed rest was the one that belonged to Maito Gai.
Lee happily rolled the ball back to little Sakura as the both of them sat on the floor playing. She was a rather adorable and very cheerful child, and he was happy to be watching her. A little ways over, Neji and TenTen were in a corner gossiping about the Uchiha boy's latest escapades in the Hyuuga compound. Apparently, the boy was an ill behaved, ill tempered, spoiled little brat who never tired of poking his nose into places where it didn't belong.
Gai-sensei was watching him play with Sakura with a contemplating look on his face that showed a faint hint of regret as well.
"What is it Gai-Sensei?" he finally asked.
"I'm beginning to wonder if I should have taken that woman up on her offer." Gai-sensei said, sounding slightly wistful as he watched Sakura roll the ball back to him.
"What offer?" he asked.
"She said that her biological clock was really ticking and she was starting to get very very desperate, and wondered if I would be willing to get her pregnant." Gai-sensei replied.
"Someone actually wanted Gai-sensei to reproduce?!" Neji said, sounding far more horrified than the situation warranted.
Edited 8-30-12