Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Masashi Kishimoto does, so thank him for Naruto.

Rated to be on the safe side.

A/N: Well a little warning, there will be a little angst and depressing parts in this story, most likely will have several of those in the next chapter or two. I'll have Naruto's life a little better by having a couple more acknowledge him and his siblings being his lifelong friends, but his life will still be kinda bad since the there are probably a couple dozen people at most that don't hate him and his siblings. Also this chapter will give a little more background to several of the characters.

As for the suggestions, well you will have to see what is in my story. I want to say this before the story first, the idea of including Ibiki will take some thought since I already had ideas on how to include Kakashi and Hayate when I was writing the last chapter. I will definitely use the part about the house because I had an idea of what to do before, but I been thinking to myself that I should move that to a later time and putting them somewhere else will work nicely in place of my idea for now.

One last thing is that this is only the evening after the demon attack and The Uzumaki siblings are only 22 hours old. Considering the demons were sealed the previous night. I know that it seems unlikely that newborns would be so responsive so soon, but I like I said at the end of the last chapter "it was cute" and it added to their innocence. Last, I'll try to use a few of the honorifics that are normally used when speaking (like sama, dono, san, chan, & kun), but not all the time.

"Speaking"

Thinking

"Inner self/ Demon talking"

Demon thinking

The Burden of Three

3. The Decision

On the large property of the third Hokage sat a medium-sized two story house that looked like it could easily support a family or two. In the house there were three bassinets with three sleeping bodies inside them in the living-room. In the first one seen upon entering the room was the little whisker cheeked Uzumaki Naruto, oldest of the three Uzumaki siblings. In the one next to him was the girl and center (middle child) of the whiskered group, Uzumaki Tatsuma. In the last one was the youngest of the babies was Hariken. In the room next to them sat five people that were trying to determine their future, though four of them should have been too young to make such a decision.

The elderly Hokage looked at the young girls sitting around him for a moment before he began to speak, "It seems that most of the village can only see these young ones as the demons incarnate and not as the innocent children that you see them as. Sadly, I was not able to convince the villagers or the council to change their opinion and it is for that reason that I issued a law that even you four are to follow. The law is that no one is allowed to speak of the children having the demons sealed inside each of them and anyone who breaks this law will be executed, hopefully this will allow them to have a normal life with the younger generation."

The girls were a little shocked because they failed to see how anyone could confuse such cute babies with demons, to them the whisker cheeked infants resembled angels far more than demons. Since the were all mature for their ages they understood that the villagers were just looking for someone to blame, but they also knew that they didn't have to agree with it. The information hit Anko, since she knew from personal experience of feeling hatred for something that was not her choice. The four female ninja eventually gave a silent nod to the Hokage to indicate that they understood.

Saurtobi began speaking again after closing his eyes for a second, "Well that was one of the most depressing things that I had to do in my long life, but for now we need to know what to do with these babies. They are now orphaned and it seems that most of the village would rather see the demons die at the expense of these young lives than take care of them." He then paused as he noticed Yugao young face shift a little if pondering something.

The youngest of the group decided to voice her question when she noticed the silence "...Hokage-sama, You said that they were orphaned, do you mean to say that they have no family left, like us?" All four looked towards the older man and waited for his response.

The Sandaime closed his eyes for a few seconds to think of his words and replied "The answer to that question is yes and no. Their only remaining family unreachable at the moment. Their maternal grandfather, paternal grandmother, and their father's cousin are all alive, but they are currently away from the village and are extremely hard to locate. Also, the two on the father's side did not even know about the pregnancy and the one on the mother's side thought that his daughter was just having one child not three, so he would assume that the child died with the mother. I'm also unsure if it is wise to just put the responsibility of these three young lives in their hand considering that they don't even know the babies exist and they would probably have to separate the three. I can not tell you who they are either, right now it is best that the less that know the better. When I do reveal this information I will be sure to tell you first." He paused to think. He did not want to tell them that Arashi and Mina had requested not to have their parents informed because it would just cause more heartache for them after just losing their only children. All the girls looked down, knowing what it is like to be orphaned, but some of them had time with at least one of parents before the war unlike the Uzumaki's.

Kurenai's parents two of the five jonin that were sent on a mission to investigate Iwagakure (the Village Hidden Among Rocks) and were killed with their team, which marked the start of the Great Shinobi War when she was six (wars usually last months to years so I'd say this one lasted 4 years). Their death pushed her to work harder and graduate early. She wanted to help end the war that started with her parents lives.

Anko's mother had passed away at childbirth because of Orochimaru's earlier experiments, which she discovered just before he left and guessed that what he did was one of the reasons that she survived his cursed seal. Anko's father was one of the other experiments of the "experiments" and died two months after Orochimaru left, but he told Anko that her father had died five years ago (two years before he the Hokage found his lab) and took her as his apprentice. She spent the last week of for father's life by his side.

Rin was the only one of the four not to know her parents. Rin was about seven months old with she was found by a young Inuzuka woman was training her genin daughter Tsume some advanced tracking skill in the forests surrounding Konoha with the bodies of her parents, who had no identification. The two had gave the parents a proper burial in the forest and took the baby back to their village. They took care of Rin until she reached genin and had Arashi become her guardian, because the sad fact was that only to join the Inuzuka clan was by birth or marriage. They were able to give her marks. The Inuzuka clan had a set red fang-like marks that were on each of their cheeks to mark their clans allegiance with their canine partners. They had placed a set of orange rectangles on her face, this marked her as a friend to the clan and to be known to the canines that she was under their protection.

Yugao's parents were both ANBU and were killed on an S-class mission when she was five. They were to infiltrate Iwa (Iwagakure if you haven't guessed) with their ANBU team and kidnap someone close to the Tsuchikage to use in a deal to end the war. Of course the hostages would have little or no harmed done to them (a little if they fought back) since the village doing the kidnapping was Konoha, but the leader of Iwa would have to negotiate peace if he wanted them back. The couple had went to the village to get their hostage while the captain and third teammate stayed near the outside of the country's border to clear the way of possible enemies. They were able to get the son of the Tsuchikage without any trouble, but when they reached the border of the Land of Earth they ran into the resistance. At the border stood a dozen of Rock's upper jonin who informed the two that their rest of their team was being distracted by several lower jonin several miles away. Despite the strength of the two, they were outnumbered by shinobi that were just as skilled and experienced as they were. The two Konoha ninja were able kill all but three of their enemies before they died. The weakened Stone nin went back to their village with their leader's son and left the bodies of their enemies where they fell. The rest of their team had found battle ground a twenty minutes later, defeating their distraction and wondering where their teammates were. Upon finding the battle field, the two grabbed the bodies of their fallen allies and left their enemy bodies since it would be very likely that the enemies would return to retrieve or destroy the bodies to protect their village's secrets. (Think back to the hunter-nin explanation) When the ANBU returned with the mission as a failure they buried the bodies of their friends in Konoha and informed Yugao. She was crushed, but used their memory to push herself to make genin the next year. Her parents and teacher were the ones that inspired her to want to become a member of ANBU.

The three children sleeping in the living-room still had family, but it seemed that only the Hokage knew of their relation. This little thought brought the four girls out of their moment of recollection. The four were now wondering what was going to happen with the Uzumaki triplets, but then remembered that was what they were talking about before they started to remember their pasts.

The Hokage noticed that he had the girls attention again and began to speak once more, "Well as I was saying, the village seems to be against taking the children in. That would mean that neither an orphanage or adoption are real options considering that families that adopt them might have the hate directed towards them and maybe violence as well. The technically have a home, but their parents requested that they do not live in it before I determine that they are ready and because of that I decided to let them live here until they are ready to receive their parents home. For now I have to find some guardians for them and I already know that you four want to volunteer, but you are too young for this job and you have ninja duties to preform as well." The old man looked at the young kunoichi hopefulness in their faces change to depression as he prepared to continue, "I was planning to search through the village and see if I can find caretakers that could raise them until they were old enough to be on their own, but it seems that it would be harder than I thought."

The girls nodded as he spoke, still a little sad that they could not take care of the babies. What the Sandaime said next caused them to give him their full attention. "Well I could change my plan a little. I could make you three their unofficial guardians, having you live with them and take care of them as long as it doesn't interfere with your shinobi duties. Of course I'll still have to get a couple of more experienced people to watch over and take care of the babies."

Sarutobi chuckled a little when he saw the hopeful look return to the girls' faces. This could workout better than he already thought. His first plan was to send them to an orphanage that would take care of them until they were adopted or old enough to be on their own, but now he realized that his previous idea would be a grave mistake if he went through with it. Not only would they most likely not take proper care of the children and treat them poorly, but the orphanage would allow easy access for assassination attempts for revenge on the demons inside them. With them living with the four kunoichi he would be sure that they were properly taken care of by their caretakers and have adequate protection. He was positive that the girls smiling in front of him would be the best chance the of the three blond babies of having happiness in their life.

Not long after the Hokage had told the girls his decision he had them move their things into the house. It was a little larger than it appeared. On the base floor there was there was the living area that could easily fit a couple dozen people, the dining room that the five were talking in, a nice sized kitchen, and three bedrooms that were each big enough for two people. On the second story of the house were four more of the same sized bedrooms that were on the floor below, a master bedroom that was twice as big as the other rooms, and a glass door that lead to a balcony looking over the back yard. Despite the size of the house, it was like a guest house compared to the Hokage's home and the land that it sat on. Yugao and Anko took a couple of the downstairs bedrooms while Kurenai and Rin took two of the upstairs bedrooms. They set-up the room closest to the master bedroom for the Uzumaki's, because they had decided that they would move the children into the larger room when on their third birthday and it would be easier to move them in.

The Hokage just needed to have items need for the infants sent to the home since he already had the home furnished and stocked for if he needed to house others. A week after the attack the kunoichi were completely moved into the house and the Sandaime was able to find two people that were willing to help raise the children. One was his younger sister (by 2 years) Asuka, who was a great help to him in raising his sons Asuma and Sasumata. The other was a forty-three year old retired shinobi named Lei and raised five sons with his wife before she passed away. The former female Sarutobi (former since her name changed with marriage) had chose the room across from the children's while Yugao's room was next to hers and Kurenai's was next to the children's room. The Lei's room was on the first floor and the nearest one to the kitchen.

Finding people to help the girls take care of the babies was one of the Sandaime's biggest concerns. He did not want to doubt the girls, but he just thought that they were a little too young to have that kind of responsibility to deal with added to their shinobi life. They had no experience with even younger sibling and would be at less of an advantage than new parents that could usually go to their parents or friends for advice. He was looking over the information for Lei when his sister had came to his study to see him. She had been lonely since her husband died years ago and she was unable to bare children, which was the reason she help Sarutobi raise his boys and eventually moved into their house when they offered the widow. She talked to her brother about his problem and hearing his concerns about the children, but she had heard what the village thought about the Uzumaki's when the announcement was made the other day. Personally she thought that the children were not demon since her older brother was willing to put all his fate behind the work of the Yondaime. She thought to herself that she could be of great help with the three because she helped raise her brother's children into fine young men.

The Sandaime thought that his sister would be the best choice as the primary caregiver, while Lei would be there to assist her with preparing the things she requested and buying the needed items. The elderly Hokage was curious how the children would turnout when they grew up, because his sister did have a reputation for helping raise some of the village's best shinobi. She started by watching Tsunade and Jiraiya, which gave Sarutobi the idea of having them on his team. The she started watching Konoha's White Fang, Hatake Sakumo. She would later bring together the one of the most successful Ino-Shika-Cho trio's in the three families history together and introduced the three to their future wives back when they were children. She was also the one that was trusted to help raise the triplet's parents and Kakashi. Despite the fact that Asuka did not have her own children, most of the shinobi were still asking her for advice on raising their children. That included Hyuga Asahi, Uchiha Mikoto, Inuzuka Tsume, and even the wives of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio. His personal feelings aside, the old man felt that he made the right choice in who were to help the girls raise the Uzumaki triplets. Well I'm glad that I'm going in the right direction with these three, since I have a feeling that Arashi and Mina would have asked for my sister's advice. After all, when the who better to raise the three children of The Yellow Flash and Flaming Tigress than the one that helped raise those two? Especially since the parents of the two are unavailable.

A/N: Well now to explain some things. Yes I decided to make them have some family left, but they will not be revealed before the chunin exam, though some might make some good guesses. The story of these four was never done in much detail. Also I'm sure if anyone checked out the sites with age data, they'd know that the most of the shinobi that were adults during the kyuubi attack are now the parents of most of the rookie, I assume that this means most of the adult shinobi of that time were killed during the attack since most of the current ninja were either preteens or teens (which I reduced, but kept the parent of some gone).

As I said, not much is known about the past of four I picked, like how Orochimaru became Anko's teacher or anyone else's past. Rin's part came from an article I read that stated some thought she was an Inuzuka from the marks on her cheek, but was said to be wrong since the marks were different. So I decided to make my own explanation. Asuka just came as a random idea for the character and the background was the same, I figured who better for the Sandaime to trust the three to than a sibling and I figured I'd give her more connections. Also I kinda like the Inuzuka(though Kiba's attitude bothers me at times), so that's why Tsume was mentioned so much. If you don't know this is Kiba and Hana's mother, while Makoto is Sasuke and Itachi's mother. Last, before anyone gets concerned about Asahi being a lot like Arashi, I stated that Arashi means "a storm or tempest", but Asahi means "morning sun". I used this since Hiashi is "daytime" and Hinata is "sunny place". Also just because names are similar doesn't mean those people have to be related, like (Hyuga) Hanabi and (Inuzuka) Hana are two examples"

As for the "Flaming Tigress" name, I figured I'd give Mina a title like the Yondaime was the "Yellow Flash". Most ninja are given names for their known traits or jutsu. He was known as the "Yellow Flash because of his Hiraishin no Jutsu, Kakashi is known as the "Copy Ninja" for his sharingan, and the Sandaime was known as the "Professor" because of his vast jutsu arsenal. So I have Mina known for her tiger mask and powerful fire jutsu (as well as the flame style cloak Arashi gave her).

Sasumata is a two pronged weapon used to catch criminals according to a translation I looked at from looking for the meaning Asuma's name and I just added him for that little debate of is Asuma Konohamaru's dad or uncle, so he will be Konohamaru's dad, but will have little or no mention later unless I change my mind. As for the name Saurtobi it is well known that this is the Sandaime and Asuma's family name, but the Sandaime's first name is never mentioned. That is most likely because he currently have no equal that are familiar enough in the series that can call him by his name.