Epilogue
Disclaimer: I do not own any of Naruto's original characters or the franchise itself.
A.N. Oh, and I know Kakashi's aversion to chores may have confused some, because I described him as OCD and militaristic before, but think about it: he handed in excellent reports before he realised they got a rise out of Iruka, right, so now he wants to do it again (since Iruka doesn't let him get away with bad, awful reports anymore).
Name fetish: Yuujin means friend. Sentoki means fighter. Toraboru is a more recent version of trouble (borrowed from English, I presume) and Shouhime is one I found when looking for an endearment similar to English's "little princess," but I'm not sure if it's correct.
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Three years later….
"Daddyyyyyyy!" Kaikatsu sailed down the hall towards the kitchen.
When she arrived, slightly out of breath, Iruka turned to look at her from the stove where he was helping Amai place blobs of cookie dough onto a sheet, passing his and his mother's love of baking down to his own daughter.
"Daddy—Papa said he was gonna let Uhei eat Yuujin's toes!"
Iruka glared reproachfully up at Kakashi, who had appeared behind their daughter and slouched in the doorway. Kakashi glared right back. "He hugged her," he accused.
Iruka shook his head and sighed. "They're six years old, Kakashi."
Kakashi crossed his arms stubbornly across his chest and puffed it out in irritation. "I don't care," he barked out in an annoyed, petulant tone.
Iruka turned back to Kaikatsu, who was pouting and looked on the verge of tears. "Papa is not going to let any of his ninken hurt Yuujin. You go play now Kai and I'll deal with Papa."
She nodded and headed back down the hall, glaring balefully up at her papa, and then sticking out her tongue as she passed him. Kakashi huffed and turned to stomp into the living room.
Life had a way of turning out for the better, Iruka mused to himself as he glanced around the kitchen.
The first year after their girls arrived, it was very busy and over the past two years, a lot had changed.
They had spent that first year settling in, then, surprisingly, Shizune's pregnancy had ended up taking on the first try—which they were definitely happy about but didn't expect. They had assumed it would take at least a few medical procedures before they had success, which meant they would have had longer to get ready for a new arrival.
To add shock to their surprise, Shizune had been carrying twins. From what Hinata had told them using her Byakugan to examine their chakra signatures at Tsunade's request, the third little girl was biologically Kakashi's while the other, the couple's first son, was Iruka's. Having twins also meant they had to either expand their apartment again or move.
After much discussion, they had decided to refurbish the Hatake compound (which happened to be right beside the refurbished Namikaze compound Naruto and Hinata had begun restoring after finally getting Hiashi's permission for a betrothal following Tsunade's decision to train the Uzumaki for eventually taking over the position of Nindaime Hokage, as well as nestled beside the Inuzuka complex to which Kakashi seemed to have distant family ties a few generations back). They had taken over the main house, where Iruka and the girls helped Kakashi get over past bad memories of the night his father died by making the space their own and creating happier memories in its place.
They had elected to offer one of the branch houses to Shizune and Tsunade when Tsunade stepped down to allow Shizune easier access to the children, while still maintaining all parties' autonomy.
Anko and Gai, who had no clan affiliations of their own, (and who were the Amai's God-parents anyways, while Naruto and Ayame were Kai's) were also invited to occupy one of the branch houses once their son, Sentoki, was born (interestingly enough, almost exactly nine months after the girls' introduction, hmmm—pushy much, Anko?) and they outgrew Gai's apartment; so that both small families could offer each other the love and support of an extended family.
Once the twins had actually arrived (a very serious-faced little white-haired girl with Shizune's bright eyes and both a glare and pout to rival Kakashi's, named Shouhime and a freckle-faced little boy, Toraboru—who now, at two, was already more of a handful than Iruka ever had been, particularly because he always had his quiet, solemn sister to whisper into his ear and help with his trouble-making—were very aptly named), three months after baby Maito, Kakashi had officially pulled his name off of the roster of active jounin and took up Iruka's suggestion of a genin team.
Tsunade still grumbled about it a bit, but Naruto, primed to take over—didn't have a problem letting his old sensei take the safer position, knowing it would at least keep one of his precious people closer to home. Amai ended up taking quite the liking to Kakashi's eldest student, who, due to the proximity of the Inuzuka compound was always over causing trouble with Tora by teaching him new naughty things—err, I mean, babysitting, yeah! that's it—and followed him around almost as single-mindedly as Konohamaru had once followed Naruto around. She was developing quite a bratty streak of her own, thanks to his influence and was chomping at the bit to start at the Academy even though both her fathers stoutly refused to enrol either her or her siblings until they were at least seven years old (and if Kakashi had his way, never, but Iruka knew better—their kids were destined to be ninja).
Kai, on the other hand, was fine with it and spent a lot of time at the ramen stand and learning from old man Teuchi, who hinted on several occasions that Ayame needed an apprentice since he planned on retiring and Raidou (who had proposed to Ayame that year) didn't particularly want children of their own who could be used against him as a jounin (but Ayame was working on that resolve).
Shaken out of his thoughts by Shou's high-pitched giggling (which could only mean her brother Tora was up to something again, sigh), Iruka came back to the present and popped his and Amai's trays of cookies out of the oven to place on a wire rack to cool. Later, they would be taking the short walking trip over to the Namikaze compound (where Hinata, bless her heart, was very pregnant and laid up on bed rest with her and Naruto's first child, slated to be named Boruto—because the little bugger was already manifesting a stubborn streak to rival his father's, refusing to show up anytime near his due date, instead being two weeks late already. Sakura, as his future Godmother, was pulling at her hair and ready to just induce her friend's labour already, cha!) to deliver the new mom's favourite Iruka-sensei-baked treat. Hinata had elected to take Naruto's last name, which he had decided to keep Uzumaki in his mother's honour, and let her sister deal with the Hyuuga clan title while she and her new husband worked on rebuilding the Uzumaki-Namikaze clan.
As Iruka then entered the living room (to, predictably enough) find Kakashi asleep in his position on the futon where he had obviously still been sulking about Kai's friend while their youngest daughter sat on the floor, looking up at her brother (who—and Kami was Teru going to be in trouble for teaching the toddler to wall-walk after his white-haired, red-faced jounin-sensei had expressly forbidden him to teach his son anything else that could make it harder to catch him after watching the ankle-biter learn how to pump chakra down into his legs to run faster, "Like Daddy!" the two year-old had crowed when his Papa had told Iruka—was upside down on the ceiling) with a small smile and her hands clasped together. She had recently taken to trying to yank down Kakashi's mask in public anytime they were out and he happened to be holding her—so it was also no surprise that Kakashi's mask was pooled at his neck and there were marker drawings all over his cheeks—and marker stains on both Shou and Tora's hands.
He positioned himself under the toddler before anyone noticed him, then bellowed, "Toraboru you get your naughty little butt down here!" startling the youngster into losing his concentration and dropping into his Daddy's arms with a sheepish grin to counter Iruka's furious scowl.
At the sound, Kakashi sprang up, drool still lingering at the side of his mouth and he uttered a bleary, "Wh'sh goin on?"
Iruka sighed, handed him a mirror (which Kakashi briefly looked into, woke up completely and shrieked) and left the room with Tora in search of his lover's only male student to properly chastise Teru about the dangers of teaching a two-and a half year old with a wicked sense of adventure and a built-in audience to show off for in the form of his sister and best friend, Maito Sentoki how to use chakra to cling to walls and ceilings.
Kakashi lamented—quite loudly, in fact- to his youngest daughter (who looked at him in a way only a Hatake-Umino brat could manage) about how she should not colour on Papa's face because they had guests coming over for dinner from out of town to stick around while Naruto and Hinata welcomed their first child (Jiraiya was already in town, staying at the hotel attached to an onsen down the road—surprise, surprise—while Genma and Gaara (The Kazekage was chosen to be the new Uzumaki's other God-parent—Iruka really hoped the pinkette and redhead could learn to argue a little less for their young charge's sake) were arriving this afternoon.
She obviously inherited her father's genius, as she left him flabbergasted by responding with a sarcastically sniffed, "Papa doesn't show anyone but us his face anyways." before marching off after her Daddy and brother.
Ah yes, life was good….
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sorry for all the run-on sentences this time—I know it's a bit sloppy of me, but aaaaanyways…
Okay- now I'm really done, because the adoption process would be posted as a different story if I do end up writing it.
Luvs, hugs, bisous and cookies! (We've got it all on the dark side, lol.)
Chickie
