Now's as good a time as any to warn you that the one-shots won't be in chronological order. Maybe when (if) I ever complete this sequence I'll sort out the chronological order then. This one, however, introduces the twins and Naruto's genin students and gives a vague idea of how they are.
I don't own Naruto. The only characters I own are my OCs, and in this sequence they, so far, are Makoto, Osamu, Hitomi, Youko and Taiki. More might appear later, but for now that's them.
"Hurry up, Osamu!" the lanky red-head called, "Hitomi, this is no time to dawdle!"
"You'd think it was his, the way he's acting." Osamu mumbled.
Hitomi laughed and ran her slender fingers through her frizzy blue hair.
"Are you coming or what?" the red-head bawled.
"Slow down, Makoto." Hitomi called back, "They won't disappear, you know."
It was hard to tell that this team was on the verge of being pulled from the ninja lists due to injuries only eight months prior. Hitomi was now almost totally blind after having an unknown powder thrown in her eyes, but a better ninja because of it. Osamu, left only with scars on his left hip, had been very close to losing sensation in his leg and being forced to use crutches or a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Makoto had been hit in the shoulder with two kunai and a senbon, but luckily the damage had been mostly muscular and all repairable.
Right now, the trio were headed for the Konoha General Hospital, where their dead sensei's partner currently was. Although they'd never married, they had been very much in love. So much so that the trio had gagged whenever they saw their sensei and his girlfriend together.
They arrived at the hospital in record time from the gates. Despite telling Makoto to slow down, Osamu and Hitomi had gone faster to be here in time.
"You didn't even stop by the Mission Office, did you?" Sakura asked, eyeing the trio of young ninjas, "You're chunin now. There's no reason to hand in reports late unless there's something really important happening."
"Sensei's kid being born doesn't count as really important?" Makoto demanded, insulted.
Sakura admitted that was true, but who'd told them Ino had given birth anyway?
"Choji-san was at the gates telling Shikamaru-san." Hitomi replied, running her fingers through her hair again, "We decided to come here. I sent Gamakichi to Iruka-sensei with the report."
Imagining the toad, now as big as Akamaru if not bigger, turning up at the Mission Office with the mission report made Sakura laugh. Poor Iruka-sensei.
"Don't you have work to do, Sakura?" Tsunade asked, coming down the corridor. She saw the three chunin. "Shouldn't you three be handing in a mission report?"
"Gamakichi's handling it." Hitomi replied.
Tsunade understood, and told them to follow her to the maternity ward. Ino, it seemed, had gone into labour earlier that day and had given birth to twins rather than the expected single baby only twenty minutes ago. A boy and a girl.
"Sensei's got two kids?" Makoto asked.
"Has Ino-san named them yet?" Osamu asked.
"She hasn't told anyone, if she has." the Hokage replied. It had been a while since she'd done midwifery, but she didn't really want anyone else to deliver Naruto's kids.
"Can we go see her?" Hitomi asked eagerly.
Tsunade said they could, so long as they were quiet. She shot a look at Makoto, who grinned sheepishly.
Ino was glad to see them, but wasn't entirely impressed by their state.
"I know you three were out tracking bandits, but did you have to bring the topsoil back with you?" she asked.
"We just wanted to see the babies." Makoto insisted, "We won't touch them. Honest."
Osamu leaned over the sterile plastic hospital bassinets and said, "They're tiny."
"Everyone is when they're born." Ino replied.
"Have you named them?" Hitomi asked, washing her hands at the sink by the door.
Ino nodded, and they all but begged to know the babies' names.
"The girl's Youko and the boy's Taiki." Ino explained, carefully getting up out of the bed.
"Those are good names." Hitomi said, "Osamu, Makoto, what do they look like?" She wanted to know, even if she'd never see their faces.
"They've both got blue eyes, and little bits of blonde hair." Osamu said.
"Youko has whisker marks on her cheeks, just like Sensei had." Makoto added, "They're really faint, but they're there. Taiki doesn't have them."
The trio left soon after that, but not before promising to be babysitters if ever Ino needed them.
--ooo--
"Hey, Sensei." Makoto said, dropping down in front of Naruto's grave, "You're a dad now, but I bet you already knew that."
"They'll probably both be very loud, knowing who their parents are." Osamu added, joining his team mate.
"We'll look after them, Sensei." Hitomi assured the dead man, "Just like you looked after us."
Osamu set a bowl of ramen in front of the tombstone before digging into his own bowl of ramen. Makoto began to slurp his noodles down, while Hitomi carefully ate all of the bits of meat that floated in her bowl before eating her noodles and then drinking the brother.
Although their sensei hadn't been with them for long, he had impressed upon the trio the value of the team and of keeping promises. Now they made a promise to their dead sensei, and until the end they would protect his kids.
When they saw their sensei again, they'd be able to hold their heads high and tell him they'd kept their word.
Out of curiosity, does anyone want a piece that properly introduces Taiki, or should Youko be the main character of the sequence?