Title: Namikaze

Summary: In a world that is slightly different from the one we know Minato and Kushina live. Now the children of this world must grow up to become the amazing Shinobi we all know and love - only a little differently. Joined by a few new faces can the rookies navigate a world full of blood, politics, schemes, and mysterious enemies intent on killing them?

Kareru's testimony was only enough for Minato to put the merchant under surveillance. Akane had never been more angry in her life and it was the council's fault. As much as Minato wanted to they wouldn't let the Hokage risk a well traveled and influential business partner over the word of a child. Akane had never been more convinced they were a bunch of high and mighty a-holes. It took two weeks worth of suspicious activity for them to allow Kushina, only because she threatened them, to set a corp of Jounin on him.

The Jounin seized everything he'd brought with him into the village. Along with his noted legal merchandise they found plenty of illegal substances. All of them paled in comparison to the rag tag bunch of children they found huddled away in a carriage. They weren't surprised to see two Konoha native children had been added to the seven Kareru had informed them about. The children had been taken from their homes in the middle of the night just that past week. They might have lost more if Kushina hadn't told the Elders to shove a kunai up their assholes and done what she wanted anyway.

Iyashi, the child thieving merchant, was taken into custody along with his staff and the children had been set free and sent to the hospital for care. Kareru and the other children had given them plenty of reason to believe the merchant was part of larger ring of slave traders. How far reaching this slave trade had gotten to be was the core question of the Interrogation Squad. It all left Akane with a bad taste in her mouth and she was sure the issue wasn't over.

The only thing that distracted her from the situation was Team Seven's return. The bunch looked like they had stepped out of a war zone. They were sporting any kind of scrape, bruise, cut, and puncture you could think of. Everyone was shocked to hear that genin team had scrapped with one of the most dangerous shinobi Kiri ever produced and all of them had come out alive.

Despite his own wounds Naruto had laughed at the yellow-green of the healing bruise on his sister's face. Akane punched him in the face in retaliation, if he thought it was so funny he could enjoy one of his own. Kushina had to tear the scuffling pair apart.

Naruto had a pretty nifty story to tell his sister about his first battle as she clumsily tried to redressed his wounds in the kitchen that night. He went on about how he saved Sasuke, if you'd call it that, and about a strange red chakra that sprang up when he thought the other boy had died. The red chakra bit caught her attention. Had Naruto had used the Kyuubi's chakra?

Now that they knew about the fox demon inside of them Akane had been hyper aware of everything that set her and her brother apart from the other genin. They were mostly normal but due to being Jinchuuriki they had developed massive amounts of chakra. Chakra that Naruto struggled to control and Akane could barely manage.

Perhaps the only reason she could manage a bit better than her brother was her earlier start in learning control. As a toddler she had suffered from unstable chakra flow which had made her susceptible to illness and caused aches and pains. It persisted through most of her childhood until sometime roughly around the end of their first year in the Academy. It was one of the reasons she greatly disliked hospitals.

"-and now I can walk up trees!"

Naruto's loud voice cut her out of her thoughts abruptly. Her brother winced has her hand jerked the bandage a bit too tight. He turned to chew her out to be gentle but her questioning look stopped him. It also sent him rambling on about an exercise Kakashi had them do. Kakashi had sent them into the woods to climb trees using chakra. It was slow going as this particular field of study was something, as mentioned before, Naruto had always struggled with. She was surprised when he told her Sasuke had trouble with it too but her twin didn't lie to her, often.

He never lied to her when it came to Sasuke. The boy was like a brother, or close cousin, to the two of them.

"It was tough at first but I got some pointers from Sakura and it made sense. Me and Sasuke spent all night working on it! It took a long time but we got it and it was amazing. You shoulda seen the view from the top of the trees-" He laughed out.

Akane grabbed her brother by the shoulders a little roughly, "Show me."

So they found themselves outside standing next to a tree. Slowly Naruto forced chakra to his feet and climbed the tree. If his hair and clothes didn't adjust to hang toward the grown she'd almost believe he was defying gravity completely. Akane tried it for herself and decided it was one of the oddest sensations she'd ever felt. Defying logic could give you something of a head rush. It took a lot of focus to keep the chakra flow even at first but became easier as she got the feel for it. She took baby steps up the tree until she was almost at the same height as her brother before she stopped. The tree wasn't very large and falling from this height wouldn't kill them but it would hurt.

"What are you two up to?"

Two pairs of sapphire blue eyes swiveled to spot Obito Uchiha and his ward, Sasuke.

"So you were having Naruto show you how to climb trees?"

Akane nodded at her father's student using her chopsticks to grab another chunk of pork. Minato and Kushina were working late that night and had asked Obito to check up on the twins. Being the nice guy he was he opted to bring them dinner, which was really just left overs from Rin's cooking the night before. Sasuke had been dragged along for the ride.

"Rin Sensei hasn't hasn't shown us that yet. She did show us how to make barriers though." Akane mentioned.

Obito nodded sagely, "Sounds about right. Rin's been working on her barrier skills for awhile now."

Obito looked pretty proud of his girlfriend as he nodded in affirmation. They really weren't sure what he was nodding about. Obito was kind of spacey sometimes though he was probably thinking something in his head. Something he probably wouldn't opt to share with them only further leaving them in the dark.

Sasuke broke the silence, "What other jutsu were you taught?"

"Mom's been teaching us some basic sealing jutsu-" Akane started only to be cut off by her brother.

"Dad won't teach me the Rasengan! Can you believe it? Shouldn't stuff like that be passed on?" He began to rant.

Akane only sighed used to hearing this particular tirade. Sasuke was mildly confused. What was the Rasengan? Whatever the case was Obito snapped back to attention with a glint in his eye. Akane knew to be careful of that look, Naruto often got it when he came up with a new prank. Obito didn't get up to nearly the same amount of mischief Naruto did but it was best to be wary.

"Have your parents tested your chakra affinities yet?"

Naruto raised a brow, "Chakra what now?"

Obito went on to explain in detail how Chakra had affinities. While you could have more than one type everyone had one they matched up with the most. That one was called their affinity and using jutsu of that type was markedly easier for the person, though could still be tough to master.

"How do you test it?" Akane asked.

As it happened it took a special type of paper which somehow Obito just so happened to have on him. Like he'd planned this all along. Obito had each genin hold a single piece in the palm of their hands. Three confused sets of eyes stared expectantly at him. He told them all they had to do was force some chakra to the paper and see what it did.

Sasuke's paper wrinkled, Naruto's sliced in half, and Akane's went damp.

"There you go. Sasuke is Lightning, Naruto is Wind, and Akane is Water." Obito explained.

Naruto blinked a little, "So I have the same affinity as Dad right? I can learn the Rasengen?"

"Naruto don't start bothering Dad again." Akane warned.

Her twin ignored her. Now that he knew he had an affinity for wind jutsu his dad had to teach him. He just had to tell his dad this. Fully convinced he had a sound argument he legged it out the door.

Sighing Akane turned to Obito, "Your in trouble now."

"Smooth move." Sasuke added.

A few hours later Obito and Sasuke were gone and Naruto returned looking appropriately dejected. He joined her at the sink to help with dishes, something he rarely did willingly. He remained silent but sometimes thats all he need to do for his twin to understand.

"I'm sure Dad will teach you someday." She assured passing him a wet plate.

Naruto dried the plate and stacked it in the cupboard but otherwise didn't respond. She tried a few more attempts to make conversation but he only grunted or shrugged in response to her prodding.

Well if that was the way he wanted to play it.

Akane scooped a handful of bubbles and, using to chakra to make sure they went where she wanted, threw them at her brother. Bright blue eyes looked her in shock through the mass of bubbles. Naruto than grabbed his own handful and threw them at her. Instantly the dishes were forgotten and the twins were having a bubble fight in the kitchen.

Thanks to the use of chakra it didn't take long for the kitchen to fill with even more bubbles and they were slipping and sliding around the room trying to catch one another. Naruto lunged for his sister who barely dodged him because they both slipped at the same time. She crashed to the floor and he flew over her then went slipping across the floor into the far wall.

"What on earth are you two doing?"

The twins only laughed from their positions trying to stand and failing miserably because they were laughing so hard. Kushina didn't know what to say. It wasn't exactly the calm clean home she was hoping would greet her but with a set of twins she had long ago realized she wouldn't be finding that anytime soon. This was a nice alternative though.

"Alright, clean it up. Jeez how did you two whip up this many bubbles?" She sighed waving her arms at the mess as if she could shoo it away.

It took them awhile to get rid of the bubbles but afterward the kitchen sparkled and the dishes were finished. Kushina ruffled her twin's hair then pulled them both into a tight hug.

"Mmm, I love you two." She sighed softly.

"Long day?" Naruto questioned.

Kushina nodded but gave them a warm smile and nodded, "But I get to come home to you two so I'm feeling much better."

The twins gave her identical smiles and hugged her tight around the waist. Coming home to see the happy faces of your family was incredibly healing. Especially after the days they were having recently. The work was tough but the twins loved it. Working hard to help their father and serve the village was a sort of rewarding they hadn't expected. As Academy students all they thought about was getting out there to fight the bad guys and save people and become heroes. Their first few missions were humbling and did much to show them that there was more to Shinobi work than the flashy fighting styles and war stories. They helped people in small ways now but they were determined to work their way up to the level their parents were at.

"We all have a long day waiting for us again tomorrow so let's get cleaned up and get some rest."

"Right. We'll work hard again tomorrow." They chorused together.

The next day they woke up before the sun to the sound of banging against the front door. It was a mystery to Kushina when he husband had come home but as she came out of the bedroom he was answering the front door. Her son was peeking out his bedroom door rubbing his eyes. She ruffled Naruto's already messy bed head as she passed him. He grumbled something under his breath and wandered toward to bathroom.

Minato was still trying to calm the man, a freshly promoted chuunin, when she joined him. The younger man was clearly in a panic as he flapped his mouth and huffed trying to speak. She almost though it was kind of funny until he finally managed to force his message out.

"Hokage-sama! The prisoner, Iyashi Teizoku, has escaped!"

As always I'm happy that you've stuck around long enough to read this chapter! If you enjoyed it please leave a comment or review!