Disclaimer: I own nothing but the Fox Clan, minus Kyuubi.
In the Council Chambers That Night:
The Hyuga council sits on their knees in a row before Minato. Chakra-restraining cuffs bind their hands and ankles. The Hokage reads the contract between the Cloud ninja and the Hyuga clan. At the end of it, he says, "Hyuga council, you have been charged with high treason which is punishable by death. How do you plead?"
"I'm just sorry that the Cloud ninja are truly the miserable failures that we thought them to be," a Hyuga elder snaps. "They could not even kill a single girl."
Minato frowns darkly, "Than you plead guilty to the attempted murder of my daughter?" The Hyuga elders sit proudly with their chins raised high, but they do not answer.
Hizashi leaves his village council chair and bows before Minato. "Lord Hokage, with all due respect, I would like to carry out their sentence myself, as their Clan Head. It falls to me to punish the ones who have dishonored our clan." Minato glares at the Hyuga council for a long moment before nodding in agreement. Hizashi draws a short sword from his waist and murmurs just loud enough for the condemned to hear, "You have no idea how long I have waiting for this opportunity, swine." He gets into a running stance on the far end of the long line of Hyuga.
"You may carry out the sentence now," the Hokage announces. Hizashi smiles and dashes forward, the short blade decapitating the Hyuga council in one long swipe. A swarm of kunai from Minato pins the Hyuga council's heads to the ground as well turning their bodies into pincushions to ensure their deaths. The Hyuga clan head wipes off his blade and bows to Minato gratefully.
Hizashi turns to the council and announces, "As the clan head of the Hyuga clan, since there is no more Hyuga council, I hereby dissolve the Branch family. They are to be reinstated into the main family. Those that choose willingly to serve the Main family will have their Cage Bird Seal removed and they can remain servants with a servant's regular pay." The Council stares at him in shock. Minato slowly applauds his announcement, the rest of the council slowly joining the ovation. Hizashi goes back to his seat and waits for the clapping to cease.
Once the applause has ended, the Hokage brings in the official representative from the Cloud village whose bodyguards had been killed in their failed attempt. He unleashes a powerful killer intent that makes it hard for the ambassador to breathe. "Your village has come with the verbal intent of making peace. Your three ex-bodyguards trespassed on the Uzumaki clan's land. My land. They attempted to assault and kill members of Konoha. My wives and children. They also violated their restrictions that we have placed on their traveling around Konoha. What do you have to say for yourself, Sir Ambassador?" He eases up on the killer intent enough for the man to be able to speak.
"Lord Hokage, my deepest apologies for my companions' reprehensible behavior. They will be duly punished for their misdeeds. The Village Hidden in the Clouds had no knowledge of any deal behind the scenes. We truly came with the intent of having peace with the Village Hidden in the Leaves," the ambassador says carefully.
Minato states coldly, "They were executed by the Uzumaki clan during their attempted assault on their persons. Not only were they well within their rights as Uzumaki clan members, but also well within their rights as citizens of Konoha. There will be no repercussions for these actions, however, because Konoha still wants peace. However, any further discussions will be at a neutral point, not at either village. There will be no repercussions from the Cloud, I assume, unless they want a full scale war, again. We are very prepared for such an action. The first casualty of such a conflict would be you."
The ambassador swallows hard and glances around the room to take in the hateful stares of each clan head. "The Cloud village will not press any charges, since we were the ones at fault for allowing this incident to occur. I will head back to my village to discuss the matter further with my superiors."
"Do that," Minato grunts. "We shall be waiting. Another thing, get another ambassador to Konoha. If you walk through Konoha's gates again, you will die by my hand for allowing your escort to attack my family. We Uzumaki have no problems with starting a blood feud against the Cloud village. I will gladly finish what I started during the war. If you have any doubts of my abilities, ask the Rock village." The ambassador pales at the killer intent radiating off of every clan head once again. He bows low to the Hokage and scurries from the room, panting once he leaves the room and he is able to breathe again. The Hokage looks around the room at each of the clan heads. He says slowly, "If there is a similar incident ever with any of your clans, I have given my family the right to display the heads of those that are killed in defense of their clan on their gate posts as a warning. Be sure to keep your heads off of those posts. As I told the Cloud ambassador, Uzumaki are not beyond blood feuds. The Council is hereby adjourned." He slams a rock onto his desk and watches each of the clan heads leave the room.
The Next Day:
A loud knocking sound resounds through the Uzumaki household. Kushina groans and slides on her blood stained robe. She answers the door with her sword drawn. She opens the door while stating dangerously, "You had better have a good reason for waking me up."
"Is that any way to treat your children's godfather?" a man's voice says pleasantly. She stares the man standing in the doorway.
Kushina raises an eyebrow and sheathes her sword, "What are you doing here, Jiraiya?"
"It is your children's birthday today, remember? I swore that I would make it to each of their birthdays, so here I am! The amazing Toad Sage of—" he begins.
The fiery redhead cuts him off, "If you continue that little dance of yours, I will hurt you. It is not befitting of a Sannin to act so foolish. Come in. If you try anything perverted, not even Minato will be able to save you."
Jiraiya steps into the house with a nod and places a large scroll on the kitchen table. "I saw a few more heads on the gate posts this morning," Jiraiya comments. "They had Cloud forehead protectors."
"The now deceased Hyuga council hired them," groans Kushina as she rubs her eyes and heads towards her children's room.
Yoshino shakes Minato awake and murmurs, "Jiraiya's here for our children's birthday. He always arrives about this time every year." Minato rubs his eyes and nods as he slides out of bed. He slides on a long robe and goes to greet his old sensei.
In the Children's Room:
Ino wakes up when a very familiar chakra signature enters the house. She glances through his thoughts briefly and shouts, "Godfather is here!" The children wake up from their slumber and run for the front door to greet him.
Jiraiya turns around just in time to be tackled by everyone. "Hey, everyone!"
Naruto says loudly as he clings to Jiraiya's leg, "Did you bring us any new jutsu? Did ya, Did ya, Did ya?"
Sasuke sits on his other leg and continues, "Yeah, we want more jutsu!"
Shikamaru groans from the bedroom and they hear Ino shout, "You're getting out of bed whether you like it or not, Lazy!" A loud smack and a thud later, Ino drags a fully awake Shikamaru from the room.
He rubs his cheek and grumbles, "Troublesome sister." Minato comes out of the room and sits down at the kitchen table. He smiles at the sight of the large scroll and nods to Jiraiya to open it.
Jiraiya laughs and shakes off everyone. He unseals the scroll that has scrawled on the outer cover: Birthday Scroll. A small cloud of smoke rises to reveal wrapped gifts for everyone. He hands the first one to Hinata who snaps off the bow with a single chakra enhanced jab and sits down to see what it is. He hands Choji a larger box. Choji shakes it and sniffs the box. He whispers to himself, "It feels about the size of a chocolate cake…but it smells different." Shikamaru takes his gift and slowly opens it while Kiba tears his apart. Sakura takes hers and opens it, much more excited than her lazy brother. Naruto, Sasuke, and Shino get their gifts too. Ino and Sakura gets the last gifts.
Hinata gets a scroll with the Gentle Fist Fighting Style and a low level water jutsu signed by a friend of their mothers, Hizashi Hyuga. Under the scroll is a pack of sebon needles.
Choji gets a large box of cinnamon rolls. He starts crying from how happy he is and gives Jiraiya a hug. The Sannin pats his head and sends him back to his food. Along with the rolls is a small scroll containing a jutsu which makes the skin nearly impenetrable by changing the skin density with chakra, probably stolen from the Rock village.
Shikamaru finds a scroll and a new Shogi board. The scroll instructs on how to manipulate one's shadow, signed by Mommy Yoshino. He sets down the board in front of his dad and moves the first piece. Minato raises an eyebrow and moves his own piece. The game begins.
Kiba picks up a small box of soldier pills and long fingerless gloves with short spikes down outside of the arms. He grins as he tries them on. Akamaru pulls out a squeaky chew toy from the box and attacks it. It is so slippery that when the dog bites on it, it flies off in the other direction. Kiba laughs as he watches the white puppy running around the yard.
Naruto opens his box to find a two sickle-like Kama(short handled sickles used in martial arts). The blonde holds them like throwing axes before looking down to see a small scroll with a kata in the taijutsu style tae kwon do to be used with his Kama.
Sasuke opened his box to find a set of sai and a scroll with a defensive technique to use with the sai. The dark haired boy picks up the tri pronged weapon and starts to very slowly change his hand grips on the weapon while looking over the open scroll.
Shino gets a scroll on how to use his bugs with jutsu. He looks up at Jiraiya and inquires politely, "Where did you get this?"
Jiraiya smirks, "Let's just say the Aburame clan has some old rivals who want to help you out if it means having one up on Konoha's bug clan. Anything that will piss them off, including helping out you, they'll do." Shino pushes up his sunglasses on his nose and slowly nods before going back to his scroll. Kushina glares at the Sannin.
She pulls him aside and snaps, "Are you talking about the Kamizuru clan of the Village Hidden in the Rocks?" He nods slowly when she continues, "Why would they want to help the children of the Fourth Hokage?"
He answers smoothly, "They just want to get back at the Aburame clan. They have the first Tsuchikage's scroll of forbidden jutsu for bug users that the Aburame don't know. The current Tsuchikage allowed it because he hopes that it will stir up strife in Konoha and maybe weaken it. Not only that, since the Aburame council can't give him jutsu without causing a fuss with the village council, this is the next best thing. The Rock village has no idea how the Aburame feel about Shino. You'd also be surprised what the right amount of cash will do to a person's decisions."
Kushina slowly smiles, "Good enough, I suppose. We'll just make sure their assumptions don't come true." She drags Jiraiya back to the group to finish watching the children open their presents.
Ino gets a white-handled Katana along with a scroll with a kata for her to learn. The scroll is signed by Mommy Kushina.
Sakura opens her box and pulls out two gloves with four retractable claws coming out of the back of each one. She sends a tiny chakra burst to her fists to make the claws extend and then retract. She grins and examines the scroll that came with it to teach her a lightning jutsu to go along with the metal claws.
The children all exchange glances and outside to practice with their stuff. Sakura and Ino talk with Hinata about how cool their new ninja tools look and how they are going to be the best female ninjas ever. Hinata merely nods absently while practicing throwing her sebon needles into one of their training dummies.
Jiraiya and the mothers go outside to watch. "Do they train all the time?"
"When they are not playing with their toys or pranking each other than they train to be ninja. They decided that if assassins are going to come after them all the time, they are going to need to learn how to defend themselves and each other," Yoshino says fondly as she watches them. Minato finishes the game with Shikamaru, letting it end in a tie. He goes out to watch the children as Shikamaru leaves the house to join them. He wraps his arms around the waist of Yoshino and Kushina.
Jiraiya chuckles as he sees Naruto and Sasuke carefully and slowly sparring with each other, helping each other find the weaknesses and strengths of their weapons. Shino is sitting on a small rock and talking to his red bugs about the new jutsu and describing what he will need of them if they agree to comply with the jutsu.
Minato calls out, "Tomorrow, you are all going to the academy, and you're going to show them what Uzumaki are made of!" The children stop what they're doing and cheer. People walking outside of the Uzumaki district walls shiver nervously when they hear the cheering. The surprised faces of the previous attackers leer down at the passerbyers.
Kakashi appears inside the walls and calls out, "I'm here!"
Yoshina states, "You're late!"
"At least I made it," Kakashi replies. He bows to his sensei respectfully and announces, "And I have gifts for everyone!" The children swarm him. He opens up the bag he is carrying and says, "For Hinata, Ino, and Sakura; I have the tree climbing and water walking jutsu since you girls have more chakra control than your brothers."
Kiba growls, "Hey! I have plenty of control!"
Sakura smirks, "Sure you do, brother. That's why you had to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night?" Kiba bites back a retort, knowing full well that answering would give away why he was really awake. He glares at her and turns back to Kakashi.
The masked Jonin eye smiles, "For the boys, I have weighted clothes. There is a guy who constantly follows me around named Guy, and he uses weights a lot to be physically stronger. He's the village's Taijutsu master. If you use them, then you will be strong at Kenjutsu, Ninjutsu, and Taijutsu!"
"What about Genjutsu?" Yoshino asks with a frown.
Naruto says loudly, "Don't worry! Kyu the nine tails won't let genjutsu hurt me!"
"Same with Kumiho the three tails," says Ino.
Sakura pipes up, "Koan the eight tails says that human genjutsu is too weak to hurt us."
Yoshino and Kushina exchange glances while Minato and Jiraiya frown and quickly start examining their seals. "How long have you been talking to the foxes?" Jiraiya inquires.
"A few weeks ago, Shizuka spoke to me," Shino says quietly. "They talked to us all at the same time."
Hinata grins mischievously, "But if we were to cast any genjutsu, than nobody would be able to break out of it other than maybe an Uchiha, but that would have to be a very strong one. I trust Huli the four tails."
"We all trust them," Choji sums up between bites of potato chips.
Kushina frowns, "We'll keep an eye on them. Foxes are known as tricksters."
"They're also known to always keep their word," Yoshino counters. The mothers think about it. Finally, the shadow-wielding woman says, "Until they show bad signs, we'll leave their seals alone. After all, you are a seal master, Minato, and you wrote their seals."
Minato finishes checking their seals and says confidently, "Their seals are fine. The foxes managed to send out a pulse of charka before the sealing was finished to allow themselves to communicate with the children. It's nothing to be worried about." The silver haired copy ninja smiles in relief. He relaxes his grip on the kunai hidden in his sleeve.
Sakura's pointy ears perk up and she says, "The tea kettle is whistling for you, Mommy Yoshi."
The Nara woman stares at her daughter in surprise and runs into the house. After turning off the tea kettle, she comes back out and exclaims, "You were right."
"Of course I was," Sakura says with a smile. "My ears are never wrong."
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