Naruto: News

Something was wrong; Naruto just knew it. Ame-kaa-san had dropped off his mental map after some alarming chakra flares shortly after midday, but having to look after Sasuke -he didn't even want to consider what Kakashi would do to him if he abandoned his injured team-mate even for a few minutes- meant all the blond could do was send a clone. As the minutes dragged on into hours Naruto burned his nervous energy by practising kata with Sasuke and later teaching him how to read braille. Not only was it something made easier by the Uchiha's blindness, but also had a great many further uses in a lifestyle that involved a lot of sneaking around in poor lighting conditions. Once Sasuke got tired of trying to read by touch Naruto moved into improving his spatial awareness while blind, which turned out to be harder than the black-haired boy had initially thought. After much bruising and swearing the younger boy collapsed on Naruto's couch and refused to move until dinner. Naruto had just made a grunt-clone and sent it into the kitchen to prepare dinner when the clone he'd sent out at lunchtime finally dispersed. The influx of information hit him with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the skull, driving him to his knees as his brain struggled to process what had occurred.

"Dobe? Dobe! What's happening? Is something wrong?"

"S'okay, teme. It's nothing dangerous," Naruto said dazedly, eyes wide and a weird grin decorating his face. "It's kaa-san; she had the babies."

"She has? Is she well?" Sasuke had somehow developed an unexpected attachment to Ame. Actually now he thought about it, Naruto realised that Sasuke was likely attached for the same reasons Naruto himself was; both boys were after all orphans and his adopted kaa-san was very kind.

"Yeah, she's fine. Tired but that's all. Three babies though! They're all red and crinkly but so small!" Naruto babbled, rising to his feet and swaying slightly. His clone had been allowed to hold one of them for a moment; as experiences went it was up there with getting his hitai-ite as a high point in his life. Only becoming a geisha or being accepted as a person by Ame could match it in emotional intensity. Kaa-san let me hold her newborn son! The blond blinked once or twice and took a deep breath:

"WAHOO!"

There was a soft patter in the hall as Sakura came to investigate the commotion -Sensei had used what he euphemistically referred to as 'aversion therapy' to get them to move more quietly; team seven were now psychologically incapable of moving loudly- pushed open his front door and stuck her head around it. Naruto had reconfigured his defences after Sakura moved in down the hall from him and they were now personally keyed to people he trusted.

"Naruto, what the hell?" she asked. "Why the shouting? Has a new flavour of ramen come out or something?"

The blond grabbed hold of his pinkette team-mate and improvised a dance around his living room with her. "Rejoice! Ame-kaa-san's had the triplets! They even have Sensei's hair!"

"Nani? You saw them?" Sakura slipped into full gossip mode, seizing control and dragging Naruto over to his sofa and forcing him to sit down neat to Sasuke. "Tell!" she ordered, pulling over a chair from by the dining table and perching on the edge of it.

"Triplets, like she expected: two identical boys and a little girl. The boys have Kakashi-sensei's hair, the colour at least; they have curls rather than spikes. The girl had tufts sticking up every which way exactly like her father except her hair is pale gold rather than Sensei's silver. They all have blue eyes -Tsume-san says that will change as they get older- and their skin is reddish and crinkled, or it was when I saw them. Tsume-san said they were fair-skinned like their parents. They're incredibly small and light, too: I couldn't believe how light.

"Names?" Sakura demanded.

"The boys are called Obito and Yasha and the girl is Nikkou," Naruto recited, a big goofy grin taking over his face again. Sakura squealed, launched herself at Naruto and hugged him tightly. "Ooh! I must go tell Ino! This is so exciting! I bet nobody else knows anything yet!" She dashed of, leaving his apartment door wide open.

"Is it over?" Sasuke ventured quietly. The Uchiha had been very careful not to draw Sakura's attention to himself, being at a severe disadvantage with his eyes bandaged.

"She's gone," Naruto confirmed, getting up and closing his front door properly; " and I thought Kakashi-sensei was excited."

"Sensei was excited? Hatake Kakashi? Are you sure?" Sasuke asked.

"Yep. Grinning so widely I thought his mask would split and fall off," Naruto confirmed. "He was bouncing, teme. Bouncing!"

"That's..." Sasuke looked disturbed. "Strange. Really strange. Sensei's never like that except when he's found a flaw in our strategy he can pulp us with."

"He is a father now teme," Naruto reminded him. "He might change."

"Maybe." The Uchiha did not look convinced. "The chunnin exams are in six weeks time. We'd better continue training if we want do do well in them."

"Do you think he'll let up a bit now he's got kids of his own?" Naruto suggested hopefully.

"He's more likely to work us into the ground so we keel over faster and he can go home early," Sasuke grumbled.

Sasuke's prediction was partly accurate, as was Naruto's. Kakashi-sensei was in a disquietingly perky mood throughout the next few weeks. Said good humour did not however prevent him from working his genin team to exhaustion in training every single day. He did let up slightly in the so-called 'survival exercises' -read beatings- though, moving to taijutsu-only or genjutsu-only exercises rather than free-for-alls.

The other major changes Naruto only heard about through Benihime's customer gossip network: Inuzuka Tsume was on the warpath. She successfully pushed legislation through the clan council and past the hokage calling for more medic training and higher standards, then personally tested the entire hospital staff for physical fitness and chakra reserves. She also pressured the administration into setting aside time for the staff to train and expand their knowledge, in terms of actual jutsu as well as theory and physical fitness. Inin were required to have basic knowledge in at least one field other than their speciality and basic midwifery training was added to the first-aid programme that was now a compulsory part of the Academy curriculum. Anyone without first-aid training had to sign up for a course or lose their shinobi license; Naruto had been trained in civilian first aid at the okiya and was therefore exempt everything except the midwifery. As a man he was exempt the practical course, a relief since he had attended two births as Benihime which he refused to tell his sensei about on principle. Said experience got him through the course in record timing, matched only by Inuzuka Kiba who had witnessed enough of his clan's dogs having pups to have a decent idea of how the human birth process happened. Kiba and the rest of the rookie genin had been horrified by team seven's horror stories of survival training -backed up by their utter lack of squeamishness and relative proficiency in basic first aid- and extremely nervous when they realised that their teams' jounin were having their own first-aid training together as well.

Naruto could tell by the smirk on Kakashi-sensei's face afterwards and the thoughtful expressions of his fellow senseis that soon team seven would not be the only one undergoing weekly hospital visits. He could not however bring himself to care; why should his team be the only one to suffer?

Sakura took advantage of the advanced medical course now being offered by the hospital in a desperate attempt to recruit new inin to accelerate her own training. Naruto had had a clone tail her during her second week there and learned that she was not the only kunoichi taking advantage. Hyuuga Hinata and Yamanaka Ino had both joined the class alongside a passel of older genin -inin did not have to take the chunnin exams in order to be promoted within the hospital- and a few branch Hyuuga. Hinata's presence was anomalous when one considered the Hyuuga clan's views on inin, which Naruto incidentally considered a load of codswallop. Medics were scary; Ijutsu combined with Juuken, the traditional Hyuuga taijutsu style, would be even scarier.

Hinata was still ridiculously shy, but becoming a genin and -more likely- two weeks worth of the 'survival training' that had become a staple for all three rookie genin teams had considerably reduced her stalker tendencies and improved her confidence. She was still shy, but had moved from being easily crushed to subtly passive-aggressive and was more likely to ignore cruelty and disapproval than fold under it. Naruto approved of the change but refused to let her know he had noticed it; encouraging her crush would only get them both into trouble, especially given her family background and his obligation to the Kyuubi.

A little over a month after Ame had given birth and ten days before the chunnin exams were due to start -many of Benihime's clients were slated as examiners in the first test- Naruto was intercepted on his way home on his afternoon off by an ANBU-alike wearing a hood hiding his hear and a mask showing two beady eyes framed by the edges of a closed clamshell.

"Yogensha-sama's family has arrived," the clam-masked shinobi informed him blankly. "You are asked to bathe, dress and make your way to the Hatake compound to meet them as speedily as you are able."

"Right. Arigatou, er,"

"I am Shin." Naruto sensed amusement in there somewhere. It seemed deprogramming was starting to have an effect.

"Arigatou Shin. Please tell Kaa-san I'll be there as soon as I can." Naruto dashed off, taking a moment to disrupt the minor genjutsu the Yuurei had cast on him. It was a harmless but irritating illusion that disrupted his sense of direction, which would have made him get lost and be late unless he paid constant attention to his surroundings; a prank jutsu more than anything else. It was also the first evidence he had received so far of any of the former ROOT-nin having anything approaching a sense of humour, however crappy.

A speedy but thorough wash and wardrobe change later Naruto was walking briskly through the front gates of the Hatake compound in the formal marine blue hakama and kosode embroidered with wind-borne leaves and the red Uzumaki spiral repeated on the shoulders, sleeves and back of the neck. It was a very formal getup, but Naruto rather liked it for all that. It was surprisingly easy to move about in compared to a formal woman's kimono.

Naruto was very nervous at the prospect of meeting his kaa-san's adopted children -what if they don't like me?- and unsettlingly aware that the Sandaime had actually forbidden Ame from adopting him formally and letting him share her name. Whatever it happens to be.

Ame of course had promptly got around the prohibition by demanding to have him fostered with her, which the hokage had been unable to convincingly argue against, given Kakashi-sensei's own connection to the deceased Yondaime. It still rankled though. Why is Oji-san so determined to prevent me from having a happy family to call my own? That prohibition, more than any of the elderly hokage's other slip-ups, was what had alienated the usually forgiving blond from his grandfather-figure. He hadn't gone to visit the old man in weeks.

The Sandaime's decision may well have had something to do with his parentage, but that the old man didn't know Naruto was aware of his father's identity made the fact that he was unadoptable by official order all the more painful. Who cares if tou-san was the Yondaime? He's dead, ghost or otherwise, and I'm not even allowed to bare his name. My mother's dead too, lost royalty or not, so why can't I be allowed to join kaa-san's family? Why am I not allowed to belong? It also made him wonder if anyone else had tried to adopt him when he was younger and been driven off, which did not give him warm fuzzy feelings for the hokage. Especially since -so far as the old man had been aware- he had been alone and very isolated until quite recently. I wouldn't of minded if Oji-san had actually looked after me, but he didn't. He didn't even let someone else do it for him. Ame-kaa-san had to sneak around behind his back to care for me and see to it I was loved.

Naruto shook off his depression, running his fingers through his lengthening blond hair. He hadn't cut it since becoming a genin so it stuck up in thick gold spikes like a gilded hedgehog. The blond knew he'd have to cut it soon; if he left it as it was for much longer he would look more Yondaime-like than ever. People were already giving him funny looks in the street. Although some of those might be people noticing I never wear orange any more.

Pushing his doubts aside, Naruto strode resolutely up the steps of the Hatake clan mansion and knocked politely on the front door. Here goes nothing.

Nikkou means sunlight; 'Yasha' is a type of fierce guardian spirit. Obito, of course, is named for Kakashi's former team-mate.

A/N: Enter the triplets as the changes wrought begin to ripple out into the other rookie teams and the rest of the village. Plus Tsume. I like Tsume. She gets things done. Next up: Meet the Kamen children!