Protector

Five years later…

"I, Uzamaki Naruto, promose to protect this village, no matter WHAT!" Sakura, standing to his right, rolled her eyes. A very inquisitive little girl with pink hair that stuck out everywhere and bright blue eyes was trying to climb out of her mother's arms to get to her father. Finally succeeding in getting his attention, Kushina pulled on his robes until he gave up and picked her up. Just then, a small blond head peeked around the bottom of Naruto's robes and rolled his eyes at his sister's behavior. Jiraiya's spiky hair and green eyes belied the very calm and very quiet demeanor.

Hinata rubbed her growing belly as she sat behind her son and daughters, Neji's arm around her as they watched their close friend become the sixth Hokage. Their youngest, Temmeru, was pulling her brother's long, thick dark hair, trying to get him to play with her. Hizashi had other plans, however, as he kept watching Rokushii as she played with her fan.

The sand sibling's daughter was trying to make the same wind waves that her mommy did, but it wasn't quite working, so, she snapped her fan closed and used it to bludgeon her baby brother on the head, instead. Okamaru just rolled his eyes and turned over to his side to continue watching the clouds. A very pregnant Temari took the fan from her daughter before she could start anything else.

Hinata smiled at her other daughter as she and Midori played quietly together. They were currently trying to figure out just how to win at "Rock, paper, scissors." Hikari couldn't understand how she won so often. Unbeknownst to Hikari, however, Midori was letting her win. Though Hinata wasn't sure if that was because he was distracted from staring at her so much, or if it was because he just tried to lose. Hinata cringed at the thought of what Hikari would do to Midori if she ever figured it out.

Hinata let her eyes travel over the other couples sitting in the small park in the center of the new Konoha. Chouji was currently trying to slip his daughter, Seika, some potato chips when her mother wasn't looking but unfortunately for Chouji, Ino seemed to have a sixth sense about it. Chouji had tried to name her Potetchu, but Ino had put her foot down. It was one thing to eat them, another altogether to name their child after them.

Hinata's gaze rested next on her sister and her former teammate. Kiba was trying to keep Niku from pulling on Chairomaru's ears. Their son had just turned two the other day and Hanabi was already showing from their second. Chairomaru kept trying to climb onto Niku's lap, but every time he did, Niku took that as an opportunity to see just how far the dog's ears stretched…which wasn't that far. Akamaru finally took him in hand and picked up his pup by the scruff of the neck and stuck him between his front legs.

Shino sat next to Kiba, and here Hinata paused. Mushiai had introduced herself to Shino while they were out visiting Mori and his wife during their research. None of them had heard anything about it until she showed up in the Leaf about six months after their visit. Mushiai was, apparently, fascinated by bugs of all sorts and Shino was a gold mine of them. She was rather cute in a bookish sort of way. She had round wire-rimmed glasses that kept slipping down her face, dark eyes and very long brown hair, which she kept up in a perpetually messy bun. Not six months after that, they were married and expecting their first child. And poor Shino never thought he'd find anyone. Hinata smiled as Hamushi, their daughter, kept sending one of her beetles over to sit on Niku's nose and annoy him. He'd swipe it away and she'd send it right back.

Now she leaned over and whispered to Tenten, "you might want to tell Midori to stop letting her win or she's likely to do something none of us can stop." Tenten laughed and tried to lean over to reach Midori, but her large belly got in the way. They'd tried for most of the last five years to have another child. Midori had been something of a hard delivery and it didn't help that Lee had passed out a few moments into it. Since then, they'd just about given up on conceiving again, and managed finally, just eight months ago. Sakura had been stymied, unable to figure it out. There had been absolutely nothing wrong with either of them.

They still lived together, in their way. The connecting door was almost never closed and more often than not when they weren't on missions they spent their evenings together and still slept and…other things…in the same bed. The exceptions to that were simply when both women were too big to share a bed with more than one person. In that case, they sometimes kicked the men out and took the bed themselves. Neji never seemed to mind, though. He always beat Lee to the other bed.

Hiashi had passed away earlier this year. He'd held on as long as he could, wanting to see as many of his grandchildren as he could. He'd gotten their clan school off to a very good start and there were four new genin this year educated in Gentle Fist and capable of mastering the Byakugan. Naruto was thrilled with the added Byakugan users in the ninja corps and was already looking forward to using them on missions.

Hinata took a deep breath. Konoha was rebuilt. Their generation was now looking to pass the Will of Fire on to the next. Their children were growing, learning the shinobi ways and learning how best to torment their parents. In what would seem to the rookies a very short time, their children will be the rookies.

Fin.

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For those that might be interested, the playlist I used for this story is here:

Avril Lavigne - When You're Gone
Bif Naked - Lucky
Bryan Adams - When You Love Someone
Cascada - Can't Stop the Rain
Cascada - Everytime We Touch (Yanou's Candlelight Mix)
Celine Dion - Falling Into You.mp3
Celine Dion - Let's Talk About Love - 10 - Us.mp3
Celine Dion & Barbara Streisand - Tell Him.mp3
Chad Kroeger - Hero (1).mp3
Chris Isaack - Wicked Game.mp3
Dave Matthews_Crush.mp3
Dido - Here With Me
Dido - Honestly OK
Dido - Thank You
Eric Clapton - Old Love.mp3
Evanescence - Bring Me to Life
Gloria Estefan - Destiny
Gloria Estefan - Here We Are
Gloria Estefan - I'm Not Giving You Up
Gloria Estefan - Steal Your Heart
Imogen Heap - Useless
Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway
Kitaro - Caravansary
Kitaro - Dance Of Sarasvati
Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love
Linkin Park - Leave Out All The Rest
Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten.mp3
No Doubt - Don't Speak
Peter Gabriel_In Your Eyes.mp3
Roxette - It Must Have Been Love.mp3
Roxette - Listen To Your Heart
Thompson Twins - Lay Your Hands On Me
Tokio Hotel - Monsoon
Tonic - If You Could Only See
Toshiro Masuda - Neji's Theme
Utada Hikaru - Simple And Clean