Sick and down with a killer headache but... still got to finish this xD

This was an in-between chapter, something I totally hate usually because big stuff happens in the previous and following chapters, and this has to fill in the gaps - but I think I did an acceptable job here =) Some comic relief before we got to the serious part xD

Anyways, on with the chapter ^*^

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, any of the canon characters or places in Sacrifices. I only own a couple or so OCs. All canons belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

...

"The sudden and violent attack on the Konoha orphanage left citizens shoked and in fear as the threat of a former enemy lurks over Konoha. While there is no confirmation that the incident is indeed linked to Orochimaru, one of the two legendary sannins still alive, the Hokage office searches for every possible clue. Thirty of the kids who are..."

That was when Mitsuki decided that he didn't want to listen to more of it and turned off the television.

The sun was barely up and the Konohamaru platoon was supposed to meet later for an easy mission and a training, but its youngest member had not slept very well to greet the new day. The days leading to the new moon had always been hard for him, and this cycle has been no exception, only topped with the recent incident.

Was it really his father?

Not much has been publicized yet about last night, and although Mitsuki didn't really believe his father was in any way involved, he found himself wondering why the sannin had been the first person to come to mind. It wasn't really a matter of trust, because he refused to believe Orochimaru could act on impulse and without a good reason. It was a matter of curiousity.

He proceeded to the kitchen to take a pill for his increasing headache when he heard his phone chime. He picked it up to see a text message from his best friend.

"Wanna catch up with us for a late b-fast? Sensei is gonna meet us there later."

He thought about it for a moment, then typed. "Sure."

Maybe a little walk could do good to clear up his head a little.

...

It was a nice day outside, the early days of spring when it is neither too cold nor extremely hot.

They were to meet in a cafe they had frequented over the past year, when they kind of got bored of the numerous fast-food restaurants around the town. It was small, cozy and didn't have many customers around this hour, so it had, in one way or another, became their safe harbor.

"We were beginning to wonder when you would be coming," Sarada said good-naturedly when she saw Mitsuki approaching. "Boruto was about to come and get you."

"I walked around for a while," Mitsuki said simply.

Boruto and Sarada looked at each other for the shortest of seconds.

"Is everything alright?" Sarada asked hesitantly.

"Yup. So when will we get going?" said the blue-haired boy, sitting down on the chair next to Boruto and grabbing the toast that was among the many things his friends ordered.

"Konohamaru sensei said he will be here in about half an hour." Boruto explained, also digging in. "Seems like we have a simple mission at hand, and then a training afterward."

"Do you know what kind of mission?"

"Well, we thought it might have something to do with... the orphanage," Sarada said and Mitsuki actually stopped for a second before he moved on to take a bite from the toast. "Apparently, there is a lot of things that need being done, and most genin teams are already assigned."

When his friend kept his silence, Boruto frowned a little. "Dude... you sure you don't want to talk?"

The blue-haired boy looed at him with raised eyebrows. "And you become the team therapist, when...?"

"You know what I mean! If you..."

"Boruto." Mitsuki cut in, giving him a level look. "I'm not gonna break down or anything, as you well know, so let's just eat in peace, okay?"

The blond thought better than to push forward. "Sure." he said, returning to his meal.

...

"So your mission is to supervise the children in grade class for two periods, because their teacher has gone to his wife's childbirth."

"We're going to babysit?" Boruto grumbled with a slight pout.

Konohamaru sighed. "I said supervising. And it won't take children are reported to be very well-mannered. Just give them some reading, maybe play some word games or something, and you'll do just fine."

"Weren't there any new genin-graduates who could handle this? Couldn't we have a more challenging mission, seeing that we competed in the Chunin exams last year?"

"Hokage's orders." the jounin put simply, knowing the real reason behind the decision, but not having the heart to explain it to the kids. All of their academy classmates who had become genins were given tasks to clean up the orphanage and help oversee the control in the area, but with growing hostility towards Orochimaru and the whole village already knowing who Mitsuki was related to, Naruto didn't want Konohamaru platoon to be anywhere close, just in case. "Keep in mind that there are all kinds of tasks that need attention in the village everyday. Right now it is your assignment, and you are expected to be there in half an hour."

"What about you, sensei?" Sarada asked, although doubting that they will need his help on that.

"I will be attending to other business in the village. But as I promised, we will meet in the late afternoon for training. For now, good luck with your mission."

...

It turned out that they would need that luck after all.

"Come again?" Boruto asked in a confused tone. The three of them were standing in front of the class, facing a number of fifteen six-year-old students.

"Where do babies come from?" asked a brunette boy from the back of the class in a very serious voice, his expression meaning business. "Our sensei is gone to meet his baby, and so we are curious."

Boruto looked first at Mitsuki, who shrugged, and then at Sarada, who looked very awkward. The Uchiha then cleared her throat, blushed a little and put on an embarrassed smile. "Uh... from the hospital... I guess."

The kids didn't look at all impressed with the answer.

"Well, duh..."

"Laaame..."

"We're not three-year-olds, y'know."

Both Boruto and Sarada turned to look at Mitsuki at that moment, wearing a do you have a better explanation? face. The younger boy thought about it for a second.

"Well, sometimes..." he began, making each head in the class turn eagerly towards him. "They come from the test tubes, too." he finished helpfully, and heard his friends gasp.

There was an awed silence as the grade class kept staring at the blue-haired boy and Mitsuki actually started wondering if he said something wrong.

"That's... wow..." one of the kids whispered at last.

"Way original from that 'brought by the stork' story."

"Hey, does that mean there is a baby lab somewhere?"

Mitsuki didn't know how to answer that, and another awkward silence fell on the three genin. "Eh..."

"Okay, uh, so we were told that you have a reading assignment," Sarada immediately interjected before the kids would come up with something equally embarrassing. "So turn your books to page 197 and carry on."

She was immediately met with protests - and loud ones at that.

"Heeey, we thought we had skipped that."

"You're not our sensei, give us something funny to do!"

As the kids' complaints got louder and louder, Boruto finally lost his patience - were they this nagging themselves when they were at this age? And how can anyone consider these brats as well-mannered? "BE QUIET, DATTEBASA!"

The kids all hushed up at that, their eyes going wide. Satisfied, the blond smirked. "Now go on with the reading."

...

Konohamaru checked his watch, wondering how his students were doing. It was nearly 3.30 pm, so the team had an hour more to finish the mission.

He began reassassing the training session he planned for them when he saw a chuunin approaching him. They greeted each other briefly.

"There will be a meeting in Lord Hokage's office in an hour, to which you're required to attend." the chuunin explained. "There will be a briefing to all the clan leaders and higher-ranked ninjas about yesterday's incident."

That meant that he would have to cancel the training, but this was important. "I'll be right there."

...

It was the last period, in which the team had moved from reading assignments to word games, seeing that it was getting really boring just standing there idly, staring at the children. The game was quite simple, every person had to find a noun with the last syllable of the word given by the previous person, and if anyone wasn't paying attention, they were left out of the game. It became such fun that the trio just had to join in themselves.

"Hmm..." Boruto thought for a minute, eyebrows slightly furrowed in concentration. "Hiro."

"Hah!" the kid before him exclaimed with a smug expression. "Got it wrong! It's 'hii', not 'hi'!"

"What? It was 'hi' too!"

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

"Was not! I said 'Oishii', as in delicious! You baka, you're out!"

"Now, look here you little..."

"Boruto cut it out, let's move on."

"Didn't know you were a sore loser... Banana-head." the kid mumbled in what he probably thought was an undertone. At that, the whole class burst into laughter.

Boruto, who was clearly flushed, was still quick with a comeback. "If you don't cut it out now, Mitsuki here will have to restrain you with his noodle arms."

That actually rendered the kids speechless for a moment, which was broken again when a completely baffled Mitsuki asked, "My what?"

"That's for calling me banana-head."

"But I never called you... banana-head."

"Well, you just did."

The kids were all cracking up, which made Sarada smile despite of herself. They... were handling this mission good enough.

Then the girl sitting directly in front of her looked up at her with big eyes. "Do you have a funny name, too?"

The whole class was holding its breath now.

"What?" Sarada asked, blushing ever so slightly. "No, I don't!"

"Of course she does!" Boruto chimed, suddenly very much into this name-game now that his best friend also had a food related name. Sarada stiffened. 'You are not gonna say that.' she thought, frustrated. But of course, Boruto did just that. "Her name literally means Salad!"

Anyone passing by the classroom would've had a double take hearing all the ruckus coming from inside. The kids were laughing so hard that some of them were actually crying.

"Uzumaki Boruto, you're so dead!"

'Uh oh!' Mitsuki thought as he saw Sarada rush forward to jump on Boruto, and did two quick handsigns. His arms suddenly extended sideways as his jutsu worked and caught Boruto and Sarada from their middles, sending each of them to a corner of the classroom.

"Not in front of them." he warned his friends.

The team was caught unawared when the kids started cheering and clapping, clearly enjoying themselves. "Go, food team!" one of them yelled, which only got more cheers.

And the trio couldn't help but join in the laughter after that.

They only realized the bell had rung when they heard other classes getting out.

...

"Thank you for your trouble." the school's headmaster said warmly, smiling at the Konohamaru platoon. "The kids apparently had a great time and I actually got a few of their fellow students wanting to know if you can come to their spare lessons, too."

"Thank you, Mikoto-sensei." Sarada said respectfully. "We enjoyed our time here, too."

"Now, one more thing before you go." the woman said. "Your sensei dropped in a message earlier, asking me to tell you that he couldn't make it to the training."

"What? Why not?" Boruto asked.

"He didn't specify." the woman said simply. "You may go now. I will send my report to lord seventh first thing tomorrow."

The blond waited until after they got out of the office to voice his thoughts in an undertone. "Sensei is better not meeting my aunt."

...

The meeting hall was filled to its maximum capacity.

Konohamaru, seated in the front lines where the Sarutobi clan members were, took a look around the huge room. All the seven important clans were here, including his, as well as many important jounins and the ANBU. Naruto, the sixth Kakashi Hatake and some of their trustees were standing at the very front, facing all those who had gathered. They had just briefed all the Hokage office gathered about last night.

For some odd reason, the setting reminded him of trials.

There was a buzz of talking, which ceased immediately when Naruto cleared his throat. At the small pause before he started, Konohamaru met the eyes of Hyuuga Hanabi, who blushed slightly and gave him a very small smile, which he returned.

"We've analyzed the nature and technique of last night's attack thoroughly." Naruto began, and everyone in the room returned to business mode. "The odds are in favor that Orochimaru is indeed after the attack. Three eye-witnesses reported that his curse mark was visible on the culprit."

Naruto paused for a moment. Everyone in the hall kept their silence, but some of them looked at each other, as if coming to a silent agreement.

"Now as for the precautions, we will triple the border guards and change the frequency of their shifts..."

Konohamaru heard his clan's leader clearing his throat. Naruto looked over at him.

"Yes, Sarutobi Kichiro-san?" he asked politely.

"Excuse my intervention, Nanadaime-sama," Kichiro started in a somewhat cold manner. "But I'm sure all of us here are aware of the very first precaution we have to take."

There were murmurings around the room.

"Please, share." Naruto prompted, still politely formal.

Kichiro looked at the people gathered in the hall. "We have been tolerating this for so long, but we had been doing it wrong from the beginning." He turned and looked at Naruto directly in the eyes. "Excile that kid, Mitsuki, from Konoha. Our hospitality for the snake's boy has run its course."

...

I imagine you might have some questions after reading this, like why is Mitsuki the youngest of the team or how the heck does everyone in the village know about his parentage... I promise, there are full-fledged explanations behind all of those questions, just not in this very chapter =)

And OMG Naruto fandom weirdos what are you doing to my mind? xD That's in reference to Konohamaru platoon's recent nicknames, which you will see featured in the chapter.

Anyways, please leave a review, folks :)