Chapter 6:

Kiba's eye twitched as the adult men ran around the group in circles, playing. They had whined about being tired two minutes ago and begged for a rest. Now they were full of energy.

"Couldn't they have harnessed this energy for the long trip home? By the time we're ready to head out again, they're going to complain about being tired."

Naruto smacked Boruto in the back of the head as he ran by. Boruto gave chase and tried to wrestle his father to the ground. "If you're so tired then sit down!"

"No!" Naruto kept running, dragging Boruto as he went.

Chocho opened a bag of chips and started munching. "So typical for little kids. Travel's hard for them and now they're burning off the stress."

"And then get tired out for real and we'll have to drag them or extend our stop," complained Kiba.

Chocho continued eating. "Eh."

"You so don't care what's going on, do you?" Shikadai asked, annoyed.

"Of course, I care. What makes you say that?"

Shikadai moaned and rubbed his forehead. "Never mind."

"Still complaining about your dads being this way? I keep telling you it's a sinch once you know what you're doing."

"Then you take care of them," he snapped.

"Uh, hello? What do you think I've been doing since you guys are being such babies about it?"

"You really don't get it, do you?" Shikadai sighed heavily before explaining it to her. "This is incredibly awkward for us. We don't know the first thing about taking care of kids, let alone our parents who think they're kids. How are we supposed to handle this?"

"It's just that we rely on them for so much," added Inojin. "Whenever we need something, food or training or advice, we go to them. We don't know what we're doing."

"Not to mention the fact that they're bigger and stronger than we are. Just look at Boruto." Shikadai pointed to Boruto being dragged around the forest by his father. He tried to weigh him down but Naruto kept going with Boruto clinging to his waist. "They throw a fit and what do we do? We want them to do something, how are we going to make them?"

"You don't have to hold them down to get them to do what you want." Chocho put another chip in her mouth as if to punctuate her statement.

Shikadai didn't know why he bothered to explain it to her. Chocho's mind was made up: children were easy to take care of and the boys didn't know what they were doing and didn't want to try. He was certain that was what she was thinking, based on her behavior.

Shino tapped Kiba on the shoulder. "Look what I found." He held up a blue beetle.

"Get that thing away from me," complained Kiba.

Shino tried showing it to the girls and both Sarada and Chocho hurried away from him, calling it gross. Shino covered the beetle in his hands and slinked away, sad. He thought it was such a pretty color but they didn't seem interested at all.

Leaving Boruto in the dirt, Naruto ran ahead and disappeared for a moment. Boruto was covered in dirt and his arms were sore. He sat where he was, grumbling.

Naruto came back with something in his hand. "I'm sorry. Here's a present."

"Making amends, huh? Thanks a lo- whoa!" Boruto jumped backwards in fright.

Naruto laughed. "It's a frog!"

"You idiot! Put that thing down!"

Naruto just laughed at him. "You're scared, you're scared!" Naruto tried to chase him with it but when the frog started wriggling, Naruto got scared and dropped it. The frog started hopping and Naruto ran from it screaming.

Boruto brushed himself off and returned to the group, muttering under his breath.

"That's Naruto for you," said Kiba. "He loved pulling pranks as a kid."

"I pull better pranks than that," said Boruto.

"That's your problem with it?" asked Sarada.

"No, I have a problem with him in general. Everything he does is annoying."

Sai went over to Kiba. "I'm hungry."

Shikamaru looked up. "Me, too."

"Fine," said Kiba. "Let's have lunch. Might as well." It was already afternoon but they hadn't made as much progress as he would have liked.

Chocho and Inojin helped pass out the food. Sai offered to help as well but Inojin told his father to just sit down and be quiet. Chocho handed Sai some food and told him to take some to Shikamaru and Shikadai. Happy to be trusted with a task, Sai complied.

"He's probably going to mess it up or something. Try some of the food then spit it out so no one can eat it," whispered Inojin to Chocho.

"Kids like having responsibility."

"No, they don't."

Naruto handed Kiba a canteen and asked Chocho for something to eat. Boruto asked where his canteen had gone and Naruto snickered. Seeing how mad Boruto was, Naruto handed Boruto a different canteen. Boruto didn't take it, thinking it was another prank.

Shikamaru handed Kiba his bag of rations. "Open."

"Too lazy to say 'please' or something?" Kiba asked, snatching the bag away.

"Please," answered Shikamaru lazily.

Kiba opened the bag and handed it back to him. "As long as you don't ask me to chew your food for you."

Naruto tugged on Kiba's sleeve. "Chew mine! Chew mine!"

"I was joking, you imbecile!"

Naruto opened his mouth, pointing to the food inside. "Chew it for me! Chew it!" He laughed when Kiba shoved him away, thinking it was funny.

"You are so disgusting."

Sai whimpered, seeing Naruto's open mouth full of food, getting grossed-out. He put his food down and refused to eat.

"Just ignore him and eat," Inojin told his father.

Sai pushed the food away with both hands. "No."

"Don't look at him," Inojin advised.

Naruto snickered. "Hey, Sai…" When he looked, Naruto opened his mouth, showing off what was inside. "Blah!"

Sai shrieked and covered his eyes with both hands, whining.

"Look, Sai! Look!"

"No!"

Kiba put his hand on Naruto's shoulder. "Naruto, sit down and stop doing that. Sai, quit whining and eat."

"No!" he whined shrilly.

Naruto sat down. "It's ok. I won't do it again."

Sai lowered his hands just as Naruto opened his mouth to show him his chewed food. Sai screamed and ran from the group, trying to get away from Naruto.

"Dad, come back!"

Kiba grabbed a fistful of Naruto's hair. "If you don't want to lose your eating privileges, you'll stop that right now."

Naruto gave Kiba a puppy-eyed expression.

"I'm serious. Either eat your food without showing it off, or I'm taking it away and you go hungry. You'll just watch everyone else eat while you sit in timeout."

Naruto pouted and swallowed his food.

"Am I clear?"

"Yes…" Naruto wouldn't look at him, pouting.

Sai refused to come back to the group, worried Naruto would disobey and do it again. He hid behind a tree and Inojin gave up on coaxing him out after less than a minute of this.

Chocho frowned when Inojin sat back down with the group. "You're leaving Uncle like that?"

"He doesn't want to come and I want to eat my lunch. He'll come back when he's ready."

Chocho scoffed. "Reassure him, you idiot. He won't come back unless he feels safe enough to do that."

"I can't blame him for running off like that. Seventh was being really gross."

"Console him," Chocho pressed.

"I did."

"You gave up way too quick."

Sai slowly slinked back to the group and ate his food without looking at anyone.

"See?" said Inojin. "Everything's fine."

Chocho sighed.

As Kiba ate, he mulled over the plan in his head, speaking when he felt he had a good handle of the situation. "If we keep going down this road, we'll reach the village in a couple of days. Provided everyone hustles."

"And since we can't rely on that?" Boruto asked, glancing up from his meal.

Kiba put a hand to his chin. "Cutting through the forest will shave some time off our journey, but I don't trust these guys to travel through the trees. We'll have to take the road."

"Even if it will take longer?"

Kiba sighed. "It'll be days before we reach the village, but I don't see a point in calling for help. More people, more travel time. Besides, how are they going to make these guys move faster? Might as well keep it to just us."

"Are you sure?" asked Sarada, concerned. "I'm still not sure we shouldn't call for help from the village. In a situation like this…"

"Wouldn't it be more efficient to call for backup?" asked Shikadai. "Going it alone like this…"

"What are they going to do?" asked Kiba. "They'll have the same problem as we do. Plus, now we have more people to keep track of, feed and travel with. It will take up even more time and we're sure to be spotted with such a large group."

"It's not like there are any enemies around," said Shikadai.

"Trust me on this," said Kiba. "We call for backup, we'll have to stand around and wait for them to arrive."

"Can't we just have them meet us on the road? Or go back to the inn and meet up with them there?"

"More money to stay at the inn with so many people. Plus, you saw what it was like staying there with these guys. It'll eat up too much time, whether we double back or wait where we are. We'll take them back to the village and not call for help. I don't see a point to it."

Shikadai and Sarada didn't argue but they both had reservations about the decision.

"I know it will be tough…" Kiba paused seeing Naruto pour a canteen over Boruto's crotch then complain that Boruto was being mean when he tried to punch him. "But we can do this. We have a large group here as it is. I see no reason to call for aid."

"He's right," said Inojin. "What's backup going to do? More people to stand around and wonder what to do? There's no point."

"I guess so…" said Sarada. She figured some adults would know how to handle the child-minded ones, but after Inojin said that, it occurred to her that they would probably just stand around confused and unsure of what to do. There was no guarantee the adults who arrived would know how to handle them. It would be more of the same just with more people.

"They won't have to know anything. They'll just pick them up and carry them back to the village," said Shikadai. "They're too big for us to do that, but other adults…"

"Trust me," said Kiba, "we're making the right move by not calling for help."

"I doubt anyone in the village would know how to treat this anyway," said Mitsuki.

"But you said your parent researched the spring," said Sarada. "Wouldn't they know how to reverse this?"

"I don't think so, since my parent abandoned it."

Kiba shook his head, troubled. "We may be the best ones suited for this job. They're your parents and I've known these guys since we were kids. The backup might argue that we should be the ones to handle this." He took a drink from his canteen.

"Ok, so no backup," said Sarada. "Which is fine. There's only four of them and seven of us. As long as we each keep an eye on one of them at a time, we can keep track of this. And we can ask Kiba for help since he knew what they were like when they were young."

Boruto pushed his father away from him. "Someone switch with me. If we're pairing up with a buddy, I'd rather take anyone but him."

Naruto pouted and tried to take some of Boruto's food. When Boruto prevented him, Naruto responded by knocking it to the ground.

"You are such a brat!"

Naruto stuck out his tongue.

Mitsuki raised his brow but not at the duo.

"Fine, then I'm taking your food."

"No!" Naruto threw himself upon the leftovers. "Mine!"

"You ruined my food, I'll ruin yours!"

"No! Meanie!"

"Boruto, now who's being childish?"

"You're taking his side, Sarada?"

"Um, guys…" Mitsuki pointed. "I think we have a situation."

"What?" Boruto snapped, looking away from what he was doing. He blinked when he saw what Mitsuki was referring to.

Kiba was balancing a cracker on his nose and trying to poke it with his tongue. He bucked his head and the cracker started to slide. He caught it with his tongue and, cocking his head, managed to maneuver it into his mouth.

"Uh, Mr. Kiba?"

He chewed his prize and looked at the group. "Wanna see me do it with two?" he asked in a higher voice than usual.

Sarada jumped back from the group in fright. "Is this contagious?!"

"He's acting just like they are," remarked Inojin.

"Does this only affect adults?" asked Chocho.

"He was fine a second ago. What…?"

Naruto giggled and everyone looked at him.

"What did you do?"

Naruto pointed. "I put spring water in the canteens."

"You what?!"

Naruto giggled again, thinking it was a clever joke. No one else found it very funny. In fact, they were panicking.

Boruto jumped away looking at the wet spot on his pants. "You had that water in the canteen you spilled on me?! Does that mean I'm…?"

"It should have affected you by now," said Shikadai.

"Are we immune because we're younger?" asked Chocho.

Sarada and Shikadai both figured it out at the same time. "Kiba drank it!"

Boruto looked from the canteen to Kiba putting crackers over his eyes. "So, when they fell in the spring… It wasn't that the water touched them. It's that they swallowed some of it."

"Drinking the spring does this. Not touching it."

Boruto rounded on his father. "Why would you do that?"

"I thought it'd be funny."

"I'm going to wring your neck!"

"Boruto, we don't have time for that," said Sarada. "Don't you get it?"

"Kiba was the only adult here who could help us," said Shikadai. "He knew these guys when they were younger and could help us. As an adult, he had access to things we don't. He could have helped us keep track of them. Plus…"

"Now we have five adults with toddler brains instead of four," finished Sarada. "We have our work cut out for us now."

Boruto's mouth fell open. They were right. It was almost an even split between who was in their right minds and who weren't. The young shinobi were practically on their own.