AN: New chapter.
Team Sai stood at the ready in front of the Mission Assignment Desk.
The room was rather tense.
The attitude of those in front of the desk were rather lax. Of the three Genin that comprised the squad, two of the three were occupied with general exhaustion while the third had her normal near boundless energy keeping her on her feet, all but vibrating in place. Their squad leader had adopted a relaxed stance behind the three and the Squad Advisor wasn't even present.
Last anyone had seen of him, he was spending the day at the library of all places.
On the other side of the room, those assigned to the Mission Assignment Desk were rather tense.
Iruka Umino was an exception, he was actually more amused than anything at what was going on in front of him. The situation that had made the atmosphere so tense was one he was well aware of courtesy of Naruto. He considered the current situation a vast improvement.
Not that anyone cared to ask a teacher about the wellbeing of one of his former students. His efforts to bring attention to it before Sakura had been met with silence after all.
Gemna Shiranui found himself gnawing on the senbon in his mouth, bending the end of the thin metal between his teeth. He hated that he had drawn the short straw out of the Hokage Guard Platoon to even be at the desk let alone be here for Team 7 making their report.
Choza Akimichi settled for simply staring at the group in front of him, wondered how any of what they did made any sense.
Ibiki Morino's face was blank. Internally, he was debating how to get back at Anko for putting him into what should be her mess to deal with today. He vowed his revenge would be both swift and efficient.
Shikaku Nara merely stared at Team 7, seemed to come to a decision from how he nodded. He was also stuck dealing with this as the current Chair of the Mission Assignment Committee.
"Alright. That makes sense." Shikaku dropped a stamp on the paper he had been handed, signed off their acceptance of Team 7's completed mission. The fires had been put out at least, the structural damage to the Hidden Leaf's aviary being minor upon closer inspection. If nothing else, it helped that the birds had stopped scattering at the sight of the color pink. "Now, with that out of the way, we're going to have to talk about the elephant in the room."
"There's an elephant?" Shikaku was sure Sakura Haruno was just being a smartass with that comment.
He doublechecked the smile on her face. 'Smartass.' He was sure of it.
"No. Because that's what we call a figure of speech." Shikaku shuffled the papers in front of him out of lack of anything else to do. "Now, let's move on to what happened last week. You assaulted a member of the Military Police Force, removed a suspect from police custody, and, at the same time, kidnapped the youngest son of Fugaku Uchiha, the Head of the Uchiha Clan." He spared a glance to green eyes lit up by a smile. "Did I miss anything?"
"Nope." Sakura linked her arm through one of Sasuke's, her smile growing wider. "He's my son now. Itachi even said I could be his new mom and Kakashi's going to show you the really weird rule that lets me have him no matter what you or his ex-parents say."
"If it matters, I'm totally fine with this." Sasuke spoke up form next to her, earned a pat on his head from the shorter Genin.
"That…will be taken into consideration." Shikaku shook his head, made a mental note of it. "Moving on, we can't just let you get away with this Haruno. Even ignoring the fact that this isn't a kidnapping, you still assaulted a member of the Police Force. And broke out of custody. And then you broke another suspect out of police custody. These aren't small offenses, they're serious crimes."
"Silly Nara, you keep getting things wrong. That bully wasn't a member of the Military Police Force, she was part of a program that would let her become an officer later but she wasn't one yet. If we want to be specific, she's a Genin who works for the police with limited authority." As eccentric as Sakura Haruno could seem, she had a tendency to know how to get out of situations like this. "Besides, I was unlawfully arrested."
"The report says differently." Shikaku hadn't believed most of it for a good reason.
"Because it was written by a liar and a bully." Sakura rolled her eyes, her tone almost affronted at how obviously fake it all was. "You should know better. If I really wanted to, that building would be gone." Her smile returned. "Anyway, if we check the rules, I'm still in the clear."
"…Why?" Shikaku had to ask.
He spotted Iruka out the corner of his eye, watched the teacher lean back in his seat, content to watch the ongoing show.
Sakura's smile widened.
"Because my son has a Kekkei Genkai he's still learning to control, Silly Nara." Shikaku made peace with the fact that he had likely just earned a nickname from the girl. Likely for life. "Have you seen what my adorable boy can do? He makes ice like you do your shadow thing. In a stressful situation, it was bound to show itself. And it froze those bad bullies when they were messing with him."
"…There's nothing in his record about having one. Or any reports of similar incidents." Of course, those records would need to be filled out by a parent or guardian after said Kekkei Genkai emerged, a form filed for each incident. It was an, unfortunately, open secret that neither Fugaku or Mikoto had ever bothered to do such a thing. As much as Itachi had protested, urged them to do so, they had ignored him.
Sasuke Uchiha's lack of Fire Release had been a point of consternation for his parents
Itachi's own attempts to fill out the forms, forge the needed signatures, had failed the handful of times he had attempted it.
"Because I wasn't his mom yet! Now I am and Iruka-sensei helped me fill them all out. It was super easy with him there." Her smile became that bit wider, held more than a silver of maliciousness as she spoke. "You'd have to be a terrible parent to not do something like that for your kid."
"…Alright. I give up." Shikaku threw up his hands with the customary Nara laziness, the classic 'Lazy Surrender' pioneered by his clan. "You can have him."
"YAY!"
AN: Another new chapter. This one ahead of schedule.
Review/PM if you want.
Peace.