Chapter 6 - Kiba

I don't own Naruto or characters.

And that's all today. Except that the lady who shakes her head at Kiba and considers him lucky that he can at least claim to be talking to Akumaru? Yeah. That seems to be me. I talk to my dog when I take her for walks, but it's really directed at myself...


~6~

Kiba grinned widely. 'Today's the day,' he thought. 'It's today...' All across the Gennin level, thoughts were racing to that same conclusion: 'Today's the day, it's today&'

Multi-Squad Training Day.

A day when all the levels of shinobi teams doubled up, paired into two teams to make one, occasionally a new team being made from three, so that they'd be prepared with another team if the situation arose that they'd need two teams for one mission. Kiba had looked forward to this day; as much as he liked Shino, there was something about this Naruto guy that Hinata used to talk about that he really wanted to know. He wanted to meet the guy, to know him, to make sure he wasn't the one, before he really, truly, honestly, eternally settled with Shino. Chances were, he'd go back to Shino in the end, one way or another--but if he didn't take Naruto for a test drive first, he'd always be unsure if Shino was the right one.

"You ready, Akumaru?" Kiba asked his pet and sidekick dog.

"Arf!" Akumaru yapped, wagging his tail as Kiba raised him up to his chest and zipped the dog into his fur-lined hoodie with him.

"Okay, let's go!" he exclaimed as he set off running to the mutual training grounds.

A nearby housedweller, a neighbor of Kiba's, sighed as she sipped her tea on her front porch. "Uses that dog as an excuse, that one. He's really just like I am, talking to myself or to no one in particular. He's just lucky that he can blame the dog. No such luck for me, no sirree..."

Kiba arrived at the training grounds and met with his team. "Hey Shino!" He greeted, skidding to a hault before his current best-choice boyfriend. He turned his head to nod to Hinata. "You too Hinata. Oh, and, Sensei!" he added, nodding with a wide smile at his teacher.

Hinata stood there, her fingers poking together. "Oh, hi, Kiba..."

"Hey, is something wrong?" Kiba asked, wondering what his teammate was fretting about. Supposedly, Hinata got a boyfriend or something, and it wasn't Naruto. Maybe she was nervous that she'd try to cheat on that boyfriend?

"O-oh, n-nothing, not really," Hinata answered uncertainly.

"Her boyfriend is probably on our assigned squad," Shino suggested monotonously.

Nobody really knew Hinata's boyfriend--for all they knew, he was a girl, or he didn't exist at all, so Shino was only speculating, even if he was pretty much right. However, Kiba didn't know this, and he said, "Ohhh, that would make sense...but, wait, isn't the only other guy on that team Sasuke or something? Hinata, are you going out with Sasuke?"

"No," Hinata told her team honestly. "A-although...Shino is...basically, I guess...r-right..." She looked away, toward the floor, and blushed brightly.

"Huh?" Kiba asked. He mentally went over the list that they'd received, explaining which team was paired with which other team. The team they were paired with was team seven, consisting of Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, and their teacher Kakashi. So, if Hinata wasn't going out with Naruto or Sasuke, and yet her boyfriend was on team seven...Kiba suddenly got an image that he wasn't sure he wanted to see, and he scrunched his face up as he asked, "Ugh, Hinata, you're not going out with their teacher, are you?!"

"Wha--no!" Hinata answered almost immediately. "Th-th-the only th-thing that sh-Shino has w-wr-wrong is...u-um...w-well, I n-never said I have a b-boyfriend..."

"Ohhh, you mean that you're crushing severely on someone from team seven?" Kiba asked.

"N-no, sh-sh-she loves me b-back," Hinata stammered, poking her fingers together as she looked at her own feet, her blush visible even with so much of her face pointed down.

"Um...then, doesn't that mean you're his girlfriend?" Kiba wondered, confused because of his own ignorance. "And that means that he's your boyfriend, so...you entirely contradicted yourself, you said you don't have a boyfriend and then you said you have a boyfriend! Hinata, could you try to make sense?"

"She is making sense, you dolt," Shino told Kiba, slightly snappish because of irritation at his boyfriend's stupidity. "Listen to gender--she said that--"

"Yeah, both times she said that her boyfriend is a boy...friend," Kiba responded pointedly, entirely convinced that he was right.

Shino shook his head. "I give up. Hinata, you should give up too. He needs to figure things out on his own."

"I'm the one who needs to figure things out? Kiba demanded. "You two are the ones who need to figure out that you're not making sense! Who could Hinata's boyfriend possibly be if he's on team seven, but he's not Naruto, or Sasuke, or Kakashi? The only person left is Sakura, and she's a girl!"

"Listen to gender, Kiba," Shino muttered, so quietly that nobody else heard. "Listen to gender."

A rustle was heard in the bushes and Kiba called a welcome. "Hey, you guys finally came! What took you so long?"

Naruto was the first to appear, dark circles under his eyes and a grouchy expression on his face. "Go ask Sensei--he'll tell you all about his cute little misadventures that got him 'lost on the road of life' or whatever he says..." Naruto proceeded to sit at Kiba's feet, lay down, and promptly fell asleep.

Sasuke came out next. "Yeah, Sensei kept us waiting too long. And don't mind Naruto's rudeness, it's his own fault. If he'd just woken me up, I wouldn't have had to keep him up all night for punishment." He grinned slightly, none too pleasantly.

Kiba watched Naruto and Sasuke closely. 'Hinata was probably just lying when she said that it wasn't Naruto. Or Sasuke. One or the other. But which one&? Hmmm...I'll have to watch them...'

He was so very preoccupied watching Naruto and Sasuke with such close attention that he didn't notice the entrance of Sakura, the pink-haired ninja whose appearance in the clearing had Hinata blushing. "H-hi, Sakura," Hinata greeted, smiling slightly.

Sakura smiled back, wider. "Hey there, Hinata...man, what great luck it was that our teams got paired up."

"Yes, well, Ino and TenTen's teams got paired up too," Hinata pointed out. "I think someone's been watching us--they noticed where everyone's interests are in other teams, and I think they based our partnering off of that..."

"Now, don't you think you're thinking just a little too hard?" Kakashi asked, having only just come into the clearing.

Kiba, already bored with watching Naruto and Sasuke, eyed the white-haired teacher suspiciously. 'I suppose, maybe she was really lying when she said he's not Kakashi...'

Kakashi looked back at Kiba, slightly confused. "Um...did I do something wrong? Is it some holiday that I forgot about that doesn't allow us to wear anything over our faces or something?"

Kiba didn't ease his gaze, and only pointed two fingers to his eyes, swivelling his hand on his wrist to point them to the teacher, the "I'm watching you" sign.

"Um..." Kakashi stalled, apparently uncertain. "Okay. Anyway," he went on, addressing Kurenai, "I guess you got the instructions, not me, so you get to read them to our students."

Kurenai nodded and started to read off the sheet of paper in her hand. " 'As you should already know, today we will be training as one team even though we are two. The point is not competition, nor is it the previously published concept of already having a good pair of teams set up for when a mission calls for two teams. It is an exercise in adaptability, a way to train for when you have to take another ninja with you.

" 'But that technically doesn't matter because you're training together anyway'," Kurenai kept on reading, frowning now. " 'The first exercise is as follows:

" 'Everyone is to be paired with someone from the other team--someone of the same gender whenever possible, to avoid the unhealthy development of romantic relationships'."

Hinata thought about this for a second and burst into giggles. After all, she and Sakura were going out, and she knew quite well that Kiba was eyeing Naruto. She found it amusing that their attempts to prevent relationships would most likely develop more.

"Hinata?" Kurenai asked. "What's so funny?"

"O-oh, n-nothing, Sensei," Hinata responded, still blushing slightly. "N-nothing at all..."

Kurenai looked at Hinata suspiciously for a second before she shrugged and went on. "Well, then I suppose we should decide our teams. Hinata and Sakura, obviously. Then...Naruto and Kiba, and Shino and Sasuke. No major disagreements, right?"

Sasuke looked slightly disgruntled, but he kept his mouth shut as Kiba's grin grew; Hinata and Sakura just shared a knowing glance, while Shino remained ever-silent and Naruto started to snore slightly. Seeing nobody respond openly negatively, Kurenai went on. " 'The first exercise is as follows:

" 'Each of the new three teams will receive a scroll. They may hide it wherever they want, in the town or in the forest, even though this is probably against my better judgement, as long as it is within Fire Country. There are three kinds of scrolls, each with a different color on the outside and a different location written inside. There are other things inside the scroll as well, but these do not concern you, and we advise that you do not open the scroll any more than is necessary to know where to take it.

" 'The goal is to get other teams' scrolls to their locations before they get yours to its location. At every location, someone will be waiting, and they will take the scroll and use it to log who took whose scroll. And yes, each scroll can identify who it originally belonged to.

" 'Once someone turns in your scroll, you will know immediately. And you will be forcibly 'out' of the exercise. The training session will not end until every single scroll has been turned in except one, the winning scroll, or if a state of emergency presents itself. We are aware that this could mean that this 'mission' will take a while. As in a really long while, maybe even over a week. Be prepared, train well, and have fun!' " Kurenai finished, frowning slightly. "Well, I'm not sure that's how I'd word it, but...I'm not Hokage, so it doesn't much matter. So, Kakashi, could you please pass out the scrolls?"

Hinata, Kiba, and Shino already held three differently colored scrolls.

Kurenai shrugged. "Well, any questions?"

"Yeah," Sasuke answered. "Can we take other teams scrolls--as in the scrolls from other teams doing this exercise. It's from the Hokage, so it's most likely the same for everyone, and I don't think it would take us over a week to get two scrolls from one team to another place within the village."

Kurenai scanned the page. "Yeah, you guys are suppsed to take as many scrolls as you can, from any Gennin pair, which is anyone because the other levels don't have their multi-team training until you guys are done. Any other questions?"

The five conscious students shook their heads; Sasuke prodded Naruto with his foot and he jerked awake, yelping, "No! I--I have to train tomorrow, a-and you do too, please just let me sleep!"

Kiba crouched to reach his current partner's level. "I'm sorry, but we have to go and start training now, and that means you'll have to get up," he appologized, his voice uncharacteristically soft.

Shino looked on, his face lowered slightly to hide more behind the collar; Sasuke glowered at Kiba as the dog-ninja assisted Naruto to his feet.

Kurenai waited for Naruto to nod in agreement before declaring, "The exercise begins at noon--you have until then to prepare. Go!"


~fin~

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