A/N: This is just a drabble I'm doing for a friend. Anyone can pick it up if they want to. And no, I don't own Naruto. If I did, I'd be rich and would have no need to write fanfiction.
Kiba realized belatedly that maybe he should have listened to Nara. He was the genius boy, after all, the brilliant strategist. And he was just the muscle, the brawns, the guy who rode in and helped to bruise up the bad guys. Guys like him should listen to guys like Nara, because it's the geniuses who keep the muscle alive. Kiba knew that; he had always known that.
He just conveniently forgot it sometimes.
And while sometimes everything worked out for him in the end, sometimes he got himself in trouble. Real deep shit that he couldn't get out of, so deep that even genius boy Nara couldn't get him out of it if he tried.
He wasn't sure that even the brilliant Nara could have pulled the bloody kunai from his chest. Or figure out how to turn back time so that he wouldn't have made the stupid mistake of doing this alone. Or at all, really.
Kiba blinked blearily at his target turned assailant. His red eyes were still annoyingly blank, and the corners of his mouth hadn't moved at all, even in an evil, smug smirk. The damn bastard hadn't even put down his cup of tea when he killed him. He didn't think the guy had even twitched when he had shoved the kunai into his chest so deep that only the tip of the handle could be seen.
Well, he guessed he was just easy pickings for a guy who had killed pretty much everyone in his family.
Damn… Why hadn't he brought Akamaru, again?
Oh, yes. When Kiba said he had done this alone, he had meant completely alone. No back up from anyone Nara might have sent or anyone stupid enough to do it with him including Akamaru.
He supposed that maybe he shouldn't have listened to the people who teased him about always depending on Akamaru, because then maybe he wouldn't be stabbed to a wooden pole bloody and gory and probably about to die any time now. Then again, at least this was a way he could say he kept his promise to Akamaru. It was no matter that he wasn't exactly a little puppy anymore; Kiba wasn't going to let the dog get hurt badly ever again, even if it meant watching him as a ghost.
He coughed a little, paying no attention to the blood dripping down his chin. He had already lost so much blood, what was a bit more? The world around him began to fade into the black, and Kiba knew then, if he hadn't known before, that there was no hope for his survival.
His lips, still dripping with blood, turned upward into a small smirk. Well, at least they couldn't say he was a coward. Stupid? Hell, yeah. But he wasn't a coward.
'See ya guys…' he thought as the world continued to spiral down into darkness. 'Guess you'll catch up with me later.' It was with that thought that the steady rising and falling of Kiba Inuzuka's chest stopped with an already slow heartbeat.
Itachi Uchiha blinked at the boy who was now inseparable with his kunai and shrugged. "Hnn." And with bloodstained fingers, he took a long, slow sip of his tea. "Pity, he said. "The tea's gone cold."