AN: Pretentious latin title ahoy! It means "the scar remains" and I thought it would be fun. Working title was "Fangs of a Paradox" but I came up with that in about two seconds, so. This is an experiment that I totally didn't start for NaNoWriMo... and failed. Any updates will be really erratic, because I already am writing Legend's Rage and I haven't played around in the Narutoverse yet. Once LR finishes, I might devote my time to making this awesome. Until then, enjoy.

Phase One: War

Blood. Blood, blood, blood. Blood from him, blood on the white fur he gripped – damn it all – and blood ahead and behind, according to his nose. He had been proud of his senses, usually. A nose keener than a nindog's, after all. Better than any normal canine, and Akamaru's was just as good. The perfect scouts.

He was almost regretting that keen sense of smell now. The reek of blood, metallic and so strong it felt like he was tasting it every time he took a breath – it was everywhere. Unfortunately, he couldn't close it out. It was unfortunate too that things had gotten so bad – so fucking bad – that he was almost used to missions where he and Akamaru were blood-spattered. If they had been kept in teams, this wouldn't have been a problem; Hinata could easily have healed their wounds, but his own team was far behind, fighting off the freakish plant-guys that had decided that destroying Konoha again was what they needed to do.

He stifled a growl. This was all wrong. He was separated from his team – he had always thought of them as a pack, him, Shino, Hinata and Kurenai-sensei, a pack that would always stay together – and if that hadn't been bad enough, some faceless ninja had managed to land a few lucky hits on him and Akamaru. He hadn't been so lucky to evade Akamaru's jaws, though, and was lying dead in a bush now, because they hadn't had any time for interrogation. It was all about speed, which was why he was here, riding Akamaru through a forest and trying to sort the air out despite the stench of blood. Akamaru was having less trouble, as it was instinctive to ignore his own scent when tracking.

Harsh, hot air, coarse grains of sand, heat so strong it pounds –

Akamaru slowed, head tilted to the side and whining softly. A friend, or at least an ally, though there was caution in how the dog held himself, still wary. Kiba breathed out and leaned forward to scratch Akamaru's ears with one hand, the other checking the kunai wound. Shallow and already clotting – not a problem. He pulled out his own kunai and trimmed away some of the fur to let it heal properly, and then settled in for some proper ear-scratching, an involuntary grin appearing when Akamaru mock-growled, tossing his head and waving his tail like a banner in enjoyment.

"Hey, Gaara," he acknowledged, not looking up. He sniffed the air, wrinkling his nose at the smell of sand – but there was no longer the hidden promise of darkness and spilt blood, not since the bijuu had been extracted. It was something of a relief. Instead of a weapon with brittle sanity, he was facing a leader now, in control of his own pack and someone to be respected. Besides, Gaara's scent was far better than blood, and it was easier to concentrate.

"You came here quite quickly. I expected a messenger bird," the other replied, stepping out from the undergrowth. He wasn't in Kage robes, but wore a dark coat with some sort of chest armour, and his eyes showed no surprise despite his words. Gaara always seemed like a cold bastard, but Kiba was glad he was with them. Konoha needed allies badly – no longer was it the superpower that towered over the other villages, thanks to Orochimaru and Akatsuki. Finally freeing one hand from Akamaru's head, he flapped it in dismissal of messenger birds.

"They'd have to find you, for one thing, and they're easy to take out. Me and Akamaru are a lot faster, we can smell ya, and no one can take us out," he boasted, knowing that it wasn't true, right now. What mattered the most though was that they were fast. Hopefully fast enough to not get killed.

Gaara's icy blue gaze did not waver. "You have the scroll?"

"'Course I do." Sliding off, he rubbed Akamaru's chin before extracting a scroll from the holster that had been wrapped around his dog's foreleg. "Here it is. Useful information and all that, so if you get a wave of plants, you'll know what to do."

"Hn," the Kazekage replied, taking it and cracking the seal that bound it with quick, efficient movements. His eyes scanned it, no doubt deciphering the code in his head or something like that. When not insane, Gaara tended to be alarmingly smart and good at – well, everything. Especially crushing people he didn't like. Luckily, Kiba did not fall under that category, but what was strange was the he had come out here himself – surely a sibling or Baki would have been able to serve the same purpose?

"I know you thought it'd be a messenger bird, but I thought it'd be one of your ninja. What's up?"

"Madara. He appears to have shown interest in some sort of base near here," Gaara said tonelessly, pausing when Kiba started to swear. "Can you perhaps wait until I'm finished?"

"There's more?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes."

"Fine, fine, what else?"

"The base has long since collapsed – it was originally underground, and the ground and walls weakened enough that it is now easily accessible. Perhaps it was one of Orochimaru's bases, which could explain Madara's interest. It is good that you are here."

"Fuck, fuck – why is it good that I'm here? We're practically useless," he said, hearing the growl start up in his chest, all frustration and fear and a mountain of regret that they were so useless. Speed was one thing, and he and Akamaru could track something through rain or snow, but they just didn't have the constant power to go up against someone powerful, someone with massive chakra reserves, someone who planned every single move and doubtless had been playing puppeteer for a century...

Someone like Madara.

"You're mistaken," Gaara intoned, and there was some odd catch in his voice that made Kiba lift his head, eyes narrowing. "We are not going up against Madara. We are going to raid the base before he gets here."

He grinned, knowing it was more a savage baring of teeth than a polite expression. "Well, why didn't ya say so? I'm up for something like that." Beside him, Akamaru barked, tail still wagging. This was something they were good at, getting in, getting out, hopefully far too quickly for Madara to stop them. "Well then, let's go!" He leaped onto Akamaru's back, hunkering down to let him run quicker. Gaara raised an eyebrow.

"Do you know where to go?"

Kiba barked a laugh. "Hell no, but if it is one of Snake-face's bases, it's going to reek. There's no way I could miss it." And with that, they were off, with the heady rush of wind as they moved at a speed that few ninja could boast about. There was little effort involved – there was just the destination, and they needed to go there, so... they went. There was no need to complicate things. Shino had once said that his kind of thinking was what had let him achieve that kind of speed in the first place, kind of like what Naruto did.

It might have been a compliment, an insult or just a neutral statement – it was hard to tell with Shino. It might have been all three, really. Not that it mattered, because thinking simply might not do much in politics and tactics, but it sure helped keep him safe. If he thought beyond the current goal, the hunt or the mission, he would worry, and he had seen what that did. He had seen the indecision that plagued Sakura, Naruto and especially the geniuses like Neji and Shikamaru. They worried, because they could see farther than he ever would, and seeing far came with the price of being able to predict what would happen. Seeing the potential consequences of any action only made it harder to actually act.

It might make him stupid in their eyes, as Sai had once told him, but so what if he was an idiot? At least all the planners and worrywarts had one person, just one person that would do what was needed. They could give him a direction and a name and nothing else, for all he cared. At least it helped. It might have been stupid, but it felt often like all of the – what was it they were calling them again? The Konoha 12, thanks to Gai's team? - they were all his pack, and seeing the strain put on them by the war... It hurt. It always did. He could still remember when he and Naruto boasted to each other, when Sakura and Ino vied for his – his name had been taboo for long enough among them that he didn't want to say it, even now – affections. Being a shinobi in general forced anyone to grow up quickly, but somehow it seemed that the threat now had been worse than any of the previous wars.

Or maybe that was just his own, biased thinking.

True to his word – and Gaara's suspicions – the base was one of Sound's, and if he had fur, he would have been bristling. Under his hands, he could feel Akamaru's hackles rising at Orochimaru's scent. The dry, papery scent of shed snake skin, combined with the oozing darkness of his chakra, venom and musty scrolls. It was faded, though, and if it had been visible it would have been wispy and transparent – he had not been here in a while.

The base itself, when he saw it, was a ruin. A surprisingly small building, unadorned, it was crumbling, the roof caved in. Vines and creepers had repossessed most of the walls. Dropping to the ground, Kiba cracked his knuckles, patting Akamaru's shoulder for comfort.

"You're scared?" Most people didn't know how he could understand Akamaru, they never heard anything except perhaps the quietest whine – they didn't see how even the slightest shift in movement said something, noiseless and as complex as any language.

"No, of course not," he muttered, scowling. "We've done this before, eh? Let's go." He knew his own scent and body language gave the lie to that, because his stomach churned at the thought of Orochimaru, a reflexive fear of the monster that had once been a legend. He was dead though – or something. The 'or something' would have made Shino berate him on not knowing the difference between the snake-faced bastard and the somewhat less snake-faced bastard that was running around now. Regardless, the latter bastard hadn't returned to his master's old bases, which was probably why there was nothing alive in here.

The place would have been unnerving in the dark, with only torches for lighting, but the hole in the roof ruined it. The inside wasn't spectacularly interesting: shelves of scrolls that, when he went to check them, only covered general topics. Nothing forbidden, nothing exciting. In fact, there was little else to arouse any interest. Some suspicious vials stood, neatly arranged in racks and labeled, but they smelled clean – as if they had never been used, according to Akamaru. "Well, this is a pain in the ass," he groused.

There was no way in hell the place was as empty as it seemed, and Orochimaru had a tendency to have burrows underground anyways. He prodded at the bookshelves, but he was far more interested in the floor and any potential trapdoors they could find. Akamaru was far more useful at this task than he was, to tell the truth. Pawing at the ground, the dog could tell the difference from stone foundations and stone placed over an entryway, and after a frantic few minutes of searching, with both checking the air to see if Madara had arrived yet, Akamaru barked. The sound was quiet, so as to not carry, but Kiba heard it clearly, and sprang back to his partner's side. "This one?" he asked, and with a soft 'whuff' as confirmation, he took out a shuriken and poked at the edges. No mortar – this was the right spot. Gripping the flagstone, he hefted it up, the effort lessened by the fact that the other side had hinges that, while somewhat rusty, still worked.

Tipping it back, he eyed the hole doubtfully. It was big enough to go through for a human, but Akamaru would have trouble. "I don't know..."

"I will stay here," the dog answered without hesitation, beating his tail on the ground to assure Kiba that nothing would happen. He grunted.

"Howl if I need to get up here fast," he murmured, giving him another head scratch, much quicker, before eschewing the ladder and simply dropping down the hole. He rolled on landing, already analyzing what he smelled and heard to detect enemies. At the most, he'd have to be wary of rusting traps and curious rats – nothing worse than that. Still, he twitched a kunai into his hand, holding it ready. As he walked down the hall, ignoring the scent of fungus and the lingering dried blood, he saw... nothing. The rooms that he looked into were cells or stripped utterly bare, nothing left behind except unused braziers and useless weapons.

He scowled. This wasn't going anywhere quickly. What would Madara want with a dump like this? There was nothing here! Still, he kept going, not too fast to miss anything. Sometimes he searched for some sort of hidden passageway, but there weren't any that he could tell. Frustration mounting, he ran into what was definitely the last room, and performed the usual check, examining the walls, floor and ceiling. There was another shelf, but it was empty, and in growing anger, he pushed it down. It went far too easily, crashing down onto the floor without much effort at all.

As if to taunt him, in the most cliched place he had ever seen anything hidden, there was an alcove. Hiding things behind bookshelves was never smart – it would be revealed with the weakest of jutsu – so either Orochimaru had rapidly become senile, or it was protected with something far sturdier than a bookshelf. He idly threw his kunai at the alcove, not expecting it to even hit, and true to his expectations, it didn't go anywhere near. Seals etched into the stone of the wall suddenly flared to life, and the kunai was sent spinning back. Avoiding it easily, he approached the wall, tracing the seal with a clawed finger, never actually touching. That would be stupid – no doubt it would turn into a snake and bite him, or something. It didn't look like anything he had seen, but his knowledge of seals was... painfully limited. One thing was for sure, though – they were drawn in blood.

-war end-