Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of the characters; they belong to Masashi Kishimoto. I don't get any money from this.

Author notes/warnings: Mentioned Kiba/Hinata and Asuma/Kurenai. Some canonical character deaths and war. This was supposed to be fluffy crack but then ended up a bit angsty. Also, I might have messed up slightly on the ages? Lastly, this is mainly Akamaru POV and he's going to see things like a dog trained to KILL things will, so it's going to be darker.

kiba jokes that his life can be measured in dog years.

akamaru knows that his life is counted in kiba-years.

both of these things are truths.

kiba, age nine years

Inuzaka Tsume (alpha female—make that just plain alpha—of the pack-unit, subject of nightmares of those who cross her, and also, most importantly, mother) snarls. Her husband-mate is faithless and cowardly, fleeing with his tail between his legs. Kiba curls up into himself on his bed, hating her. Mom rages and bitches all the time, never soft and motherly. His father was the one he went to for comfort, and now Pops is gone. Usually, Kiba growls into the face of trouble, mimicking his mother and older sister, but now he just turns away. His pack is broken.

(Hana had told him to stop his crying; Pops hadn't left him—just mother—Hana will take him to the farm Pops went to a day's way from the village whenever Kiba wants. It's not like Pops left for good. Kiba thinks this hurts worse than Pops dying. Ninja parents die all the time. Pops didn't die; Pops chose to leave. Pops doesn't want Kiba.)

Tsume looks at her silent son. She has never been good with children, but her son which she carried to life in her womb for nine months is suffering. She knows that he does not want her comfort right now, so she gives him what she can. Reaching to the warm body snuggled under her vest, she hands it to Kiba. Her son looks at her for the first time in days and smiles—more of a bearing of the teeth. Ahh, her boy is back.

"His name is Akamaru," she says.

akamaru, age zero years (well and three months)

Akamaru feels himself taken away from a warm body of a mother (not his—but then Akamaru's puppy-mind realizes he will not see his Mother again). He wants to howl, but he just shivers. He misses the warm bodies of his littermates. They were weak, but he was going to protect them. But then one morning Akamaru awakes and warm bodies around him have turned cold. Akamaru has no one to protect. He does not eat; he does not howl. He does not make a sound. He just curls into himself.

But now Akamaru is being pressed into a new body, a new littermate. The body is warm and a voice speaks to him, "Akamaru, huh? You're a runt, huh? M'name's Kiba." Akamaru makes a noise—a yelp—for the first time in days as he pees up on the grubby hand shoved in his nose.

Akamaru's new pack is marked. Akamaru has found something new to protect (and chew on).

kiba, age eleven years

Kiba crouches down in the trees, hiding in shadow, and clutches tighter to the pouch (part dung bomb-coated glitter explosion, part fireworks, all parts awesome) The target approaches slowly from below. He turns to his partner-in-crime (the orange, loud, human one) and raises one clawed finger to his lips. This plan will work; it has to work. Mizuki-sensei is going to pay in blood for what he has done. Level-headed Hana, kind Hana, will not become feral and foaming about the lies Mizuki-sensei is saying about her, so Kiba will do it for her and rain down turd-covered sparkle combustions which will make everyone talk about Mizuki for a change.

The target passes underneath the tree, and as Kiba moves to release the bomb, his partner-in-crime mutters, "No, let me do it! I'll get him right on the nose, believe it!" Naruto tugs the bomb from Kiba's hands, but Kiba doesn't let go. Both boys and bomb fall from the tree onto their treacherous sensei. A small foul-smelling mushroom cloud forms over their heads, and an angry chunin rises above the two young boys. Kiba considers running and blaming it on Naruto, but Kiba is no coward. He reaches for where he felt Akamaru fall behind him, but there is nothing. For the first time since he fell, Kiba feels dread. He cannot remember the last time he and Akamaru were apart.

akamaru, age two years

Akamaru hits the ground, paws flying then running. He does not understand why Furless Mother trusts her pup with the silver-haired human. Mizuki's eyes never hold anyone's for too long; he is the type to cozy up to the alpha before ripping her throat out while she sleeps. Akamaru tilts his nose to the wind, desperately trying to catch Furless Mother's scent; all he smells of her is the fading smell of fire-smoke and leather. Akamaru starts to turn; he knows he is to small to protect Kiba-Pack and should wait for Furless Mother but there is no time.

(If Kiba-Pack dies, then all that is left is Akamaru-Alone; the memories of curling into cold bodies until Furless Mother took him to her warm one makes Akamaru whine when he is cold asleep, trapped napping in warm sunshine).

Then, Akamaru smells the scent of earthy rain and hay and musk. It's Kiba-Pack's elder littermate, Hana, and her pack, the Haimaru triplets. Scooped up into gentle arms, he squirms and yelps, trying to form the human words that feel so strange to his tongue.

"Shh, Akamaru, what's wrong boy?" she croons.

Akamaru keens into the air. His pack is in trouble again. Listening to her dog-partners has been music to Hana's ears since before she was walking, and she understands Akamaru's plea. Around her ankles, the Haimaru littermates snarl and snap.

"Oh, has he?" Hana's human-voice is cold now as she puts Akamaru on her shoulders, breaking out into a lope towards her brother. Reaching the white-haired man towering over two cowering pups, Akamaru's hair stands on end from Hana's frigid. He can feel it washing off of her.

"What were you doing to my brother?" Hana asks. Akamaru can feel the feral dog-smell bleeding into her veins. Her pack is threatened and she is a mother wolf shielding her young and terrorizing anything between her pack and safety. Mizuki quails before her pointed-teeth smile and stutters.

Akamaru is in awe. His pack of two is expanding and growing to include Hairless Mother and now Hana-Wolf. He cannot wait until he is big and ferocious enough to be the one protecting them.

akamaru, age three years

Human ways are as strange as human words. Akamaru's puppy-dog-mind does not understand them anymore than his puppy-mind understood them. But he knows how he feels about Kiba-Pack's new humans. He loves them and not just because the quiet, stuttering one gives him scratches just-so behind his ears. Not just because tall one (Akamaru can hear the bugs moving inside of him) gives him treats when no one is looking. Not just because the alpha female of the temporary pack protects Kiba-pack better than the white-haired alpha-traitor did. He loves them because they are family and they have warmth running their veins. They live and love him, so he will live and love them for making Kiba-Pack happier and louder than he has ever been before.

kiba, age twelve years

Rain has come to Konoha, dancing on the metal rooftops and showering them in heavy spring humidity. Kiba can almost swear he feels it drying off his skin and going back into the air around him. Sweat drips off his headband and now where Akamaru rests on his shoulder. Puddles around their feet swirl with the bodies of fallen comrades and friends—Shino's bugs.

Kiba looks sideways at Shino. Hinata tentatively reaches a shaking hand out to his shoulder. Shino is tense and tall—not saying anything. Kurenai-sensei is away at some jonin-meeting about the chunin exams and cannot even talk Shino out of his blackness.

"I-it's not your fault, Shino-kun…You couldn't have k-known that it was going to storm when you told them to fly outside," Hinata offers Shino in a voice that reminds Kiba of prey. He loves Hinata when she's bold and daring, not trembling like a mouse before a snake. He's seen her fight like a jungle cat during spars with Shino and him; she should be a predator dragging back a kill triumphant—not like this. Never scared and shaking.

Then Akamaru descends yelping towards the puddle of death. He pokes his paw in it, looking towards Shino. Shino looks away, but Akamaru digs his small teeth into Shino's legs. He barks again and scratches at the puddle. This time Shino bends down and looks. A small body is twitching, its wings beating translucent, before flying in water turns to flying in air. Another follows it and another after that, forming a swarm. Shino smiles.

Kiba lets out the whoop that Shino will not. "There, bug-boy, I told you a little water wouldn't be enough to kick your creepy-crawlie's ass!"

Shino shrugs and grins. "I guess you are right, then."

That night when Kiba curls up in bed with Akamaru, he holds him tighter. Shino's bugs cannot mean to Shino what Akamaru means to Kiba, but the look on Shino's face when he thought his bug-pack was gone...Kiba cannot imagine what life would be like without his best friend.

akamaru, age four years

Kiba-Pack's paws are red and stained. Behind him The prey-enemy that Kiba-Pack's human pack was hunting has stopped. Akamaru does not feel anything about this other than a savage joy that he and his human have brought down a kill together. Their first one.

But human minds and not dog-minds (Dog-minds are not puppy-minds. Akamaru is not a puppy, but Kiba-Pack and humans are still puppies. Akamaru thinks it odd that dogs grow faster than humans). These human-minds have stopped now and they are looking at their kill like they are the ones that are still prey, being frozen by the dead eyes of the predator they have killed. Akamaru bites down a growl. The fallen prey's human pack is not far behind. Kiba-Pack and his humans are still puppies and they will not be able to fight many grown humans at once.

Akamaru bites Kiba.

Kiba-Pack swallows, his ink-fangs on his cheeks moving in and then out as he gulps down air. "We move out now. That wasn't a friend—it was our enemy who would have killed us," he says.

The tall Bughive-BOY pauses before drawing Kiba-Pack and Shaking-Paleeyes into an awkward embrace (Akamaru still thinks that dogpiles curled up against squirming littermates and mother dogs are better than any awkward physical intimacy his humans come up with). Kiba-Pack relaxes before breaking the hug and turning to lead his humans away from their kill behind.

Akamaru bites the elation and the howl building in his throat. Kiba-Pack is turning into the alpha-leader he was born to be.

kiba, age fourteen years

Kiba watches and pushes down territorial impulses slowly. He knows that Hinata only belongs to herself. (His mother and sister and Kurenai-sensei have filled him rage and hatred towards male shinobi that act like alpha kunoichi are something lesser than them and things to be owned and bragged about after rutting. He wants to tear out the eyes of every man that looks at his sister's body and not her face, and he twitches for control when anyone comments on his sensei's love life but not her talent. He knows he cannot kill, though; the alpha kunoichi can wield a shruiken much better than he can. If they wanted those who thought little of them dead, they'd kill their prey themselves. Still, Kiba finds himself dancing with blood-madness every time he hears the words saying that kunoichi are less than men. Kunoichi are shinobi, part of the Konoha pack, and equals).

That is what is feral rage is, he tells himself. Hinata only belongs to herself, but her clan is acting like she belongs to them. Hinata is something like no other—something precious and rare. She is gentle but not just with those who were under her protection; she was kind to everyone when it would be easier to snarl. This is what makes her strong and beautiful; in the face of rabid packmates called her family, she greets them with a steeled back and bared throat, never rising to rage and always patient. Hinata's family do not see this as strength and here they are trying to deny her position as alpha by treating her as an object to breed with some old distant cousin.

"Neji-niisan and my father say that they will fight elders against the betrothal. I think nothing will come of it," she says, head held high and eyes downcast.

"You can cry if you want to, Hinata," Shino says silently. "It does not make you weak."

Hinata straightens and turns her hear towards Shino, blue hair tossing behind her in the wind. "I have faith in my clan. I have faith in the ones I love. With my father, with my sister, and with my cousin, we will change the way our family is. We should be bound together by love—not ownership. I don not cry, Shino, because I have faith—not fear—of my family and my loved ones."

Shino, ever suspicious and just now trusting of the pack he has been placed in, looks at Hinata and nods. "If you ever need any help, the Aburame will back you," he swears. (Kiba is surprised; the Aburame, as a whole, stick to only blood-pack. For one to swear to an outsider is not normal and the greatest sign of respect an Aburame can give).

Hinata nods and the gifts them with one of her smiles. It is a thing of glory. Kiba feels every time he sees it he never wants it to stop. With every moment, this team is becoming more and more like a family. Akamaru is pack, but Akamaru is also an animal. Akamaru is part of him, but Kiba misses that outside part that left when Pops did. Sometimes sitting with Shino's steadfastness and Hinata's gentle smile he feels that part coming back again.

Looking to his new friends, Kiba does not notice when Akamaru silently pads away.

akamaru, age five years

Akamaru slinks (usually Akamaru gallops but this specific mission requires slinking—like a cat. Akamaru hates slinking. He's a dog—not a cat. He'd rather just crush his prey's bones in his jaws). The once Trembling-Paleeyes, now Steadfast-Paleeyes, is going to be devoured by the wolves of her own blood-pack. Steadfast-Paleeyes belongs to Kiba-Pack just as Kiba-Pack belongs to her. They are to be mates; they just do not know it yet. Akamaru smells the desire and love they release whenever they are near to each other even if they don't.

When he reaches the Paleeyes den, Steadfast-Paleeyes's younger littermate stands guard helpless in a tree, snarling at nothing. Akamaru knows that feeling. He feels that way whenever Kiba stops him from ripping out the throats of prey which would hurt their pack. (Akamaru does not understand human compassion, just as he does not understand a human cruelty. A dog does what is necessary to protect its pack: no more and no less. But then again, these days Akamaru remembers more and more Kiba-Pack is human and not dog).

The younger littermate's white eyes fall upon him and she tilts her head slightly, thinking like a falcon. "You're the Inuzaka's dog, aren't you?" she asks. "Did you know that the elders in this clan have legends about a demon hound coming to drag sinners to hell? Let's make those legends nightmares."

Akamaru decides he likes the younger littermate and names her Demon-Cub. After that night, with Demon-Pup's scheming and Akamaru's snarling, the wolves in the Hyuga pack never again threatened to steal Steadfast-Paleeyes again.

kiba, age fifteen years

Kurenai-sensei refuses to tremble. She refuses the howl. Her eyes are red (redder than usual, as if she has been crying all night knowing that this was coming) and she gives them a blank, bright smile. Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji stand before her, eyes on the ground. Shino and Hinata are stiff and unsure, looking towards him for what to do.

Kiba just looks at Kurenai-sensei and grabs Hinata's and Shino's hands. He nods his head to Shikamaru, and the Nara does the same thing to his frozen teammates. All students leave. Kiba wants to go back, but he knows some things cannot be shared. Kurenai-sensei will think of them first and refuse to let the tears fall until her young students are satisfied that she is smiling. Kiba can gift her with nothing other than letting her raw grief fall unhidden. When the howling for the moon and the stars and the mate that cannot be reached is done, Kiba will come back to her. He and his pack and Asuma's pack will make sure she eats and does not waste away until she joins her dead lover.

(Inuzakas mate for life, and when Pops left, Mom had wanted to curl up in grief and die. But she couldn't because she had Kiba and Hana to watch out for. So she got up from her sorrow and growled even harder at the world. Kiba misses the days when he thought Pops going out dying would be easier than Pops leaving alive. Dying is something quick but it's something so hard it breaks all it touches, Kiba's learned).

akamaru, age six

Akamaru gallops to the place where Kiba-Pack and his humans were playing with their human fighting tricks. The only one left is Kurenai-alpha, the alpha female of Kiba-Pack's humans. She is alone and smells of desolation…and life. Akamaru takes another sniff. Kurenai-alpha is with child and he does not smell her mate on her. Akamaru's dog-mind puts the two together. The two that had come together to create life are now one live and one dead. Raising a pup with a dead mate and living grief is bad. He butts his head to her chest and tries to wag his tail. Akamaru may not be good with human words and human emotions, but this desolation is known to every animal. Warm bodies turn cold, and packs die. Akamaru and Kurenai-alpha are left alone, alone, alone.

Kurenai-alpha finally breaks, sobbing like the rain into Akamaru's neck. Then, as quickly as the summer rain falling on her, she stops. "He is a fool, a stupid fool, and I lovedhim," she says. "Now, he is a dead fool…he was a dead fool." The abandoned-for-death mate stands and walks back to her den.

That night is the first time Akamaru does not spend guarding Kiba-Pack's dreams. That night he stays in front of Kurenai's door, snarling at any grief that may haunt her.

akamaru, age eight years

Kurenai's mate was the first and others followed him. Akamaru cannot understand human cruelty. There are humans like Kiba-Pack and Bughive-Boy that are fierce and fight for what humans think to be good, but there are others (evil, humans call them) that would kill pups as they slept and tear apart the corpses in front of grief-howling mothers. Akamaru misses the time when the only warm bodies turned cold were those of his littermates. Now too many have died; too many bodies are cold. This thing humans call war smells horrible to Akamaru. Blood and death and crows circling reek into Akamaru's nose until he cannot smell Steadfast-Paleeyes's herby, floral fur or Furless Mother's firesmoke. He cannot even smell Kiba-Pack's scent; all there is blood. Akamaru sometimes gets so sick of the biting and tearing that he forgets that he is biting and tearing to protect his pack. Humans say he's acting more feral and animal, but Akamaru has never felt more human.

But now Kiba-Pack picks him up for the first time since he was a puppy, trying to parade him around on his shoulders. They are both grown enough now to know Akamaru is too grown a dog for this to work, but Kiba-Pack's old-man slumped shoulders act his age once again. Kiba-Pack is whooping and whirling and wagging once again (Akamaru wishes Kiba-Pack could know the joy of expressing happiness through a tail).

"It's over, boy! We kicked all their asses so hard they're never going to get back up again! The war's done!" Kiba-Pack crows. Kiba-Pack is a man now and no longer the puppy that mourned his prey. Akamaru's dog-mind thinks of the change briefly before deciding all things change.

Akamaru's howl joins Kiba-Pack's crow. Akamaru does not understand how humans can ignore the stench of blood that still lingers in the battlefield, but Akamaru has never been able to understand humans. Kiba-Pack is happy. That is all that matters; Akamaru's pack is safe. Human cruelty can be shed for human compassion. The war is over,