Disclaimer: I do not own naruto. If I did, I would not have to write fan fiction.

Chapter 1

Kiba swallowed hard. It was never good when the Hokage wanted you in her office ASAP, and no one else was being summoned. Akamaru, sensing his master's distress, pressed himself against Kiba's legs. One last breath in, and he knocked on the door. "Come in!" Tsunade demanded. Kiba walked over to her desk, one hand stuffed in his pocket, one hand on Akamaru. "What do you know about the Akatani clan?"

"Huh?" Kiba's mind scrambled. This was not what he had expected the Hokage to be saying. "The Akatani and the Inuzuka were once one clan, a long time ago, but the Akatani split off to focus on tracking to the exclusion of the Ninjutsu that the Inuzuka use with our dogs. They live on the border, and don't really think of themselves as part of Konoha"

"Well one of them is coming here; she says she wants to become a Konoha ninja tracker. Your assignment is to design a test for her. Do not make it easy. The trail you lay out should be so difficult to follow that you and Akamaru would struggle greatly with it, and set booby traps along the way. If she wants to be a Konoha tracker, she will have to work damn hard at it, just like every other ninja did. Understand?"

Gulp. "Yes."

"You have three days; that should be enough time for the scents to fade. Dismissed."

. . .

Kiba wiped sweat from his forehead as he surveyed his test with satisfaction. Booby traps? Check. Very faint scent that traveled through running water, jumped from tree to tree, over bare rock and doubled back on itself? Check.

"Oi." Kiba turned around to find Kakashi and Pakkun (his nija tracking dog). "Tsunade sent us to check your test and make sure it's hard enough. That girl must have really made her mad. She told me to make sure it's all but impossible."

Kiba gestured to his test. "Ready Pakkun?" The dog didn't deign to reply, just sat expectantly, looking at Kiba. "Oh. You need the scent. You're following my trail." Pakkun put his nose to the ground followed it off.

3 hours later, Pakkun arrived at the end of the course. "You did a good job of making it impossible pup." He told Kiba. Kakashi didn't even look up from his book. Kiba set off to reset the traps, and Pakkun left to wander over the course, spreading his smell so that the girl couldn't just follow the dog's scent.

She should be here soon Kiba thought, squinting at the sun. He settled under a tree to wait for her. 20 minutes later, a girl about his age came up the path and halted, looking the boy and his dog over. She was a little on the short side, about 5'3". Her long black hair was pulled back in a high ponytail and then braided. Her eyes appeared black from where she stood in the shadows, but as she finished her inspection of Kiba and stepped into the sunlight he could see that they were actually a deep forest green. Her clothing was practical: brown pants, black ninja sandals, and mottled green/gray shirt that blended in with the forest. The dog that stood beside her was as tall as Akamaru, but with a slenderer build and was a dark gray in color.

"Are you the designer of my test?"

"Yeah. Inuzuka Kiba." He said, sticking out his hand to shake.

She took it cautiously. "Akatani Nira. And this is Kea." She said inclining her head to the dog next to her.

"This is Akamaru."

"He's a good-looking dog." She admitted. "When do I start?"

"Shouldn't you learn the rules first?"

"Let me guess: follow the scent I'm given, avoid booby traps."

"Yeah, that's pretty much it. It's timed though."

"So where's the scent?" Kiba held out an old shirt of his. Evergreen and wood smoke. I like his scent. She quirked an eyebrow. "I'm supposed to be tracking you?" .

"Yeah."

"See ya at the finish line." She called over her shoulder as she followed Kea into the forest.

Kiba settled under a tree with a screen showing the views each of the cameras placed in the test showed. He expanded the image from Camera 1: the first trap set on the trail.

Nira paused in front of the tiny clearing with a puddle in it. There hasn't been rain for a week and the puddle is in full sunlight. It's a trap. Nira tossed a rock next to the puddle. The puddle didn't respond. "At least you were smart enough to make the trap only reactive to a heavier weight than the rock." She told the camera. She made a hand sign to Kea, and they split up, going opposite ways in a large circle around the clearing, noses to the ground. Nira paused in her loop, then turned her head up to look up into the leaves of the tree above her. She poured chakra into her hands and feet, continuing up the tree with her nose to the trunk. At the top of the tree, she pulled out a dog whistle, and Kea came loping up. Nira sent 4 chakra filaments down the trunk, one stuck to each of Kea's paws, allowing the dog to climb the tree as Nira did. They left the field of view of the camera following the scent through the tops of the trees.

Kiba was still staring at the screen with Akamaru. He turned to his dog. "Did you have any clue Nira's nose was good enough to pick up that faint of a scent in a tree while she was on the ground?" Akamaru shook his head. "Her nose is even better than mine," he thought, rubbing his nose. "I probably wouldn't have been able to pick that up. I'd have had to wait for you." He mused rubbing Akamaru's ears. Still thinking he minimized Camera 1 and opened Camera 2. There was no one on the screen. Huh? Did she go the wrong way? She couldn't have gotten past my trap this fast! But the hundred or so kunai scattered in the area told a different story. He hurriedly clicked to Camera 3 to see the pair approaching trap three unscathed. So much for making this test difficult for her. But she won't get past this test. He smirked, feeling proud of the ingenuity of his next trap. He had asked his friend Shino for help with this one. The chakra-sucking bugs will definitely take her out. He had stuck the female of the species on her when he shook her hand. The males will be here any minute.

Little did he know that Kea had smelled the female, whose scent was so faint that even Akamaru couldn't detect it unless he knew he was supposed to be looking for it. Nira had paused between the second and third camera and had placed the female in a small piece of netting. She knew better than to kill the chakra-sucking bugs and incur the wrath of the Aburame clan. She sighed. His test is way too easy. Kea's sensitive ears picked up the sound of approaching bug wings and she barked. "They're coming from the west?" Nira ran towards the bugs, nailed the net the female was in to a tree with a kunai, then ran back east to where the scent lay.

Kiba's jaw dropped in amazement. How did she know that she had the female on her? His confusion turned to annoyance as Nira walked up to the camera and smirked. "Nice try dog boy, but if you ever set bugs on me again, I'll kill you. Painfully. I don't like bugs."

I guess it was a good thing that I was paranoid and set traps after the bugs. Kiba thought.

Camera 4: Nira sneezed and rubbed her itching nose. Genjutsu she realized, eyes narrowing. My nose always itches in a Genjutsu. So far it looked just like the rest of the forest, but she wasn't going to wait around and find out what was planned out for her. She whispered release and momentarily cut off the chakra to her brain. Now she had a headache, but she was free of the Genjutsu.

How could she even tell she was in a Genjutsu already? Kiba wondered. He shook his head. He hadn't thought she stood a chance against his test, and Kakashi and Tsunade had agreed, but it looked like she was going to pass despite his best efforts.

Camera 5: Kiba watched as Nira and Kea approached the last trap: one of Naruto's shadow clones transformed to look like Kiba placed directly on the trail of the scent. The clone waved to her, grinning and yelled to her that she had passed the test, but Nira was suspicious. The trail led right to him, and Kiba's scent was coming to her clearly: evergreen and a hint of wood smoke, but something was missing. I smell Kiba's scent, but I don't smell face paint any more. He still has red triangles on his cheeks. I should smell paint. She approached the clone, pretending she hadn't noticed anything, but when he held out his hand to her, she shook it then sent her chakra to her feet and pushed herself backwards as hard as she could, just avoiding the explosion of the paper bomb hidden on the clone.

She skirted the crater to find the real Kiba just beyond, looking sheepish that she had passed. She paused in front of him, breathing a little hard after running the course and avoiding the explosion. "How was my time?"

"1 hour, 21 minutes. You passed." He held out his hand for her to shake, and she stood her ground, asking suspiciously "Are you going to blow up too?"

"Nah. That was just one of Naruto's shadow clones transformed to look like me and wearing my clothes."

"And no more chakra-sucking bugs?"

"No bugs."

She took a big breath in. "I can smell your face paint this time, so it probably is you and not just a clone." She was still cautious as she shook his hand.

"I still can't believe you passed my test. Tsunade made me make it just about impossible. What did you do to tick her off so bad?"

"The smell of sake in there was overwhelming. I asked Shizune why an old drunk was Hokage, but Tsunade came in at that moment." She said ruefully.

Kiba laughed, amusement dancing in his eyes. "The smell of sake in there makes my head reel, and your sense of smell is even better than mine."

"Can I come with you when you tell her I passed? I bet it'll be funny." Nira pleaded.

Kiba stared at her "You want to see the Hokage mad? Do you have a death wish or something?"

Nira grinned. "I promise I won't insult her again."

"Oh. All right. I was going to go there anyways. If you want to die, that's your problem." He headed off, but not in the direction Nira was expecting.

"Aren't you going to see the Hokage?"

"There's a shortcut this way."

Nira shrugged and followed Kiba and Akamaru.