Disclaimer: Don't own it.
Rating: T, for some blood'n'guts.
A/N: First-ish attempt at a Naruto fic. You figure this has to have happened. Enjoy. =)
Playing Hide-and-Seek with an Inuzuka is No Fun….
"You can't play with us, Kiba!"
"Yeah, you always find us," agreed another child.
"You're no fun at hide'n'seek!"
Inuzuka Kiba had long since forgotten this memory. Why had he remembered it just now?
He stroked Akamaru's head. The ninja dog had been seriously injured in one of their specialized attacks, was bleeding all over the place and shaking with the pain. Kiba had barely managed to get him the hell out of there before kunai of all sizes rained on their heads.
The enemy, some missing nin from the Mist, Shi-something-or-other, had fled before them when they'd hunted him out from his hole in the last small village. Weak, Kiba had originally thought, before Missing-nin skidded to a stop in the middle of a dusty field and raised hell on earth.
That had been when there'd been only one of the bastard. Now…well, let's just say Kiba would really appreciate a whole helluva lot of Naruto's doppelgangers.
This was supposed to be an easy mission.
Dammit. What now?
The wind shifted, bringing all sorts of interesting scents to Kiba's sharp nose.
Smell had always been his favorite sense, particularly sniffing the girls when they weren't looking. Probably his favorite smell was his baby girl just after she'd been bathed. He missed her and her mother, too.
More of his lost memory came to the surface. Too many times he'd played hide-and-seek with his childhood friends; too many times he'd been able to sniff out their hiding places. It was like playing shogi with Shikamaru. You could never win at hide-and-seek when playing with an Inuzuka.
Kiba concentrated his chakra to his nose once more. He was fairly sure the sonovabitch was hiding behind a tree just over the army of doppelgangers, but he wanted to be a hundred and fifty percent clear. He'd only get one shot at this before he'd be dead meat.
Carefully, he peeked around the smooth side of the tree. His razor-sharp eyes zeroed in on the enemy's position, confirming the coordinates. He gently nestled Akamaru against the roots of their hiding tree, to keep him out of the way. As soon as this nin was splattered, Akamaru would need all sorts of healing.
Molding his fingers in the familiar sign, Kiba generated four doppelgangers. Five against two hundred? No problem.
He'd learned this move from Naruto, who was always useful for getting ideas. He and his clones hopped up the tall, straight tree to the very top where they bent back the very tip. When the tip was as far down as it could possibly go, Kiba and the Kiba-clones launched into the air, flying straight and true over the enemy-filled field.
Using mathematical skills that Sakura could appreciate, Kiba commanded his clones to redirect him to the missing-nin's position through the use of locked arms and the collar of his flak-jacket. They all watched Kiba dive, like some harbinger of death falling from the heavens.
Immediately the sky darkened with the thousands of kunai thrown from two hundred enemies. It was too late.
Kiba had him in his sights.
The kunai shredded him to pieces before his shuriken left his fingers. The missing-nin grinned, stepping away from his tree to watch the Leaf shinobi drop gorily to the forest floor, looking more like a pincushion than a human being.
But.
But when the body hit the ground, it puffed to thin air.
Horrified, the miss-nin backed up, right against a cold point and a hulking presence that had not been there before.
"Found you," Kiba whispered, before plunging his kunai blade deep into the other's back.
Yeah, nobody ever won against an Inuzuka when playing hide and seek.
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A/N: Do not be afraid to express your opinion. =)
Edited and Revised 12/05/09