But. But there was something as I watched the small puppy cower as the larger dogs closed in on him. That something pulled me forward off the lip of the tunnel, right smack into the middle of the circle of snarling salivating wolves.

The wolves looked around in surprise as I practically dive-bombed into their pack.

"Heh, heh, hi there!" I looked nervously around at the huge monsters. I suddenly wondered what would happen if I died here... would I go back to my old world? Or would I be dead forever? Okay, now's not the time to be worrying about that, Haruka I told myself.

"You are one seriously dumb-ass kitten." I heard someone mutter behind me.

"Oh, hey." I said nonchalantly to the brown and white puppy I was standing in front of. "I hope you have a good plan, cuz I got nothing."

He shook his head disbelievingly. "You don't have a plan? You're the one who jumped into this fight, not me. And anyway, I'm a nindog, I don't need help!"

"Huh, yeah. Cuz you totally screamed out 'I'm handling this' by the way you were running." I said sarcastically. He bristled and bared his teeth, but before he could say his wonderfully snappy retort, something interrupted him.

I don't know how long the clearing had been filled with the low growling, but suddenly the volume spiked.

"Kill them." the lead wolf said calmly as he took a step back. Urg, I hate self absorbed people like that. But more importantly, the wolves seemed to take him seriously.

"Well, it was nice knowing you." I said to the "nindog" behind me.

"I already told you! I. Don't. Need. Help!" he growled angrily at me. To prove his point, he launched himself at his nearest attacker.

"Idiot..." I muttered. Suddenly, I felt sharp cutting teeth snap around me as I was lifted into the air. Without even hesitating, I whipped around and sank my teeth into his soft nose while wildly clawing at his face.

He yelped and dropped me when something strange happened. Without conscious instruction from my head, my body landed gracefully and launched itself like a furry cannonball at my attacker. I parried his blows easily, while expertly shredding his left ear to pieces. He yelped and ran off with his tail between his legs as I turned around to see what trouble the pup had gotten into.

He had apparently knocked one of the wolves unconscious and hurt the other one in its hind leg. Now, however, he dangled by his tail from the lead wolf's grinning snarling mouth.

"Let him go!" my new found fighting skills did nothing to keep the quiver out of my voice.

He raised an eyebrow and said lazily, "And if I don't?"

For an answer, my legs gathered in a light coil to push me off the ground at my enemy. As I sailed through the air, I pinned my ears flat against my skull and bared my teeth in a hiss.

"Oooh, scary." he mocked me as he sent me flying with a swipe of his tail. I growled and tried again to no avail. What had my old neighbor called this? The boss level? Whatever he called this fight, it was hard.

I hesitated at my next move to think things over. Obviously, rushing head on is a bad idea. Once again, l leaped at him, feigning for his front leg, and changing mid-stride to his exposed neck. Surprised, he dropped the dog to the ground. With nothing hindering his mouth, he quickly slashed open my shoulder with his fangs.

I screamed as I fell back to earth, my shoulder pouring sickly sweet blood. The edges of my vision seemed to blur, to mist over... The last thing I remembered doing was looking down at my shoulder and seeing the ghostly white of my shoulder blade sticking like a tombstone out of the gash.

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My eyes opened to a scene I was very familiar with. I was standing outside my neighbor's house, the same house that I had spent so much time in. The same house that I had found my last friend in. I reached out to touch the peeling brown paint that we had painted there one summer. My lips turned up in a smile at the memory of us flinging the paint at each other and laughing.

I stiffened at the sound of someone calling my name.

"Haru-chan get over here! I totally got the new version of Call of Duty at Game Stop yesterday. Up for an all-night marathon to break it in?"

I could hardly feel my legs moving as they slowly carried me along the familiar path to the living room.

It was unchanged. The ugly squashy brown couch was sitting exactly where it used to be. His sophisticated stereo set still looked as if it would try to blow itself up if I even tried to mess with it. It was all there, from the open pizza box on the coffee table to his bass clarinet case leaning against the wall. And then I looked at him.

His messy red hair fell into his emerald eyes like always as he laughed, waving his new video game at me. This was the boy I had talked to all those times, the boy that I had practiced the new march with, the boy that had gotten ready with me and had freaked out with me at our first football game. He looked nothing like the last time I had seen him.

I remembered that day clearly, like it was burned into my mind. It had been a couple months since I had seen him. I remember gathering up my courage to go and try to talk to him. He had dropped out of band, and found himself a couple of new friends. He pierced his eyebrows and spiked his hair. Rumor had it that they smoked behind the gym after school. That was where I was headed.

I remember how our talk quickly turned into a shouting match as I told him what I thought about his new friends and his new life. I remember storming away telling him I would never talk to him again, and I never did. That was the day the hospital called me. His body had been found in an alleyway near the high school. He had overdosed on whatever drugs he had been taking at the time, and died. His sixteenth birthday was in a couple of weeks.

I remember waking up crying.

AN: Hey guys! (dodges thrown tomatoes) hey, that wasn't nice. I only left you hanging from a huge cliffhanger for about three weeks... nothing to get angry about! Heh, heh. Anyway, I was sooooo busy you have no idea. This story will have to be postponed for a couple weeks until school ends, I'm so sorry! Okay, I have a question for you guys!

When in the Naruto world is this story so far?

PS how do you guys think I did on Akamaru? I hope I portrayed him correctly.

Love you forever,

SunlitStars