Thank you to everyone who followed, favorited and reviewed the last few chapters it made me feel awesome that people are actually enjoying this story, writing Kiba and Sakura is a lot of fun. Constructive criticism welcome.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Kiba wasn't sure how he would react to seeing the chibi versions of his friends especially Naruto considering the last time he'd seen him he had been sending him into the past without explaining a damn thing to him.

In fact the very thought of 'that' Naruto made him furious, but only 'that' Naruto because the one before him now was just a lonely four year old who Kiba couldn't possibly be angry at after all, this Naruto hadn't wronged him, and yes he felt wronged.

And to think he'd actually been happy to see Naruto when he'd found him in that crater if only he knew what Naruto had been planning, but that was evil sixteen year old Naruto not lonely four year old Naruto so he was willing to let his need for revenge go for now after all beating him up now would only make him feel bad.

Sneaking out had been relatively easy, Kiba knew that his mother was trailing them since they were five and generally five year olds aren't allowed to wonder around unsupervised. Finding Naruto had been pretty easy too after all Kiba knew his scent which had led to their current situation.

Kiba and Sakura had found Naruto at the park sitting in a tree, at the very top of the tree in fact which secretly Kiba found quite impressive considering how small the four year old was and he hadn't used chakra to get up there. He was brought out of his thoughts by Sakura elbowing him in side, because he hadn't been paying attention to the conversation being had.

"Huh, what?"

Sakura scowled at him, "we both want to play with Naruto right Kiba" she elbowed him again which meant that this wasn't something he had any say in.

He looked up at Naruto who was staring at them clearly suspicious of their motives (which may not have been completely unfounded since Kiba was planning to kick his ass at some point in the future), "yeah, so why don't you come down from the tree".

Naruto unwilling to come down from the tree shook his head, "who are you anyway?"

"I'm Sakura and this idiot is Kiba" she said elbowing Kiba again, who groaned he was fairly certain he would have a bruise there later.

Naruto nodded before his face took on a more quizzical appearance (which if Kiba was anyone else he'd say was adorable), "how come you know my name?"

Sakura answered again, "We've heard about you around the village", this wasn't a complete lie since even at the tender age of four Naruto's reputation as the 'demon brat' was pretty widespread.

Naruto seemed to pale at this, "then why don't you hate me?"

Sakura tilted her head, "why would we hate you, we don't even know you?"

Naruto shrugged at this, "I don't know, everyone else does"

Kiba was silently fuming though this time it was aimed at the villagers, "well we don't, so let's play something already!"

Naruto narrowed his eyes, "you're not tryin' to trick me are ya?"

Now Kiba himself had never been bullied but he knew that Naruto had been, though he wasn't aware that it had affected Naruto this much since when they were older it had always appeared to Kiba that he didn't let the villagers apparent unwarranted hatred of him get him down.

But again he was comparing this chibi version of his friend to the person he'd grow up to be, when he thought about it, it made sense that he wasn't very trustful of them after all he's spent his short life being hated by nearly everyone he comes into contact for a reason he doesn't even know, when suddenly two kids he's never talked to before want to play with him, he would be suspicious too.

However even though he understood why Naruto was staying in the tree it didn't mean that he knew how to deal with it, sure he'd gotten a whole lot better at dealing with insecure people being on a team with Hinata but he'd still be inadvertently insensitive at times. So it seems this was a job for Sakura lest Kiba say the wrong thing as he was prone to do.

Sakura sighed "Is it really that impossible that we might want to play with you?"

Naruto thought on this for a second but not for long because thinking things through was never really Naruto's thing, "I'll play with you", he said like he was doing them a favor.

The tone for whatever reason set off the urge in Kiba to storm off in a tantrum, which he quickly squashed. He blamed it on this dumb body of his, he'd gotten what he called the tantrum urge a couple of times in the short period he'd been in the past for, mostly for stupid reasons like his family teasing him and now just because Naruto was being a little rude (which was standard behavior from Naruto). He forced himself to ignore the urge and smile, "Let's play then".

They had been playing with Naruto for a couple of hours, during which Kiba had been trying to catch Sasuke's scent when suddenly he smelled something that was very close to what he was looking for, he quickly realized that he'd caught a whiff of Itachi. Upon catching his scent he completely forgot whatever he'd been doing. He was still hardwired to think of Itachi as an enemy, one that should be avoided if at all possible. The fact that he'd apparently been on their side this whole time did little to comfort him, mostly because he had trust issues when came to the Uchiha clan. One's that he thought were completely justified when you considered all the Uchiha that he'd come across, Sasuke, Itachi, Obito, Madara, all of them had been his enemy, well Sasuke and Obito had had a change of heart in the end but it didn't change the fact that every Uchiha he'd met had been involved with the very organization that caused most of the future problems, the Akatsuki.

So when he smelled Itachi he did the natural thing and hightailed it out of there dragging a completely bewildered Naruto and annoyed Sakura with him. In the moment it had seemed like the right thing to do he'd been listening to his instincts but after thinking about it, he may have overreacted, just a little.

Naruto still seemed a little dazed, Kiba had moved faster than he thought this body capable of using the little chakra he had access to and little Naruto was not used to that, Sakura on the other hand looked entirely unimpressed, "what the hell was that Kiba!?".

Now Kiba was no coward (at least not usually) but that tone of voice from Sakura may have made him flinch just a little bit, "uh well ya see…" he trailed off unsure of what she wanted to hear,

Naruto who seemed to have come out of his daze finally perked up, "how did you do that? can ya teach me?"

Sakura still annoyed ignored Naruto, "well Kiba?"

And this time Kiba did flinch because dammit five years old or not Sakura was scary when she wanted to be, "umm I smelt something dangerous?"

"Is that a question?"

"No? I-I mean no"

Naruto not one to sit silent, asked the expected question, "what was dangerous?"

Now this was something he'd have to answer carefully if he told the truth he'd be in trouble but he'd probably be in more trouble if he lied, "well about that, I was wrong"

Naruto looked at him curious, "wrong how?"

"It wasn't really dangerous I just thought it was dangerous for a second"

"So you ran really fast for nothing?"

"Right"

Sakura had observed this exchange silently before smiling which just served to unnerve Kiba more, mostly because the smile seemed to be saying 'we're discussing this later'.

Naruto was of course oblivious to this threat to Kiba's person, "so how'd you run that fast?"

Kiba who was still staring warily at Sakura was only half listening to Naruto, "I just used chakra"

"What's chakra?"

Now that got both Kiba and Sakura's attention they both said in unison, "you don't know what chakra is?"

Naruto scowled, "no", clearly annoyed at their incredulousness,

Kiba was the less understanding of the two he'd grown up in a clan and therefore had been told what chakra was at a very early age as soon as he could really speak he'd been told what it was and how to channel it, the idea that the person who'd become one of, if not the strongest ninja in the elemental nations didn't know what chakra was, was kind of ridiculous (of course he was forgetting again that said friend was currently four), "don't you want to be a ninja?"

"Yeah I've gotta be a ninja because I'm going to be Hokage one day!"

And there was the Naruto he knew, he was about to retort when Sakura elbowed him hard in the stomach (again) effectively silencing him.

Sakura understood Naruto better than Kiba did, she'd been his teammate and his best friend she knew very well how limited Naruto's knowledge was even after team 7 had been formed both her and Kakashi had had to explain a lot of things to him, he had been the dead last for a reason.

Secretly she suspected that before Iruka sensei started teaching them the teachers hadn't bothered trying to teach Naruto, because she knew Naruto wasn't as stupid as he appeared to be, sometimes he was the smartest person she knew, sometimes he was also the dumbest.

Mostly she just wondered how their teachers hadn't seen the potential in Naruto obviously Iruka had, Jiraiya definitely had, and even Kakashi had seen it eventually. The idea that the academy teachers almost allowed this almost limitless potential to go to waste made her sick, so she promised herself that she would help Naruto unlock that potential a little earlier. She wouldn't allow him to be the dead last again at least.

"Chakra is a mixture of physical energy which is in our body and spiritual energy which is in our mind, ninja use it to perform even the most basic of techniques"

Naruto appeared to be genuinely interested, "how do you use it?"

She thought about how best to explain it, "You need to learn how to manipulate your chakra, you were asking how Kiba ran so fast earlier, he was channeling chakra into his legs"

Naruto seemed confused by this, "I don't get it"

Kiba decided to try playing at being a sensei, "have you ever felt like an energy inside you?"

"Not sure"

"You gotta concentrate and try to feel for it inside it's hard to explain I'm no sensei, but once you can feel your chakra it's not too hard, I can't really tell what it'll feel like either since everyone's chakra is different", he also knew full well that Naruto's chakra was especially different.

Naruto started trying to concentrate but really it just made him look kind of constipated, after a few seconds of this he threw his hands up in exasperation, "it's not working"

Kiba groaned shaking his head, "you gotta work on your patience dude, you only tried for like a second"

Sakura stepped forward, "You know Naruto you could train with us if you want to?"

Naruto looked pretty eager, Kiba not so much, if they trained with Naruto it would slow down their progress in a big way and he was planning on being back to full strength before his age hit double digits.

Naruto looked at her all wide eyed and adorable, "really, that'd be awesome"

Kiba decided to keep his mouth shut mostly because Sakura probably had a plan of some sort and he was already in enough trouble with her so he wasn't going to mess it up.

"Good, we'll come find you tomorrow then, you should try to work on concentrating till then"

"Are you leaving now?" Naruto said sadly,

"Kiba and I need to head back, so we'll see you tomorrow?"

Naruto beamed at them, "definitely!"

As they said goodbye to Naruto, Kiba checked that his mother was still following them she had briefly lost them when he'd had his Itachi freak-out, but had caught up with them again now, she was maintaining her distance outside of hearing range.

As he was thinking all this, Kiba and Sakura had started to walk back to the Inuzuka compound, she seemed to be fine with silence which Kiba was grateful for, though of course that wouldn't last.

Sakura elbowed him once again in the same spot he was certain he would have a bruise tomorrow, "so what the hell was that earlier?"

"Well, you see I caught the scent of someone who I thought was dangerous before I remembered that they weren't"

Sakura narrowed her eyes before whispering, "It was Itachi right?"

Kiba nodded, "I'm sorry, my instincts kinda took over"

"I'll let you off just this once since it's our first day doing this, but don't think I'll go easy on you next time. You'll blow our cover if you're not careful"

"I know, I'm just not used to being in this time again, and seeing Naruto like that was strange. Speaking of Naruto why did you say he could train with us, won't he slow us down? Plus he has those ANBU guards following him around"

"We don't have to just train with him we can train on our too, I just don't want to let him be the dead last again. We both know what he's capable of. Besides the sooner he can get strong again the better for us right?"

"It's going to be years before he's even close to what he was before, he didn't even know what chakra was!"

"It's not his fault no one bothered to explain it to him!"

"Doesn't the Hokage watch over him?"

"The Hokage is a busy man, he doesn't have time to always look out for one orphan"

"But he's not just any orphan, he's the Yondaime's son not to mention his burden"

"You don't need to tell me that!"

"Well I can't go and complain to the Sandaime can I? I'm not even supposed to know any of this"

"Exactly so all we can do right now is try and help Naruto out".

Kiba groaned quietly, "Yeah, you know I didn't get a hint of Sasuke's scent today right?"

"It doesn't matter we can look again tomorrow, we still have plenty of time"

"I guess your right", he looked up and noticed they were approaching the compound, "looks like we're here anyway".

As they were heading in through his window again he whispered, "Play dumb about my ma following us around ok, she might let go the fact that we snuck out if she's in benevolent mood"

"I didn't know you knew such a big word Kiba"

Kiba spluttered indignantly, "I'm not stupid you know!"

Sakura snickered to herself, "if you say so".

Next chapter is going to have more of Hana and Tsume, and maybe an Uchiha or two.