So, working with Sakura hadn't been completely bad. And Chouji kind of knew what he was doing. And the fact that Sakura's mother began to make dinner for them about five minutes after she had brought them their drinks, which made the wonderful smell of delicious food waft towards them, certainly didn't hurt.

"So, you're going to be the great betrayer, right, Kiba?" Chouji questioned as they drew up the plans for the presentation of the old man's story, which made Kiba nod sagely at the two kids.

"I'm a badass and he had tattoos on his face, didn't he?" The Inuzuka answered the question with a question of his own, a smirk finding its way onto his face. "Besides, I like being the bad guy. Makes me look all tough and shit."

He smiled broadly at this, then pointed at Chouji, "Which means you'll be playing the old man. Toughen up, pork chop. You know how scary the old man was!"

The other boy's eyes widened at the idea of being the old man, but Kiba didn't care. He knew that there was no way Chouji could ever believably be the big bad guy of the story, the tattooed shinobi that had betrayed the old man in a fierce and horrible way. And it wasn't like Sakura could play the traitor either. She wasn't mean enough to shout at Chouji like what would be needed in the classroom.

"How are the designs for the costumes coming, Sakura?"

Kiba had delegated jobs at the beginning of the whole thing because he knew just how he wanted with their project to be. They would put on a show worthy of even the greatest of actors! And for that they would need spectacular costumes that made them seem as if they were ready to step onto a battlefield. Luckily, one of Sakura's father's specialty was cloth and her mother was really good at tailoring (Sakura's words, ones Kiba hoped were true), so the job of designing and creating costumes was given to her.

That left planning and writing their script to Kiba and Chouji. And because Kiba had written down rather crude, yet completely understandable, notes about the man's story, they were assigning characters and giving Sakura ideas about costumes.

"Chouji will need a mask and head cover just like the old man. And maybe a coat like his too." Kiba offered, "But without the clouds. Those are girly looking. He needs to be scary looking."

The pink haired girl quirked an eyebrow at Kiba, then looked at Chouji, who hummed softly in thought. "Maybe you're right, Kiba..."

This made the young boy smile broadly and jump up on the floor, planting his hands on his hips. "Of course I'm right!" He shouted, then pointed at himself with his thumb. "We Inuzuka are always right!"

He noticed that Sakura and Chouji exchanged unsure looks, but he didn't care. The fact of the matter was that his clan was awesome. And being part of the clan meant that he too was awesome. And awesome was always right. So, really, he was always right.

His logic was flawless!

"Who's going to be the enemy ninja?" Sakura questioned after a few seconds of silence between them, then lifted her notebook to show the sketches she had created for what they were to wear.

The design for her own costume was what Kiba would expect of a dainty woman to wear, although he'd never seen any of the female members of his clan ever wear something so impractical. Then the one she had made for Chouji was on point, with a long coat for him, a mask, and head cover that looked just like the old man's. It even had a plate cover on his forehead, although it didn't have any design on it. None of them could remember the design the man's had held, so they would wing the design when the time came for making it.

And, finally, the design she had made for him left Kiba smiling broadly. It looked perfect! Just what a fierce warrior would wear. And it even had the chains the old man had told them his greatest enemy had worn! And he could see a sword peeking out from what was supposed to be his back, one of the traitor's favored weapons.

"I mean, Chouji will be the old man, Kiba will be the traitor, and I will be the woman in green that helped the old man out in his toughest times. But... How are we going to act out the final scene? The one with the ten squadrons of enemy shinobi?" Sakura questioned, tapping her drawings thoughtfully.

The doubt was genuine. And she really seemed to want to get this to work out well. Which was why Kiba became even more excited as more thoughts began to run through his head.

"I know who can be the enemy! I won't be able to bring in the same number of enemies, but at least ten should be good, right?" He asked, which made Sakura nod once. "Yeah, I can do that! I'll just ask some of the pack dogs to come to school with me. We'll need disguises for them, though."

Sakura's eyes widened at Kiba's genius idea, then she nodded. "I should be able to make at least a headband and maybe an eyepatch or two for the dogs. If you bring them now, I'll get their measurements and have everything ready by tomorrow."

Kiba was psyched to hear that. So he nodded, then jumped over all of the work they had done on preliminary designs and scripts, only to jog over to Sakura's door. "I'll be back in a minute!" He called out, throwing the door open to run outside without waiting for a reply.


Chouji didn't mind being the old man. Especially in the way Kiba offered as a possible way to portray him. And it really made sense that the Inuzuka was to be the main antagonist of the whole story. He was fierce and knew a few taijutsu moves, which were perfect for the reenactment they were to perform in front of the rest of their class.

They would only have time to perform the middle part of the old man's story, the one that dealt with the enemy shinobi and the traitor, because they knew they wouldn't have time to perform anything else. But, because that was most exciting part, Sakura had conceded that it would be the best to show. Kiba hadn't like the idea of cutting so many things out of the story, but had agreed.

Now the Inuzuka was off looking for ten dogs, leaving Sakura and Chouji to continue working on everything else.

Once she had completely finished the costume designs, Sakura picked up the script Kiba had been working on, read it over, and sighed heavily.

"What's wrong, Sakura?" Chouji questioned, only to have her flip the notebook over and show it to him. The Akimichi squinted his eyes, reading what Kiba had managed to come up with. "Wing it and be awesome?"

Had he read that correctly?

From the way Sakura sighed and placed the notebook down, that really had been what the boy had written. And he understood why Sakura was so disappointed. But... Kiba seemed to know what he was doing.

"Do you know how to sew, Chouji?" Sakura asked softly as she got up from the floor, beginning to move towards the far hallway of her home.

"Yeah. My mom taught my when I kept ripping the knees of my pants by running after Kiba and Naruto. Why do you ask?" He asked in return.

"Because we're going to need to get to work on these things as soon as possible. It was a real big set back to wait for Kiba and now we only have a few hours to get to work on our costumes." She explained, only to walk out of Chouji's sight.

The boy took the time she was gone to look over their designs and hum to himself. His design was pretty simple. All that he'd really need to do was make the stuff that the old man had worn over his face and head. The cloak could be any dark ones laying around, they didn't have to make it.

Although Kiba had said that they had to look awesomer than everybody else...

But Sakura's dress could be one she already had! She most probably had something green already. And, if not, they could change the color in the story!

... Although Kiba really wanted to be as faithful to the story as possible...

With a soft sigh, Chouji shook his head. This was a lot of work to do in just a few hours. But if they really tried their hardest, they should be able to get everything done before the night was done!

"Chouji?"

Sakura's mom stepped into the room from the kitchen to find her living room in a complete disarray with only one child, even though there were supposed to be three. And Chouji immediately stood up with a nervous chuckle to speak to her. "Hey, Mrs. Haruno! Sakura went off to find things to make our clothes for tomorrow!"

The woman looked at him with the same expression his own mom wore whenever he and Shikamaru got in trouble because of Ino, and asked, "And the Inuzuka boy?"

It was like she could see straight through him!

Sakura's mom kind of reminded him of Ino's mother. Both women seemed so serious!

"He went to find some dogs to be able to do our presentation."

For some reason, hearing this caused the woman to drop the look that so similar to his mother's own and looked at him surprised. But, a few seconds passed and she soon shook her head softly and smiled at Chouji.

"Dinner should be ready in an hour. Is there anything I could do to help?"


Working with Kiba hadn't been easy. When he wanted something, he made sure to get it. He was extremely loud, too! But, Sakura had to admit, he had some pretty good ideas.

But making his clothes would be the hardest. And she highly doubted that the boy knew how to sew. The state of the clothes left behind with Chouji's mother had been a testament to that.

He wanted chains and a sword. Did they even have any of that for him to use? Because there weren't many weapons in her house. Just one old sword that her father had told her to never touch because it was supposed to be some priceless artifact. Even though she was studying to become a ninja, her parents hadn't thought it a good idea to buy any weapons just yet for some reason.

Well, at least he would just need a dark colored vest, shirt, and pants aside from those weapons. And he was bound to have some of that.

As she walked back to Chouji with her green dress in hand- one that one of her father's friends had bought her for her birthday, complete with a light green scarf- along with some supplies to begin to work on the mask and cloak Chouji would wear.

She heard her mother ask Chouji if there was anything she could do and immediately the girl hurried up, and looked at her mother from the opening of the hallway.

"Help us sew stuff!"

Her mother turned to look at her with mild surprise, then looked down at her hands and quirked an eyebrow.

"Are you planning on wearing that dress tomorrow, Sakura?"

"Mm-hmm." The girl nodded as she walked over to her mother, then set down the supplies in her arms on one of the couches. "I need to be dressed in green." She explained, then ran over to her notebook and pulled it up, showing the design of the clothes to her mother. "We need to be dressed like this. See?" She pointed at each different design, then gasped slightly. "Oh! And we need to make forehead protectors for Kiba's dogs too!"

Okay... She had to admit it. Even though she hadn't liked the idea of Kiba taking complete control of things, she was kind of excited. It was fun to be making things! Especially because Kiba had made sure to tell them that their project would be the best around.

Her mom grabbed her notebook and looked at the designs, then looked at all of the papers strewn along her floor, some crumbled up, others allowed to remain their straight shape.

"Well, if you would like to get to work on this, you're going to need to clean all of this up."

"Yeah, yeah!" Sakura bounced with a bright smile, then looked at Chouji. "Help me so we can start working fast!"

The plump boy nodded immediately and began to pick papers up, and she soon joined in.

Once all of the paper mess had been cleaned, her mother took control of the making of the costumes and began to take measurements for Chouji, deciding that making a cloak for him shouldn't be too hard.


It had been fun rounding up ten dogs. A bit difficult because all of his dogs wanted to go to school with him and get out of the house for a day.

"Take me! Take me!" A small gray dog barked as he jumped on his chest, trying to grab his attention.

"No! Me! I'm bigger and more scary looking!" A dark brown pitbull growled as he bit at the boy's foot, all the while his female counterpart tugged at his hand.

"Wait! I should go with you because I'm the biggest around!"

"No! I should go because I'm the fastest!"

"I'm the smartest! I can speak the human's language!"

"Your teacher will love me!"

And like that the shouts and barks continued. Because he was an Inuzuka, Kiba did not mind being at the very bottom of the dog pile. But he did get kind of worried over the clothes Chouji had lent him.

Would it be okay if he returned the clothes with scratches and holes?

He didn't really know...

"What is going on here!?"

The desperate barking from the dogs ceased as soon as the dark voice pierced through the sounds, shutting them up immediately. Kiba craned his neck slightly so he could look at Kuromaru from his spot on the floor, and found that the large dog was alone. He didn't see his mother.

"Hi Kuromaru!" Kiba greeted, although he didn't try to get up. "I'm trying to choose ten dogs to take with me to school tomorrow."

The large dog huffed at the boy's answer and glared at him and the other dogs. Just like they were supposed to when Kuromaru was around, the dogs hurried to stand in attention, leaving Kiba alone on the floor.

"Does your father know about this?" The dark animal asked as he stalked over to Kiba, then dropped his head so he was looking right into the young Inuzuka's eyes.

"Not at all!" Kiba smiled broadly, "But it's not like either he or ma will notice! They're never home." Kiba reminded the large dog. "It's for a school project. You do want me to get a good grade, right?"

Kuromaru's eyes narrowed at the boy's taunt, but he didn't say anything. Instead he barked out, "Aki, Akio, Akia, and Akira," The four white and gray spotted siblings stood at attention as soon as they heard their names, "Shin and Shig," Both bulldogs perked up, "And Ryo, Sora, and Takeo." Finally, the three brown haired, large dogs were called, leaving the rest of the dogs to sadden at not being called. "You will be accompanying Kiba and I to his school."

For a second, Kiba was pleased with himself for having gotten Kuromaru on his side. Then he processed the last thing the large dog had said and bit his lip to stop himself from groaning.

"What about mom, Kuromaru? Don't you need to be with her?" He tried, hoping that the dog would just go ahead and leave him alone tomorrow.

But Kuromaru was a rather scary dog that accepted as much bullshit as his mother did (so, none) and he glared at the young Inuzuka.

"Just be happy I am allowing you to take any dogs." He growled dangerously, which made Kiba sigh and frown.

He wouldn't be able to win this. He knew it. So he may as well just allow Kuromaru to come along. Hopefully he'd be scary enough to terrify the rest of his classmates.

"Fine, fine..." The boy breathed out, then stood up and dusted himself. "If you'd be so kind, please come with me. I need you guys to get measured for what you're going to wear."

"Wear!" All of the dogs shouted out in fear and horror, all the while Kuromaru's glare turned even darker.

"Not like that, you bunch of babies!" He sighed, "It'll be a forehead protector, like the one the ninja wear. It's for a presentation we're going to give."

All of the dogs were immediately soothed by this. For some reason, no dog liked the idea of wearing human clothes. But they didn't mind accessories.

Dogs could sure be weird sometimes. Just like humans.

It seemed that everyone was weird. He seemed to be the only normal person around.


"Now let me see the back."

Chouji did as instructed by Sakura's mother and turned so his back was facing her, his arms stuck out to either of his sides.

She whipped up a dark cloak exactly like the one the old man had worn in less than thirty minutes. Sakura said it was because her mother was a clothes ninja. The woman said it was because she had lived through quite some interesting experiences. Chouji just thought it was awesome.

"It looks really good, mom!" Sakura smiled as she walked up to Chouji, the mask she had made for him in her hands. "Now try these on, Chouji. I want to make sure these are right."

The boy did as instructed and pulled on the cloth.

It felt weird to have his hair held down so tightly. And the cloth around his face was odd to breathe through. But from the way Sakura lit up, he guessed he looked good.

"It's perfect, mom!"

The woman fixed up the boy's mask minutely, but nodded and smiled softly. "You look good, Chouji. Now, Sakura, go try on that dress while Chouji takes off his things. We need to make sure it fits."

The girl nodded and ran out of the room with the dress in tow, all the while her mother began to help Chouji to pull of the head coverings. Then, once that was off, he carefully unclasped the cloak and slid it off of his body. After he had finished with that, he handed the things over to the woman with as much care as possible, not wanting to accidentally damage any of her hard work.

Right when he was about to thank the woman for having helped them with their work, there was a sudden slam of the house's front door. They both looked in its direction immediately and were stunned and shocked when Kiba ran in on hands and feet, running like a dog.

Behind him were nine more dogs.

"Sakura!" He called as he jumped into the room, "I brought the dogs!"

Chouji counted at least seven different dogs running into the home to begin to roam and sniff around, not caring for anything they may knock over. But just when Sakura's mother was about to move to stop a dog from getting too close to some rather fragile looking tea cups on a table to the far side of the room, a harsh and loud bark broke through all of the commotion, immediately ceasing it.

"Stand at attention beside the pup if you don't want to get neutered!"

In less than a second all of the dogs were sitting in a line beside Kiba, panting with wide eyes as they looked in the direction the voice had come from.

"Boy, you cannot run in like some savage." The same voice scolded Kiba, who merely crossed his arms and sighed. "What would your parents say if they saw this?"

Chouji had expected to see a rather tall and muscular man come in. He had not expected a large, wolf-life beast to stalk in with an eyepatch over its eye.

Kiba didn't answer as the large animal moved to stand before the Inuzuka clan members. And the scary animal ignored the boy to instead look at Chouji and Sakura's mother, looking over both of them before bowing its head slightly.

"I apologize for my pack's lack of control. The pup is still not too accustomed to the ways of the rest of the village." It apologized to Sakura's mother, "If any harm came to your home, I will make sure he makes up for it."

There was a wolf that could talk... There was a wolf that could talk!

Chouji was amazed and didn't try to hide it. His mouth hung open as he stared at the large and terrifying animal, caught between pure horror and pure amazement.

Sakura's mother was just as shocked. But she managed to get over it much faster than the boy.

"Th-thank you. But there's no need to worry about that. They didn't seem to break anything." The woman let out a soft chuckle, although it sounded somewhat strained to Chouji's ears. "May I ask, though, what so many dogs are doing in my home?"

"Of course, Mrs...?" The dog allowed to hang, asking for the woman's name.

"Mebuki Haruno." The woman told, which had the wolf nodding.

"I am Kuromaru. I am sorry to meet in this manner, but the pup told me that he would need ten dogs for a school project. And that we would need to get measured for a some kind of accessories." The large animal explained, "If that isn't the case, though, I shall see that he gets due punishment."

"I didn't like, Kuromaru!" Kiba groaned, then pointed at Chouji. "Tell 'im, Chouji!"

Kiba... He actually wanted him to speak up? To a wolf as big and scary as this one?!

With a nervous gulp, the boy looked from the large animal to the confused woman.

"Uh... He-He-He..." He stuttered out, then closed his eyes tightly. He didn't like being put on the spot. "He'stellingthetruth!" He made out quickly, keeping his head down and eyes closed.

A moment of silence in which nothing happened passed, and Chouji felt a dark dread begin to settle in his chest.

"For forehead protectors." Kiba informed the adults, making all of the information turn on him once more. "And maybe an eyepatch or two to make them seem cooler."

"Hey! We're cool enough!"

There were dogs that talked too?! The Inuzuka Clan was so cool!

"You'd look cooler with an eyepatch, Sora." The Inuzuka smirked over at everyone else in the room. "Now we've got lots of dogs to measure! Let's get to work! Chouji, you'll take care of Aki and Akio. They're the nicest ones out of all the lot of bitches."

"I'm not a bitch! I'm a male!"

What seemed to be the rest of the male dogs that had come with Kiba growled at the boy, but he merely waved them off and sent two dogs in Chouji's directions.

After that, all of the humans in the house began to work on measuring the dog's heads.

Kiba had been right... The two, medium sized, gray and white dogs were rather nice. They even licked his hands and face... Although that may have been because of the chips he had snacked on before...


When Sakura walked out with her dress in place, she had expected to find her mother and Chouji waiting for her. Instead she found her living room overrun with dogs.

"Uh... Kiba returned?" She asked nervously with wide eyes as she saw Chouji and her mother working on wrapping measuring tape around dog's heads, even though she couldn't see Kiba. There were many other dogs around here, though.

"This your daughter, Mebuki?"

The wolf came out of nowhere!

Sakura screamed as soon as she saw the large, terrifying animal, raising her hands up to her face, "Please don't eat me!"

But she didn't feel any attack come from the beast. Instead she heard a huff and felt a gust of air hit her face. And when she lowered her hands, she found the wolf looking at her with a disinterested eye, the other covered by an eyepatch.

"I don't eat little kids." He told her, "That's a misconception and it's stupid."

She could hear him speaking... And his jaws were moving... But the wolf couldn't have been speaking. Animals didn't speak!

The pink haired girl blinked at the animal, then cocked her head to the side curiously. "You can talk."

"Yeah. I can." He grouched, then huffed out once more. "Hurry up and get some measuring tape. Your mother's busy, so's Porky. And the pup is of no use for these kinds of things."

"I heard that, Kuromaru!" Sakura heard from somewhere close to the front door, but could only see dogs piled together.

With a hiss, the wolf growled to the side, "Then get off your ass and work!" But then he turned back to Sakura with a less angered look. "Now, come on, kit. The sooner you finish with me, the sooner you can get to work on the rest of us."

The large animal walked off then without saying anything else, but Sakura could only blink after him.

That wolf could talk... And he wasn't afraid of yelling at Kiba... Wow...

"Let me see your dress, honey." Sakura heard her mother, then stepped fully into the living room to see that her mother was in the middle of getting measurements of a bulldog's head. "Aw, it's beautiful." She smiled with a nod. "Alright. It's perfect for tomorrow. Now go ahead and get Kuromaru's measurements. Once we're done with all of the dogs, we can eat some dinner."

The mention of food had all of the dogs riled up and immediately asking for some, but that was quickly stopped by a sharp growl from Kuromaru. Then he motioned for Sakura to walk over to him so they could finish up with what it was that they needed to do.

The girl went on shaky legs, somewhat terrified of the large and scary looking animal.

But he laid down on the floor and sit perfectly still while she wrapped the tape around his head, then told her that he would prefer the protector around his neck rather than on his head. So she moved so she was taking the neck's size, marveling at how soft his fur was.

Okay... He was scary, Sakura was sure that he could kill her without any problem. But... Well... He didn't yell at her when she accidentally squeezed too hard with the measuring tape. Instead he softly told her to loosen it.

... He was actually kind of nice... And from what she could see, the rest of the dogs belonging to Kiba were nice too.

But that didn't make any sense. If they were so nice to humans, why was Kiba so mean?

It just made no sense.

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