Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anything concerning said franchise. It's all Masashi Kishimoto's. I think that's simple and to the point.

Author's Note: Well...hi. I'm back again from falling off the face of the Earth. I'll be the first to tell you that it's a long climb back up. Regarding this chapter...I've been working on this almost since the day I disappeared. Off again. On again. That sort of scenario. Actually if you want to know a little secret, there's like four different chapter 10s and this is the one I finally decided matched up with where I'm wanting the story to go. Lots of different scenarios were played out. I'll probably talk about that a little more in the author's note at the bottom of the page. But anyway, I'm back. JB is rolling out chapter 10 right now! Oh and for clarifications sake JB is not my name. It's what I call this fic. Let's go.

Grogginess overwhelmed Kiba as he awoke at midday. He almost fell back asleep, but was thwarted by Akamaru who had noticed his waking and started whining. He sat up, smacking his head against the top half of the bunk bed. Kiba groaned knowing that this day was already off to a bad start. He got up and emptied Akamaru's bucket out the porthole. It had been a two week journey so far, and Akamaru had been having some terrible cases of motion sickness the whole trip.

He crossed to the bathroom and tossed the bucket under the sink before scrubbing it out and tossing a complementary air freshener inside it. He walked back into the small room and cursed as he stubbed his toe on one of Ino's books.

Definitely not looking like a good day.

Kiba grabbed his jacket off the bed and slipped into it. Akamaru whimpered miserably as he came and rubbed his head up against Kiba's leg. Kiba picked up the little dog and set him in his lap cuddling him sympathetically.

"Shh. Hey, it's okay boy. We'll be off this boat before you know it." Kiba smiled.

The private moment between dog and master was interrupted as Ino stepped into the room. She eyed Kiba with a small smile gracing her face.

"Kiba," She awed, "I never knew you could be so affectionate."

"Yeah, Yeah," Kiba acknowledged while waving off the teasing remark. "By the way, I tripped over another one of your books—"

Ino's eyes widened with fear. "Please tell me you didn't throw it out the window!" she interjected. "Books like these aren't cheap you know!"

"Not this time. Last thing I need is you yelling at me again half the night." he replied offhandedly.

With two to a cabin, it was Kiba's idea that the group split up into co-ed pairings. Kiba just wasn't the type of person who could sleep well knowing that the girls would have to fend for themselves on board a ship full of rogues and miscreants. Naruto immediately chose Tayuya for his roommate before Kiba had a chance to get a word in edgewise. And thus, two weeks later...here he was stuck with Ino as a roommate.

His offhanded remark seemed to cause a stir in Ino, "Well I had every right to yell at you. I'll have you know that—"

Midway through Ino's tirade, Kiba got up and set Akamaru down in Ino's arms.

"Take care of him, doc." Kiba said and with that Kiba shut the door on his way out.

He perspired heavily as he pushed himself up for the thousandth time. He had began frequenting the weight room every day. There was little else that he could do on the boat. It only took so long before he grew bored of the endless water. The only way of having any fun on board this ship of insanity was training and conversing. And with all the various criminals on board, you were lucky to get more than two words out of anyone.

Finally finishing his training regiment, Kiba unstrapped the chakra weights he had secured around his waist, arms, and ankles. He tossed his jacket over his arm and wiped his sweat from his brow and onto a nearby towel. He nodded his acknowledgment to a few of the guys who he had seen before and left.

The mess hall was the last place on the ship that Kiba wanted to go. It was the one place that housed the foulest of stenches. The smell of raunchy booze and odorous men. His sensitive nose could barely stand it all. However, it was the only place to get a meal. Kiba didn't really trust the chef all that much. He figured the chef was an ex-convict himself. And on board this ship, everyone wanted to prove themselves by offing a well known bounty. In the span of two weeks on board, the mess hall had already been shaved by at least a third of what it used to be.

Kiba walked over to the seemingly forgotten fruit bowl and picked out an assortment of grapes, bananas, apples, and oranges. As he searched out an empty table, Kiba spotted somebody he knew harassing the bards. As he walked closer he caught a little bit of the end of their conversation.

"Hey what do you think you're doing, bitch? My mother gave me that flute!"

"Like I care! I'm fucking blind and I can play this shit better than you! I'm going to show you how to play this fucking instrument!"

Kiba watched with slight embarrassment as Tayuya and the bard struggled over the flute. He turned and walked away from it all pretending he had no clue who she was.

He sat down at a table and the waitress quickly came to take his drink order. To Kiba's annoyance, the men behind him started snickering when he put in an order for a glass of milk. Not that he really cared what these lowlifes thought about him. Albeit, Kiba felt a bit hypocritical calling them lowlifes when he could technically be called one of them himself.

The door to the mess hall burst open violently as the waitress put down the cup of milk on Kiba's table. Kiba looked up from peeling his orange long enough to see a big burly man with dark skin come billowing past his table. He turned and watched the man as he confronted the table behind him. The dark man picked up the table and sent it flying by Kiba and crashing into the back of a man sitting at the bar. Kiba watched with momentary shock as the dark-skinned man picked the man up by his neck.

"You cheated me out of some money earlier, you little weasel!" the dark-skinned man stated dangerously for everybody to hear.

"I-It was an honest mistake, Stroder! I swear! I-I thought—" The man coughed, strangling under the dark man's grip.

"That's enough out of you!" The dark man yelled with a tone of finality. Kiba had the good grace to close his eyes as Stroder impaled the man's head upon his own seat. Stroder then pulled the seat up to Kiba's table and sat down heavily. Everyone in the room was quiet...save one person...

"What the fuck did I just miss?" Tayuya blared through the microphone on the bard's stage before holding her ears closed. "Oh shit! That's too fucking loud! Who's controlling the damn mic up here?"

Kiba rubbed his eyes momentarily at Tayuya's obliviousness, but secretly he thanked her for taking the edge out of the event. That is, until he realized that the dark man was still seated at his table with a corpse impaled on the back of his seat.

"Ah shit! Forgot to ask the bastard where he stashed my money. And his blood splattered all over my good shirt!" Stroder exclaimed irritably before signaling the waitress over to him. "Gimme a beer now, Tits!"

Kiba just couldn't help staring at this man. He was crude, ruthless, and barbaric. He was actually joking about the man's life before going on to insult a woman to her face. Deep down, it infuriated Kiba, but he willed himself to stay calm. The last thing he wanted to do was cause a bigger scene. The man finally seemed to notice he was staring at him.

"Name's Stroder," the man finally introduced himself, "You're that rogue from the Inuzuka Clan, right? Dude. Respect. That shit you guys pulled in Fire Country was ballsy man."

It left a bad taste in Kiba's mouth to know that there were people in the world who actually respected him for his crimes. Kiba stared inadvertently at the corpse dangling on the edge of Stroder's seat.

"Could you do something about him." Kiba asked pointing at the dead man. "He's ruining my meal."

Stroder ripped the man off the chair without a second thought and tossed him uncaringly over his shoulder. As he did this, the bards started playing a song to settle the tension that had been building up in the room. Kiba watched Stroder hesitantly as the man pointed out Tayuya on stage playing a flute.

"I saw her picture in the paper alongside yours and the blonde guy's." Stroder smirked. "Got to admit, if I had a chance to save that piece of ass..." His voice trailed off as he stared fixatedly at Tayuya with lust-filled eyes. Kiba regarded him dangerously, which the man either took no notice to or just didn't care.

"She keeps things interesting in the group." Kiba replied noncommittally to the man's overbearing lecherousness.

"I'll bet she does." Stroder replied as he licked his lips, admiring Tayuya. When he turned back to see Kiba's face he felt the need to clear up the misunderstanding, "Oh don't get me wrong. I'm not interested. I just think it'd be fun to break her. You see, I love to see the fear and acceptance a woman's eyes give off as they roll into the back of their head from the pleasure I force upon them. Just thinking about it is enough to make me go wild."

"...To each his own." Kiba muttered while glaring at the man.

The man laughed and patted Kiba on the shoulder, which Kiba immediately shrugged it off. "Well my dear friend, what other way is there to fuck a woman? It's no fun for them to just sit there and take it. You've gotta force it on them! Force it until they're nothing but fucked up little whores on the street corner. They can't say it's rape once they're begging you for it, am I right?"

Before he realized what he was doing, Kiba got up, picked up his chair, and smashed it across Stroder's face with a sickening crack. The bards grew deftly quiet and the conversing amongst patrons died in an instant. Stroder had a smug look on his face as blood began dripping down the left side of his face.

"You've got a lot of nerve you little—"

Stroder's breath caught inside his throat as blood slowly began leaking from his mouth. As his vision began to blur, he saw Kiba with the most vicious and feral of looks upon his face that he had ever known. A true devil in disguise. Stroder looked down long enough to see that Kiba's hand had pierced through his heart like a knife.

"You're just a rabid dog that needs to be put down." Kiba replied angrily while looking down on the older man. "Die knowing you deserved much worse."

Stroder made no reply to Kiba's comments as his eyes turned lifeless. Kiba closed Stroder's eyes, not out of respect, but because he was tired of its lecherous gaze. He felt tired as he realized that this was the second person he'd ever killed. He sighed, only shaking slightly as he ripped his hand from Stroder's chest, letting the corpse flop back in its seat.

"Listen up fuckers!" Tayuya spoke out through the mic, turning everyone's attention back over to her. "Let that be a lesson to all of you. Anyone who fucks with my gang is dead."

As she said this, whispers filled the room in an instant. Tayuya hopped down from the stage and made her way toward Kiba who had just finished drinking his milk and collecting the fruit he had yet to eat.

"So since when is this your gang?" Kiba questioned her.

"Everyone thinks I'm the leader since my bounty's highest, and it's too big a pain to correct them." Tayuya replied scratching her head with the flute from her earlier debacle.

"You know you're stealing that guy's flute right?" Kiba asked as he juggled to keep hold of all his fruit as Tayuya dragged him out of the mess hall.

"Like he could fucking play it anyway."

Kiba just rolled his eyes before staring down at his blood covered hand. "...I need to find a sink..."

Tayuya had begun playing a comforting melody as Kiba peered out onto the endless ocean. The soft crashing of the waves against the boat, the comforting gust across his face, and the sweet lyrics being played all helped to ease away the nerves that had settled inside him from earlier. As Tayuya finished off the song, she pocketed the flute, crossed her legs, and leaned her head up against the mast in a state of calm serenity.

"I've noticed you're not bitching an emo fit." Tayuya stated suddenly out of the blue.

Kiba had to think for a second about what she was talking about before replying, "I love animals, but there comes a time when an animal needs to be put down. If I think of them like this, killing people such as Stroder or that cannibal become a little less unsettling."

"So they're animals and not people." Tayuya chuckled amusedly. "So what will you do if you are ever forced to fight someone you cannot see as an animal?"

"I'll gladly die."

Silence fell upon the conversation and any hint of a humorous banter between compatriots dissipated. Even Tayuya could tell that he'd turned his back to her. She wanted to make some sort of remark to this dumbass comeback, but her mouth didn't seem to want to cooperate with her. And so the statement hung between them.

"So where have you and Naruto been hiding?" Kiba asked interrupting the silence. "It's been two weeks since we left port, but I haven't seen either of you until today."

Tayuya smirked at his attempt to change subjects. "As fate would have it, he found a swordsman below deck so he's trying to learn how to use that fucking thing." She sighed sleepily. "He's a piece of shit at it though."

Kiba waited for her to continue, however she did not.

"And what about you? What have you been doing?" Kiba pressed on.

"If I had any intention of telling you, I'd fucking tell you." Tayuya deadpanned. "I don't. So that's that."

Kiba growled at her uncanny ability to get under his skin. Tayuya looked away from him in the direction of the stairwell leading below deck. Kiba followed her gaze long enough to see Naruto walk up the stairs.

"Hey, there you guys are! I've been looking all over for you two!" Naruto shouted out while waving at them.

"Finally got tired of being a piece of shit swordsman?" Tayuya smirked.

"Pff. No. I'll have you know I've been working really hard at this!" Naruto groaned as he plopped down beside them with the sword balancing on his shoulder.

"Yeah, but you're still a piece of shit." Tayuya replied to which Naruto brushed her off uncaringly.

"By the way, I ran into some dude in the hall just now." Naruto said switching topics. "I tried to say hello, but the guy ran off screaming about a member of the triad. Know anything about it?"

Kiba snorted. "The Triad? Is that what they're calling us? Doesn't really fit us since there's a fourth member."

"We could just kill her. Saves us from having to tell her about what's-his-face." Tayuya stated boredly.

"Which brings us back to that." Kiba continued. "When are you going to tell Ino about Shikamaru's dad?"

Naruto looked away before lying down next to Tayuya and rubbing his eyes. "I don't know how to even begin to start that conversation." He sighed. "Every time I begin to think about it—"

"So don't think about it." Tayuya interrrupted. "If you get hung up in the problem, you're more likely to never get out of it. Just tell her and let it all play out. If she decides to leave us, that's fine. If she don't, whatever."

"Not to mention that with as much crap as she's been reading lately, it's going to be hard keeping a newspaper out of her hands. She's going to find out eventually, and we can't keep acting like we don't know anything. You can only avoid her for so long, Naruto." Kiba said to ease the blonde's worries which only caused Naruto and Tayuya to look at Kiba slack-jawed.

"What?" Kiba asked uncertainly. "Oh come on! I can say something smart every once in a while can't I?"

"But it's you..." Naruto muttered momentarily stunned.

"Like you're one to talk!" Kiba yelled comically at Naruto.

Naruto looked down for a second before looking back up and nodding goofily to his other two team members. "Well, I'm flying by the seat of my britches on this one, guys. Wish me luck!"

And with all the subtlety of a bullet train he vamoosed down the stairwell leading to the cabins. As soon as he was out of sight, Kiba and Tayuya admitted aloud their opinion of the upcoming drama soon to unfold.

"...He's screwed."

"...So fucked."

Author's Note: I'm pretty sure I already updated this to an M rating, right? If I didn't I should. Anyway, let me just start by saying this chapter has been hell in a hand basket. I feel like I had to pull in the reigns just a little bit to keep some parts of this from becoming too grotesque. Like I said earlier, there are like 4 different chapter 10s that have been made. In some of them Stroder was made out to be a lot more vicious and blunt about his methods of intercourse. So to some extent, the Stroder that I eventually settled on using is very PG-esque compared to what I had in mind for him beforehand. At one point, I kind of had him stalking Ino with Kiba doing his best to protect her. While it would have been more dramatic...it's neither the time nor the place for drama such as that to come flying in out of nowhere.

Which brings me to something else.

The conversation between Naruto and Ino over Shikaku. I'm thinking about simply summarizing the aftermath of it in Chapter 11. I'm wanting to get the ball rolling with this fic and, to me, this exchange will only seem fillerish because it's basically just me repeating everything that was already stated at the end of Chapter 9. What I will say though is that if I feel it is necessary, I will write it into Chapter 11. But for now, it's not really at the forefront of my mind to do so. You may also express your opinions about this by reviewing.

Anyway, it's that time again where you start REVIEWING like crazy. I've enjoyed most if not all of my reviews so far. I don't know if any of my old reviewers will still be around to review or not, but I do thank all you who have/will reviewed/review for taking the time to do so. Believe it or not, even after all these months. I still appreciate my readers. So with all that said and done. I hope to see you all when Chapter 11 makes it's way to this website. Hopefully it's sooner rather than later, huh?