Chapter XII

A/N: I took me a while to write this because I had no idea what to write about. I had a draft of about six pages, but I threw it out and started over because I didn't like the direction it was going in. Here is the new (revised) version of this chapter. Let me know how you like it in reviews. I crave them because they let me know how I'm doing and what specifically I need to work on. L'histoire est ici!

His pack was heavy as he contained everything he would need for his little journey into the Village Hidden in the Clouds. He had left the village an hour ago and had made some good head time. But, his pack was weighing him down immensely. A thought had worked its way into his mind and had been distracting him for a while. He thought he could muscle his way to the village without too much trouble but the weight of the pack would slow him down.

He had made up his mind now. He slowed to a stop and set his pack down. Rifling through it all, he separated everything he would need into groups. He had clothes, provisions (rations), weapons, a tent, and some soap and a blanket.

For each group of items, he set out one scroll. All the items were now organized on each scroll. He made a motion with his hands along with some seals. "Sealing Jutsu!" All of the items disappeared into the scrolls as sealed items. Now they wouldn't be that much to carry. He slid each of the scrolls into his backpack and kept on his journey.

Naruto smiled to himself. Yes, his pack was much lighter now and he could move easily without getting tired. It was kind of strange, him not thinking of such a simple technique before. When he was packing, it did not take long to decide what he would take with him because he wasn't in possession of much. His home was tiny, but he liked it. It was probably a good thing that he didn't have any animals to take care of because he probably couldn't take care of them while on a mission and it would have pained him to ask anyone to help take care of it when he left.

This thought struck him as odd. Why was he thinking about having a pet? It had never occurred to him before. Maybe it was because he had spent so much time with Kiba lately. Kiba had a dog, but he never seemed to have him on him when he was with Naruto. It was a little odd in itself. Akamaru was Kiba's partner for fighting. Their fighting techniques were synced together for a good attack. Well, that wasn't exactly true. Kiba had Akamaru on their little excursion to the Mist Village. Or was he? Naruto couldn't quite remember.

He wondered now about Kiba and what he was doing. Naruto felt bad not telling him that he had left. But Tsunade had not given him a lot of time before he had to leave so it was logical to tell no one. He still had this nagging feeling that he should have told Kiba at least.

No. Kiba would find out eventually and it wasn't like he needed to keep tabs on where Naruto was at all times. They were just friends. But why did he feel the need to tell Kiba and not any of his other friends? This thought process was doing nothing but causing Naruto to develop a headache.

He pushed the topic as far out of his mind as he could muster and tried to concentrate on the mission at hand. He needed to get to the Cloud Village and he had never been there before. It was okay though. Tsunade had sent Sakura to disclose exactly how to get to the village before he left.

She had said that there was a marked path that led up the side of a mountain and up past the clouds. That made the name of the village quite literal. He had a long way to go and nothing to do before he got there.

The sunlight trickled through his curtains and landed on the edge of his bed. He was asleep and laying in a very comfortable position. Akamaru lay next to him on the bed because he had developed that habit ever since he was a puppy. Kiba was trying to break him of it but he never stayed off for long. He just waited for his master to fall asleep and climbed on as silently as he could.

Every once in a great while, he would accidentally wake up his master and he would be kicked out of the bedroom completely for the rest of the night. He hated sleeping on the couch at night but it was the only option for him. He could have slept on the floor, but that was slightly less appealing than the couch.

Akamaru was a little worried now though because his master was moving a bit and he was groaning. Akamaru didn't know what to do. Whenever his master had dreams like these, he knew to stay on the floor because he could get the shit beat out of him unintentionally because of Kiba's thrashing. Even though he knew that Kiba would wake up eventually and be okay, he was still worried for his master.

All at once, Kiba shot up out of bed. He was in a cold sweat and he was breathing hard. Akamaru was watching him to see what he would do. What had Kiba been dreaming about? Whatever it was, apparently it had scared him shitless. He just could not shake this feeling that something bad was about to happen?

He got up and moved toward his basket of dirty laundry. He shucked off his underwear and looked around the room. It seemed that he would have to do laundry again. There were clothes strewn everywhere. He picked up his basket and went down the hall to his little laundry room. He was a little grateful for the apartment he was renting being small but having minimal windows, not that he cared whether his neighbors saw him naked or not. He was quite proud of his body. It's not like he would stroll around town naked or anything. He did have a sense of embarrassment. It was just that if there was a peeping tom around, he might be naked, but he would beat the living shit out of them when he caught them.

His laundry brought him back to his task. He separated the clothes into the customary darks, lights, and whites and threw the darks into the washer. He did have the most dark colored clothes so it made the most sense to wash them first.

Having nothing else to do, he decided that it was time for a shower. He let the water run a little to warm up. The pressure was fine for his apartment, but the water didn't get hot immediately. He waited.

Akamaru had trotted up behind him and was pawing his legs. Kiba looked down and his dog whimpered. "Its okay boy. It was just a bad dream is all." He tried to sound reassuring to his pup. Akamaru didn't like when his master had these dreams, but because his master said that it was all right, he let it go. Snorting, he turned and exited the bathroom. By this time, the water was warm and Kiba got in. The luscious heat cascaded over his body. Nothing helped make him feel at ease more than a warm shower.

Outside of the bathroom, he heard his laundry beep as it was finished. Sighing, he turned the water off and stepped out. He had washed himself already and was just basking in the heat. He toweled off with an orange colored towel because his usual black one was in the wash. It also suited his purpose that colors were going in next.

Once the darks were placed in the dryer and set to go, he threw in the color load along with his towel to be washed. It just didn't seem right to him. Laundry day was always so boring and he couldn't really go anywhere until it was done. The only real good thing about having laundry day was that he could walk around his home naked. He wasn't quite sure why, but it made him feel like the place was really his.

Both the machines rumbled the floor. Something else rumbled too. It was his stomach; he hadn't eaten all morning. Moving toward his kitchen, he thought about what he might want to eat. Nothing really stuck out to him so he just made his usual toast, an egg, and some coffee.

He heard Akamaru whine again and he went to go put food in his bowl. No matter how much he wanted to separate himself from his family, they still seem to be on his mind whenever he took care of and fed Akamaru. Maybe it was because he had to feed all the dogs back home.

That was it. There it was. He felt a pang of guilt for leaving them. He was tired of being bossed around like he was nothing. His mother was quite the slave driver, but she was still his mother. He let out a sigh and walked over to the coffee machine that he had already made coffee in it. That was one luxury that he really like having available to him. He put the grounds in at night and set the timer for the coffee to make itself at a certain time each morning. It was fantastic. He had coffee ready when he woke up and that made him smile.

He lifted the pot and poured the warm, dark liquid in a mug that he had. He liked his coffee black without any sugar at all. He just felt that the bitter drink woke him up more than something sweet.

He moved over to his table and sat down to wait for the washer to stop so he could continue with his laundry. He held this cup with both hands as the little wisps of steam flowed up and over the edge. Tentatively, he took a sip and sighed in contentment when it reached his stomach. He needed the little warmth and energy it provided.

Down the hall he could hear the buzz of his dryer and washer going of. Heaving himself up but leaving the coffee on the table, he padded down the hall to change his loads.

Akamaru was watching him. But said nothing. He knew that his master was not a morning person but always woke up to feed him. It was nice. He felt that his master needed someone to talk to aside from himself. Even though he could not respond where his master would understand, he still wanted to talk to him. He knew that Kiba was a loner. His personality made it so that he liked the competition, but he just was more comfortable when he was by himself.

Akamaru looked down, deep in thought. So much so that he did not notice his master come in with a large basket of clothes that were recently washed. Kiba came into the room and saw that his pup hadn't even noticed his presence. Getting an evil idea, he crept closer and dropped the entire basket next to Akamaru making a loud smack as it hit the floor.

Akamaru yelped at the loud noise and moved as far from the basket as possible. He frowned until he saw his master chuckling to himself and he walked up to barked in an upset manner at his master. He did not appreciate it when his master pulled these kind of tricks on him for no reason.

"Awe come on buddy. You know I was only playing." Kiba tried to brush it off as nothing.

Yea it was only nothing. Be grateful that I am not a mean animal that would bite you for a stunt like that. He was not happy that his master had pulled the stunt. It only served to prove how lonely he was if he was gonna pull a prank on his dog. This seemed only to prove his point more. But, alas, he could not communicate well with his master. He needed a friend. He thought a little about that Naruto boy. He seemed to make a good friend for Kiba. They competed with each other and went on missions with each other. He could smell the boy on him because he had such a strong fox smell to him.

Akamaru was brought out of his musings when his master sat down on his chair and started to fold his clothes, placing them on his table in different groups to put away. Laundry was one of Kiba's activities that he didn't exactly enjoy but found that it kept his mind off anything that was distracting or unnecessary. A good distraction every once in a while could prove to be good for a person so that they could wind down and keep a healthy level of insanity.

Kiba finished his menial task of folding his laundry only to hear the buzzer of his second load getting dry. He huffed himself up and went to grab them as well. He returned to his place on a kitchen chair to fold his laundry.

The task at hand took him no time at all. He had all of his laundry done by this time and he placed all of the folded clothing items into his basket and brought them back to his bedroom. He put each of the stacks in their place in his drawers. They fit exactly where they needed to go in each of his drawers. He knew that every time his sister Hana stopped by, she would go through all of his drawers and try and rearrange them. Every time though, she would come, take everything out of the drawers and not be able to fit them all back in complaining about how he was disorganized and couldn't keep his drawers clean. And every time she did this, he would say to leave it alone because she could never get the clothes back in.

Needless to say, he had installed a lock on the door so she could not get in here. It wasn't that he was hiding anything, he just did not want to have to clean up after her again. He was now ready to get dressed for the day.

He rifled through his clothes because he knew what he wanted to wear for the day. He pulled on some black briefs. These were his favorite and he liked the way they felt. He then went to his pants drawer. He shuffled the items around until he found his black jeans. He then proceeded to slip those on as well. These pants were tight near the top but were loose around his legs. They had chains that hung off of the belt loops and also some studs down the sides. He liked these. They were nice for casual wear.

Finally, he went to his shirt drawer. The shirt he wanted to wear was on top because he made sure to put it there so that he could wear it. This shirt was a tight tee shirt that had a fluorescent design of a swirl on it with the slash of claws through it.

He felt fresh and clean and ready to face the day. Now it was time for him to go and find a certain blond kid that he liked to annoy beyond comprehension.

That is the next chapter guys. I have been so tired from all the finals I've had to deal with and being sick. I hate it so much. I appreciate you guys reading my story and I hope that you all would review to help make my writing better. I am thinking of another story idea but I am not going to pursue it until I complete this one. Ja ne!

Akira-kun Signing off! (._.)