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Kiba hadn't wanted to be part of any assignment at first. Not with crybaby Sakura or fatso Chouji. He didn't want to be pulled down by those sissies. They were cowards. And an Inuzuka didn't spend time with weaklings. They were too strong for that.

But then... Well, then Iruka Sensei had told them they'd have to find out about the old Shinobi Wars from people that had lived through them and he couldn't help but get excited.

His mother and father both had war stories... They had made sure that Kiba knew about these stories as the years had passed and he had grown. But Iruka Sensei had asked them to go out and do an actual investigation with someone that wasn't family. And this had made the Inuzuka immediately make up his mind about the kind of story he wanted to find.

It had to be from an old person. Man or woman, didn't matter. But not old enough to be completely senile. And they'd preferrably have scars and a dark demeanor. Like all of the Uchihas running around the village... Just less snooty. And it had to be an awesome tale of heroism with lots of blood and dead enemy ninja!

The mere thought about how awesome the story they were going to find would be had Kiba jumping up from his desk as soon as the scarred chunin had told them to get together into their groups. He jumped over desks to get to Sakura, all the while shouting at Chouji to get his ass over and meet them by Sakura's desk.

Iruka Sensei had scolded him over the crass word. Kiba had been too excited to bite back with the customary "Bite me, old man!" that would leave him in detention on other normal days.

"We are not going to ask our parents!"

He was excited. Sue him. He never got excited over school projects. If anything, Iruka Sensei should be proud. Not giving him that glare that promised of many detentions if he didn't calm down.

In his rush to get to Sakura's desk, he had knocked over quite a few notebooks and pens, garnering shouts of annoyance and dirty looks from the rest of his fellow students. But he didn't give a damn. He was much too excited to give any!

Once had had finally reached her desk, he had grabbed the nearest chair and pulled it up to her. Then he had sat himself right beside her, a large grin plastered on his face as he shouted out the first thing that came to his mind. And once he had finished shouting, he took note of Sakura whimpering slightly, her eyes wide and focused directly on his smile.

He couldn't blame her. The Inuzuka had great smiles.

Chouji appeared to his right a few seconds later, pulling up his own chair to sit in front of Sakura's desk. He looked unsure of himself as he moved the chair, as if he weren't sure if what he was doing was right.

As he looked from the pink haired girl that could only stare with wide eyes over to the plump boy that chewed on a piece of gum nervously, a thought struck the young Inuzuka.

Iruka Sensei had given him the best yet worst team. Sakura Haruno was smart and quiet, which meant she could most probably deal with smoothing out any edges in the project, but she was always getting her ass kicked because she was weak. And Chouji Akimichi was always following Shikamaru around, which meant he most probably wouldn't have any trouble letting Kiba lead the way. But he was a giant wussy. He'd gotten his ass kicked by a few girls a couple of weeks ago.

So, they'd listen to him without trouble. But it'd be annoying having to deal with their wimpy ways of being... Only until the project ended. He'd have to deal with them only until then.

"B-But Kiba, I know that my dad's cou-"

"No family!" The Inuzuka interrupted the pink haired girl with a dangerous snarl, eyes narrowed in her direction.

With a whimper, Sakura hid her face by covering it with her arms, down by her desk. And Kiba smirked proudly at the show of submission. His Inuzuka heritage swelled with pride.

"I know what kind of story I want to find! And we're going a step above the rest of the idiots in this place!" He announced, then grabbed the back of Chouji's shirt to bring him in close, forcing his and Chouji's face to get real close to the still hidden Sakura. Then, he continued in a whisper, "We're going to do some actual detective work."

Chouji looked at him completely caught by surprise, most probably wondering why he had gotten so excited over anything school related. Sakura, though, just kept her head down. Smart girl. Don't do anything that might be seen as questioning his dominance. Inuzuka didn't like their dominance insulted. Even in his young age, Kiba knew this.

"What do you mean, Kiba?" Chouji asked softly, keeping his voice low like the Inuzuka.

This caused the boy to smirk cheekily.

"I mean we're going to find the oldest person we can find to tell us all about the war!"


When Iruka Sensei had called Kiba's name after her own, Sakura had felt her heart drop. The boy was the wild child. He was scary. And he had told her on more than one occasion to ninja up and grow a backbone. He was mean. He was crude. And he didn't care about how she felt.

She had known that, by every person Iruka Sensei called out before her, there were only two possible candidates as to her group members would be. And while Chouji didn't scare her, he was much too nice and had once even shared a small piece of a cookie with her... Well... Kiba was terrifying.

Her mother always told her if she was faced with someone from the Inuzuka Clan, she just let them do whatever they wanted. They were feral. They acted like wild animals. They most probably had fleas. They were the exact opposite of what a proper clan should be.

Then he had come running up to her with his teeth bared and Sakura had found herself terrified for her life. His teeth were so sharp. Especially those fangs! He could most probably rip her apart without even a second thought!

The pink haired girl hadn't dared to speak up against him. She knew that her father's cousin had done something during the war that was spectacular enough for her father to tell her she should ask him about it whenever she got the chance, but Kiba had been adamant about 'searching' for a story and she hadn't dared try and say anything after he had interrupted her.

Maybe if she played possum when he got angry, she wouldn't get too beat up...

Once the bell for the end of class had rung, she had found herself being forced to hurry up and pack all of her things away as quickly as possible so she could go with Chouji and Kiba in search of their story. She hadn't wanted to go. She just wanted to go home and forget about all of the mean things the girls of the class had said... But Kiba had insisted they should go to this part of Konoha he knew always had old men in it.

His mom had said they were a bunch of dead beats. His dad had said they were veterans.

Sakura had no idea why anybody's parents would have such different views of the same thing.

So the group of three had set off, running out of the classroom without even a proper goodbye to their teacher. Sakura had felt bad about it. She always said goodbye to Iruka Sensei. He was a nice teacher and deserved his students to be as kind to him as he was to them.

It had been hard to keep up with the Inuzuka. Even Chouji had been huffing and puffing at the unbelievably fast pace the boy tried to set. And he continued shouting at them to stop being so slow, to stop holding him back. And Sakura hadn't found the strength in herself to tell Kiba to stop being such a jerk, so she had just pushed her aching and burning legs to continue and not give up on her.

The sun was beginning to set by the time they reached the spot Kiba had told them about it. It was getting dark and Sakura had only a few hours to get back home before her parents became worried.

"Here's where we'll find our story!"

The fact that the streets were mostly deserted and the whole place smelled pungent, nasty, and like her uncle's favorite 'adult' drinks didn't give Sakura much confidence.

"I don't think we'll find anyone here, Kiba..." Chouji voiced her doubts softly, only to have the Inuzuka shake his head with a determined smirk.

"I know what I'm doing, Chouji! Trust me, why don't you?" He chuckled softly at this, then pointed at his nose with his thumb, giving the two kids behind him a one eyed look. "Just let my nose do all the work and we'll find the story that will blow everyone else's out of the water!"

Then he'd begun to sniff at the air, apparently unaware of the confused looks both Chouji and Sakura gave him. He went off on his own and Sakura didn't follow, somewhat convinced that the Inuzuka really were as insane as her mother had said.

"He's... Not right, is he?"

Sakura blinked at Chouji after he had spoken, a blush beginning to spread on her cheeks. She hadn't been expecting anyone to want to talk to her. And she had no idea how to answer.

So she said nothing.

Instead, she looked down at her feet and begun to scuff at the sand beneath her, kind of wishing her bangs weren't pinned back so she could hide her face behind the hair. She didn't like being out here. Chouji was nice, but she didn't know him.

... She didn't know anyone.

With a soft sigh, Sakura closed her eyes. She really wished she could make friends. But she was scared of it.

"Hey! I found an old man!"

Her eyes snapped open as soon as she heard Kiba's shout, then she looked up to find the boy running off in the same direction they had been heading in the first place, getting really close to the edge of the village.

"Wait! Kiba! I can't go too far!" She found herself shouting before she could stop, then took off running after him. "My parents don't want me too far from home!"

But she chased after him for some reason. And when she finally found him, she found him looking up with wide eyes at a man dressed in a dark cloak and large hat that covered most of his face. He had been coming out of what her uncle had once told her was called a bar- or was it a tavern? Well, it was supposed to be a place that kids couldn't even get near! But there was the Inuzuka, only a few feet away from the door with a determined look on his face.

"You, old man! Tell us war stories!"

As soon as he had shouted that out, the old man had growled softly. And Sakura's stomach began to sink... Her mother had been right... The Inuzuka were insane!


Sakura was very quiet. Chouji found himself hoping it wasn't because she didn't like him because he actually liked being around her.

The girl was quiet, like Shikamaru, but she wasn't lazy. And she was really smart and did her job in class, which was one of the reasons Chouji thought she was so smart. Because she always got A's and B's on her test scores unlike him and Shikamaru. And she kind of smelled like his mom's kitchen after she baked those delicious vanilla cookies, which made him wonder if she did much baking.

He remembered that he had once offered her a piece of a cookie of his mother's as a show of friendship. And she had smiled and accepted it, but he hadn't been able to talk to her that day because then Ami had taken her away to show her some kind of game. Maybe Ami had been nice that day. She was really nice to Chouji. She'd never called him out on his plump figure. Neither had Sakura, though. Some of the girls in their group were actually really nice. But others were just as mean as some of the guys.

He'd tried to make conversation with her, he really had! But she was very quiet and had apparently been too afraid to speak to him because she'd just looked down and ignored him. And Chouji had no idea what to do with himself after that because he wasn't used to making small talk with people he didn't know. He was used to being around Shikamaru. And he sure didn't deal with small talk.

Ino kind of chattered a bit whenever their fathers forced them into a 'play date' of sort. But that didn't happen much because their fathers barely ever got together for that sort of thing anymore. Although he had never minded listening to Ino talk about whatever she deemed important enough to say. He liked hearing people talk.

He'd dozed slightly and kind of checked out of reality as he thought about the loud Yamanaka girl and his Nara best friend. Their parents wanted them to be the next Ino-Shika-Cho. They had all made sure that all of their kids knew that they were supposed to keep the legacy alive. But Chouji didn't know if he would want to be on a team with Ino. She was cool in class and at home, but he had seen her out in the playground with the other kids and she was sometimes a really big bully.

He'd been forced away from his thoughts by a sudden shout from their wild group mate, Kiba, and Sakura's own answering yell. Then they'd both been running away and Chouji hadn't wanted to stay alone with the sun setting, so he'd run after them too.

It was kind of fun, running so much. Shikamaru never wanted to run because it was too troublesome and Ino didn't like playing the rougher games because she was a 'lady'... Whatever that meant.

When he caught up with both of the other kids he had been assigned to work with, he found a very large and scary man glaring down at an all too smiling Kiba, even though Sakura was looking up at the man with wide eyes and seemed a bit pale. They were all in front of what looked a lot like his, Shikamaru, and Ino's fathers favorite place to get together, although much more broken down and less inhabited.

"Buzz off."

As soon as Chouji heard the man's voice, he was kind of scared. It was deep and gravelly and sounded kind of like two stones grinding against each other. While on fire. It was a weird image. But it was the only one Chouji could truly think of to explain how scary the man's voice sounded.

"No! I know you have awesome war stories! Now tell us one of them so we can kick the idiots' asses!"

His father had once told him that the Inuzuka Clan was filled with passionate and overly active individuals. And from the way Kiba always seemed to have an endless well of energy, Chouji guessed that his father's words had held some kind of truth to them.

"If you don't get away from me, I'll be kicking your asses." The man's answering growl came with a shove at Kiba's head, causing the boy to stumble backwards.

Sakura yelped at the sight of the Inuzuka being pushed and Chouji felt a sinking sensation in his stomach, although neither of them moved to help the boy. Chouji couldn't. That man was huge! He must have been even taller than Shikamaru's father, and Shikaku was really tall.

"Don't touch me!" Kiba growled with a swat at the man's hand, then placed his left hand on his hip and pointed at the man with his right, eyes narrowed and a sneer on his face. Chouji was pretty sure if Shikamaru were here, he'd tell the boy to calm down and stop being so loud. "Now sit your ancient ass down and tell us all about how you were awesome in the war and decimated a whole enemy platoon!"

The man's face was almost completely covered by a large hat with white-thread thingies attached to its brim. From what Chouji could make out, he also had a mask beneath that. But he wasn't completely sure because of the shadows the large hat was casting. Aside from that, he wore a dark cloak with pretty white and red cloud designs. They were rather nice looking. It was a bit odd that the clouds were red, though, because he was pretty sure those only came in white.

"Boy, you are pushing my short patience-"

"And you're pushing my nonexistent patience!" Kiba finally shouted out, marching up to the man to raise his right leg. "Now give me a war story unless you want me to hurt you!"

Chouji was amazed to see the Inuzuka actually threatening the much larger man. Clearly, this was not the kind of person that enjoyed many things from his grumpy demeanor. And he didn't seem like the kind that would enjoy having a little kid threaten to kick him and ask for a war story.

"Boy, you really are- Hey!"

"Kiba, don't kick him!"

"I do what I want, crybaby! What are you going to do if I don't do what you say? Drown me with your- Hey! Put me down! Old man, you're supposed to be telling us a story! Not carrying me!"

The scene before him unfolded way too fast for Chouji to stop anything from happening.

First Kiba had been kicking the man's shin and stopping him from talking. Then Sakura had run to try and stop Kiba from kicking the man, only to fall in front of them both and begin to get ridiculed by the Inuzuka. And, finally, as Kiba had continued to taunt Sakura, the man had grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him up and away from the ground, so he could glare right into the boy's eyes.

"You're a brat."

"And you're an old man."

"You have weak friends."

"And you have old man breath."

Chouji could only stare in awe as the man held Kiba up to his face by the back of his shirt, the boy with his arms crossed over his chest and a proud smirk on his face.

"Uh, Kiba... I don't think-" He began, terrified of getting glared at but even more scared of Kiba getting killed, only to get interrupted by the man asking a rather odd question.

"Got any money?"

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