The wide open gates of Konohagakure no Sato stood tall and proud as ever, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief as they entered. "It's good to be home." Kiba commented gratefully.

"It's good to have you home dog-breath. Why? Because it was disturbingly too peaceful around here without your incessant barking." A voice returned from above.

"Shino!" Kiba called excitedly to the shinobi crouched on the top of the nearby electrical pole. "Get down here you bug infested son of a bitch!"

"That name does not apply to me, Kiba." Shino explained as he casually hopped down from his perch and strode over to his peers. "Why? Because my mother is not a female canine, which is more than I can say for you my friend." Kiba slapped his hand over his heart with a wounded expression on his face before yanking Shino into a loose one armed headlock.

"Not going to dispute the bug infestation part, Shino?" Sasuke asked dryly.

"I am an Aburame, that is nothing to be ashamed of, copycat."

The Uchiha conceded the point.

"I see that you have all made Chunin, congratulations. Why? Because this promotion was a long time in coming, and I am glad we all stand on equal ground again." Shino praised, prying himself loose of Kiba.

"Thanks Shino," Shikako, who as of that morning was on her feet again, said with a grin at Kiba's antics.

Shino inclined his head. "How were the exams?" he asked, leading the way into the village after moving his way to Hinata's side.

"N-not bad, we all d-did very well." She said quietly but happily.

"Hinata did amazing," Shikako commented. "She smashed Kankuro and his puppet out of the ring in one hit with some sort of chakra fist."

Shino looked surprised at that. "I would be interested to see this. Why? Because I was not aware you had a new move to show."

"I-I would be glad to, Shino."

The ten shinobi walked further into the village before breaking up into our separate groups, Team eight got firmly pulled in the direction of the Inuzuka district, and team Gai split up to go back to their homes. "You coming with me all the way back home?" Shikako asked. "Or are you going to come back for dinner."

Sasuke shook his head. "I think I need to go dig some things out of storage."

"Uchiha stuff?" She asked slowly.

He nodded. "Yeah."

"Do you want me to come with you?" she offered.

Sasuke hesitated, seriously thinking it over. "It's ok if you don't, I just want to see if I can find some of the old Police vests that are in my size. You go home, I'm sure your family is going to want to hear about Kusa's indiscretion before Shikaku-san hears it from Tsunade-sama."

Shikako winced "That's not going to be pleasant."

"At least you will have plenty of stories to tell Yoshino-san, and Kiba will never let you live any of it down."

"Not helping, Sasuke."


"Well, it's now or never." He thought, his hand resting on the door. Sasuke took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and pushed open the door. When he opened his eyes, his shoulders tight as though he was prepared to come face to face with a ghost, he was met with the sight of a warehouse filled to the rafters with the material possessions of his dead kin stacked up in boxes in eight rows twenty meters long, five meters wide, and three meters tall. Sasuke sighed, "And now I get to look through it all." He murmured. Sasuke hesitated before catching himself and punched a wall. "I have five hours before I have to meet 'Kako. I have to get started now, regardless of how much I don't want to find whatever it is I don't want to find." He berated himself before climbing up the first stack of pine wood crates and beginning to methodically pry open each crate with a kunai, rifle through it's contents, and pound the crate back shut in disappointment. "Why the devil did the Third decide to keep so much of this damn clothing, if it was Mom's or Dad's I might be grateful that he kept it, but all I'm finding is box after box of fucking tee-shirts."

With every box of unneeded clothing piled next to the wall by the door, he moved on to the next set of boxes. "Finally, here's what I'm looking for." Sasuke cheered as he opened a box to find a stack of Uchiha Military Police soft body armor vests. Checking the tags, Sasuke grimaced. Too large. The next three boxes contained the same result and his search continued. It seemed that every last item bearing the Uchiha crest was stored in that warehouse, from a crate containing nothing but bedsheets to a crate containing a fancy looking set of tea cups that had probably been used exclusively for Tea Ceremonies. Growing more frustrated by the minute, he checked the time "Three more hours. I'm not even done with the first row yet. I've got to find a way to speed this up. Wait a minute." Sasuke straightened. Swiftly moulding his chakra in the way he'd copied off of Naruto, he formed a hand seal. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Sasuke turned to his clone and gestured off to the next row. "Get searching, we don't have all day." The clone nodded and clambered on to the next row.

Sasuke stretched and continued. The next hour passed with mind-numbing repetitive boredom as he and his clone searched through box after box of Uchiha emblazoned material in their search to find one single vest that actually fit. "Come on, I know I had cousins who joined the Force when they were thirteen, and vests were part of the uniform. Where are they?" Sasuke cursed as he slammed the lid shut on a box containing a stack of expensive looking kimonos.

"H-hey boss!" His clone choked out. "You need to come see this!"

Sasuke whipped around. "You found them!?"

The clone shook his head furiously as he clutched the rim of the open box. "You need to come see this. I'll take over for you where you're at." The shadow clone dragged his sleeve across his eyes and climbed down.

"If it's his I don't want to see it." Sasuke snapped to the chakra construct as he approached.

"Don't you think we know that? I'm you, idiot. I would have dragged it outside and burned it if it had been." The shadow clone growled as it opened a box to find it full of broken down bed frames.

Sasuke frowned and climbed up the second stack of crates, frustrated by the time his search was taking and nervous about whatever had so visibly upset his clone. When he arrived, he peered into the crate to find a darkly stained wooden chest just over a meter long and flinched as though struck. Boldly painted in scarlet onto the the lid in katakana was a message.

"Property of Mikoto Uchiha. Keep the fuck out!"

Sasuke swallowed as he tried to fight back tears, gripping the wood of the surrounding crate so fiercely that the pine splintered under his grasp. Fighting to get ahold of himself, he wiped his eyes on his sleeve and made an impulse decision. Hauling the chest out of the crate with great effort, he then called his clone over and together they bore it down to the floor. Thankfully, the clone had managed to finally find what Sasuke was looking for. Noting the seal locking the chest, Sasuke swiftly sealed the vests into one of the scrolls in his pack, having adopted Shikako's "packing with storage seals" method long before. Then he addressed his shadow clone. "Come on, there's only one person I know who can get me into this thing, and I'm eating with her family this evening."


AN: Yeah, I've finally stumbled on a bit of a plot line. These will all be chronological and while they will feature all of the Konoha 12, or at least most of them depending on how well I find that I can write them, this will probably focus most heavily on Kiba, Shikako, and Sasuke. I probably won't ever write much if anything for Lee. It's so easy to turn he and Gai into parodies of them selves, and I don't trust myself to write that well for them.

Also, I've gotten a few reviews about the amount of information Kiba seems to know, and it's impossible or improbable for him to know that much. The answer is that he doesn't. He knows about Orochimaru because he was part of it, and he knows about Itachi and Kisame because he was told about it. He knows about Naruto and the Kurama because Naruto admitted to it during the mission de-briefing after the Sound Five mission and he knows about Gaara and Shukaku because he was on that mission as well. He does not know about the Akatsuki in full.

I've noticed that this has gotten a lot of "follows" and "favorites" and very few reviews compared to it. Please review, I need the feedback so I can know what I'm doing right and correct what I'm doing wrong.