"The best of us must sometimes eat our words." Albus Dumbledore

"You must be joking. Why? Because I do not believe that a minor village's leadership could possibly be that stupid." Shino Aburame argued from his seat beside Hinata.

"H-he is not joking, S-shino-kun. Kusa would have taken Shikako-chan if she did not place that seal." Hinata assured.

"And Kusa will just get away with it."Kiba growled angrily, leaning on the grill. "I'm tired of people messing with my pack and coming out even at best."

"I am aware, but the Godaime cannot do anything overly aggressive against Kusa. Why? Because then Iwa will take up arms and Kumo will leap at the chance as well, and that will be the start of the Fourth Great War." Shino countered, pulling a small book and pencil out of his jacket and flipping to his last place in it.

Kiba looked at him, rolled his eyes, and grimaced. "Well fuck, that puts an end to me and Sasuke's plan. I hadn't even considered that."

Hinata looked up in confusion."What?"

"If I had a chance where it didn't affect the mission and me or Sasuke ran across a Kusa nin, we were going to kill them." Kiba explained.

Shino froze and slowly looked up to meet Kiba's gaze. "Kiba, that was the most monumentally idiotic thing I have ever heard out of your mouth."

"Well I realize that now, don't I?" Kiba retorted, walking over and peering over Shino's shoulder. The Inuzuka blinked a few times and shook his head before checking to make sure he was actually seeing what he thought he was seeing. "That's for your little sister isn't it?"

"It is."

Kiba gestured at the book. "Do you mind if I make an observation?"

Shino placed his pencil down and looked up at Kiba exageratedly. "Go on. Why? Because I am dying to know what constructive criticism you could make."

"Well for one," Kiba noted, gesturing at the horrifying, demonic-looking, eldritch monster-like creature towering over a dimunitive human in the foreground. "Children's books aren't supposed to scare the living shit out of the children."

Shino sighed, "Right now I am at the point where the Fourth Hokage, our hero, is about to slay the mountain demon and rescue Konoha from certain destruction."

"So you're creatively retelling history then."

"Yes. Why? Because my sister thinks I am much better at telling it than the Acadamy teachers. And now that I am a chunnin, I will not always be around to teach it to her in such a way that she can pass the tests."

"I've got to admit, if that's the way they taught in the Acadamy, me and Naruto would've had better scores."


AN: I just want to put a disclaimer. That last little exchange about the content of Shino's little hobby of drawing historical but wildly creative Manga for his sister was taken almost directly from a similar exchange from one of my favorite movies Black Hawk Down. I thought it was both in character for the two of them and rather amusing, so I put it in. Don't forget to review!