"Aw, Akamaru! Take it easy!"
It was a quiet and sunny afternoon, yet Kiba couldn't help but complain seeing the little white furry dog on his lap scratch himself to the deaths.
The boy tried another attempt to calm the energetic dog down, "Akamaru, if you keep this up, you'll be sending most of your fleas to me," he chuckled, trying to imagine the look on his mom's face if she found even one of those 6-legged creatures crawling anywhere on his body.
"Rowr?" the dog, Akamaru whined innocently, facing his owner. Akamaru gave that manipulative cute puppy-eyed expression but little did he know, it wasn't gonna work on him this time,
"Seriously, if you're gonna make an adorable face, make it look like this one," his master then pointed at his own face, flashing his teeth.
"Any problem, Kiba?"
He turned his head to see his teammate, Shino, leaning side-on against a tree with a skeptic look.
He then replied, "Nah. Not really. Why?"
"I figured you had a problem when I heard you talking to yourself."
"Heh. I was talking to Akamaru. It's just that he has a bad case of the fleas."
"Looks like he's not the only one," Shino pointed at him.
"Wha-? Where? Where! Get it of me! Get it off!" Kiba quickly stood up, causing the surprised Akamaru to tumble onto the soft grass. And Kiba, being quite the jumpy one, frantically searched his body for traces of the pests.
"Um… Kiba-kun?" it was only now he noticed that Hinata was right there, standing beside Shino, "Shino-kun was only joking about the fleas," she uttered a slight giggle.
Shino, being quite pleased at his decent sense of humor, gave out a satisfied sigh, "Besides, you're with the Inuzaka clan. You work with dogs. It won't be much of a surprise if you do have fleas."
"Hmph! I resent that! And just for the record, I don't have any. Anyway, you work with bugs too. How do we know if you don't have fleas, hmm?" he gave a mild glare at the slight humiliation as Shino raised his eyebrow.
Akamaru aired it's tongue out and panted, as if laughing at him.
"You know, you're the one with fleas, Akamaru!" Kiba added at the mangy little furball.
His two teammates just laughed at him and his plainly stupid antics. And they call themselves friends.
"Heh. For what reason have you guys come. anyway? You can't just invade mine and Akamaru's space to mock me. That's just plain unreasonable.
Hinata answered him, "Well, you see, Hokage-sama is calling the attention of all Konoha ninja to assemble for a meeting…"
"Right now?" A somewhat anticipated look was glued on his face.
She nodded, "Yes, at the academy conference hall."
Conference hall, eh? Some news this might be.
"Well," Kiba picked up Akamaru and placed him under the warmth of his jacket with only his head and paws peeking out. "We had better be going now, hadn't we?"
They agreed and all started walking when Shino looked at him, "What about your fleas?"
"Please don't bring that up…"
"Alright! Glad to see you're all here," the country's Hokage, Tsunade began her opening statement. Her voice echoing throughout the Academy hall. Kiba could spot his team's sensei, Kurenai, in a row together with all the other jounin, aligned horizontally behind Tsunade-sama.
She opened her mouth once again to speak, "As you can see, I've summoned all of you to assemble here. There are some announcements I'd like to make regarding…"
And that was all she said that Kiba heard. Other than that, he could barely hear much of her voice. The audiences chit-chattering drowned the rest of her words down.
Akamaru began to pace in discomfort giving a look that said 'get-me-the-hell-out-of-here' at its master.
Kiba cringed his mouth, "I can't do anything about the noise, Akamaru. Tsunade-sama has to do something about it. Besides, I can hardly even see from here, too."
He was seated way over at the back, considering he lost sight of Shino and Hinata at the entrance. Luckily though, he spotted Naruto a few seats away from him beside Shikamaru and Chouji.
Kiba crouched down and shifted into an empty chair next to the yellow-haired genin.
"Oy, Naruto," he called out.
No response.
A little louder this time,
"Oy, Naruto!"
Yet again, no response.
Geez, was he deaf…? If he dpesn't hear this, he definitely needs a check up. He tried one last attempt to call his attention,
"OY, NARUTO!"
Whoops.
Wrong move.
It so happened at the same time that the room's noise died down, having someone –particularly an unfamiliar girl- enter it. Now though, their attention focused on Kiba, the loudmouth.
"Ehehe…" he slouched and sunk down low his chair, embarrassed at the particular incident.
As soon as the awkward pause passed, Shikamaru sighed, "You're lucky that Hokage-sama didn't notice that… I think."
Kiba nodded a 'yeah'.
A hollow thud was suddenly heard from below followed by a half open-eyed Naruto, a stream of drool running down his chin, "Huh… Wha-?"
"Naruto, you were there the whole time?" Kiba asked demandingly, quite perturbed.
Chouji answered for him, "Yeah. He fell asleep right before Hokage Tsunade even said anything.
They all laughed, knowing Naruto to be a hysterical riot whilst he looked around at them, completely and utterly clueless,
"What?"
"Nothing. Hey Naruto," Kiba asked him. Pondering as he looked up at the ceiling.
He replied, stroking the tired Akamaru's fur, "Yeah?"
"Have you ever considered… change?"
"Change?" he crinkled his nose ad frowned, thinking Kiba was referring about Naruto to change himself.
"Nothing personal. I just meant in general. We're growing up now aren't we? Things could happen… Yet we don't know a thing about it. It's like a sensation and stuff. The feeling that - You don't get me, do you?"
Naruto shook his head, meaning a 'no', "You mean like growing chest hair?"
"What the-? No! I mean, yeah. But that's not what I meant!"
"Heh. The only change Naruto's interested in is his skills in jutsus," said Chouji, offering his barbecue-flavored chips to them. They all shook their heads, amazed he actually was willing to give them some.
"To become the Hokage, eh? That's reasonable enough," Kiba gave a second thought and reached in the potato chip bag and munched on one, "But think of it this way Naruto. If you do become the greatest ninja ever, what if you'll become old and alone. The mightiest, yes, but what if the most conceited. The most vicious. The most fearful."
Naruto was slightly taken aback at the thought, "Trust me. That won't happen. I'll be the most talented. Most friendly and most handsome. I'll be surrounded by the hottest chicks."
They all rolled their eyes and laughed. Completely ignoring the noise all around them.
'What a weird bunch of guys' across the room, thought the girl upon peering a glance at them.She was brought in the room by Tsunade-sama a few minutes ago with the purpose of her being at Konoha. Of course an introduction is a must for that.
But no, she couldn't. Not that she would'nt but she literally couldn't.
Why?
She just merely could not…
A simple smile-less "hi," she uttered just for the sake of presenting herself as a new face.
Tsunade-sama called everyone's attention, "There is someone who will be joining us in Konoha from now on. She is from the Ehime clan. Please treat her equally with respect and like part of the family. That is all for now. You are dismissed," she pounded her fist on the table, signifying that they can all leave. The impact though, broke the table, which caused a few heads to turn leaving a momentarily shocked look on their faces.
The girl stared at the Hokage, slightly widening her eyes,
Was she insane?
"Ahaha! Don't worry about that," she tuned to her, laughing nervously, "Izumo, Kotetsu! come over here!"
2 young jounin came running into the room following their leader's command.
Tsunade waved her hand at them casually, "Go bring this podium out and replace it with a new one," she ordered.
Kotetsu, the one with a bandage wrapped against his nose, dropped his jaw, "What? That's a 300-pound metal stand!"
"Do I hear a complaint?" her voice raised.
"N-no, no ma'am!"
"Good," Tsunade then lifted the podium table with a finger –considering her industrial strength-, "Please go and bring this outside then. Oh, and fetch me my paperwork from Shizune while you're at it," she tossed them the metal stand leaving them struggling to carry it.
"Yes, ma'am!"
They hurriedly left the room avoiding any further orders.
The girl scratched her head, pondering about,
'What a long day this might turn out to be.'.