I've finally posted my 6th chapter. Sorry for the long wait, I barely had much time. This chapter's sorta like a semi guest chapter. I had writer's block near the last part, so my friend wrote 1/3 of this chapter (the last part when Mitsuki has an arguement w/ Kiba) Anyway, hope u like it

my friend's penname is hiraeth93 if you wanted to know.

Chapter 6 – I Blame You

"Kiba?" A voice echoed calling out his name. Was it an angel? Had… had he already departed the earth? Slowly his eyes opened to see a vision to him unlike any other. An angel indeed. Her raven-black tresses fell upon her face's radiant glow as she pulled them back behind her ear. But then… why…

Why… did it seem so familiar?

"Oy, Kiba! You awake yet?" an irritating voice that called from afar had confirmed it. That definitely had to be Naruto. And that angel? Boy, was he embarrassed. It was just Mitsuki. She may be his, how you say, 'vision' of an angel, but Kiba certainly wasn't dead!

"H-huh?"

His two teammates looked at him ignorantly but then remembered that he'd been knocked out and probably wouldn't be able to recall anything that happened earlier.

"You fainted," Mitsuki plainly said, seeing that the boy was confused.

That probably didn't help since he gave the both of them another questioning look.

"What she means to say is," Naruto explained, "We found you and Akamaru–"

Kiba suddenly cut his sentence out of concern, "A-akamaru! Where is he!" he frantically turned his head, grasping the white bed sheets laid on him.

"He's with your sister," Naruto scowled, not wanting to be interrupted, "Now shut up and let me finish. Ahem I waited just like you told me, standing guard near the enemy. You were taking too long so I figured I'd go back to Mitsuki. When I went back though, I saw her standing around about 6 dead corpses with the scroll in her hand. We both headed out to find you and bring you back to the village, so here we are," he ended.

"Uh… ok," Kiba tried to gulp down all that information on what had happened while he was 'half-dead'. Did they –well, Mitsuki- really manage all that while he was gone? After all, he didn't really know quite that much about her nor what she was capable and skilled of. "So where's the scroll now?" he asked them.

"Right here."

They all turned to see their beaming Hokage tossing the scroll up in the air with one hand, "Good job everyone, a rank b mission complete," she really couldn't help but give a little smile considering that cooperation in Kiba's team would be a little hard to achieve having a new face, namely, Mitsuki on the team.

She continued, "None of you came back with any wounds or bruises to worry about. As for you though, Kiba, your carelessness brought your body to a poisoned state. But fortunately, the toxins have already been extracted. You'll have to lay back on exerting your chakra. A little rest will do the trick."

"Yeah…" he faintly muttered, frowning.

"Something wrong?" Mitsuki turned to the boy, noticing a slight disturbance in him yet without much of concern in her voice.

"And what would you care?" Kiba snapped, particularly in a changing bad mood at the moment.

She sighed and looked away as if saying, 'have it your way then…'

Tsunade then cleared her throat to have their attention, "Thank you, Mitsuki, Naruto, you both can leave Kiba here. His sensei will see him now," she gestured to the two, indicating for them to leave their teammate as she too left through the door, allowing another figure to enter.

"Kurenai-sensei…" the boy greeted at the person.

"Happy to see me, Kiba?" the female jounin smiled back at her subordinate.

Kiba merely grumbled with his head down, assuming he'd get chewed out, him being expected to be a little more than the 'genin with an injury' right now.

"Don't be embarrassed," she smiled, lifting up his chin, "they were also strong opponents."

'Yeah? Then why were Mitsuki and Naruto able to succeed flawlessly?' he thought to himself with a frown.

"You're teammates weren't flawless. You just had your guard down a little, that's all," said Kurenai.

"…really…" Kiba tilted his head a bit, still feeling quite low, yet partly shocked at the fact that it was as though his sensei could read his mind… or was it just obvious.

Was he that predictable?

Either way, it was Kurenai's expectation as a team leader to be able to read those damp expression faces her subordinates often give out, allowing her a vague idea on what was going on inside their heads.

"Kiba, everyone has flaws. Your mind wasn't fully focused on the mission," his sensei lectured, placing her hand on his shoulder, "You probably were immersed with something else…"

Blush.

His two cheeks were immediately taken over by faded pink pigments of blood rising below his face's skin as a certain thought no, a certain girl entered his mind. Though his attempts to bury his face in the white cloth were proven useless.

"It's about Mitsuki, isn't it?" she asked the obvious question supposedly leading to an obvious answer.

Double blush.

"Huh? What…?" Kiba asked trying to hide those stupid scarlet colors from appearing on his cheeks –not those red marks, mind you.

Kurenai continued, of course noticing the numerous blushes, "Kiba, regarding Mitsuki, I need to tell you something. Mitsuki… she's a lot more that meets the eye… We… don't know yet where she came from our any previous information of her. According to hokage-sama, most of her memory was lost. Currently, they are trying to research on any available data regarding her status, clan biography or any village she was from. These things would normally be handled with extra precaution though hokage-sama seems to have an interest of medicinal and experimental purpose. Such an alarming situation it is but…"

Kiba waited for the completion of her statement to come though it never did. Instead a tried and failed attempt to hide a look of worry was on her face.

"Just promise me you'll not get deeply trusting with this girl… We don't know what she is really capable of so there are great risks… Hayate-san is sent to observe her though…"

The boy stifled a laugh thinking she was joking about all that crap.

Her? Mitsuki? Dangerous?

Oh, please.

Kurenai didn't laugh back though, her face was as solid and serious very unlike the previous smile she gave out earlier. She got up from the side of the bed and started out the door.

"Kiba, I'm trusting you with this. Not a word about it to anyone…"

He nodded slowly as he too stood up, grunting as he pushed the white sheets away from his body. How irritating, such a fuss over that girl. Though, he did have some feelings for her, right? Why else would those blushes have appeared.

Headache.

These events came so fast, as to him it was all a big confusion of both his thoughts and feelings. Sigh. Why would he give a damn anyway. The boy began to look for his white little Akamaru before things could get any worse.

"Mitsuki?"

The girl turned to her sensei, arousing a fresh, new day's scent as she walked on the dusty, cobblestone village path.

"No practice for today, ok? I'll be busy," the coughing Hayate instructed her, with his face looking a little more troubled than usual.

'Busy? How can he be busy? It wasn't like he did extremely heavy tasks all the time...' she pondered silently, but then again of course, understood with a stroke of compassion since he already is quite sickly as it is.

"Work on focusing your speed to counter opponents."

"Sure," Mitsuki nodded obediently just as she should.

The jounin then poofed out of the area hence the white smoke around where he stood. An act really not very rare around ninjas and blah.

The 15-year old konoichi started to look at the ground where her feet were firmly planted on. Her mind began to wander again when a little, feeble black ant crossed her path.

An ant.

Wow.

An unusual source of entertainment but even tiny things like that to Mitsuki could make her think. Inspiration, I guess. That brought her to thoughts, that a little ant was to be compared to anything. To… Kiba.

Wait, how'd he suddenly pop in her head like that, as if she suddenly remembered him out of nowhere? Possible, because he really was like an ant—physically strong, though mentally weak and emotionally rebellious, minding his voice probably.

But despite his loud and obnoxious attitude, he was quite a persevering little trooper, in some term—mind the ant. Maybe he was more than meets the eye… surely there would be more to him than that exterior of his.

Time was running, yet it remained as a mainstream flow. Had she already wasted a good 10 minutes and some, though she barely even noticed it. But one thing was sure—she noticed a 1.5 foot white animal prancing towards the path. "Akamaru,"

It was the white dog once again. She couldn't think of why the fur ball would come running to her again having this be probably the third time. And where there's the dog, there's the owner.

But wait, she thought twice before looking up. He obviously wasn't there, hence that there was no loud outbursts of his complaints and such. Mitsuki recalled herself earlier asking the boy what was wrong, though a bitter response came out of his lips. He was in a bad mood. That was all she could think about then.

The little fur ball led out a soft bark as it crawled up in her arms. "What are you doing here? Where's your…"

Before she could say anything else, a cold and uneasy presence suddenly surrounded the place, as a shadow hovered over her feet. Mitsuki looked up, trying to make out the face which was overshadowed by the sun behind him.

"Hey, what're you doing with Akamaru?" a cold serious voice called out. It was Kiba, the boy she was thinking about just then.

What an unpleasant coincidence.

He had a face of mixed anger and confusion, like he was supposed to burst in flames. Yet in his eyes, set a calm and pleased face—basically a boy with many faces.

As if she was unaffected by his current bitter attitude, she merely answered him, "Nothing, he came over to me…"

"Akamaru come here," he ignored here reply as he snapped in a stricken voice, ordering his pup to come over. Akamaru barked out a soft one, as he jumped off her arms and towards Kiba.

No matter, she continued the fiery conversation willingly, not caring if he was in a bad mood or not. Anyway why should his attitude affect her, "Why aren't you at the infirmary?"

"I blame you."

"What?" Mitsuki suddenly looked up at him, her eyebrows defining a look of confusion and doubt. "What did I do?"

"You're such a pain in the ass…"

"What…? What did I do that made you say—".

"Such a pain that you drive me crazy…! You feel like you're in charge don't you? Killing everyone and leaving nothing for me since I'm such a hapless shinobi who happened to faint."

Mitsuki laughed despite his 'enraging' shown anger.

"What the hell are you laughing at?" Kiba then clenched his fists as he somewhat bared his teeth.

"What? Are you gonna beat me up? Go ahead. You know, you're acting like a little kid."

The boy was taken aback, expecting her to get intimidated by his attitude, but rather, it was he who was the one a little intimidated, though obviously he didn't show it. After all, he couldn't really hit the girl, with her being a female and all, despite it's example of gender discrimination, "See? There you go again with your big shot attitude. You just feel like you wanted to show off your abilities and skills, huh? Well it ain't working on me because I ain't dumb!"

Mitsuki tried to suppress more laughter. 'I'm the one with the big shot attitude? And who does he think he is? Mr. Modesty?' She wanted to say that but it was better to leave it alone, she wouldn't want Kiba to get even more pissed off.

Mitsuki reasoned instead, "That's no reason to go and blame me…"

"Hell yeah it is! You and your stupid sword thinge—"

"Katana."

"Whatever! You think you and your stupid katana can compete against me! I was made team captain so don't act like you're the one in charge, you got that! And furthermore, for you being such a pain in the ass, stop sticking your nose up on other people's businesses!" Kiba finally shouted, and left the girl in a speechless scene of awkwardness.

"Let's go Akamaru," he barked, lifting his pup in his arms. Akamaru moaned a soft mumble, a sense of concern in his little eyes towards Mitsuki. "Stop that, you know she's not worth pitying."

Mitsuki merely rolled her eyes and looked down at Akamaru, giving him a look which could be read as, 'it's OK, I'll catch up to you in a little while,'

Akamaru continued to moan as he dug himself under his shirt. "I said be quiet Akamaru,"

"Kiba you're acting really immature."

"I'm not hearing anyone!" he shouted out loud. Mitsuki sighed, shutting her eyes, quite disgusted at the boy. She eyed him exasperatedly as he stormed off.

He got his facts all wrong. First of all, he was what he called himself as the 'Big Shot'. Secondly, how could she stick her nose in his business? If he was talking about the mission, it was a teamwork. It wasn't called kibawork, it was TEAMwork, with a heavy emphasis on the word 'team'. It wasn't her problem if he didn't like to paired with her. Though really, in obvious terms, the boy had not reason to call her a pain in the ass. His reason's weren't even enough to be called a reason!

"Must be hokage-sama's medicine again…"