"Wow..."muttered Kiba as he looked over the side of the snow drif he stood on. "Looks like we got lucky; the snow's piled much higher over here." He shook his head. "I'm surprised its this thick this far into town. You'd think it would be thinner here."

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, it's pretty bad everywhere by the looks of it." He glanced around. "Lets see...I think we need to go left up ahead."

"You think?"

"I'm not sure. Everything looks different under this much snow. And all the street signs are blown over or covered so their no help. Just gotta trut my unfailing sense of navigation."

Kiba tryied very hard not to laugh as he followed Naruto.

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Of course they wondered around completely lost for about an hour before they finally found anywhere they reconized...

"Finally..." sighed Naruto over his now very angry stomache. They had reached the general store. Kiba stumbled up behind him. "Damn it..." he muttered. He had snapped one of the straps to his left snowshoe. "Please tell me it's open."

Naruto pushed the door and stuck his head in, "Hello? Is anyone here?"

The store clerk stuck his head out of the back room. "Yeah, we're open. I'm not sure how long I'm going to stay open so you might want to hurry up."

Naruto stepped inside. "Okay then. We'll be quick." They hurried about, getting enough food to last them for at least a week, more if they could keep from pigging out when they got home. Naruto went up to the counter to pay. "How much?"

The clerk shook his head, "Don't worry about it. I'll put it on your account and you can pay me later. I just want to hurry up and close."

"Thank you sir!" smiled Naruto as he and Kiba grabbed the bags of food. They hurried out and headed home.

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Grateful for being able to retrace their steps to get back to Kiba's house, they out away the food and made lunch. Kiba went to turn the heat back up when he noticed a messege on his machine. "Huh? Looks like someone tried to call while we were out..."

"Who called?" asked Naruto from the kitchen.

"Don't know yet. Let me listen to the messege first." He hit play... Iruka-sensei's strained voice issued forth...

"Finally! I've been trying to get through all day! I really hope you two are just outside or something right now and thats why

you didn't answer. Call me back soon okay?"

"Well," chuckled Kiba, "At least we know Iruka-sensei is alright." Naruto sighed and picked up the phone in the kitchen...

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20 minutes later...

Naruto had finnaly managed to get a very worried Iruka calmed down enough to where he had stopped threateningto come over and stay with them untill the snow thawed. He hung up the phone and sighed. "Kiba, did your dad ever act liek that after you moved out?"

Kiba blinked, "No...not really...then again my dad isn't the worrying kind."

"Oh...okay then...anyway, time to fill my empty stomache..." He started inhaling the sandwhich he'd made.

Kiba stared, amazed at the speed and amount Naruto could eat. "And I thought I was bad...He makes me look like Ino..."

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After lunch they settled down in the living room and turned on the TV. They avoided the weather and local news, both not wanting to here anymore about last night than they had too. It didn't take long to figure out that it was impossible to avoid the news, seeing as it was on every channel. Finally they setteld on one of the local news stations...

"...still no confirmations of freezing deaths, althought we are still recieving many reports that seem to

back up the claims. Damage estimates are still being tallied, but it looks like last night's storm was not

only the worst on record, but will also go down as one of the costliest on record. Just as in the storm

that hit the village last week, many trees have been uprooted and have fallen over, causing localized

power failures that are even more deadly in these extreme temperatures. Citizen are advised to stay inside

and keep warm as best you can. We warn you not to start any fires indoors..."

"What idiots would start a fire indoors?"

"When you're desparate you'll do almost anything. If i didn't have any power or and heat I'd be mightly tempted to start a garbage can fire or something to keep warm."

"I guess..."

Ring

Ring

Ring...

"I guess the phones are still working..." said Kiba as he reached for the phone.

"Please don't be Iruka again..."

"Hello?"

"Kiba? Boy I'm glad I got through. You guys okay out there?"

"Yeah Shikamaru, we're doing fine here. What about you?"

"Good as can be expected. Kinda trapped in the house becuase of all the snow, but not as bad as the poor people below us. Glad my apartment is on the third story. We had to go down earlier and dig out the people on the first story."

"Damn, sounds bad. The snow was piled five feet high at my back door this morning, but we managed to get out."

"That's good. Well anyway, I just wanted to make sure ya'll are okay. I heard from Shino earlier and he said that Hinata and Neji are okay. I saw Ino walking around earlier this morning so she's okay. My dad talked to Choji's dad a little while ago so they're alive."

"That's good. Anyone talked to Lee or Tenten?"

"I haven't, but Ino said she had talked to Sakura and she said she'd talked to Lee. No one's heard from Tenten yet, but knowing her she's prolly on the phone with Neji right now."

"Yeah prolly."

"Okay well, I'd better go. Best not to tie up the phone lines right now."

"Okay, bye Shikamaru."

"Bye Kiba."

He turned to Naruto. "Shikamaru said everyone else is alive. Sounds like we all made it through the night."

Naruto sighed in relief. "I'm really glad i was here last night. If i had been back home I would have defenatly frozen to death. That old heater just wasn't powerful enough to keep me warm through a night like that."

Kiba snuggled up closer to Naruto and put an arm around his shoulder's. "I'm glad you're here too Naru-kun."