Title: Strength

Author: ishala8

Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Romance

Rating: MA (contains rape and dark themes)

Word Count: 2495

Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, Danzo would have never existed and if he had, he would have been much smarter that what Kishimoto made him out to be.

Summary: There are some things that best remain lost.

Dedicated to: kana-chan 413, my first reviewer. Thank you!

Last Revised On: 05/06/11

Chapter Two: Incentive

After that initial dream, no more had followed. He had sought all kinds of ways in which to unlock the rest, but nothing had worked. A week passed with him retreating more and more into himself before Hinata – timid, sweet Hinata – barged into his room, dragged him onto the training field where she proceeded to colour him in blue and purple.

Fazed, sweaty and exhausted, he lay in the middle of the field under Kurenai's proud gaze and Shino's quiet amusement as the Hyuga heiress offered a stuttering apology. Apparently, the Hokage had given the green light that allowed him to rejoin his team for training and Hinata had found an impromptu spar to be the most effective way to get him away from his 'dark and g-gloomy thoughts'.

Training was… interesting. After that initial tussle where his unwillingness to hit a girl without a reasonable explanation as to her actions had led to lots of pain and bruising, he discovered that his speed and reaction time had improved drastically since the last time he'd trained with his team.

Akamaru also performed better than usual and it suddenly became obvious that some time during their absence, they did train. His body knew how to respond to unexpected attacks and he found himself thinking ahead, planning his attacks rather than executing them instinctively.

That last discovery was rather unsettling. He remembered the long hours Kurenai had spent trying to convince him to study battle tactics only to fail spectacularly at the task. It was a miracle that he showed prowess in the area, but dreadful the thought of who or what had forced him into practicing it.

Against all odds, he was winning. He could swear he was. What felled him was an attack as cowardly as his attackers – a poisoned senbon that grazed his cheek. It was thrown by one of the three shinobi hiding in the trees while he was facing seven others.

He barely had time to give Akamaru a brief order before loosing consciousness, his last image one of his wounded companion disappearing in the forest. None of the missing-nin thought to go after an animal, showing how much they knew.

Upon coming to, Kiba found himself bound, gagged and blindfolded, laying on the hard, earthy ground. He could hear the unruly voices of his captors, smell their unwashed bodies and feel the heat of the grand bonfire they had gathered around.

Still, nothing was clear – vivid – even to his senses, meaning that there was an obstacle between him and them. They were at a campsite and he had been placed in one of the tents.

Growling softly, he attempted to loosen the ropes holding his arms safely secured behind his back only to hiss in pain. He really hoped that shoulder wasn't dislocated, but the stinging scratches along his left side were telling. They had dragged him back to camp like one would a rag doll!

With no time to contemplate the matter further as the tent flap was thrown open, he braced himself for the worse. Allowing nothing more than a pained groan escape him as he was kicked across his injured side, he felt his weakened body being picked up and dragged outside unceremoniously.

A meaty hand ripped the gag from his mouth and he was dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. He snarled at his invisible captors only to be graced by a harsh slap across the face. Kiba spat blood on the dirt ground, fighting to remain strong.

He was a shinobi. While he may have not passed the chunin exams, he was a fighter and would never betray his village in face of anything these savages threw his way. But a sinister voice whispered his fears gleefully in his ear, taunting his current predicament – alone, abandoned and with his source of strength no where in sight.

"So this is him?" said a scratchy voice in an approving tone, from somewhere amidst the jeering crowd. "You are right; he will prove entertaining to break."

"I'll never tell you anything!" spat the Inuzuka heir, prompting boisterous laughter from the drunken crowd.

"Oh, my dear boy," replied the same man in a mocking manner while harshly pulling down the blindfold to reveal himself as a wiry old man, with rotten teeth and a scar-littered face and body, "talking is the last thing we'll have you doing. Screaming and begging, now that's a more suitable pastime for that beautiful mouth of yours!"

Kiba shuddered as a bony finger ran down the side of his face. The man reminded of a rodent – dirty and flea-bitten, yet commanding fear into the hearts of others with that insane light in his eyes.

"Well boys," he announced loudly to make himself heard over the leering spectators and roaring fire, "have at him!"

A cold, all-encompassing feeling of dread swarmed over Kiba with the advancing crowd. He had no time to brace himself as he was pushed harshly onto the ground and descended upon.

Later, when alone and praying for death, the scene would remind him of a pack of wolves descending upon a fresh kill. At that moment though, his mind was blank, overruled by sheer pain and terror.

They beat him, their giant boarish hands knocking him around as they fought to tear away his clothing and hold him down. When the first entered his young, virgin body he screamed and didn't stop until one of the men stuffed his member down his delicate throat.

Biting down as a defence mechanism, he drew blood and vomited all over the filthy ground the moment, his throat was clear. A hard slap made him stars and choke on blood before a new obstruction to his windpipe was introduced.

The Inuzuka choked and fought for breath as his ears rang, eyes burned with tears and entire body screamed at the agonizing violation. He was breaking and there was nothing he could do about it. As his struggles became increasingly weaker, new tormentors replaced the old and new ones after them and then more and more…

Kiba was thankful for the one who grabbed his restrained arms and forced them past their natural position as the searing pain was overpowered by blissful oblivion. There was no way to tell how his body would be desecrated after passing out, but at least he could escape the nightmare, no mater how brief the reprieve.

The scream of terror that shattered the early morning peace of the Inuzuka compound that day would be one remembered by all present for years to come. Some claimed it was the sound the dead at the very depths of hell, communicating their torment to the living. Others pegged it to evil spirits and others still, to the devil itself.

Only the clan heads knew the truth. That soul-shattering plea for mercy had been uttered by a fourteen-year-old ray of sunshine – their prized heir. Hearts broke that day, but no one was brave or heartless enough to ask after laying witness to the heir's haunted eyes and soul-wrenching tears.

Life continued as normal, for everyone but Kiba. After that day, he would disappear for days on end. Rumour had it that he was training. Some would swear they had seen him in the training fields, others at the library and more still, at the hospital.

Some days he forgot to return home, or simply lost consciousness in the training fields, where he pushed himself beyond the limit. He worked with a drive that was scary in its intensity.

Tsume was worried for her son, but it was Kurenai who finally intervened.

She found her student at the training fields before dawn had even broken on the horizon. Black rings under his eyes paid testimony to the little sleep he had allowed himself that past month and his previously light frame was now weakened by malnutrition and negligence.

No words were exchanged as they attacked each other on sight. Both channelled hopelessness and frustration into their moves, caring little for their opponent's welfare and instead trusting them to hold their own. They collapsed simultaneously, breathing heavily and trembling with resentment.

"What do you hope to accomplish by killing yourself?" demanded the woman, glaring at her panting pupil.

Instead of replying, Kiba laughed, a half insane laugh that didn't belong in the lips of a child, inspiring a shudder of dread from his teacher. She could see him slipping away and didn't even know if she was scared for or of him.

"Have you gone insane?" she demanded harshly, willing her eyes to obey her and show no fear in light of the immense anguish being projected unchecked and unknowingly by her pupil.

"I wish," he replied bitterly, managing to unsettle Kurenai to her very core.

"Kiba," she tried again to reach the broken boy, "please, talk to me. I can help, but not if you shut me out."

For a long while, there was no reply as an intense war played out in the depths of Kiba's expressive eyes. Then he collapsed and it was as if he simply let go, breaking down and revealing days of silent suffering in front of a horrified kunoichi.

Kneeling beside the distraught Inuzuka, she drew him into her arms, allowing him to let it all out. It was heartbreaking to see someone so young appear so broken. Was this the legacy of Konoha? Was the village destined to break its children, draining them of their hope and innocence?

"See? It feels better when you let it all out," Kurenai reassured the boy with a forced smile.

A choked laugh escaped the boy in her arms. "Thank you, Kurenai-sensei. I think I needed that. Even Akamaru can't put up with me these days."

At the mention of the loyal ninken, Kurenai started to realise he could see him no where in the immediate area. The Inuzuka clan were never seen their animal partners, it took something very extreme to separate the two.

"What happened?" she asked gently, patting the boy's unruly hair soothingly.

"He feels my pain and it hurts him," came Kiba's muffled reply. "Distance makes it better so he stays at the compound."

"I meant what happened to make you this way?" clarified the woman filling the new information for future reference.

"I-I… I remembered something… I think." He sounded so vulnerable, so unsure that it broke her heart. "It was so bad, sensei! I was terrified! I've never felt so helpless before in my life and I never want to feel that way again."

"Pushing yourself beyond the limits won't fix anything, Kiba," she advised gently, not willing to push for details.

"But I need to get stronger!" he sounded panicked. "I need to make sure I can protect myself, because if I can't, then he-"

Kiba cut himself off sharply and appeared confused, as if trying to work something out.

"Who is 'he'?" prompted Kurenai only to receive a head shake.

Eyes wide, he looked up at her and uttered the next words as if afraid of what they entailed, "I-I don't know."

He came to around noon the next day, feeling like the dead. Both his arms were swollen and discoloured laying uselessly by his sides, three of his fingers were broken, his lungs screamed with every breath laying testament to broken ribs and his entire body burned as if it was licked by eternal flames. However, it was the agonising pain that pierced his backside every time he moved and raw feeling in his throat that managed to reduce the hardened warrior to tears.

His body had been desecrated – Kiba had lost his innocence in the hands of his merciless captors and there had been nothing he could have done to prevent it. The fiery hope that had always burned persistently in his soul dimmed, abandoning him as he lost his faith in it. Without hope of a rescue, he cried for relief, praying for the soothing, uncomplicated darkness of that place between life and death.

It never came. Instead, the man he had identified as the leader of this merciless lot of bandits was the one to walk in the tent and laugh heartlessly in face of his tears.

"Broken already?" he derided, poking fun where it hurt. "Usually it takes much longer, but then again you are from Konoha… I have to say I'm disappointed in you."

"Why?" asked Kiba brokenly, not understanding how someone could be so cruel for no reason.

"Why?" sneered the man. "My men deserve some fun. Who am I to refuse them the pleasure?"

All of a sudden, blazing anger erupted through the prone figure at the disparaging tone. Eyes full of life and hate locked with a derision-filled man.

"You are nothing but a pathetic fool possessing not even a shred of dignity or sense of shame," he ground out painfully, his voice sounding pained and coarse in his ears. "You are a coward who knows that can never command true respect or even fear from his followers and so bribes them with gifts. These men are savages and you feed their bloodlust in hopes of blinding them to your motives. Here's a piece from one who knows: crazed dogs need to be put down before they turn on their masters. How do you plan to accomplish that with your own?"

The light of insanity burned brighter in the leader's eyes with every word that left Kiba's lips. By the end of that speech, he was half-mad with rage and fear, managing nothing more than a deranged howl as he pulled twin sais from his belt and used them to pin the boy to the ground through his disfigured shoulders.

A broken scream escaped the Inuzuka's lips before the older man straddled his hips and pulled out a kunai, maniacally slashing and stabbing at the prone form beneath him. It was at that moment that the boy made a vow to himself, one that wadded slowly but surely through the excruciating pain. He would not allow this fallen man to draw him down to his level – no matter what happened, this was not the place where he would be beaten.

The next morning found Kiba prostrating himself at his sleepy sensei's feet, begging for intensive training. Thrown off kilter, Kurenai could only nod, promising to fulfil the request. Later that day, when Kiba beat both of his team mates soundlessly at practice, she was assured she made the right choice. The determination she could feel seeping out of the young boy would never be lost or overcome.

As for Kiba, he had made his choice. His innocence had been lost and he could no longer look at the world through rose coloured glasses. The chunin exams were coming around once more and this time he would join Shikamaru at the other side for he was no longer a child.

A Few Things to Clear Up:

Rape/Torture

I know rape is sick, cliché and offensive to some while unnecessary to others, but I really need it to happen now for the plot to progress later. Some people might dispute me on that point and that's fine. Let me know why and I'll try to explain my reasoning better.

For the rest of you, I hope I made it as mild and inoffensive as possible and that you enjoyed the new developments. Thank you for your support so far!