A/N: Hi again, fellow readers. A very action-oriented chapter awaits you. I hope you enjoy. =)


Chapter XXIV: Bring the Noise

His hand closed around the rope just as the last snapped thread whipped over the beam. It happened too fast, it happened in slow motion, and he hadn't expected to survive his free-fall dive. Now he clung to the wood's edge with one hand, dangling, with Kai swaying at the other end of the rope inches over the exploding tags below.

Now what?

Sweaty fingers felt slick on the wood. Kiba's instinct was to swing Kai to safety. Could he do it without lighting up the old farmhouse? Better not attempt that. Instead, he flexed his body, finding it easy with the adrenaline spiking his system, and pressed his feet flat on the wood. His chakra stuck him to the beam.

With both hands free, he hauled Kai up and as he calculated his next move, Akamaru hopped from the roof to the beam above him.

Need some help? he asked, smirking.

"What do you think?" Kiba replied, tossing the excess rope up into Akamaru's mouth.

Akamaru held the rope between his teeth, allowing Kiba to flip onto the beam properly then heave Kai up the rest of the way. The guy looked wild, eyes wide and sweat streaking down his face. He'd been punched in the face a few times, bruises around his eyes and cheeks.

Kiba looked across to Akamaru. "Let's move out of range of this trap."

Gotcha. By the way, Akamaru growled, Roach is still around outside, so we should find and distract him so the hostages can get away.

"Yeah. I have a feeling we'll be on his time, not ours."

No sooner had the words left his mouth when a telltale scritscirtscriting and the sudden charge of insect secretion warned Kiba of Roach's movement. He grabbed Kai by the bindings and jumped away, using the old wooden beams to propel out of the ruins. The scents of Mom, Ino, and Kuromaru were extremely close, alive, but he couldn't see them.

Akamaru landed on the ground beside him. Two clones…make that six. Four are…going after the others.

"Bastard." Kiba tossed Kai to the side; had to worry about him later as two Roaches dropped to the ground in front of him. "Hang back, stay near Kai. I'll take on these two."

Kiba, that's-

He'd already thrown up the signs, molded his chakra. Growling, "Shuddup and do it."

Akamaru transformed into Kiba's clone. He backed up out of Kiba's line of sight. Then Kiba slipped his hand into his hip-pouch, wedging shiruken between his fingers and palming a flashbomb. The Roaches had frozen, staring him down, and Kiba noticed the odd movement under both the clones' skin. Heard the frenetic writhing. Waiting.

A second later, Kiba snapped out the flashbomb and behind it, the shiruken. Closed his eyes when the bright light burst and yanked free a kunai. Both the clones had dashed forward. One ran face-first into the serious end of Kiba's kunai, melting into a discontented puddle of hissing insects. The other evaded a second slew of shiruken. He saw the clone's intent in racing away to attack Akamaru, who'd crouched defensively, readying for attack.

Kiba sprung again, the quicker of them, and intercepted Roach's clone. A lightning-fast storm of kunai slashes pushed the clone back, and unwilling to show mercy, Kiba executed a fast hit-and-slap…with one of his own exploding tags.

The tag blew as Kiba sprang back, covering his face. He avoided most of the fire. Felt the heat through his leather jacket, smelt the smoke, heard the pop of exoskeletons. When he judged himself clear of the thickest smoke, he glanced around, wary. From the exploding tag, a smattering of crisped, dead cockroaches spread on the ground. The other clone had not…combined? he guessed. Those roaches had scuttled off through the grass away from the fire and smoke, maybe to join with a larger group.

Danger had passed for them, but he did not drop the transformation jutsu on Akamaru. Quickly, he turned to slice off the ropes binding Kai. He helped the guy to his feet and steadied him when he stumbled, yanking off the gag.

"The village is that way," Kiba pointed, "so run as fast as you can in that direction. Others should be coming shortly. Don't look back."

Kai nodded, his face unnaturally blanched. When he didn't move, Kiba shoved him and said, "Get goin', goddammit!"

Without waiting to watch Kai's departure, Kiba gestured to Akamaru and they leapt into the trees for a shorter route to Ino and his mother. Tapping into the forest's scents, he found that Mom's and Kuromaru's scents remained stationary and Ino's came fast in his direction.

Kiba…

"Yeah, I know."

They shifted their path to intercept Ino. He hadn't thought about her, and now that he was going to see her, his heart insisted on punching through his chest. But why had Kuromaru and Mom not accompanied her? Worry dampened his fight-high, and Ino's anxious and panicked scent gave him good reason.

"Kiba? Kiba, where are you?" Ino's shout was up ahead.

"We're here!"

They met each other on a couple tree branches. Unable to stop himself, he jumped at her to get both arms around her shoulders. Her body slimmer than his, her strength understated, her presence needed.

"Oof!" His chest muffled her laugh. "I'm fine, I'm fine!"

"I'm glad yer alive," he told her hair. How was he going to keep her that way?

"Me, too. But we have to get going. Your Mom's hurt!"

Kiba let her go and twined his fingers in hers. Together with Akamaru trailing, they dashed over tree branches in the direction she'd come from, and Ino explained as they went, jumping and hopping in tandem.

"Roach set up a trap within a trap. When your mother grabbed my rope, she tripped a secondary trap, one with poisoned senbons. We were able to dispatch Roach's clones, but then she collapsed. Kiba," her pause brought his gaze to her worried eyes, "I can't neutralize the poison. The best we can do is finish with Roach quickly and get her back to Konoha."

"I see." Ino's silence was heavy; he understood what was wrong. "Ino, it's not yer fault. Roach was gonna get at you by whatever means necessary, you know?"

Her fingers tightened around his. "Yeah. But I shouldn't have gotten complacent."

"What's done is done. I figure Akamaru, Kuromaru, and I'll distract Roach while you get Mom outta here. Kai is already on his way back to the village."

"No, that's unacceptable." He'd known she'd fight him on that one, but he'd had to try. She continued, "Our best option is to use teamwork to take down Roach. I can go astral to hold him in place and you can land the killing blow."

Yeah, but how're we gonna get close enough to make that happen?

"Akamaru wants to know how-"

"That's easy," Ino said, interrupting him. "I'll use transformation jutsu to become you. Then you change Kuromaru into you, too. We'll use smoke to disorient Roach and get close enough. Genjutsu will further disorient him."

"Makes sense. He won't know who's who, so you'll be able to slip closer to him under cover of the smoke, mess him up with genjutsu, then use your mind-fucking to keep him from stopping or evading Piercing Fang."

Akamaru growled and barked. How will we know when she's in his body?

"We'll have to use a password," Kiba answered. They had come to Mom and Kuromaru below. Mom was propped against a tree trunk; Kuromaru stood watch, and his one eye tracked their trajectory. "Something that only we know."

"Do you mean for when I go astral?" Ino asked. An instant later, he saw her smirk. "Hey! I'll just use your pet name."

He sighed, but didn't argue. "Yeah, that's good."

Heh, heh, heh. No one should know something that embarrassing, Akamaru added.

Then their conversation quieted when he, Ino, and Akamaru descended the branches to land in front of Kuromaru and Mom. Her eyes had narrowed, not closed completely, and her face had paled behind her red tribal marks. She smelt…weird, such a mixture of anxiety, sweat, and a funky something Kiba couldn't identify.

"'Bout time you pups showed up." Kuromaru's ear twitched to the side then pointed forward. "What's the plan, kid?"

"Ino thinks she can use her Mind-Body Switch to hold Roach in place so we can eliminate him. We all become me, use smoke and genjutsu to distract him, and then bam! Nail the fucker."

"Sounds good," Kuromaru replied. "Let's do it."

Kiba's nose had been carefully monitoring all scents in the surrounding forest. Roach was around, probably waiting for them to set their plan in motion, the cockroaches zigzagging in the air and on the ground. How courteous for him to allow them the time to strategize.

Mom's scent had been pretty steady, but now her respiration increased, and so did the hormones that tripped when the body was in stress. Mom's life-system was shutting down. Oh, God, no.

"Mom? Mom, can you hear me?" Kiba knelt and leaned in to get closer to his mother's eyes. A lump of fear formed in his stomach. "Are you okay?"

Her hand snapped out to his jacket and yanked him closer. Snarling, she said, "I ain't dead yet. Now stop messin' around and get that asshole."

Ino's hand on his shoulder comforted him. "You heard the woman. Let's end this."

He stood, used the familiar signs and amount of chakra to transform Kuromaru into another one of him, and to the side, Ino transformed herself into him as well. Four of them, one of Roach. Kiba liked those odds.

"Kuromaru, you're on Ino. Me'n'Akamaru'll be a pair. We'll find Roach and assess the situation. Clear?"

All the Kibas nodded, then together, his team bounced to the trees. His fully-charged nose and glands found Roach's exact location and the signature chemical compositions of his thousands of insects. They were rotating in the air, a lazy tornado of scent-path over Roach's current position. The whole thing had a frequency, a sort of low hum to it that Kiba could hear.

Then several large chunks broke out of the tornado and ripped through forest toward them. Humming increased, became a vibration Kiba felt on his skin, the hair on his arms and neck stood on end.

"Guys, we're on. Classic Alpha formation," he said over his shoulder. "Bring the noise."

Ino and Kuromaru fell back to flank him and Akamaru. All his teammates had set faces, hormones on an even keel. They were ready for the loose clouds of insects that came swooping down on their heads. Kiba had already tossed a smoke bomb and ducked away as it detonated, pluming a thick coating of grey haze in the immediate area.

Several of the small swarms hesitated, then divided, angling toward each pair. He planted a few exploding tags and hopped out of range. The explosion consumed the insects, rocking the forest, and a second explosion echoed the first. Ino had dispatched the ones after her. But he detected a mass of roaches hovering over the canopy. Waiting. Again, groups separated from the larger whole and drove into the forest.

Dammit. If Roach kept sending out his insects in piecemeal fashion, he and Ino would run out of tags and bombs before even getting to Roach. So that was his game, was it?

They just keep coming, Akamaru growl-barked next to him. We can't take them a little bit a time like this.

"Yeah, I know it."

Ino must've figured as much. She and Kuromaru had started to head in his direction, but the second wave of swarms had descended on them. More small clouds this time. He deployed another smoke bomb when several of the swarms neared; at the same time, Akamaru leapt up to the trees.

Shit, he heard Akamaru say, they're not goin' for it. Piercing Fang might work if I use Dynamic Marking.

Kiba could tell. The insects had scattered outside the smoke, but now gathered together in a semi-solid mass in mid-air. Like they were setting up a trap.

"Mark 'em." Kiba put his fingers into the signs that would dispel the transformation jutsu on Akamaru. "We've got nothin' to lose."

Roger.

Kiba dropped his shoulder, pushing off with his toes, and flung his body into the deadly spin for which his clan was known. He'd gotten up his rotation speed when a musky, pungent stream interrupted the air, so easily smelt it was like a visual marker. The stream splashed, marked many small targets. His Piercing Fang drilled into the roach-cloud. One pass was all it took to kill the scent.

Another stream, another target. Kiba shifted his direction, his world dark, the thunder of air in his ears, and hit the second target dead-on. Five more scent-targets, five more passes, until he rolled out of Piercing Fang, hands and feet dragging along the ground for traction. Two long tracks of upturned soil and torn grass resulted.

Akamaru landed next to him. That's all there is for now. We should hide and plan our next move.

"He didn't expect us to survive that last attack." His nose told him Kuromaru and Ino were en-route to his position. "He's been keeping us apart on purpose."

So as not to let us regroup, right. Akamaru snorted. This is just like when we fight Shino. Can't get close enough to land a hit 'cause of the bugs.

Kiba nodded and gestured at Akamaru to follow him into hiding. "With Shino, we respect his kikaichu and so don't actively attempt to kill them."

That's true. Our methods against Roach can be much more destructive.

Before he could reply, Ino and Kuromaru dropped into the obscuring foliage next them. Ino had lost the transformation jutsu sometime during the fight. She planted her hands on her knees, panting. Sweat and grime coated her skin, and streaks of black ran across the purple outfit. Kuromaru smoked slightly. Both reeked of ash and fire.

"We have to destroy all the roaches at once," Ino said, huffing. She straightened. "It's the only way to get at Roach."

He couldn't help it- -he flicked the tail of her hair over her shoulder. "Hm-hm. But how do we do it?"

"Roach can't attack us with one bug at a time. He has to condense them for attacks."

"So you're saying we need to condense all the insects he has and destroy them in one go."

She nodded, wiping sweat from her forehead. "Once we've done that, actually getting to him should prove to be easy."

"We have to take into account the possibility that the target could summon more insects," Kuromaru said. "And that could fuck up our day."

Akamaru nodded. Agreed.

"No, I don't think it's possible to summon another generation of insects," Kiba said, checking with his nose and glands that overcast of insects above the treetops. It remained whole, but he could sense it wouldn't for long. "Shino has to actively use a jutsu to create a large number of insects at once and it drains him."

Also, Shino's insects have an accelerated lifespan of only a few hours, Akamaru pointed out. I think that roaches are different.

"What's going on?" Ino asked, eyes shifting between them. "I don't feel like we have a lot of time to piss around here."

"We're trying to decide if it's worth it to try and destroy a whole generation of roaches."

"If you mean lifespan, roaches take several days to produce something like twelve or sixteen eggs, and then months to become adults." She swiped her bangs when he and the dogs stared at her. "What? You didn't think I wouldn't try to find out as much as possible about our opponent?"

Akamaru let out a breath. Okay, so killing even one roach makes it hard to fill the ranks.

"Right. Roaches can't instantaneously multiply," Kiba agreed. "Ino, do you think you can-"

"Mind-swap with him and draw out all the roaches into a single mass?" she interrupted. After a pause, "Yeah, but it's risky."

"'Cause you need at least three seconds for the jutsu to work. I remember," he said, when her eyes questioned him. "Me'n'Akamaru can burrow under ground, then grab 'im. You be ready to perform yer jutsu when we do. Kuromaru will run interference so you can focus on gettin' it right."

"Roger," she said, and then twisted her fingers together. After a poof, she became him again. "Just be sure to hold him still, or I'll miss my mark."

Kiba re-transformed Kuromaru, leaving Akamaru as he was. "Course we will."

A moment's pause. His love for her rose up, stunning and awesome, pushing against the walls of his chest, and before he could think too much about it, he closed the distance between them and settled his mouth on his/hers. He- -she stilled, surprised.

He ignored the surreal feeling of kissing an image of himself by closing his eyes and pulling Ino's scent through his nostrils to his brain. Hormones and arousal stirred, a slow heat pooled under his stomach as his tongue curved around hers, his hand on the nape of her neck.

Maybe this would be their last kiss. The possibility wasn't totally beyond him. He angled the kiss deeper, their teeth clicking together. She must've thought the same because she didn't resist him or push him and tell him to get his head back in the fight.

Something dangerous flickered in the shadows of his mind, the predator that toed the edge of ethics and sound judgment. It wanted to tear Ino from this dangerous place and lock her up where no one would reach her, where no one would hurt her or try to kill her. It wanted Ino to itself.

Okay, that's enough, Akamaru said, and Kiba felt the light clamp of teeth on his arm. It's disturbing watching you kiss yourself.

His companion's perturbed tone, coupled with the touch, broke the moment. He lingered a second longer on Ino's mouth, then stepped back, shaking off the distracting thoughts. A pink flush had spread across his cheeks and nose- -Ino's blush on his face.

"Let's do this." He turned to Akamaru and Kuromaru. "Ready?"

Roger, they told him in tandem. A glance at Ino confirmed her readiness.

As a single unit, they charged forward. Kiba had long since pinpointed Roach's position, and apparently, Roach had pinpointed their position as well. Several swarms dropped from the mass at their flurry of movement, but Kiba and his team avoided the swarms neatly, speeding over tree limbs.

They were there at once when the trees ended abruptly at another disused field. Right smack in the middle stood Roach, fingers molded for concentration. That utter arrogance, like 'come and get me', Roach exuded, seeped anger through Kiba. Roach underestimated them.

Ino and Kuromaru split off as he and Akamaru twisted into Dual Piercing Fang, aiming in Roach's general direction. Chemicals in the air shifted; Roach was attempting to stop Dual Piercing Fang with a wall of insects. Kiba felt the density of the cockroaches, heard thwapping as his spinning body collided with thousands of insects.

Kiba shifted his spin to block oncoming attacks so that Akamaru could use Dynamic Marking. The hole Kiba drilled through the defense allowed Akamaru to mark Roach. Taking a risk, Kiba dropped out of Piercing Fang, but just as quickly, the cockroaches clumped together and flew after them.

He and Akamaru had to dodge back, avoiding the hissing, writhing human-sized mass. Roach hadn't bothered to put the cockroaches into clone-form. Instead, the masses drove both him and Akamaru to the edges of the field with precise, powerful attacks. There was no time to jump into Piercing Fang.

Then in the middle of deflecting an attack, Kiba detected another shift in chemicals. The force of insects reared back. Through the semi-solid veil, Roach's fingers were forming more seals. Kiba had a bad feeling.

He's working up a huge amount of chakra, Akamaru warned from the side. Seems like he's gonna throw down some serious jutsu.

"We gotta get at him." Ino and Kuromaru had taken up a position at the edge of the field. They waited for their opportunity. "Roach must be plannin' on taking us out all at once."

We can't let that happen. Use your last smoke bomb as I distract him with Piercing Fang. We'll come up from underneath and take him then.

"Roger."

Akamaru dove into another Piercing Fang, a cyclone of dangerous animal headed straight for Roach. Kiba chucked the last smoke bomb as hard as he could, then before it detonated, charged up the chakra in his feet and leapt as high up in the air as he could. He easily cleared the highest treetops surrounding the field and at the apex of his leap, arched his body and flipped into Piercing Fang.

The smoke bomb went off. He sensed the ground, hit it with all the force he could muster, and sank into the earth like a hot knife through butter. Even with hundreds of feet of soil between him and Roach, Akamaru's mark blared out to his nose. Roach moved around, a jittery butterfly, but came to a rest some distance off.

Kiba angled into a gentle upward curve. The earth churned around him, Roach's scent remained stationary, unsuspecting- -closer, closer, he could take out Roach with just this move- -and when Kiba popped out of the crusty ground, Roach proved little resistance to an angry Inuzuka's whole-body blender.

Smoothly, Kiba slipped out of Piercing Fang, his triumph lasting a second before evaporating. The scent of Dynamic Marking had relocated. Shit. Roach had eluded with a substitution jutsu. Kiba couldn't see him, but he smelt him hiding in the farmhouse.

He got off the jutsu, Akamaru said. This is bad.

Humming. Loud humming. The sky went dark as cockroaches morphed into a solid wave blocking the sun with their form. As a single, fluid unit, the cockroaches crashed down on the field, spilling like a black, shiny film over the green. They spread out the breadth of the field, flowing like water, seeking out the nooks and crannies of the surrounding area.

Dual Piercing Fang! Akamaru barked, shoving Kiba with his head.

Together they spun, mowing through the ocean of roaches in the direction of the farmhouse. The Dynamic Marking hadn't faded, so Kiba knew they could flush Roach from hiding.

Then Ino's scent suddenly moved in a direct line to Roach's position. Scents converged. Barking, a hoarse shout, then the ozone of chakra. He broke from Piercing Fang, feeling Roach's jutsu fail, and slipped across a blanket of cockroaches on the field.

Akamaru slid to a stop next to him. What…the hell?


A/N: I apologize that this was a shortish chapter. I really didn't want to make it too long, so I chose to split it up. More awesomeness awaits in the next chapter, to be posted Sept. 18th. See you then!


Revised 09/04/10: Thanks to Leiaah for letting me know Kuromaru actually does talk.