Naruto's Apartment

Naruto hit the ground with a thud, just outside the painted ring.

"Damn, how'd you trip me? I was watching for your feet this time," Naruto questioned, as Iruka scored Kiba's point two of three, meaning he'd won the match.

There was a bark from near Naruto's feet and he saw Akamaru sitting there wagging his tail proudly.

"Well good job, Akamaru. I'll give you a point for that," Naruto admitted, liking the puppy more than its partner and unwilling to insult him, where normally he'd have contested any loss.

"Between the two of us we are unstoppable!" Kiba bragged. "Best friend, partner and permanent pal! I don't know how you guys live without a partner."

Shino stepped into the ring opposite Ami, a dark haired girl with a surprising grasp of taijutsu. "He has a few himself," Kiba snickered.

Ami just snorted. "A couple of bugs aren't going to scare me."

"Begin," Iruka ordered as everyone watched the match.

Ami stepped forward and threw a punch that sank into Shino's chest and burst out his back, to everyone's surprise and horror.

Ami froze until Shino's form began to melt into thousands of little black bugs that swarmed her arm, causing her to scream and run outside the circle. In fact, Ami didn't stop running, her scream fading into the distance. Everyone waited until it became obvious that she wasn't coming back.

"Shino, it looks like you win," Iruka said turning to the bug nin, who had quickly reformed.

The Shino in the ring just stared at Iruka expressionlessly as another Shino stepped forward from the crowd. "I was in the bathroom. What did I miss?"

Everyone stared at Shino and then turned to the one in the ring, who dissolved into a swarm that vanished into the folds of his jacket.

Tilting his head to the side, Shino seemed to be listening to something no one else could hear, before he straightened up and spoke, "Sorry, my hive was watching my place in line and they decided they didn't need my help, as they outnumbered her by thousands to one."

"OK, I'll admit that was pretty badass," Kiba said, "but just you wait, when Akamaru gets big enough we'll be able to use our clan's clone technique and blow yours out of the water."

Shino shrugged. "While your clan's technique is admittedly better at causing straightforward damage, mine was designed to take advantage of a human's natural response to the hive's appearance."

"Huh?" Kiba and Naruto asked.

"Your clone could kick my clone's ass, but mine freaks people out," Shino deadpanned.

"Ohh!"

"How do you do it?" Naruto asked, knowing that clones were his biggest weakness and what had tripped him up last year.

"You'd need a hive to be able to perform it, Naruto."

"Yeah, you'd need a pal like Akamaru to do mine too," Kiba chimed in.

"So how do you get partners?" Naruto asked.

"It's a family thing," Kiba said, not thinking about what he'd said and how it would affect Naruto, until Akamaru nipped his ankle and barked something at him.

Shino spoke up before the wincing Kiba could open his mouth and make it worse, "He means our clans have specially bred our partners for generations. They have strengths that normal animals or insects do not. They have become family in a way and no clan shares them with outsiders unless they marry into the clan."

"But they had to start somewhere right?" Naruto asked, latching onto the idea that he could start his own clan and have family and a friend who'd always be around, not to mention kick ass new moves.

"The original founders used massively inefficient methods that resulted in a significant drain on their resources with no guarantee of recouping the investment," Shino warned.

Naruto turned to Kiba. "What?"

"Don't look at me, I didn't get it either. I was just going to say it took a lot of hard work and a lot of shots in the dark to find out what worked and what didn't, and if they hadn't got lucky a time or two it would all have been wasted effort," Kiba explained.

"That's basically what I said," Shino added, "but I would also like to point out…" he paused before continuing making sure he had the wording correct, "the animals or insects used, wasted most of the chakra that was fed to them. It was only after several generations that they 'learned' to use chakra right."

Kiba nodded. "Yeah, and insects go through generations faster than dogs. The big breakthrough for my clan was our clone jutsu. The Man-Beast clone jutsu added a whole new level of chakra mixing, cause it allowed some of our partners' chakra to flow into us, unlike everyone else whose clans only feed chakra to their partners. By actually mixing our chakra, we gain some of the traits of our partners, just as they've gained some of ours. It's our bloodline as the traits breed true. Hell, until I spent enough time around you to make sure, I thought you might be related to me."

"What? Me?" Naruto asked shocked.

"Yeah, you bozo." Kiba grinned. "Your teeth are a lot like my clans, your nails are a bit thicker than normal and the hair ain't too shabby either."

"How do you know I'm not?"

"Because your canines are sharper than my clans and you don't have the heavier jaw we get. You are similar in some ways, but different in others, it's like you come from a clan like mine, but one that chose a different animal."

"Is that possible?" Shino asked.

"I've asked my mom and she said we are the only clan in Konoha to bond animals, so I'm guessing, seeing as Naruto is an orphan, that maybe his mom was sent on an infiltration mission and got pregnant. It happens enough that it's likely and if she was spying on a village with a clan of nin that chose a different animal than we did it'd explain things."

"But then…what happened to her?" Naruto asked, getting caught up in the idea.

"There are several possibilities that spring to mind," Shino said. "She could have died in childbirth, or on a mission shortly afterwards, leaving you an orphan."

"But then why would the old man say no one knew who my parents were?" Naruto asked.

"Your mother could have enemies that would come after you, so saying no one knows keeps you safe," Kiba said.

"On the other side, maybe she was on an infiltrator who got pregnant during her insertion and they only discovered it when she died in childbirth, so they never really knew who she was," Shino offered.

"So my mom might not have been a Konoha nin?" Naruto asked.

"It's possible," Shino admitted.

"It'd explain why some people glare at you," Kiba said. "If she was a really kickass ninja from another village who caused a lot of damage to the village before she was found out the glares make sense."

"Well that sucks," Naruto muttered. "She died without telling me what kind of animal I use and the old man said he doesn't know who my parents are, so that means no one knows."

"Unless they were specifically bred over generations, all animals and insects are about the same usefulness to start with," Shino pointed out.

"So it really doesn't matter what I chose, even though my family mixed chakra with some specific animal type?"

"Exactly," Kiba said. "The changes occur over generations, so you can start with any animal you like."

"So how do you bond them?" Naruto asked.

Shino and Kiba froze for a second.

"Clan secrets?" Naruto asked, his shoulders slumping when they nodded.

"Sorry man, I didn't even think about it before I encouraged you," Kiba apologized.

"I too forgot you would need techniques that your mother did not get a chance to pass down to you, but I don't think we should give up just yet," Shino said.

"What do you mean? My mom will kill me if I give out clan jutsu and even though your clan is probably not as likely to strangle you before you can explain yourself, they'll still be pissed!" Kiba exclaimed.

"I don't want you guys to get in trouble," Naruto broke in.

"We won't, because what you need isn't clan specific jutsu. What you need is the basic jutsu that our clans both used to start the bonding process," Shino explained. "And since both our clans, and presumably any other nin clans having partners of a similar nature, know the jutsu then it is not a clan specific jutsu. We can show you this without breaking our families trust, but after this you're on your own."

"That'd be great guys!" Naruto said happily.

"We're running low on time, so the final match will be a three way competition between Shino, Kiba and Sasuke," Iruka announced to the cheers of the fangirls who immediately started in, talking about how Sasuke would defeat them both easily.

Kiba growled, hating the way the fangirls were talking, but privately admitting that beating Sasuke was a longshot even if he wasn't fighting Shino at the same time.

Shino seemed to weather it without any outward sign of annoyance, but his jacket was hissing.

"You guys could team up and kick his ass," Naruto said with a grin. "Then plan jan ken pon for the winner."

Shino looked over at Kiba and saw his growing smile. "That would be acceptable, although I think playing jan ken pon would be adding insult to injury."

Kiba looked even happier at Shino's announcement. The chance to come in first was nice, but the chance to come in above the guy you never beat was even better, especially if you could rub his nose in it.

"I'll hit him high while you hit him low," Shino said before they joined Sasuke in the ring.

Typing by: The Last Primarch!

AN: I was considering doing a Naruto version of Joe's Apartment.