Onsei had been mostly relaxed for the last few hours.

Kiba frowned as he looked at his calloused palms. He had pulled his knees up after he had laid against one of the three tiny walls surrounding him, then let his arms rest on them. And he had nothing to do other than just... stare at nothing right now.

Onsei was uncharacteristically quiet, but that wasn't all that surprising. Most of the time, Onsei made a point of attempting to keep him calm and relaxed. It did goad him on whenever he got himself in trouble, but that was just because Onsei always knew when things were going to turn out well, no matter how dangerous they seemed.

Hana had once told him that his perception of Onsei was flawed because it always seemed to give him the go-ahead to all his plans, no matter how insane. Kiba knew that she probably thought she was right to think such a thing, especially considering how Onsei always seemed to be so careful around her. But the fact of the matter was that even though someone's perception affected how they took in what Onsei told them, Onsei didn't act the same around everyone.

Naruto had once been told by Onsei to jump into a river to recover the ball they had been playing with. Shika, on the other hand, had been warned against it. The current had turned out to be stronger than either of them had expected; Naruto, being a practiced swimmer, had been fine. But if Shikamaru had jumped in, odds were that something may have gone very wrong, and Naruto may have needed to save him instead of the ball.

It wasn't his fault that he was skillful enough to be able to handle almost all challenges that came his way. The only thing he really needed to learn to do was learn when to quit. Onsei had never been bothered enough to inform him when enough was enough and he had never bothered with thinking too hard about it.

Hana thought he was an idiot for not being more cautious. But where was the fun in that? A life lived worrying was a life lost in his most humble opinion.

With a heavy sigh, Kiba flexed his hands.

This philosophy in life was, admittedly, the reason why he had been thrown into a glorified jail cell by his own mother.

For just a moment, Kiba allowed himself to acknowledge that this was not the first time such a thing had happened. Back in Konoha, he had wound up in the equivalent of Inuzuka and Konoha jail a handful of times because of this philosophy. Sometimes it had been with friends, sometimes by himself, and a handful of times with people he considered outright adversaries. But the kind of trouble he got up to, while mostly mundane, could sometimes land him in hot water.

If he was more like Hana, he knew this wouldn't have happened.

For just one moment, he indulged his less visited, less liked calmer, more introspective-self and contemplated on the why it wasn't her that had been brought along with their mother. He wondered who had ever thought it would have been a good idea to send someone like him on a crusade where there would be active battlefields and souls for him to take charge over. Hana had always been the contemplative kind of leader that reached results with the least amount of casualties. He had always been the impulsive leader that got people through, but with the most amount of injuries to himself.

He cared about others. Too much. He was the first to put himself in the line of fire to protect those that actually bothered with listening to him. And he knew that this was going to translate over to the clone troopers eventually. So he had decided to just... be stupid before he really had to think too much.

Hana would have been the better choice. She knew more about the galaxy, had actually absorbed information on other cultures, and had the drive to bother to read and plan when faced with adversity. There was a reason she was slated to be the next Clan Head and it wasn't simply because she had been born before him.

It was a good thing that she would get to experience what it was like to be in charge of the Inuzuka Clan- all the effort it took to keep them productive and sated. But it also meant that he had been the one to follow after their mother in this wild new venture across the galaxy. And while he knew for a fact that Onsei believed him to have been the right pick, that didn't mean he didn't have his reservations.

Onsei was always right, though. So, after he finished this mindful moment of brooding and wallowing, Kiba yawned, stretched, and threw himself onto the cold floor. The little slab at the back of the room seemed to, somehow, be even more uncomfortable and unyielding than the floor he was already on. Even though he wouldn't be getting into a very comfortable position no matter which spot he chose, he was already on the ground and this meant that he wouldn't have to get up to lie down again.

So with a sigh, Kiba decided to close his eyes and attempt to get some rest.

He awoke as soon as he felt footsteps coming close.

A big chunk of Kurenai-sensei's training regiment had relied on teaching them how to fall asleep and get up quickly. A tired ninja was a dead ninja; just like a ninja that slept too much was easy pickings for any enemy. So, after years of constant drills and many scoldings, he, Akamaru, Hinata, and Shino were experts at falling asleep in the worst of places and getting up as soon as any sound was different.

The only place he didn't wake up instantly was when he was in the village, surrounded by allies. He slept like the dead then. But anywhere that wasn't inherently safe was a place in which he wouldn't have such a luxury.

Blearily he blinked, craning his neck ever so slightly to get a look at whoever had walked into the brig.

The clone didn't really strike him as unique enough for him to be able to recognize quickly. Rexster was easy- Onsei didn't just love him, but the guy was one of the clones with the most distinct armor pieces and markings he'd seen. Hardcase had quickly grown easy for him to recognize because of the geometric designs that were tattooed on his face and mimicked on his armor. And there was one clone trooper he desperately wanted to get to know because of the fang-like designs on his helmet that looked so much like Inuzuka fang markings that it couldn't have been a coincidence!

But this trooper's front was bare, save for a small mark beneath the right side of his visor and a stripe just above it, along with twin vertical lines on his shins.

He'd have to ask why the 501st had gotten blue as their legion color. And it would be nice to find out who had gotten hold of red.

The trooper walked up to the ray shield as Kiba sat up on the floor, crossing his legs before him. And before the man could really ponder too much, he decided that the silence was boring and he wanted to break it.

"What's your name?"

The trooper seemed to falter in his steps for just a split-second. Kiba could smell indecision cross through the ozone of the shield and stopped himself from frowning too deeply. For that smell to be so strong in his little cell, it had to be very strong. He didn't like that. Was asking for a trooper's name not common?

"I'm CT-5385, sir." he wasn't able to stop himself from frowning at the numbers. The trooper quickly followed up with, "But you can call me Tup."

"Tup." he tried out the name, focused on making the sounds harsh, and then smiled. "Nice to meet you. Name's Kiba."

Tup nodded and finally finished stepping forward. With a quick flurry of motions, the shield dissipated and Kiba could see him without an orange veneer clouding him.

Onsei was mostly quiet and Kiba decided that it would be in his best interest to not think too much on that. Word around the whole planet had been that leaving wasn't a good idea for anyone that relied too heavily on Onsei and the abilities it granted. There was a disconnect going on throughout the whole galaxy that hadn't managed to affect their little planet- and it would be jarring to experience it.

His nose was still working fine enough. He could smell freshly dried paint, thick staleness, and hints of ozone still in the air. Tup was still uncertain and his smell reflected it as much as his stance. But there was a sort of dullness to his perfectly fine nose that he knew was going to be a bother to get used to.

But the best way to get used to something annoying was to force it into the background so it naturally became a normal nuisance, rather than leaving it at the forefront of the mind to constantly think about.

So Kiba distracted himself from it by asking, "So, trooper Tup, what're you doing here? Is this a jail break?"

Because there was no way that his mother had been the one to give the order to let him out. When she had said that she would have thrown away the key to his cell if it had existed, she had meant it. She was quick to anger and slow to placate- it would have taken at least 48 hours before she had allowed even herself to contemplate letting him go and it would have taken longer than that for her to decide that he was worthy of another chance at proving competence.

Considering how she believed he had committed a grievous crime, he had assumed that it would be around a week's time before he was actually let loose, though. Because after her cooling off period, there would undoubtedly have come a time in which she would remember how pissed off she had been with him and would have decided to leave him locked up for longer.

Tup shifted from one foot to another and, even though his helmet was emotionless, it was almost painful to figure out that he had no idea how to handle answering the question. He was awkward, out of his depth, and currently unsure of how he could even begin to answer- it was clear in the turbulence of the smell that suddenly filled up the whole brig's space.

"I'll take that as a yes." he decided to surge forward and move past the trooper; from the way that there was the clean burst of relief in his smell, it seemed that the trooper appreciated him taking charge. "Anywhere in particular we're going? I advise keeping me far away from my mother's vicinity if she didn't order my freedom."

"Of course, sir." while the tone was mostly neutral, Kiba could feel that there was depth to it; just the barest hints of shock, fear, and loss. "Do you know the way to the barracks?"

"To a degree." the smell of the rest of the ship's sterilized air was somehow more sterilized than the brig's and he smiled softly at himself at the bright lights that now surrounded him. "How about you follow me and let me know if I'm going to the wrong way?"

"Yes, sir!"

It was a bit too loud for Kiba's liking because it wasn't like he had given the trooper an order. But Tup seemed to be genuine enough and there was the smallest appearance of him being a pup that Kiba couldn't ignore.

All of the men were pups, of course, one way or another. But the more time he spent around Tup- just smelling his trepidation and awe- the easier it was for his mind to slip into the habit of calling him as such. And he knew that if he wasn't careful, another, much more infantilizing term, would pop up in his brain. And he needed to avoid that like homework. That would be a death sentence for him.

"Ooh, I like the way you work, Rexster."

"I am relieved to find that you are pleased with our plan." there was a suspension of silence that sounded a lot like Rex wanted to call him by some term. But the captain plowed through by finishing with, "Tup will be shadowing you as you work, the rest of the men have been alerted to the plan and will be paying attention."

He cocked his head to the side at this, "Tup's a scout?" normally, he wasn't the kind to question anyone's abilities... but Tup was so... small.

"In training." the gruff trooper with a cog tattoo across most of his face grunted, attempting and failing to stamp out the hint of pride he felt when he looked over at the trooper that was fidgeting by the doorway into the large room that was the troopers' barracks. "He knows what he's doing."

Scout work wasn't difficult- at least, it wasn't to him. But he wasn't blind to two main things: 1- it didn't come naturally to everyone and 2- it was dangerous. Scouts traveled in small squads or completely alone and that was a danger in and of itself. But they were the ones to risk hide, hair, and soul to find information that enemies tried to keep secret. They were also the ones to run into the biggest amount of territorial risks- considering how sometimes intel wasn't complete enough.

"If he can keep up with me, then he's something else." the silence had hung between them for far too long and he had needed to say something and it was always easy to default to cocky and overconfident. "So, how'd you guys even get ahold of those candies?"

"GAR secret, sir." Rex bit back quickly, but it was really was more of a bark of warning than a bite of irritation. "You can commence as soon as you wish. You won't be timed on the first day."

Whispers around the galaxy went that clone troopers were flesh droids. The news reports that covered the boys clad in white all dealt with their swiftness and efficiency and only a handful of fringe organizations dared contemplate the sentience of the men. Kiba didn't really know much about clone troopers- just like he knew very little about the worlds outside his own-, but he had heard enough from the news he would accidentally hear to know that not many people actually believed they were capable of something as sentient as emotions.

But it had taken less than a day of just being in close proximity to them to find out that they were as sentient as every other member of Konoha he had ever come to meet. Hell, from the way they had partied and cheered, he could safely say that they were much more sentient than his mother's old sensei. And now he had come to learn that there was something like a smuggling ring within their ranks that had allowed the captain to get his hands on peanut butter flavored candies from Naboo and wasn't that just... very human?

Captain Rex and Unofficial-Scout-Master Jesse had come up with a plan to test out his prowess in tracking by having him track down different troopers that were supposed to have a candy stashed away. It was something so purely Inuzuka that it actually made Kiba want to surge forward and hug both men.

He hadn't played something so unimportant and childish with clan members in years! And for candy?

It was very easy to see these men as so much more than just automatons and he hadn't even managed to have a full conversation with any of them. How could the news be so one-dimension in the way it spoke about them?

Hmm... maybe he could have a hand of causing some kind of change?

"If you get caught, this was all my idea, kid. No other trooper was involved." Rex's voice was all business now and Kiba's heart clenched. "Understood?"

This was all so very Inuzuka.

With a loose smile, he nodded, "Sir yes, sir."

The frown that came onto the blonde's lips was a playful one and in no time he was rolling his eyes. Kiba's smile grew and he whooped while jumping up and away from the makeshift chair that had been a cold box. "There better be a pool about how good I do! I want some of the winnings."

Because that would have been the Inuzuka thing to do: different members would get together, contemplate about the possibility of success or ruin for one of their younger members, and then host a betting pool about who they'd do. And if the clones were so very Inuzuka, then it wouldn't be a stretch for them to do just this.

Some of the men in the barracks hollered nonsensically and that was answer enough to know that, yes, there was some of gambling ring that was being hosted.

His smile was frenzied as he ran past Tup and into the body of the ship, eager to show off his skills and hopefully prove some usefulness to the captain that had been kind enough to give him something other than rotting away at a cell to do for the day.

The first candy was easy enough to hunt down. The trooper had stashed it away at a lock-box in a storage closet but the smell that permeated was one Kiba knew very well, even with how different it was from the ones he usually ate, so he was able to find it without any real complications. The second and third candies were just as easy to find within the gym, hidden away inside of different kinds of equipment.

By the time he had reached the kitchen, he had a sizeable amount of sweet loot. So, he had decided to take a quick break to steal some too-tough jerky from one of the service droids before heading back in the direction of the barracks.

During the whole time he had gone about his work, he had been quiet, methodical, and alert. He was still pretty alert because he knew he had to take precautions to not get caught waltzing about by his mother. But Rex and Jesse had informed him that there upwards to thirty candies stashed all aboard the ship and he had definitely found more than half of that number. This was supposed to be an exercise that lasted multiple days but it was always a good idea to excel in this sort of thing.

As he absentmindedly gnawed on the jerky that was tough enough to give even him a run for his money, he felt a shadow begin to follow him. After noticing this, he noticed the smell of amazement and unsure-ness that he now fully categorized as Tup. And when he turned around, he found the trooper briskly following after him.

The guy had done a good job of following him and not interfering. Kiba had been mindful of him at times and not gone too fast, but even when he hadn't been careful, Tup had always managed to eventually catch up. He'd already done better than some of his fellow shinobi back home by managing to never lose his trail.

Kiba allowed his steps to slow down so that Tup could catch up to him. And then, when they were side by side, he offered up a piece of the jerky.

There was just something about this guy that made Kiba look at him differently from other troopers. He wasn't quite sure what it was. But it wouldn't be very useful to fight it. He wouldn't indulge in it too much because he wasn't that kind of guy. But some jerky never hurt anyone.

"Thank you, sir." he sounded only marginally breathless as he moved his free hand up to his helmet, presumably to take it off.

When Kiba finally managed to see him without his helmet on, he was smacked with understanding.

Tup was a kid.

Even though he had the same face as Rex and Jesse and Hardcase and countless other troopers he'd seen in passing, he was painfully young. There was a spark of innocence in his eyes he hadn't even thought capable in a trooper before.

And, as if suddenly called up, Onsei began to croon quietly in his ear, "Runt."

Yeah.

He was screwed.

Were trooper-runts even a thing? Could they even be a thing?

Captain Rex was very good at keeping his face from giving away how surprised he was at Kiba's success at hunting down the candies. His face was all business and detachment as he counted up what he had managed to get his grubby paws on before coming to the conclusion that he had found twenty-three out of the thirty candies.

The smile that broke across his face was only marginally separate from properly deranged as Rex offered him four of the twenty-three sugary treats.

"We're gonna have to come up with something harder, then." Jesse remarked conversationally as he unwrapped one of the candies Rex gave to him, "Kid didn't cheat, did he, Tup?"

"No sir." Tup was now comfortable enough to be standing beside Kiba, rather than far away from their little group.

It was almost second nature to give two of the candies he was handed to the long haired trooper beside him. Tup looked at him with an almost scandalized alarm, eyes all wide and mouth just barely agape, and Kiba only smiled back and prodded at him to grab them.

Gloved hands wrapped gingerly around the small, gold-foil wrapped candies with the kind of care that was only ever exhibited around things that were seen as delicate novelties. As Kiba worked on unwrapping one of his own prizes, he looked on at Tup from the corner of his eyes. The trooper stared down at the candy in his hands with badly concealed awe.

He had never been a particularly technologically inclined person. But he was starting to feel like it would be a worthy thing to document who the clone troopers actually were. Maybe he'd be able to release some of those recordings to the galaxy at large. It may change nothing because propaganda was necessary to keep a war running and making people believe that these soldiers were more than flesh and bone ensured that people felt comfortable in sending them off to fight.

But it may change things for a few people. It may make some of his fellow clansmen identify with the men- and that might mean that they'd join the war effort. And if they did, then the rest of Konoha may follow suit. And that'd eventually mean that more and more people would get to see that these were not just emotionless automatons.

And he wasn't even sure why he was thinking like this. He'd never cared about news or war if it didn't amount to glory for him and his clan. He'd also never really been very attached to anybody that wasn't born into his clan or was a close friend.

But he couldn't shake the way that Tup looked down at the candy as if he had been given the shiniest, sharpest, most expensive, one-of-a-kind weapon in a shop after it had been made just for him. And the smell of fondness that wafted from Jesse and Rex when they looked at the younger trooper was one he wouldn't want to forget easily.

These were men.

"You don't mind bunking with the rest of the company, do you, kid?"

He liked that Rex didn't call him runt, even if he wasn't sure why. His mother had made that insulting more than clear enough- and he had even feared it becoming the default way he'd be referred to because he would never be called a commander under her rules. But it was nice to be called something else, even if it felt foreign.

"It'll be just like sleepovers back home." he shrugged as he tossed the hard candy into his mouth, "Hell, I'd've asked for it even if there weren't any space available. I'll take the floor in here over a bed anywhere else."

Because this was where the most amount of bodies would be- this was just like the communal houses the pups would live in before they were assigned to genin teams and had to move back into their 'biological parents' home. The atmosphere was a bit tighter, sure, and much more somber. There were men rather than kids. But it was close enough.

It was nice.

"Luckily for you, the commander's not around, so you can take her usual bunk." Jesse clapped his hands as he stood up, followed closely by the captain. "We can contemplate that being an issue some other day."

"Don't leave the barracks unless I call on you, kid. Your mom still thinks you're locked up." Rex reminded him one final time, nodded, and walked off in a brisk stride.

Jesse saluted lazily before heading off deeper into the gigantic room that was the barracks, leaving him with only Tup standing beside him.

"Thank you, sir." the young trooper barely managed to whisper and Kiba had to stop himself from actually throwing himself at Tup and forcing him into a reassuring hug.

Inuzuka were all about physical affection and tough-love- it was a very weird environment to live in, sure, but it was what he had grown up around.

And he believed that he had seen enough to think that the clone troopers were very similar to this kind of ideology.

"Don't sweat it." he turned to Tup with what he hoped was a loose smile, then scratched at his cheek softly. The conversation had barely died down and he was already itching for something to do. "So..." he dragged out, bit at his bottom lip, and sighed heavily. "Know any fun games to pass the time?"

Tup stared back at him for a fraction of a second before coughing. "Have you played sabacc?"

"No, but I've heard of it." and when he jumped at the chance to learn, Tup was only marginally surprised.

The rest of the day before lights out was spent with Tup teaching him how to play the gambling game.

~..~..~

Kiba's character arc will fully rest on him adopting this one guy that's technically older than him but he sees as a pup because why the hell not? It's my fanfiction and Tup deserves all of the love and cuddles.

I don't have a solid idea about what the next chapter will have, so if there's anything in particular you'd like to see, I'd appreciate some feedback. I know I'd like to explore some about the clone's version of mandalorian culture and the Inuzuka reception of it, just like a moment of seeing some more of the gambling and moonshine underbellies of clone culture. But there's nothing concrete enough yet for a full chapter.