Unknown to anyone, Kiba and Akamaru had hid inside the same Bombardier as Neji’s squad. The two had been hitching a ride with their comrades ever since they left the Leaf Village. Truth be told, they were not assigned to this mission. In fact, Tsunade forbade them from even leaving the village. But they did not care. “Akamaru, this would be so much more comfortable if you were still a pup.” Kiba managed to murmur from their tight hiding spot. Suddenly, the ground began to rumble. “What the…” The lead mammoth suddenly smashed into the Bombardier which they were hiding in, and with a flip of its head sent it tumbling across the backs of the mammoths behind it.
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Kiba was unconscious for several hours. When he woke up, Naruto was trying to free him from the twisted metal. “Kiba, what the hell you doing here, man?” he asked almost gleefully.
“None of your business.” Snapped Kiba. “There’s someone here……I really needed to talk to.”
“Would this someone happen to have long white hair by any chance?” said Naruto, climbing on the wreckage in order to make it easier to tear off a piece.
“You’ve seen him, haven’t you?”
Naruto, giving up on the idea of tearing apart the scraps by hand, began to gather chakra in his palm. A ransangan formed, and Naruto swiftly brought it down, destroying the metal holding Kiba and Akamaru captive.
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“He’s been dead for years Kiba. Don’t even think about him. I knew him too, remember? We all played together, like our childhood would never end. But he’s gone now. You’re not going to find him here.”
Kiba got up with a wince. In some ways, Naruto was right. But at the same time he was wrong. The man in question was alive, no doubt about it. But, so many parts of his psyche had been destroyed, he may have well been a different person altogether if he hadn’t retained his memories. Kiba remembered the words that had been said to him all those years ago: “I can’t tell a lie and you know that. But you couldn’t understand the truth. When you know you’re old enough, ask your mother about the truth. You will be surprised.”
Kiba’s mother was dead now. So was the rest of the Inuzuka family. Years of war between the Leaf and the Sound had orphaned him and Akamaru. No one in the Leaf knew what really happened that day. That’s why they came this far North: to find the truth about his father’s death.
