Hello everyone… I would like to apologise for the long wait. But I have reasons… My laptop had received a nasty virus, and I couldn't use it for about 4 months… Then I got it fixed in the middle of December. My grandma was visiting us from Finland, so I spent time with her and stuff. Then, a person I know had a stroke and passed away on Christmas day… This was then followed by another friend of mine dying because of a dare-gone-wrong on New Years Day. And just to make everything better, I've had exams… As you can imagine, it hasn't been the easiest of times for me, so I hope that you can all forgive me.

IMPORTANT NOTE!

An anonymous person left this review, so please read it

Why did you ruin all hope for this fic by making Naruto a **? Sure you said

'BI' basically a ** that can appreciate the beauty of a woman in an erotic

sense. It still means he likes to take ** in the ** which isn't cool when your

a guy or put his ** in other guys asses. I mean nothing against gay men...but

I don't want to see or read about it. Now lesbians are awesome since there's

almost nothing better than a beautiful woman...so two beautiful women together

is just plain awesome.

Seriously this fic had potential...albeit the explanation for Naruto's

origins were stupid, and you made him beyond weak for what you set up for him

being on Itachi's level who could have torn Zabuza apart in under a minute.

Sadly though you made Naruto like ** so unless you have a bunch of yaoi fan

girls reading your fic or a bunch of gay men I'd be surprised if you had half

the audience you had before you made that fatal mistake of having Naruto gay.

My reply:

This isn't the first of its kind which I have received for this fic, but it is most likely the most biased which I have received… If there is anyone else out there who had been planning on leaving a similar review, then don't, as I do understand that there are people out there who don't like reading yaoi, and that's fine, I have nothing against you guys…

However, when people start leaving these kinds of messages under an anonymous name, then that's just sad. I didn't force you to read my story, you chose to! You shouldn't be complaining to me, you can just press the back button and forget all about it! ALSO!!!... It IS a NaruAnko fic which is a STRAIGHT pairing, so it's obvious that there won't be any graphic or present/future yaoi. There will only be some past tense yaoi and even that will be minor! It'll be similar to what was said in chapter 9 (?) when Naruto was confessing some of his past to Anko!... I'll try and place as many warnings in when there will be shounen-ai as there are some very awesome people who have continued reading my fic despite the fact that they don't like shounen-ai, but they are taking the high road by looking past it, and one of them even said that the shounen-ai present so far was tastefully done! (Thanks!)

Also!... There are reasons for his strength not being as high as one may assume, but that will be explained later one, along with more detail about his background and the reason why Tsunade left! I can't give it all away in the beginning of my fic, now can I?... This is why things have been kept in the dark. These things will be revealed later on in the fic!

Disclaimer: I don't Naruto.

"YES! Obviously they'd want me to fight now, seeing as I'm oh-so awesome!" Kiba barked as soon as he saw his name on the board.

"Hey!" He shrieked as his arms flew up to wrap around his now-injured head, courtesy of Sakura, how had gotten a nice hit in when he wasn't looking due to him concentrating too much on being the next to fight.

"You shouldn't injure your team-mates right before they're about to go into an important spar, Sakura…" Naruto reprimanded, though the whole team could tell that he wasn't too angry at her, most likely because he had also thought that Kiba was being too loud.

Sakura blushed as she looked away with a hand rubbing the back of her neck, mumbling a quick 'sorry' whilst she did that.

"Anyway Kiba, I think you better hurry on down there…" Which was followed by him motioning down towards where Kankorou and the proctor where waiting.

He was gone within a second.

When he got down there, he came face to face with a grinning sand-nin.

"Heh, guess it took a while for you to build up the courage to come down here and face me like a man… mutt."

Kiba was about to retort when his eyes met Narutos. His mouth was shut before a sound could escape.

Naruto didn't look all too happy with the ease at which Kankorou had gotten under Kiba's skin. The look in Narutos eyes told him to concentrate solely on the match and nothing but the match.

He nodded slightly to himself as just looked at his opponent with a bored look, one which was to common to the one often seen on Sasuke. Hey, you learnt a few things from being on the same team as Sasuke!

Kankorou seemed to look a bit miffed about not getting a response out of the Inuzuka, but shrugged nonetheless and looked towards the proctor, along with Kiba.

Hayate looked at the two genin and saw that they were both ready to begin the match. He then raised his hand.

"Alright, begin!" And with that he lowered his hand in a quick chopping motion before jumping out of the way. He didn't know what method of combat the two shinobi used.

Kankorou had assumed that his opponent would just jump into the fight without a second thought, and, just by looking at the dog-lover he'd have been correct in his assumptions as he could see him shaking, trying to hold back from just leaping into the unknown.

So what was keeping him from moving?!

He didn't know.

Kiba, however, was determined to prove to his sensei that he was a great shinobi and that he did have patience! And he'd be damned if he embarrassed himself in front of Naruto and Sasuke! That was a big no-no. He didn't need to give them a reason to make fun of him. He didn't care too much about what Sakura thought, as she wouldn't be as… harsh?... as the other two?... No, he couldn't imagine it.

He raised his arms, and he saw his opponent twitch at the action.

He carried on raising his arms until they made contact with Akamaru, who was sitting on his head. He lifted him up and gently placed him on the ground. And just as his hands left the soft white fur, the pair were off, heading straight towards the sand-nin.

Kankorou had been caught off guard slightly, but he managed to jump out of the way, only receiving a small scratch on his left forearm, but nothing serious. He cringed slightly when he saw how he'd just thrown the 'parcel' which he'd been carrying on his back.

He felt a small shift in the air and jumped to his left, head first, so that he could place his palms on the ground and push off from the ground upwards, missing both the leaf-nin and his mutt. He landed about 6 feet from where he began.

Kiba and Akamaru stopped in their pursuit and looked at one another for a second before he smirked. Kiba made a hand sign before he said, "Jūjin Bunshin." This was promptly followed by two plumes of smoke appearing where both Kiba and Akamaru were standing. When the smoke cleared, there stood two identical… lycanthropic looking Kibas.

This was quickly followed by Kiba performing some more hand signs, followed by him shouting, "Gatsūga." Both Kiba and his look-a-like clone, Akamaru, started running towards Kankorou before flinging theirs arms clockwise, using the momentum to create two tornado-like bullets, or 'fangs', both of them heading towards Kankorou at full speed.

'Shit!' was the thought which ran through the sand-nins mind. He flipped backwards in an attempt to get away, but they were going three times faster then he was. If he could only catch one of them… then he's win, but if there were on the move the whole time, then he wouldn't be able to het a hold of either one of them. Or… He could wait until they exhausted themselves… But he's also loose a lot of energy by dodging the pair.

However, his thoughts were put on hold as Kiba had thrown a smoke bomb which went off nearby where he stood. He put his hands to his mouth as he began to cough, which stopped suddenly as he got winded from being hit by one of the two leaf-nins. Luckily that one hadn't been at full force.

All of the other people who were watching the match couldn't tell what was going on.

When the smoke was gone, all of the other nins could see Kankorou hunched over slight, his arms wrapped around his stomach area. Kiba and Akamaru (though no-one could currently tell them apart) were a few meters away, hands on their knees.

Kankorou recovered rather quickly as he stood up straight, a confident smirk on his face.

Kiba, however, had a worried and slightly confused expression on his face. There was something strange about the guy… he didn't smell right… And he shouldn't have recovered that quickly either. Something wasn't adding up. He looked over at Akamaru and saw that he still had some energy left. But he also noticed that he was favouring his right leg over his left. He felt bad.

Akamaru had gotten injured when they'd met that mysterious shinobi in the forest, and it appeared that he was still hurting. And here he was, fighting for Kiba. His friend.

It was moments like these when he truly appreciated Akamaru and saw how special he was. Dogs truly were mans best friend. Without him-

He was pulled out of his stupor when he felt arms begin to wrap around his waist, but he swung his arms and luckily he hit him hard where his neck met the rest of the body, which lead to the arms loosening enough for him to jump away.

It was then he realised how much it fucking hurt when he fist connected with the sand-nin. That wasn't normal at all! Shi-

Sniff sniff. Sniff sniff.

Weird...

He could swear that he could smell someone… very close to him. But there wasn't anyone by him. Strange… The only thing close enough was a huge… mummified cocoon looking thing.

Wait a minute…

The guy they were fighting wasn't using any ninjutsu or genjutsu… nor was his taijutsu anything amazing. He wouldn't have made it this far if he was without some sort of skill. So… Maybe… just maybe, he was using a… clone or something, one that didn't just disappear if hit.

Luckily Akamaru had been keeping the now-fake sand-nin occupied whilst he'd been racking his brain.

Whilst the sand-nin was busy, he reached into his pouch and took out a kunai, however, as he was about to get closer to the… what he thought was the real Kankorou, he sensed the shift in the air and jumped out of the way, narrowly missing the black-clad shinobi.

'So… he's defending it, which means that either the real kanko-whatever his name is, is in there, or there's something valuable…'

He quickly made his way over to Akamaru's side and saw that he wasn't doing too good. He then shifted his eyes over to Kankorou, and saw him standing protectively in front of the cocoon-thing.

His lip twitched upwards as he formulated a plan. He gave a soldier pill to Akamaru, and quickly whispered something in his ear before looking at the sand-nin, grinning.

His hand reached into his pouch and he pulled out another two smoke bombs, throwing one of them to the ground near Kankorou's feet. He quickly made some hand signs before muttering, "Gatsūga."

After a couple of seconds, the audience could hear another smoke bomb going off.

A minute passed, and the only sounds made were some coughing, grunts and what sounded like struggling noises.

Another minute passed before all of the smoke cleared.

When all of the smoke was gone, everyone stared in shock at the outcome.

Kankorou, or what people had thought was Kankorou, was in fact a strange looking puppet, which currently had multiple limbs wrapped around one of the Kibas. However, the other Kiba had a kunai in each hand, one of them having cut the wrappings which had been strapped around the cocoon, revealing the real Kankorou. He had one kunai placed at on one side of his neck whilst the other was on the other side, making it impossible for Kankorou to move without getting any of his blood drawn.

A few coughs were heard coming from the proctor.

"Heh…" Kankorou said. "You do realise that if you do anything to me, I'll get my puppet to… hug your little mutt over there!" Which was followed by a few confident chuckles.

However, it was a bit off-putting that Kiba was still smiling, like he didn't even care about his dog.

There was a puff of smoke where Akamaru and the puppet were, where a small white dog quickly emerged from, running towards his master.

When Akamaru had changed back into his real form, he'd had enough space to get out before the limbs had closed around him again, allowing him to get to safety.

Everyone was quiet as they were waiting with baited breath to see the outcome of the match.

The sand-nin looked around, well, as much as he could in the position which he was in, and, after not being able to come up with a solution to get him out of the mess he was in, let out a long, drawn-out sigh.

"Proctor… I… I give up." He said quietly, as though he was embarrassed. If someone looked closely, they would be able to see that he was looking up at his two teammates out of the corner of his eyes, almost ashamed. He clenched his jaw slightly.

"The winner is… Inuzuka Kiba!" which was followed by a few coughs.

Kiba, by now, was already half-way up the stairs with Akamaru in his arms. He was suddenly stopped by a hand on his shoulder which held on with a firm grip. He looked over his shoulder and, for some strange reason, wasn't at all surprised to find his young sensei there.

"Congratulations on your match Kiba, it was very impressive…" Kiba couldn't help the smile that reached his lips, nor the thanks escaping them.

"…However, I think you should go and get Akamaru checked… The puppet that he fought wasn't forgiving, and the hold he had on him didn't look nice at all…"

Kiba looked down at Akamaru and, sure enough, he looked uncomfortable in his arms, which indicated that he was in some sort of pain.

"Just turn left when you get out of the door, then follow the signs, even you should be able to do that…!" Naruto smiled cheekily at the small insult. He couldn't help it.

"HEY!" But Kiba still couldn't help grinning, as the adrenalin was still rushing through him.

"I'll talk to all three of you when all of the prelims are over, now… go on, shoo!"

"Yeah, yeah…"

Kiba looked up at the board just before he exited to see who would be fighting next.

Tenten vs. Izawa Riiko.

Too bad, he'd be missing a couple of chicks fighting… older ones at that…

GAH!!! Sorry it took so long, I can't get Riiko's character quite right yet, so I was kinda delaying it, and I hadn't written the ending to Kiba's match… I couldn't make this chapter longer either… gomen…

So it's now 11:30, which gives me enough time to finish my chemistry homework before I have to go to bed.

Sorry for the length, or lack of…

And I know it's been over 7 months since I updated and that I'd said that I'd update sooner, but… better late then never, ne?!

29/04/09