It was a natural ability of animals to be able to adapt behaviourally to changes within their environments.

His mother had told him that, just before leaving him alone in the middle of a forest on the far outskirts of Konoha. He was six then, only a child. When she came back for him, a whole year had passed.

Kiba remembers thinking the action had been unfair, unreasonable, and maybe just unreal. But now, he realises it was a just and fair decision – after all, it was tradition. Family traditions had to be obeyed, especially by ninjas.

"You are an Inuzuka," she had said to him, as he stared up at her, "You must learn to embrace the gift of senses. Smell. Sight. Instinct."

She'd pushed him over, onto the mossy ground of the forest. It hadn't hurt, yet he'd still cried. Kiba realises that she'd purposely tried to hurt him. His mother's ways were a little unorthodox for an Inuzuka's – she'd tried to make the parting a little easier. She'd believed that the hate and the anger would make the pain of being abandoned a little less.

All members of the Inuzuka clan were born into the world as feral beings. They were born with an overwhelming sense of caution towards other humans – just like animals. Children were brought up being taught how to adapt to a human environment, taught how to be not overwhelmed by the alien behaviour of humans. After they could properly conform to mainstream society, they had to learn to utilise their animalistic senses. They would learn how to adapt quickly to changes in their environment.

Kiba remembers his mother telling him he wouldn't have to go to the Academy for a year. He remembers his excitement, yelling out celebratory phrases – oh the irony. If only he'd known then.

He'd tried following his mother after she left him in the forest. But she'd been too swift, and his legs were short and clumsy and he tired quickly from running. He lost her scent after travelling only a few kilometres.

The first month had been terrifying. He was afraid of darkness and feared seeing the sun fall beneath the horizon. The trees would creak and groan on windy nights, sometimes they even sounded like ghosts moaning and whispering incoherent things to one another. Sometimes he thought he could understand what the trees meant to say.

The days were long and hot; the sun was unforgiving, and pierced brightly through the thick canopy of trees during the afternoons. His sweat often made his clothes stick to him, like a slimy second skin. He didn't discard the clothing though – he was afraid that if he left it behind, he would leave part of himself behind too. He didn't know that this way of thinking was pointless back then.

He had often thought of heading back to Konoha. Back home. He wished he knew which direction it was in. The forest had a wide variety of smells and it troubled him greatly to distinguish one from another. And besides that, Konoha was over a hundred kilometres from where he had been abandoned. He knew he would never find it but he still tried, despite how futile his chances were.

Kiba can't remember when he met the wolves. He just remembers that, at the time, he'd known that he belonged with them. They didn't recognise him as a human, they didn't approach him with caution or fear. He'd been ill, faint from lack of food and exhaustion, when they came upon him. The wolves had sniffed him, observed him with wide-open, alert eyes. He had felt fear then, fear that they were going to kill him, devour his carcass and leave the remains for scavengers to pick at. But they'd merely taken him along with them. And so he became feral once more.

He learnt how to utilise all four limbs to move more quickly, more elegantly, more firmly. He learnt how to distinguish between the different smells of urines, how to distinguish between the territories he could approach and those that he could not. He learnt how to use body language rather than vocal language when it came to hunting, which was always to be a silent, swift affair.

He figured out that licking a wound made it less likely to become infected, that the pricking up of ears could signal both predator and prey but that the flicker of a tail would indicate that hunting was to begin. He learnt how to run properly from a predator, how to mask his scent using water and mud. He learnt that the taste of tang on the tip of his tongue meant that a storm was coming, learnt how to smell the dampness of rain in the clouds several hours before it fell.

He wrestled with the younger wolves, sometimes winning but most of the times not. He rested with the pack in the shade during the hottest parts of the day and got up when the sky began to darken and the air began to cool. Being an Inuzuka meant that his eyesight was still sharp during the night time, and he was able to detect the movement of prey such as rabbits from far away by the patterns their shadows would cast amongst the trees. Even in the darkness there were shadows.

Kiba liked the taste of rabbits the most. He liked the way their bones would crush pliantly between his canines, the sweet taste of their bloody flesh. Their fur was unpleasant, rough and tasteless against his tongue. The meat was succulent, of soft muscle and fat. When he could not hunt rabbits, there were always fish, but their bones were small, hard to crush between his teeth, and would catch in his throat. When hunting was too difficult, when even the wolves themselves had gotten too tired to chase their fast prey, they would scrounge through the dirt and eat the worms buried beneath. Or they'd eat beetles, or the tart berries from bushes. Meat was always the best, even though sometimes the smell of blood sickened Kiba.

Sometimes he hated the smell of blood, the smell of death, the sight of broken, twitching animals as their entrails leaked onto the soft grass beneath. But he was an Inuzuka, an animal, a ninja, and this was his way of life despite the way he felt.

Living in the forest gave him a connection to the earth, as though it were part of him. When he ran, he could feel the earth moving with him, as though his legs were moving in a useless illusion and it was really the earth moving beneath him, not him moving above the earth. The earth was all around him, its smells and sights overwhelming him with their enormity; the earth was within him, a swollen lump within his heart, pounding in time with his blood, rushing through his veins. When the alpha of his pack died, he knew that its body was merely returning into the earth from which it had been born. He knew that when he died, he would also return into the earth.

He had almost forgotten what language was when his mother found him again. He had turned almost completely wild. He had tried to attack her for she was human – she was an enemy – but his mother had easily subdued him. He was only a child, after all, and she had easily slammed her fist into a point in his back that made him collapse and black out immediately.

It took him a month to figure out what it meant to be human. A month was a remarkably short time to relearn all that he'd forgotten, but after all, he was an animal – they were born to adapt to changes in their environment.

A few more months after that, Kiba's mother awarded him Akamaru. He found it easy to connect with the dog – he could understand what Akamaru barked by his tone and pitch, he could read the dog's body language too – the way he'd freeze up when he felt a powerful chakra, the way a sudden shiver would edge down his spine to the tip of his tail when he was excited. And they both understood the words behind the movements of the trees in forests – the words of the earth.

"Kiba," he looks up to see dark lenses reflecting his own curious face, "We've been resting enough."

Kiba digs his fingernails into the earth, feeling the contented hum within the soft dirt. Akamaru wags his tail happily, too, as though he shares the earth's sentiments. When Hinata offers out her hand with an anxious smile, he accepts it and finally gets up from the ground to follow Shino's retreating back.

The air is cool around them, no taste of tang or smell of dampness. And he knows it will be a good day.