Rating: T+

Warnings: Crack treated seriously, fix-it, general shinobi darkness, mention of assumed pedophilia (not actually true), angst, off-screen character death, etc.

Word Count: ~5100 (complete)

Pairings: Gen

Summary: Part 2 of Akatsuki!Kiba. Now that the frantic terror of killing Danzō, fleeing Konoha, and ending up recruited by Pein is done with, being a missing-nin is a lot more boring than Kiba thought it would be.

Notes: As a warning, there are mentions of rumors of pedophilia in this fic, though none of them are true, and they were spread with consent of the supposed victim after the supposed perpetrator was dead to sell a cover story. I wanted to drop notice either way, because it's a volatile subject.

down in the forest (with the devil in me)

Now that the frantic terror of killing Danzō, fleeing Konoha, and ending up recruited by Pein is done with, being a missing-nin is a lot more boring than Kiba thought it would be.

It probably doesn't help that Akatsuki is in a lull between missions right now—likely because of Kiba's presence, if he thinks about it—and that the base in the Mountain's Graveyard is well removed from any towns or villages. Going for groceries usually takes at least a day and a half, and is apparently one of the most hated duties, even over laundry.

There's a chore chart in the main kitchen. Kiba is inordinately amused by this, even though he's down on the 'dishwashing' section for the next two months. Initiation, Hidan had said, but Kiba doesn't know enough about him yet to guess whether he was bullshitting Kiba or not.

It would be easier to adjust, Kiba thinks, if he had Akamaru beside him. But the space next to him is achingly, gapingly empty, and for the first time in as long as he can remember, Kiba is alone.

Moving keeps his mind off everything behind him, off the thought of the clan's reaction to his departure, his friends', Akamaru's. Sleep is hard to come by, but the Akatsuki base is full of darkened corridors and strange rooms that can keep Kiba's mind occupied with a little effort. A lot of the smells are weird, acrid and chemical and old, and Kiba wonders how long this place had existed, who could have made it. The only other member who's been vaguely friendly to him is Kisame, and when Kiba asked him he had just shrugged.

Wrinkling his nose a little, Kiba steps carefully through a narrow doorway, trying not to brush the walls. Instinct says this is a predator's den, something far bigger than Kiba himself and with lots more teeth, and it's automatic that he wouldn't want to leave his own scent, wouldn't want to draw its attention. The thought prickles uneasily, because Kiba is an Inuzuka and used to being one of the biggest predators in Konoha, but—

But he's not in Konoha anymore, and this is just another reminder.

It still takes effort not to bare his teeth and growl at the trace of acrid anger that permeates the stone down here. It's everywhere, as sharp as chemical smoke, with an undertone of tearing grief that makes Kiba want to sneeze. Powerful emotions, if he can get a whiff of them now—usually that only works in person or immediately after someone is gone. He grimaces just a little, sidestepping a deep crack in the floor, and—

Stops.

The scent that seeps up from below is pain and suffering and rage, old blood and aged death and creeping, twisted roots like those found in the oldest parts of Konoha's forests, wild places that far predate the Shodaime's newer growth. Kiba breathes it in, and something instinctive and on edge within him recoils like a wounded beast, utterly silent with terror.

Inuzuka know how to listen to their instincts. Kiba doesn't hesitate to follow suit, bolting back up the tunnel towards the occupied parts of the base.

He doesn't meet anyone, but he doesn't stop running until he hits his room and stumbles in, locking the door behind him.

It is, he thinks much later, when the thrill of immediate terror is more distant, if still not entirely banished, very much like his first reaction to Naruto.

Maybe it sounds terrible, phrased like that, but Kiba doesn't quite mean it as a bad thing. It was just…instinct. When Naruto had walked into the Academy, Akamaru had growled, Kiba had felt his hackles rise, and it was just. Just Naruto. That was all. Kiba hadn't let it stop him from making friends with Naruto—if anything he'd taken it as a challenge.

It aches a little, now, to think about Naruto, to remember the days of skipping classes and hanging out in the training hall or on the hill behind the Academy. He misses Shikamaru and Choji the same way, but with Naruto there's an added edge of regret, because Kiba had written Naruto off the same way everyone else did, had seen him fail at one thing and decided he'd fail at everything else, too. Kiba was never quite last, never quite first—he'd been boringly average in pretty much everything but tracking, and looking down on someone had been new. He'd liked not being last, and it had festered along with a slow-burn sort of anger aimed more at himself and his own frustrations than Naruto.

Their match in the Chuunin Exams was a reality check, and Kiba's grateful for it.

Not that it matters much now, he supposes. But maybe it will make Naruto more friendly to Akamaru, who's going to need all the support he can get.

"Cooking?" a low voice asks, flat but faintly amused. Kiba twitches, curses himself inwardly for not paying attention when he's in a base filled with murderers, and glances up. Konan is standing in the doorway of the kitchen, a book tucked under one arm and an empty teacup in her hand. Her amber eyes flicker over the thick volumes stacked at Kiba's elbow, the delicate glass balls scattered over the tabletop, and the bowls of powders in front of him.

Kiba takes a breath, forces his heartbeat back down, and thinks, Criminal. You're a murderer too. You killed Danzō and you killed those bounties you took in and they've seen you do it. You're a murderer. You can act the same as them. Buck up and bare your teeth.

It's not as reassuring as he'd wanted it to be.

"Not unless you're looking to die," he says, and it comes out sharper than he intended, more aggressive, though he supposes that's not a bad thing. Easy enough to roll with, given the churning anxiety in his gut that he can pretend is aggravation. "They're toxic smoke bombs."

If anything, that makes interest kindle in Konan's normally blank features, and once she's filled the kettle and set it on the stove, she settles into the chair across from him. "Is that how you killed Danzō?" she asks, and there's a thread of dark amusement in her voice, something low and vicious and full of cold glee.

Kiba thinks of Shino, of Shino's cousin, how Danzō decommissioned Torune because of what Root had turned him into. Simple enough, then, to meet Konan's stare with bared teeth and the smile of a wolf whose pack has been wounded. If she misses the protectiveness of the gesture, that's all the better. "No, I stabbed him in the kidney with a poisoned knife and watched him die, paralyzed and helpless. These are just for fun."

The curl of Konan's mouth might be amusement at his grandstanding, or it might just be approval. Kiba can't tell. "Is it a secret recipe?" she asks, glancing between the bowls with lazy curiosity.

It takes effort to keep his hands from shaking as he carefully measures out portions of each bowl, trying not to raise any dust. Genma had assured him that it wouldn't do much until he lit the exploding tag wrapped around the glass and shattered the makeshift bomb, but Kiba's not willing to risk it. "Just the amounts. These ones are chalk, arsenic sulfide, nightshade, and powdered verdigris." He tilts his head at the pile of completed balls filled with thick liquid, just waiting for him to paste an exploding tag to the glass. "There are some over there with quicklime, and then some with pine sap, naphtha, quicklime, calcium phosphide, sulfur, and saltpeter."

"One to blind, and one to burn, with a trap so that it burns faster when water is added," Konan reasons, and she eyes him with something like interest. "Most shinobi would use chakra to get the same results."

It rankles, just a little, to hear the implication in her tone. "I'm twelve," he snaps, and it almost comes out as a bark, a warning snarl like Kuromaru would give him if he was being especially annoying. Kiba's never made that sound before, never been in the position to; he's always been too low on the Inuzuka hierarchy to bother. It's his sister who's heir, his mother who's Clan Head. Kiba is just Kiba, and a child on top of that. "If you wanted someone with lots of chakra, you should have looked for someone older."

Konan doesn't move, clearly unimpressed by his anger. Her long fingers tap against the tabletop, and she reaches into one sleeve. Kiba tenses, ready for her to pull out a weapon, but all it turns out to be is a square of paper. Without even looking down, she starts folding, slow and deliberate, and says quietly, "I was the one who passed the news about you on to Nagato." At his expression, caught somewhere between hostility and confusion, she clarifies, "Pein. When Sasori told me a Konoha genin had killed Danzō, I told Nagato to recruit you."

Kiba's only been here a short time, but instinct says Konan is alpha bitch in a way that not even Pein can rival. She's quiet, and she doesn't usually get involved, but when she does people move the fuck out of her way. His grandmother was like that, from the vague memories Kiba has of her. Even after Tsume took over as Clan Head, his grandmother wasn't someone any clan member wanted to cross.

The Inuzuka are matriarchal, like the Uzumaki used to be. Maybe Kiba's just so used to taking orders from a woman that he automatically defaults to Konan as the leader, but he doesn't think it's quite that simple. She's a force to be reckoned with, or she wouldn't be here.

Her tone, her dismissal of Kiba's temper, the preoccupation of her hands when they're speaking—it's the kind of thing that would probably make anyone else, especially a boy his age, bristle and snap, but Kiba can actually feel his tension lessening, his hackles going down. Konan is dismissive of him the way a bitch would be of a yapping puppy, and it's incredibly, painfully familiar. His mother does the same all the time.

Did the same, he supposes now.

He huffs, trying to hold on to the last of his anger, but the embers are settling in his gut, and it's not worth the effort to fan them back to flames for a simple conversation. "Thanks," he says, and even he can't quite tell if it's sardonic or sincere. Then curiosity wins out—spy instincts, Kiba wants to say, but he's pretty sure he has to survive more than a month before he can claim that—and he looks back at his bombs, asking gruffly, "You have a grudge against the bastard or something?"

Konan is silent for so long that Kiba almost looks up to see if she's left. She hasn't moved, though, is staring down at the origami flower cupped between her hands, twin to the one in her hair. There's something as sharp as a blade in her expression, dark and cool like distant rainclouds, and it takes conscious effort for Kiba not to let his breath catch with trepidation. That's a dangerous look.

"There are rumors," Konan says finally, instead of answering. Slowly and carefully, she sets the flower down on the table between them. "About why you killed him to begin with, and why you ran afterwards."

Something shivers down Kiba's spine, like shards of glass sliding beneath his skin. He knows exactly what rumors she's talking about, because Tsunade had told him she'd spread them, warned him with regret but no reluctance what she'd tell the world to make their story more believable. Just the thought makes Kiba's stomach curl, something sick coiling there. There's no helping it, though. He needed a solid reason to kill Danzō, to be at his house alone at night, without even Akamaru with him. Tsunade had just picked the most obvious one, easy to accept with the only man who might say otherwise already dead.

"Yeah?" he demands, a sharp bark that's full of teeth as he bristles. "What the hell is it to you?"

Konan looks up to meet his eyes, steady and cool. "Men with power always seem to have corrupted tastes," she says. "There were rumors Hanzō preferred genin girls. As far as I know, they were only rumors, but since you're here I'll assume the ones about Danzō were true. Another thing he and Hanzō must have bonded over." The curve of her mouth is unspeakably bitter, full of loathing, but before she can say anything more the kettle whistles. She rises smoothly, fixes her tea with a stiff set to her shoulders that refuses conversation, and then collects her book and disappears back into the hallway.

Fuck, is the only thing Kiba can think, staring down at the orb of toxic powder he's still holding. He's heard Hanzō referenced enough times in the last few days to know that he used to be Ame's leader, and that most of the world still thinks he is. Pein wears a scratched Ame hitai-ate, and given how close he and Konan are, the way they talk, it's easy enough to assume she's from the same village. That and the reference to Hanzō—

Kiba's mother fought in the Third Shinobi War, was a genin in the Second. He's heard her war stories, the memories of battles fought across Ame, how the Legendary Sannin were the first to ever survive a fight with Hanzō the Salamander, Ame's tyrant. He grew up on bedtime stories like that, and there were weeks after he first heard the name, the man's deeds, that he couldn't even look at salamanders without blanching. Tales of Hanzō terrified him, and Konan all but came out and said that he and Danzō were working together.

Kiba draws in a shaking breath, the only one he can allow himself, and then focuses on his bombs again. He repeats the conversation over and over in his mind, fixing details the way the Academy classes on espionage recommended, and that Genma then helped him refine. It will last him until he can get back to his room and write things down, tangled in the code of poisons and chemicals Genma taught him before he left. More Shiranui Clan secrets, and Kiba wants to feel bad for stealing them, for muscling his way into Genma's family like this, but honestly all he can feel is relief. Relief that someone could teach him, could give him a way to make up for Akamaru's absence in a fight. Relief that Genma cared enough to make sure he didn't immediately get found out and killed, Hokage ordering the tokujo to help or not.

Relief that at least two people in Konoha know that he isn't a traitor, no matter what the rest of the world believes, what Kiba's going to make them believe.

He carefully presses the plug into the hole in the glass, tips it to make sure the seal is tight, and then flips the bomb into the air. The dust is poisonous, but it's not really blatantly dangerous until he sets the contents on fire. A few breaths of the smoke it makes will kill, and even though Kiba can't help a grimace at the thought, he sets it with the rest on the sealing scroll, then makes a hand sign. They disappear with a puff of smoke, the scroll rolling itself up tightly, and Kiba catches it as it tumbles off the edge of the table.

This is hardly the most objectionable thing he's done in the last few months. He'll survive.

No matter what, he tells himself grimly, he's going to survive.

Regardless of what he has to do right now, regardless of where the future finds him, someday, someday he's going to see Konoha again. He'll see his friends and his family and Akamaru, and he'll explain. They'll believe him. Kiba's going to get his happy ending.

He will.

Midnight finds him wandering again, carefully minding his steps in the echoing halls. There's a poisoned knife strapped to each of his thighs, and his jacket is open so he can reach them easily. The terror from last time is still lurking in the back of his thoughts, and the hour hardly helps, but Kiba is bored and lonely enough to be reckless. There's an itch under his skin, a desperate sort of need to send Genma what he's found out so far, the names and faces and former affiliations of the other members, the offhand bits of gossip about missions and opponents and money going somewhere, Hanzō and possible collaboration with Danzō, but—

But he can't risk it. Kiba wants to be brash and rash and fly down to the nearest bounty station, send a message that Genma will intercept, but it's too soon. They haven't even started taking him along on missions yet, and while Kiba spent the two months in between killing Danzō and Pein's recruitment making something of a name for himself as a bounty hunter, it's still not enough to justify wandering off alone right now. He can't afford to raise their suspicions in any way.

Later. Later will be soon enough, and Kiba just has to keep himself occupied in the meantime.

And what better way to take his mind off his impatience than to investigate the place that gave him the creeps at midnight, alone?

Yeah, Kiba's thinking he's had better ideas. Probably including signing up to spy on eight of the world's most dangerous missing-nin.

Stifling a groan, he nevertheless keeps walking, not towards the crack that he'd found but towards where it leads. It was simple enough to find a passage that led one level further down, to trace the scent back towards its source. Something in the back of his mind is still cringing away, urging him to bolt again, but the conversation with Konan steadied him. It was a reminder that he can do this, that in one five-minute encounter he gained enough information to fill a regular report, and that's heartening enough to push Kiba forward.

It's not quite concrete proof that this wasn't all for nothing—that will have to come later, after Konoha puts his information to use—but it's a start.

The smell of old blood and chemicals is getting stronger, almost overpowering, and it's twice as heavy down here as it was one level up. Kiba's nose is stinging, and he wrinkles it faintly, not quite willing to block out the scent even though he wants to. Better to filter it out as much as he can, focus on the underlying tones of emotion and aged, disturbed earth—that will keep anyone from sneaking up on him, at least. Everyone here except Hidan walks quietly, and while no one forbade Kiba from wandering, he doesn't think Pein will be overly happy to find him down here.

The corridor branches ahead of him, the left tunnel leading down, the right curving out of sight. Kiba pauses, takes a breath and tries not to let himself quail at the heavy reek of pain coming from the right. It's enough to drive him back a step, unconscious fear tangled up around the wariness he's already feeling, and suddenly away from here sounds like the best possible place to be.

He stops himself, though. One step is all he allows before he plants his feet, taking another breath and trying to adjust to the acrid stench. It smells like the deepest parts of T & I, where his mother sometimes works. She brought Kiba with her a handful of times, let him wander around Ibiki's office while she and Kuromaru ran an interrogation, and Kiba will never forget the scent when she came to get him, fear and pain and blood and ash saturating her skin.

Like this, actually. So close that Kiba wonders if this is where they torture prisoners, except that as far as he knows Akatsuki doesn't take prisoners.

If they do, though—

If he can find them, maybe he can—

Do nothing.

The thought sinks down to his stomach, as heavy as lead, and Kiba presses a hand against the rough stone of the wall, gritting his teeth. No matter what, no matter who he finds, he can't risk giving anything away by helping them. He's here to spy, and Naruto's safety depends on him doing just that. Konoha's safety depends on just that. He can't risk his friend, can't risk his family. He can't betray them, even if that's what they think he's already done.

You're going to have to make some of the hardest choices in the world, Genma had told him during their week, even as he pressed a bottle of water into Kiba's hand after hours of training. Eventually it's going to come down to what's more important, your values or the village. Making a decision like that—it might break you. But then again, it might not.

Kiba hadn't really understood then, but with old blood and pain in his nose, no option to help even if there's anyone still alive down there, he thinks that he gets it. It's a question of loyalty, in the end, a question of whether he's more loyal to what he believes or those he left behind.

That's not really a choice at all, is it? If he weren't loyal to the village, to his friends and family above all else, Kiba wouldn't even be here.

He takes a breath, focuses half of his attention inward like Genma taught him. There's a spark of anger there, carefully nurtured, and Kiba feeds it, thinking of the way Naruto defeated him, the humiliation, the irritation at his mother and sister for always overlooking him. Easy enough to let it grow without the focus of his attention to tell him those feelings are irrational—like feeding a bad mood, but sharper, harsher. Kiba can feel it, the way it's suddenly easy to peel his lips back from his teeth in a silent growl, the stalk in his steps as he starts forward.

He can do this.

Someone has to.

The right-hand corridor curves in a long loops before it straightens out, abruptly opening into a massive cavern with a high ceiling. There's a trace of light around the ceiling, and Kiba guesses it's from the crack in the floor above. The shadows are long, the lights around the edges so low as to be practically nonexistent, but Kiba has good eyes and can make out the craggy, moss-covered lines of vast roots draped throughout the room. Cables stretch across the floor, limp and disconnected from anything at the close end, where they lie in front of a wooden chair like a great, roughly-hewn throne.

It feels more menacing just looking inside than it did when the Ichibi appeared in the Exam's arena. More like deliberate death, waiting to fall on the unsuspecting, than Sabaku no Gaara's crazed lack of control ever managed. There's a near-silent growl bubbling up in Kiba's throat, but he steps in anyway, casting a look around—

A low, dark chuckle fills the air, and every muscle in Kiba's body pulls tight all at once. He snarls before he can stop himself, dropping low in preparation for a lunge, but there's no sign of movement. The shadows are too thick, too dark. He can't see through them, can't spot his watcher no matter how hard he looks.

"Show yourself!" he snaps, and fear makes the anger easy.

In the darkness, there's the barest hint of movement.

"You shouldn't be down here, little puppy," a man says. The voice is unfamiliar, deep and just as menacing as the room. There should be humor in it, given the lilt of his words, but to Kiba's ears it sounds far, far closer to rage.

"Must have missed the 'keep out' sign, my bad," Kiba retorts, a youngest sibling's instinct to never let anyone else get the last word. He bristles as the vague form takes a step closer, but doesn't retreat. He honestly doesn't think he can—his feet are frozen, terror racing through his veins fast enough to make every limb shake. At least his oversized coat is good for something; the man won't see him trembling, and Kiba's an old hat at faking bravado even when what he's feeling is the furthest thing from it.

There's a long, long pause, like the stranger is weighing whether it's worth killing Kiba now. Then, finally, he steps back, and Kiba just catches the flare of some long cloak—an Akatsuki cloak, maybe?—before he vanishes again.

"Konan is looking for you, puppy," he says, mocking and cold. "Run along. There's nothing to see here."

And just like that, every last hair-raising trace of the man's presence is completely gone.

Kiba almost whines at the sudden relief of tension, has to keep his knees from buckling the way they want to. He catches himself on the doorframe, then jerks his hand away like the man will come back to berate him for touching. He'd rather not ever face that man again, he thinks, almost wildly, pressing a hand over his face. Gods, he'd thought Danzō was terrifying, but that—

A hard shudder runs down his spine, and Kiba can feel every hackle is up. The only reason he hasn't already bolted is he doubts his legs would hold him.

Suddenly, another conversation with Konan sounds like a walk in the park.

Still. Still, it's one more bit of information to be squirreled away. There's another person here beside the eight Akatsuki members. Either the man was one of them who wanted to stay hidden, or he had also come to spy.

Probably the former, if he knew Konan was looking for Kiba. Kiba swallows, forces his spine to straighten, and steps back as steadily as he can. He can handle whatever Konan wants from him, he's sure of it. Whatever's down here will have to wait for another day, when he has a better idea of who the stranger is and can plan around him.

Kiba can't say he's disappointed to leave the creepy cavern behind, and he hurries back up towards the occupied levels as quickly as he can without looking like he's fleeing.

He almost runs into Konan in one of the upper halls near his room, and she grabs his shoulder when he jerks back to keep from colliding with her and almost overbalances.

"Inuzuka?" she questions, lightly amused.

"What?" Kiba snaps, too sharp, too aggressive as he jerks out of her hold. He's more unsettled than he wants to admit, and can hardly even make himself remember what little the stranger said to him.

Konan eyes him coolly enough that Kiba quails, taking a step back, and after a pointedly long moment she clearly decides to overlook his tone. "We have a mission."

Kiba blinks, rocking back on his heels. "Together?" he asks, curiosity burying the unease he feels, because he'd thought Konan only worked with Pein. He's certainly never seen them apart for more than a few hours before.

Even so, Konan nods in confirmation. "Pein isn't feeling well," she says, and her lack of expression dares Kiba to ask. When he doesn't, she smiles with faint satisfaction and adds, "We've been hired to collect a bounty before anyone else can. The client wishes to make absolutely certain that the man we're after doesn't get delivered alive."

Bounties Kiba can do, even if there's killing involved. Team 8 specialized in tracking, and some of their C-rank missions involved hunting a few low-level bounties on Konoha's watch list. He'd done the same on his own with a few high-ranking bounties, getting used to using poisons even as he made his location more or less obvious.

He still can't risk passing on any reports quite yet, but at least this is a reprieve from the boredom, and a chance to get a little further away from that creepy room and creepier stranger.

It's tempting to look back as Konan leads him away, but Kiba forces himself not to, keeps his eyes forward and his steps steady. Deadly murderous missing-nin aren't supposed to show fear, and so Kiba won't. He won't show any of the fear he feels until he's safe at home in Konoha with his mission done.

This isn't forever, he tells himself, and keeps walking.

Someone has to.

If he keeps telling himself that, maybe it will get easier.