Notes-

First, if you're a lawyer and you think that I'm implying ownership of anything other than this plot, then I want you to look at the beginning of any respectable story on this site. There are messages everywhere clarifying that none of us own Naruto. If we did, this wouldn't count as "fan fiction". It would just be fiction. Give the legal crap a break.

Second, I don't want to hear complaints or comparisons to my old stories. This is a gift. You know if you're the recipient, since you would have requested it. I hope you like it, lass.

Third, this is going to be about Kiba. If you're a regular of my stories, this should come as no shock to you. If you're not, then welcome. If you don't like Kiba, you can still stay. In fact, if you have a particular dislike for Kiba, this may entertain you as well.

Fourth and finally, please review. It does please me so.

A puddle of blood couldn't form due to the wide variety of angles from which the blows that supplied the material for it were coming. Inuzuka Kiba half-sat in his metal chair, his arms tied behind him and sporting injuries of various form and severity throughout. His right foot was braced against the base of the chair, giving him something to press against to ignore the pain. His left foot went numb long ago and now drooped rather pathetically to the side.

"INSOLENT MUTT!"

Kiba inhaled quickly, using a bit of internal pressure to lessen the force of the punch as it connected with his ribcage. It struck a rib that had already been bruised, but like his foot had gone numb.

"Hold on," the older one said calmly, inspecting the prisoner's torso. Jagged red tattoos covered his chest and shoulders, but they were a lighter shade of red than the blood that seemed to be making up for the undecorated patches between the body art. "He's not going to feel much right now. Bring the medic in, let's let him sit for the night." He backed away, smiling in a way Kiba knew he would grow to hate before long. "He'll appreciate this much more tomorrow morning."

It had been more than six hours since his capture, but Kiba had yet to give up the information these men wanted. It was a deceptively simple number that they wanted, one they could certainly guess if they had to but would have no way of confirming. They needed accuracy. They needed Kiba.

'Why, then, am I holding out? They'll kill me if I tell them. No, life's not that great. I wouldn't put up with this to perpetuate it.' Kiba forced his mind to drift, remembering the practice from Iruka's lectures. He had to think of something familiar.

His thoughts jumped immediately to the shining vert eyes he had endeared to himself. He could smell- never picture; smell was always far more prominent- the pink hair that he was always delighted to find stuck on one of his chairs or on his pillow. A feminine laugh echoed in his mind that had been clinging there, refusing to leave his thoughts for months now. It sounded as though it had shed a long-borne burden simply to exist.

'No, not Sakura. She won't forgive me, not this time. I'm holding out for loyalty, that's all.'

()()() Flashback ()()()

The smell of ham and honey was flowing in from under his bedroom door, mixing gently with the odor of flowers to which Kiba had become so familiar. Kiba was reclined in his bed, the sheets pulled to his waist and his bony hands resting peacefully behind his head. Sakura was at his desk, looking through her magazines as usual. She liked coming over before Kiba got out of bed. Something about it seemed very…domestic. Tsume approved. She had always claimed that Kiba needed more female influence on his life despite being raised by women.

"Your mother's making breakfast," Sakura said plainly, knowing full well that Kiba was aware of this but wanting to let him know that she could smell it, too.

"Yeah," Kiba confirmed, sitting up and stretching. "But she's going to burn the glaze again. It's past done now, and she just started cracking eggs for an omelet." Kiba grinned. This was his territory.

"Well, go down and tell her. You're a big boy." Sakura giggled and turned a page.

"Naw, I'd rather stay here," he said, pulling on a shirt and walking up behind her. He knew what Sakura liked to hear, and that was certainly it. She blushed and turned around, smiling coyly at the tall lad.

"What do you think of this dress?" she asked quickly, holding up a page from her magazine. She watched Kiba's eyes intently. She was certain that he'd do it again.

Kiba's eyelids, formerly low and lazy, shot wide open. The dress was wide and white. He knew what that meant. Out of instinct, it seemed, his eyes turned to the open window to his left. He could see over the tops of trees from this house on a hill, and the mild blue mountains in the distance were strangely beautiful despite the distance.

"INUZUKA KIBA!" Sakura said firmly, drawing Kiba's reluctant attention back to her. "Why, every time I mention marriage, do- LOOK AT ME, DAMMIT!" Kiba's eyes had wandered out the window again, but obeyed much quicker this time around. "Why do you always look out the window and not give me an answer?"

"BREAKFAST!" a raspy voice called from below. Kiba burst through the door and leapt haphazardly to the bottom of the stairs.

"KIBA, GET BACK-"

()()() End Flashback ()()()

"SHIT!"

Kiba snapped back to the present. The medic had just hit a rather sensitive bit and, with so much of him already without feeling, any amount of pain is bound to be relatively intense. The medic, a young man just barely out of academy but sporting his Mist forehead protector proudly, began apologizing profusely, but stopped at the command of the interrogator. Apparently he had not actually left, but was merely sitting just outside the cold stone room.

"Hey, can I get some water?" Kiba asked, hoping he would come in. It was all part of his training. Grudgingly, the interrogator came walking into the room, hit the red button on the audio recorder on a small stand in the corner, and squared himself up in front of the bloodied prisoner.

"What did you say, you piece of shit?"

"I said, can I get some water? I'm thirsty."

A loud thud drowned out Kiba's hearing momentarily as he reeled from the rather brutal punch to his forehead. A thin trail of blood trickled down his face.

"Drink that, mongrel."

Kiba spat at the man as he walked away and returned back to his thoughts of home for comfort.

()()() Flashback ()()()

"You're an idiot, Kiba," Tsume said flatly to her son.

"Yeah, I know," he muttered, not taking the coffee she had just set before him. He held in his hand that damned magazine Sakura had been too mad to take with her when she stormed out. He hadn't eaten. His mouth had been preoccupied frowning at the picture in the bridal shop advertisement.

"You know," Tsume began, offering some of the most sage advice she would ever give her son, "your father was the same way."

"Really?" Kiba responded with token interest.

"Oh, yes. Wanderlust, he had. When I first suggested that we become exclusive, he sat on the roof of his house for three hours, just staring at the mountains like you do."

Kiba perked up a bit, but didn't look away from the page in front of him. "Did he, now?"

"Oh, yes. In fact, you're better than he was. The first time the forbidden word, "marriage", crossed my lips, he disappeared with Rokumaru into the forest for a week. He was finally brought back by hunter-nin who were kind enough to find him for me."

Now Kiba looked up. That was a little far-fetched. "That's hard to believe."

"You didn't know your father, Kiba. He saw everything permanent as a cage, so marriage was like a federal prison. Choosing a mate was just selecting a cell."

"Yeah…" Kiba egged, though he rather wished he hadn't let on that his father's actions were exactly what he wanted to do every time Sakura admired the seven-layer cakes at the bakery.

Tsume sighed. Kiba wasn't getting it. "Kiba-baka, don't you get it? Your father was a fool! He only married me because…well, let's not get into that. The point is, that Sakura girl is kind, beautiful, intelligent, and for some reason I'll never understand she's head-over-heels for you, son. What the hell are you doing, looking at mountains when she wants to marry you?"

Kiba stared at nothing in particular. His mind had wandered. His pulse actually got faster as he thought of the forest, of the canyon, of a million other landscapes he could explore if only he were free to do so. How dare she get offended when he resisted her? He was born to move, to be free, to have the dust of all five countries on his feet in a single day! Why should he have to give that up?

()()() End Flashback ()()()

"I SAID, WAKE UP!"

Kiba groggily stirred from his sleep, though catatonia might be a better name for it. He had been unconscious the entire night, most of his wounds sealed with cauterizing paste. His mouth reeked of salt.

"What's happen?" he slurred out, noticing the smell of peanuts. They had force-fed him to replenish his blood.

"Pssh. I've had prisoners still yelling back on their second day, and here this guy can't even form a sentence. Pathetic. Hey, dog, can you move?" The young interrogator stomped on his left foot, drawing pained cursing from Kiba and a few light snaps from his ankle.

"It would seem that he's feeling better," the older of the two pointed out, smoking a pipe in the corner.

"Then let's make him feel worse," his counterpart suggested, picking up the iron bar he had left there from the previous night.

"Wait, Kosaka," the elder interrupted, holding out a hand. "You're too irrational. Inuzuka," he addressed, "will you tell us what we want to know?"

"Go to hell." Kiba spat a little blood. He spat at Kosaka, though. The second man was, at least, a little courteous.

Kiba could feel his neck bruise after the pain of the initial blow had faded a bit. To distract himself, a number of different sensations were going noticed during this interrogation that he had never been aware of before. He noticed that, after a section of featureless skin was struck, it seemed to push out against the air while coping with the pain. More featured areas were more sensitive, but numbed faster. His vision seemed to blur just a bit with each blow, perhaps a function of blood loss.

These things failed to keep Kiba's attention, though, after a rather long previous day to examine them. Kosaka amused himself, drawing unconscious cries and howls from the prisoner that had, in all actuality, ceased to notice that he was there at all. Kiba's eyes drifted to his right knee, where a long-sealed scar could be seen.

()()() Flashback ()()()

"Why are you wearing shorts, Kiba-kun? You know I don't like it when you wear shorts."

Kiba lay strewn out beneath a tree, enjoying the wind in the open field. Sakura, whom he had just barely convinced not to hate him earlier that day, lay next to him, looking over his hair-covered legs. "It's hot out," she could barely hear him say over the wind.

"Well, I don't like it. This scar," she said, tracing it lightly with her index finger. "I don't like this scar."

"Mmm, yeah. I got that on a mission last summer. I pulled Hinata-san out of the way of a kunai, but couldn't quite dodge it myself. Have I ever told you that story?"

"You've told everybody that story, Kiba-kun, about a thousand times each. It's not just that scar, it's all your scars. I don't like them. All they do is remind me of you being hurt, and I don't like that thought."

Kiba forced himself to look at the grass. Sakura was surprisingly attractive when she pouted like this, and he wasn't in the mood for that sort of thing. "I don't have very many scars," he pointed out, blushing slightly.

"Yes, you do! You have this one on your knee, that little one on your shoulder, that big thick one on your neck, and don't get me started on those tattoos."

"These tattoos are important! They show that I'm a man of the Inuzuka! They're a rite of passage!" Kiba sat up a bit, making sure Sakura heard him.

"I know you're a man, even without the tattoos," she joked sweetly, turning her attention away from his legs. Kiba smiled in return. Sakura cuddled up beside him, holding one of his arms in her hands. "Now, Kiba, we need to talk." She was shocked how quickly her boyfriend's pulse shot up. She kept her gaze on his eyes, which were fixed forward. 'Good,' she thought, 'he didn't look to the mountains.'

"Y-yes, Sa-sa-kura-chan?" he stuttered out, feeling as though she were holding his arm captive. In all honesty, she was, but he hadn't found that out yet.

"I've spoken with…"

()()() End Flashback ()()()

"DAMN IT ALL!"

Kiba's memories were rocked as a particularly effective blow connected with his head. His voice was unexpectedly hoarse. Clearly, he had been quite verbal during this interrogation, though he didn't remember most of it.

"WHAT? ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME!" he shouted at Kosaka, his teeth too tightly clenched to make himself really intelligible.

"SHADDUP!" Another blow to the head. This time Kiba said nothing, but let his neck go limp and closed his eyes. Kosaka's expression immediately conveyed a fear not for the prisoner but himself. This was the first Leaf soldier they had managed to capture in a long time, and he might have just wasted it.

"Dammit, Kosaka, did you kill him?" the older man asked, moving finally from his spot in the corner.

"I…I don't know, Tachiba-senpai. I hit him, and he just blacked out."

Tachiba looked Kiba over, felt his pulse, and nodded. "He's out cold," the interrogator finally concluded. "Bound to happen after four hours straight. C'mon, let's get lunch. Send the medic in to bring him around."

The same young man had been watching from the doorway, horrified. He dutifully made his way through the spots of blood and hair on the ground, carrying his small bag of salves and a large basin of water. When the other two had left, he pulled a rather large bottle from his bag and poured it into Kiba's mouth. The Inuzuka immediately spit the liquid out, growling.

"What are you doing!" he asked, angry but clearly not at the young man.

"You…you're not unconscious?"

"Of course not. I just wanted a break. I needed to collect my thoughts, and that Kosaka's one sadistic bastard."

"Heh… yeah… Well, this is just some water. Sorry, it's warm, but I remember you said you were thirsty."

Kiba's mood lightened considerably. He drank the entire bottle gladly and ate a blood replenishment pill, an expensive commodity that he wasn't even privy to in Konoha. Free of his interrogators, he was free to think back on the conversation he had fouled up four days ago.

()()() Resume Flashback ()()()

"Y-yes, Sa-sa-kura-chan?" he stuttered out, feeling as though she were holding his arm captive. In all honesty, she was, but he hadn't found that out yet.

"I've spoken with your mother."

A sudden uprising of sheer terror drenched Kiba's mind. Women had gotten together to discuss him. He pulled very hard on his arm, hoping to loose it from her grip, but she had been training in physical strength with Tsunade-sama for years now, and there was no way in hell he was getting out. "And what did you two ladies discuss?" he finally gave in, though speaking in a pained and high-pitched voice.

"We talked about you and I getting married," Sakura said bluntly, wishing to break the bad news to Kiba all at once. To her shock, he simply stared straight forward, a manic smile plastered onto his face.

"Oh?" was all he could bring himself to say.

"Yes, Kiba-kun, and we determined that you're never going to ask me to marry you."

Kiba didn't relax. This had to be a trap.

"Also," Sakura continued, now tightening her grip on Kiba's arm, "we decided that it would be the best thing for you if we did get married, and that your aversion to it was self-destructive. Kiba-kun?"

Kiba looked slowly to Sakura, a blend of fear and excitement on his face.

"Are you listening to me, Kiba-kun?"

"Sakura-chan, there's something I have to do," he said resolutely. He pulled his legs beneath him so that he was kneeling above her, his arm still in her grip. "Sakura-chan, I love you."

Sakura smiled contently and blushed. Kiba had only said that to her a few times after nearly four years of dating. In a flash, Kiba wrenched his arm from Sakura's grip and turned tail, only to have his ankle caught before he could take a single step. He pulled for a moment in token effort, but quickly went limp and sat back down.

"That's the best you can do? I thought for sure I'd have to chase you down."

"I was going to use a kunai, but I didn't want to hurt you."

"So that bit about loving me wasn't just a load of manure?"

"Of course not! You're the best thing to ever happen to me, Sakura-chan! Just…uh, don't tell Akamaru."

"Okay, then, it's settled. Your mother and I will set a date, all you have to do is show up."

Kiba's heart jumped to his throat. This was getting out of hand. He no longer had the option. Soon, he would simply have the obligation, and then the fact. His vision began to blur.

"Sa-sa…"

"Hmm?"

"Sakura-chan, let go…"

"Oh, no you don't. You'll never get the volition to marry me on your own, Inuzuka Kiba, so we're just going to have to…"

"No…my foot…"

Sakura realized that she was still gripping the man's ankle quite firmly, and in a brief flash of remorseful embarrassment she let go. Kiba was fifty feet away before she realized that he'd escaped completely, headed for the forest without even thinking of looking back.

"DAMN IT ALL, KIBA! GET BACK HERE THIS INSTANT!"

()()() End Flashback ()()()

"Oh, good, you're back," Kosaka exclaimed, hitting the red button on the recorder as he and his pipe-smoking elder reentered the room. "We were worried that you wouldn't be joining us after lunch."

"What did you have?" Kiba asked politely.

Kosaka was only mildly disrupted by the question. "Uh…haggis. Why?"

"There's some on your lap."

Kosaka looked down in time to see Kiba's good right foot kicking him squarely in the knee. He let out a sharp yelp and buckled, holding his injured leg. After a moment or two or writhing, with absolutely no help from Tachiba, he staggered angrily to his feet and grabbed his metal bar from the floor. Tachiba held a hand up to halt him, then approached Kiba.

"Inuzuka-san," he said quietly. "You are alive right now because we want what you know, but we don't want it so badly as to tolerate that kind of antic. Now, will you be good and tell us what we want to know?"

"No," Kiba said weakly, almost wishing he'd said yes. He was loyal, he kept telling himself. His village needed him to be steadfast.

"Why not?" Tachiba pressed.

"My village…they need…" Kiba was having a bit trouble breathing but that wasn't the problem. He honestly didn't know the reason.

"Hmm? Sorry, what was that?"

"They…you'll kill me if I tell you anything…" he finally concluded.

"Do you really have something to live for that's worth all this suffering?"

()()() Flashback ()()()

Tsume sat, clearly disappointed, at her dining room table, looking at her son and his bride-to-be. "What are you doing, Kiba?" she asked, though it was painfully obvious to everyone that he had no clue himself. "Is there something wrong with Sakura-san that I don't know about?"

"NO!" Kiba shouted, standing and pressing his hands against the table. The rope around his foot tightened a bit with the motion. "It has nothing to do with Sakura-chan."

"Go to hell," Sakura muttered, her arms crossed and her eyes fixated on the door.

"Well, what we need…"

()()() End Flashback ()()()

"ANSWER HIM, DAMMIT!" Kosaka brought the bar he was holding down heavily onto Kiba's wrists from behind, prompting a loud cry from the Inuzuka.

"I'M THINKING!" How was he supposed to get an answer under such conditions? He could barely think as-is.

()()() Resume Flashback ()()()

"Well, what we need here is communication, and since neither of you is going anywhere fast, you might as well get on with it. Sakura-san, let's start with you." Tsume poured herself a cup of tea and sipped at it, waiting politely for Sakura to say something. After much deliberation, the girl turned to Kiba and spoke as calmly as she could, which was not very.

"You'rethe mostdespicable, unreliable, short-sighted, self-destructive, selfish, manipulative, inconsiderate person I've ever met. I wish you'd never been born. If Tsume-san hadn't insisted, I would never have come here and I'd never have had to see you again in my life."

Kiba didn't respond. He was relatively certain he deserved all of that.

"Okay, that's good. It's communication." Tsume sipped slowly, letting everybody take in the words. "Now, Kiba, take into account how Sakura feels. Before, she wanted to get married. She wanted to spend her life with you. Now, because of your flighty and unreliable nature, she wants nothing to do with you. How do you respond to that?"

Kiba thought, long and hard. Tsume finished her cup of tea, then a second, before he finally decided to speak. He turned to Sakura and, with much more control and poise, he spoke his mind. "How dare you?"

Both Sakura and Tsume abandoned whatever looks were on their faces for those of shock and incomprehension.

"How dare you be offended at my inability to live up to your expectations? Huh? You've known since we've met my love of the unknown, of travel, of change and chaos and freedom! Now, you're offended that I won't abandon the entire package to settle down and have children? How dare you demand such things from me? HOW DARE YOU DEMAND MY LIFE FROM ME! WHAT CLAIM DO YOU HAVE TO IT?"

Kiba's mouth snapped shut as Sakura slapped him. She was strong, leaving the enraged Inuzuka leaning heavily on the oak table.

"What is the matter with you, Kiba?" Surprisingly, it was Tsume who spoke and not Sakura.

()()() End Flashback ()()()

"I see. So, you have nothing worth living for, then?" Tachiba interrupted, not patient enough to allow this silent contemplation to go on forever.

"Nothing I can see," Kiba relented, honestly.

"Then who cares? Just tell us, and then we'll end your pain and be done with it! You don't have to suffer at all. I personally guarantee, on my honor as a shinobi, that your death will be absolutely painless. That's more than anyone can say about your life," he chuckled out, finding the macabre humor a fine way to get through the day.

Kiba said nothing. He just glared at a piece of something or other crumpled in a corner.

Tachiba sighed, stood, and gave Kosaka a nod. With glee, the younger of the two resumed his work, tenderizing Kiba's muscles.

And so the day passed. Kiba went limp quickly, tried his best to ignore Kosaka and failing miserably, and simply fell silent before Tachiba's obvious logic at every prompt. In the cell next to him he could hear the fate of one who was not simply being used, as he was, but was truly hated. His screaming was unbearable, even through the thick walls, and was so unrelentingly constant that the three men began to wonder if he breathed at all.

"You hear that, dog?" Kosaka spat out between heavy breaths. He was getting quite the workout. "That's what you're going to sound like tomorrow. We only work somebody over for the first thirty-six hours after they get here. After that, we turn them over to a specialist. They always get results, but are considerably less…agreeable. I'll tell yours what you did to my leg. He'll make sure you regret it."

"…Unless you cooperate," Tachiba interjected, exhaling more smoke than air.

Kiba thought for a minute. He was in bad shape, and it wasn't going to get better. The Mist-nin were not known for losing prisoners. The consistency of his beatings ensured that he wouldn't have the strength to fight back even if, by some miracle, he were to get loose. The only end would be death inside this prison, and the information he had would be outdated and useless before long. He had, at best, a week. Why he should torture himself for that long was beyond him.

"Let me think about it," he mumbled, barely able to look at his captors. Tachiba nodded, signaled for Kosaka to leave, and headed for the door himself. He put a calm hand on Kiba's shoulder before leaving. "The only peace I have ever seen in one of our prisoners," he recalled, "was after they made the decision to end their own suffering." With that he left, closing the door with a click behind him.

()()() Flashback ()()()

"What is the matter with you, Kiba?" Surprisingly, it was Tsume who spoke and not Sakura. "What is there for you out there? HUH? Take another look at those landscapes, Kiba. They're all empty. The only satisfaction you're going to get is sitting right next to you. You should be shouting for joy that she even bothers to be seen with you!"

"Tsume-san…" Sakura said quietly, looking at her own hands and thinking. "Don't."

"Why not? He's…"

"Yes, Tsume-san, he's an idiot, but you're wrong. He needs those mountains," she observed quietly, "and I have no right to steal them from him. I realize now that it was wrong of me to try and marry you in the first place, Kiba-kun." Tears ran down her face, though she looked at him with love. "I had hoped, Kiba-kun, that you would grow on the idea a bit. I would take care of the house while you're out, running through your missions, then you'd come home and I'd go out on my own…" She sobbed a bit, a pathetic sob. "And we'd both spend too much time away, on missions, but we wouldn't even remember that because we'd always be so damned happy when we were both there, at home."

"Sakura-chan…" Tsume said, taken completely by surprise. Kiba was too dumbfounded to speak.

"You'd come back…your friends would come over, and you'd tell them all about how well you had done, then brag about me and my missions and always complain that you were never there to make sure I didn't get hurt. I'd say it was all too flattering, but I'd love every second of it."

Kiba blinked. His eyes never left Sakura's face. The window didn't even interest him.

"But I know better now, Kiba-kun, I know that you can't do that. I can't take your freedom from you. You have to be moving, you have to find new things and explore them. I understand…"

From then, she was inconsolable. Kiba, now remarkably resistant to the idea of roaming loose and alone among the forests of the world, reached out to her, but she pulled back in her dry heaves. She stood and walked despondently from the house into the night.

Kiba just sat. He felt nothing. If he did, it would have been too unpleasant. He was numb.

"That doesn't sound so bad…"

()()() End Flashback ()()()

Kiba sat up. He clenched his teeth and narrowed his eyes. He was ready for whatever they had in store for him now. He didn't care. He wouldn't give in to their kind.

A few minutes later, the heavy metal door swung open again, and a new figure stood there. Kiba didn't have to be told that this was the specialist he had been threatened with. Tachiba walked comfortingly behind him, and approached Kiba with a look of concern.

"The Mizukage has sent orders to speed your interrogation, Inuzuka-san. I ask once more, for your sake, cooperate. This man came with the order, and he will interrogate you if you do not." He closed his eyes, as though out of actual sympathy. "It is a horrible thing to be left to this fate, Inuzuka-san. What is your decision?"

"My decision is that you, sir, can go straight to hell, and I won't miss you."

Tachiba frowned. He was going to get credit for it if he had broken just then. "Well then, Inuzuka-san, I leave you to your friend here. I shan't be seeing you again, so this is farewell." Tachiba walked calmly out of the room, disappointed only that he wouldn't be able to take credit for this prisoner.

Kiba relaxed as soon as he was gone. He looked over his shoulder at the cloaked figure behind him wearing an ANBU mask. "What the hell took you so long?"

The long gray cloak collapsed with a loud pop, leaving behind only a small, squiggling mass beneath its folds. Akamaru pushed his way out after a moment of struggling and began pulling at the ropes that held his master.

"Well, you try getting into this place looking exactly like the prisoner they just brought in!" he retorted in grunts and barks, his words muffled by the rope.

"I keep telling you to learn a new transformation in case something like this happens."

"I keep telling you to stop complaining when I'm trying to save your sorry hide."

"Yeah, sorry. What's our status?"

"You're still in the doghouse, but Sakura-chan seems like a forgiving person," Akamaru mused. He's so helpful.

"Our status on getting out of here, jackass."

"Oh, that. The guard's pretty heavy around here, and they'll want to see you as soon as I leave. It'll be a fight from here to the door. If we get out, we should be able to outrun anything they send."

"Where's the exit? I was unconscious when they brought me here."

"Turn left out of the cell, seven yards past another two cells to another left turn, two yards to a right turn, twenty yards through a row of offices, another right turn and then ten yards to the exit. The guard there is constant, even during shift changes. Can you fight?"

"I wonder if I can even stand."

Akamaru finished with the knot, backing away triumphantly. "Well, give it a shot."

Kiba braced himself on his knees, leaning forward and taking a few shaky steps. He fell for a moment, catching himself on the small table where the audio recorder still sat, still recording. He reached inside the machine and crushed the small disk inside it. His disappearance would be a mystery.

"You're that weak after a day and a half?"

"Shut up, Akamaru. If I were at full strength, you know I'd be out of here like a bullet."

"Yeah, I know. That's why they have such a good record at this facility."

Kiba did the first real strategic thinking he had done since his capture, resulting in a quick plan. Outside the cell, Tachiba heard two small knocks. He unlocked the door and pulled it open just a crack, being thrown back against the opposite wall by the battering force on the other side. His prisoner, running on all fours and rather less bloody than he had remembered, burst out of the cell and made a sharp right turn, heading deeper into the facility. Tachiba and Kosaka gave chase immediately, followed by several armed guards, though it was quite clear that none of them was nearly fast enough to actually catch the man.

The young medic of that particular row of cells watched in silent awe, then ran to the interrogation room to see if the specialist was hurt. To his surprise, there stood Kiba, putting the finishing touches on the outfit that the interrogator had worn only minutes before.

"How…" he began, but closed his mouth as Kiba raised a finger to his own and smiled. The boy let out a quiet laugh, then nodded in agreement.

"Actually, kid, can you do me a favor?"

Moments later, Kiba was walking calmly down the corridor, gracefully and distantly accepting bows from various members of the staff. In his hand was a new possession- a small, shiny disk from the cell next to his. He carried it into the nearest office, closed the door, and began looking for any sort of microphone. It didn't take long for him to spot it, sitting atop a large black panel with nobody around to guard it. He inserted the disk into the slot marked "Audio In" and pressed the small red button on the microphone.

"Now," was all he said. He drained his ears completely of chakra, hit the white button marked "play", and turned the volume knob as high as it would go.

Throughout the compound, the intense public announcement system, designed to blast sirens for miles around and make even the deepest cellsof theprisonaware of whatever message the officers had to say, began to utter a single, incomprehensibly loud voice. "No! NO! NOOO!" it began at first, though this was all Akamaru heard. At Kiba's warning he began sucking the chakra out of his own ears, a special function of the Inuzuka, and turned back to face his attackers. In the noiseless void he was currently inhabiting the sight was amusing, but to those who heard all was sheer agony. The endless, unrelenting cries of the man in the cell adjacent to Kiba's were being played at full blast on the overpowered PA system. Akamaru walked calmly past his pursuers, who were completely occupied with holding their ears and writhing in pain, and headed back for the offices where he knew Kiba would be waiting.

()()() The Next Day ()()()

"GET TO THE HOSPITAL! NOW!" an old, shrill voice commanded, more concerned than angry. Tsunade, though legitimately amazed at Kiba's innate ability to make them all look like fools by persistently surviving ridiculously hopeless situations, was just as equally angry at his total disregard for the advanced medical facilities she required every shinobi to make use of following dangerous missions. Kiba nodded, too weak to argue, and turned to leave. He promptly fell flat on his face. He had just barely made it back from the prison facility on the island very near the eastern end of the Country of Fire. His own mother didn't know he had arrived yet.

He awoke already in a hospital bed, mockingly thinking that he had found the fastest and easiest way to obey the Hokage's order. He let his head loll to one side, locking his gaze onto a pair of red-stained green eyes. Sakura sat beside him, laughing and crying at the same time in that bizarre way girls always seemed to enjoy vexing him with. She shook her head at him, still smiling.

"Hey," he managed to grunt out.

"Don't you 'hey' me, Inuzuka Kiba! You are without a doubt the luckiest, stupidest son of a bitch I have ever known!"

'Well, there's a "welcome home" for you,' Kiba thought, not bothering to try and prove her wrong even in his own mind. He smiled and looked down at himself. One of his arms was in traction and most of him was covered in red-stained bandages. He turned back to Sakura. He was tired of stubbornly refusing her logic. He would go ahead and prove that he was the luckiest, stupidest son of a bitch she would ever know. "You know what happened, then?"

"Yeah, Tsunade-sama told me. Did you tell them anything?" she asked as though it mattered at this point.

"No," Kiba said, sporting an heir of honor, "but I don't know why."

"What are you talking about? If you told them anything, they'd kill you and use it against our village!"

Kiba would have chuckled were it not for the pain in his…everything. "Sakura-chan, have you ever been tortured?"

"No, not really."

"Other people don't matter when it's just you in a room with a bastard and his blunt object. You need a reason to live, or it's pointless. You won't give a damn about anything but your own life, and if you don't think it's worth the pain then you'll just give in. I almost did, once."

Sakura's crying laughter turned into just plain crying. "You would have rather died? Are you that stupid?"

Kiba did chuckle, and his…everything…hurt profusely as he did. "Yeah, I am. I needed to think about something else to dull the pain, or else I would have cracked."

Sakura sniffed. Kiba made some internal comment about being over-emotional, even now that he was back safely. "What'd you think about?" She let her head hang a bit and looked at the forest, thinking of Kiba's beloved mountains.

"You."

Sakura sat up straight, looking at Kiba, her mouth agape. He smiled. This was exactly what she wanted to hear, and exactly what he needed to realize. Even among all the anger and frustration, his first thoughts were always of Sakura and not of the freedom he shunned her for.

"I thought for sure you'd have thought of the forest, or the desert, or somewhere you could run."

Kiba saw an ample opportunity to get on the girl's good side. "Heh. None of that mattered, really. I would rather have had you there hitting me with a metal bar than go running without you." He quickly realized how weird this sounded, but made no motion to retract the statement. Sakura giggled and slid her chair over to Kiba's bedside.

"Is that a fact?" she said coyly, jutting her chin in such a way as to make Kiba very uncomfortable. What was she thinking?

"Uh, yeah. You mattered more than anything. I get that now," Kiba said, trying desparatelyto get her back into 'Aww, that's so sweet' mode. Instead, Sakura just looked down at Kiba's bandaged ribs. With a grin, she poked the bandages forcefully.

"AHH! DAMN,WOMAN! WHAT WAS THAT FOR?" Kiba shouted, cringing with remembered pain.

"Still better than being alone with your mountains?" Sakura asked with far too much amusement in her voice.

Kiba sighed. "Yes."

"Good. That was for your little speech last week. Now, are you going to tell me what you think of the dress?"

Kiba thought for a very intense moment. He would have to answer this perfectly. "It made her look chubby. If my girl is as pretty as you, I don't want some stupid dress making her look chubby on her wedding day." Damn, he was good at this.

Sakura gasped and batted her eyelashes. Since when had Kiba been so sweet? She leaned forward to kiss him, the first welcome contact he had gotten in days, then backed away a bit. "Is that a proposal?" she asked, still inches from his face.

"What would you say if it was?"

Kiba let out a shout as Sakura dug a knuckle into his ribs, "I'd say it's about damn time. Now, heal. I don't want my groom covered in more ugly scars."

Kiba watched as Sakura left the room, positively glowing and without so much as an answer or an apology. When she had left, he lolled his head the other way, staring longingly at those beautiful blue mountains. He was the luckiest, stupidest son of a bitch he had ever known, and he'd live to cherish and regret it. Actually, he already regretted it, and would have to force himself to live long enough to cherish it.