F A M I L I A R

Leaving Iwagakure

The sky was particularly gray today. I sighed inwardly. The overcast weather seamed fitting considering today was the day I was being sent away. Okay, that is a bit of an exaggeration.

The wind picked up slightly, whipping my hair around my face. I closed my eyes as I recounted yesterday evening in my head. The Tsuchikage summoned me to his office just as the sun was setting over the horizon. I sighed, remembering how the sunset reflected on the Kage Building as I walked. He said that the Hidden Leaf Village was in need of more tracking ninja. With the threat of another Akatsuki attack looming over the village, increasing the number of tracker ninja would increase the odds of seeing them coming, eliminating any chance of a sneak attack.

Once he explained this, it made sense that I was asked to relocate. I was one of the best tracker ninja of the Hidden Stone Village, having the ability to access the Yuna Clan's kekkei genkai. The Yuna Clan is pretty small compared to other clans of our village and not all of us carry the kekkei genkai gene. During the last Great War, most of my family with the trait was K.I.A. while attempting to protect the village. It was really only luck that I was born with it, especially considering neither one of my parents carried the gene.

You see, just like ninja have the ability to access chakra within themselves, the natural world also holds energy of its own. The Yuna kekkei genkai, refered to as Nature Absorption, gives the user the ability to tap into this nature energy at will and utilize it just as they would use their chakra. It comes in handy quite frequently in hand to hand combat. After all, who wants to battle a ninja with unlimited chakra at their finger tips? But even more so, our ability to sense the proximity of other ninja, enemy or otherwise, is unprecedented in our village.

So here I am, sitting on the ground just outside the front gates of Iwagakure waiting for my escort to the Hidden Leaf Village. Sigh.

When is this guy gonna get here?

I was beginning to get impatient. The sky threatened to fall at any moment and I was just sitting out in the open like this. I placed my palm down onto the soft dirt road stretched out in front of me. Closing my eyes, I focused on the nature energy radiating off the ground. In my mind I could clearly see the vibrations of energy hitting and reflecting off of two figures in the distance just out of my line of sight. One of them seemed to be an animal, standing shorter and walking on all fours.

I opened my eyes and smirked.

It's about time.

I stood and dusted myself off slightly as the figures started to come into view. Just as I suspected, a tall shinobi approached in the distance accompanied by what seemed like a white dog. As they got closer I was able to make out more details about the pair. The hound was taller than I thought, his head reaching his master's elbow. He seemed to notice me and then turned to the shinobi and let out one audible bark. The man shifted his gaze to his companion. He had shaggy brown hair with two red fangs painted on his face. He looked up in my direction and met my gaze. Once he noticed my eyes were fixed on him, he crinkled his eyes and gave me a wide smile, lifting his arm into the air signaling a friendly wave.

He seems nice enough.

I felt a rain drop hit my nose.

~~~~~

Kiba's POV

"Come on Akamaru, we gotta pick up the pace. Its about to start pouring."

Back in the Village, I was beginning to become bored. Tsunade thought it was wise to keep the tracker ninja in the village to sense approaching threats. It did make sense, but I was craving adventure! Everyone was deployed out on missions and I was tired of sparring by myself in the training grounds to kill time. Both me and Akamaru were eager to have a new mission, and I made it my personal goal to convince Tsunade to give me one. I went to the Kage Building everyday until finally she had an assignment for me.