The Harsh Truth

Chapter 17

Kiba Inuzuka reached home, after the debriefing with the Hokage, with a slightly saddened mood. He was pretty sure he was going to receive another end of the stick, no matter if he did well, or if he survived battling an A-rank ninja, he would still be called down for something. That was why the loud and boisterous Inuzuka was, at home, quiet like no-one else knew. And why the boy usually loved to hang around his friends, or outside, or…anywhere that wasn't home.

As he opened the gates of the compound, he knew that there was no need to try and hide, to reach his room quietly. Probably Hana or his mother even, had already smelled him. If they hadn't, Kuromaru was probably going to warn his mother, or any of Hana's ninkens would. There was no point in hiding. Though Kuromaru was kind, he at least gave Kiba always enough time to reach for his room to unpack, usually, before warning Tsume.

Truthfully, he reached the door of the main house only for Hana to appear from the side of the building, from the direction of the kennels.

"So you're back," she spat out, eying him accusingly. More than hate, it was disgust. Possibly even envy. He was still alive, while someone else wasn't. His father wasn't alive, and he instead was.

"Yes," Kiba whispered, only to receive a harsh push to the side, as Hana entered the house, sending Kiba on the ground. For all of his training, Hana was a Chuunin, and she was naturally stronger than him…but that was an excuse. It was an excuse because Kiba didn't want to fight.

If he had resisted the push, or fought back, he was sure Hana would have been more than pleased to put him back in his place. Last time, he had slept in the freezing cold of a dog's cage for a night, and he had been barely six. He wasn't going to repeat the experiment, ever again.

He was fine with being ignored. He had Akamaru with him. The white furred puppy whined, saddened, as Kiba got back up, dusting himself off. It took the Inuzuka a moment, before deciding to enter, and start trekking upstairs, for his room.

The smell of alcohol hit his nostrils full force, and he instinctively knew he shouldn't be there. He knew he could just turn around and leave and maybe go to his sensei's compound. His teacher had offered him a room, a bed, even a house if he needed a place to crash for a while.

Then again, he had survived Zabuza. He could survive his drunken mother. He couldn't let sensei's training go to waste, could he?

He took careful steps inside, closing the door behind him. Nobody flung a kunai at him, so his mother wasn't in the mood for some target practice. It was fine. He slowly reached the top of the stairs, every step done as quietly as possible. He didn't know where Hana went, but it didn't matter. As long as they both hadn't decided that ambushing him would be a fun thing, he was bound to survive.

When she was sober, his mother could still be civil, at least a bit. Sometimes, during birthdays or official celebrations, she could even muster smiles, and in those times it was even okay to act a bit happy. But the dark side of the coin was that, when she was angry, or drunk, or both, because usually she was angry at not being drunk, and drunk while still being angry, it was bad, really bad, to be there. To be anywhere near her. The other clansmen knew that, of course, and obviously none of them lived in the main house. There were no servants, obviously the Inuzuka weren't stuck up as the Hyugas, but that also meant that more than once he had to go with what he could cook.

Hana was the heir, as the Inuzuka had no traditional patriarchy or matriarchy: it was simply a matter of strength. The strong was the alpha, the weak wasn't. Hana had more experience, more training, and was the oldest. She had three Ninkens, and was thus stronger than Kiba. This was a fact that she made sure to knock inside his head, repeatedly, during each and every spar, one that made it clear that he wasn't anything more than weak, anything more than the last of the clan.