Kiba had always pictured an invasion as a line.
A border. A roar. Somebody planting a flag in the dirt and going, this side is yours, this side is ours.
Instead it was a thousand small noises trying to crawl into his teeth.
Oil burning somewhere—hot, rancid, crackling like the fire had learned to hate. A roof coughing up tiles. Someone screaming a name that didn't answer. A festival banner still hanging from a pole, flapping in the smoke like the village had forgotten to take its decorations down before it started bleeding.
And the smells.
Smoke, obviously. Dust. Sweat. Blood—fresh and metallic and bright. The bitter sting of ink and explosive residue. A wet, animal fear rolling off civilians in waves.
And under it all, the part that made his nose wrinkle and his hackles rise:
Foreign chakra and unfamiliar steel.
"MOVE!"
Tsume's voice snapped through the street like a leash yanked tight.
Kiba moved because if he didn't move, he'd freeze.
If he froze, he'd start seeing instead of doing.
His mother hit the corner first, coat flaring behind her, and the rest of the Inuzuka formation flowed into place like a pack falling into an old habit. Not random. Not brave. Practical.
Akamaru slid off Kiba's shoulder and hit the pavement low.
No wag. No cute. Just a quiet growl vibrating out of his chest like a warning bell that didn't need an audience.
Down the lane, Inuzuka dogs were already posted like someone had set them with a ruler: two watching an alley mouth, one perched on a roof edge with ears forward, another sitting dead-still by a shattered cart like it had always belonged there.
They weren't charging.
They were containing.
Holding angles. Reading movement. Creating corridors the civilians could be pushed through without becoming a stampede.
Kiba swallowed smoke and grit and the sour edge of fear that wasn't his. His own adrenaline wanted to turn his thoughts into a straight line: hit, hit, hit. But Tsume's presence kept dragging his brain back into something sharper.
Pack first. People first. Teeth second.
A Sand shinobi slid around the corner like he owned the street.
Short blade. Smug eyes. A headband that said you're scenery in your own village.
He looked past Kiba like Kiba was a post.
Like the woman hauling two kids by the wrists behind him was just… clutter.
Kiba stepped into the lane anyway.
The Sand shinobi clicked his tongue. "Get out of—"
Kiba hit him.
Shoulder-first. Brutal. Close. The kind of hit that stole breath and confidence at the same time. The man's feet skidded on stone.
Akamaru darted behind and snapped at his calf—quick, precise, not a maul. A correction.
The Sand shinobi's stance went wrong for half a heartbeat.
Half a heartbeat was enough to die in.
Tsume appeared on his flank like she'd been there all along, just waiting for the angle to exist. Chakra flashed around her fingers—thin, bright, sharp as broken glass—and she raked his sleeve.
Not deep.
Not lethal.
Just blood.
Just scent.
A mark every nose in the clan could read like a bell.
"Tag," Tsume barked.
Kiba bared his teeth, adrenaline trying to make him stupid. "I'm not— I'm not a dog!"
Akamaru sneezed and looked personally offended on Kiba's behalf.
Tsume didn't even glance at him. "You are today."
The Sand shinobi coughed and twisted, blade up—
Not at Kiba.
Past him.
Toward the woman.
Toward the kids.
Toward soft, slow targets.
Kiba's stomach went cold so fast it felt like his body had remembered what knives did.
"AKAMARU!"
Akamaru launched.
Kiba slammed his fist into the shinobi's ribs and felt something give—muscle, air, maybe bone. The man folded with a wet cough and stumbled sideways.
Something pink hit the stones.
Kiba refused to look.
Looking made it a person and not just "enemy."
"CIVILIANS!" Kiba shouted, throat raw. "RUN! GO!"
They ran in clumps, badly.
A father scooped a toddler like luggage. A boy tripped and got yanked upright by a stranger's hand. Sandals slapped stone, uneven and frantic.
The woman with the kids—she looked at Kiba like he was a miracle or a monster, and then she bolted.
Kiba turned back—
—and the alley mouth behind the Sand shinobi moved.
Not smoke.
Not shadow.
A crawling black surge like the darkness itself had grown legs.
Insects.
So many insects.
They poured out and then stopped clean and abrupt, as if someone had drawn a boundary across reality and told the world to obey it.
Kiba felt the pressure change. Felt Akamaru's nose twitch. Felt Tsume's eyes flick sideways without her head moving.
Behind the living wall, a man stood with his hands in his pockets.
Shibi Aburame.
Calm.
Unmoving.
Like he'd stepped outside to check the weather and found invasion in the sky.
The Sand shinobi saw the bugs and did the dumbest thing imaginable.
He tried to push through.
The insects didn't shred him. Didn't do anything dramatic.
They stole him.
Not his life.
His control.
The micro-adjustments that made a shinobi a shinobi—ankles that corrected, knees that stabilized, the invisible miracle of balance—those little miracles vanished.
He stumbled like a drunk.
His foot slipped.
He hit the street hard, breath punched out of him like someone had stolen sound.
"Do not push through," Shibi said, voice flat.
The Sand shinobi tried to rise.
His arms shook.
His body refused him like it had become a stranger.
Kiba didn't waste time admiring it. He drove a punch into the man's shoulder and sent him sliding.
"Hold," Tsume ordered, and her gaze was already cutting down the block, scanning rooftops like she could smell where the next threat would drop.
Kiba swallowed ash and the bite of not-quite-panic. "How long?"
Tsume's mouth didn't soften. "Until the ones chasing the real threat finish their job."
Kiba huffed a laugh that didn't reach his eyes. "So… forever."
For half a second, Tsume looked at him.
There was no comfort there. Just pride, warning, and a command that wasn't words:
Don't you dare fall apart.
Then it was gone.
Kiba set his feet.
Akamaru pressed close, shoulder to shin, ready to move on a signal only they understood.
Down the street, Inuzuka dogs shifted into new angles like chess pieces sliding into place. Aburame insects held the alley like a wall that breathed.
And farther out, Kiba caught flashes of adult formation work snapping into existence in the chaos:
A Nara shadow whipping across stones to snag a Sand shinobi's ankle before he could reach a fleeing pair of teenagers.
An Akimichi body turning sideways into a barricade—huge and shaking and human—blocking a lane so civilians could funnel around it.
A Yamanaka runner shouting grid coordinates like the numbers could stab the fear back into shape.
Panic being turned into geometry.
Kiba held his corner.
Not because it was glorious.
Because it was his.
And because "home" didn't start at the Hokage Tower.
It started right here—soot, screaming, and a kid with a dog deciding a stranger didn't get to step past him.
The hospital smelled like disinfectant and blood.
Which was normal.
Which made it worse.
Because outside smelled like smoke and splintered wood and burning oil, and those two worlds were trying to overlap—clean white corridors pressed tight against war's dirty mouth.
Tenten stood on the front steps with a scroll half-open and her fingers already cramping.
Not from training.
From repetition.
Throw. Catch. Redirect. Pin. Strip the tag. Throw again.
Inside, a medic-nin barked orders like her voice was the only thing holding bodies together.
"Move him—carefully—don't let his head—!"
"Hold pressure!"
"Where's the antidote kit—?!"
Someone sobbed.
Someone prayed.
Someone tried to pretend a bandage could fix a war.
A Sound shinobi vaulted the fence like it was a game.
Another followed, low and fast.
They weren't aiming at the building.
Not yet.
They were aiming at the doors. At the choke point. At the civilians who'd wake up confused and run into the hospital thinking the word meant safe.
Tenten's jaw tightened.
"Cute."
A kunai came spinning in—explosive tag slapped bright on the handle, cheerful as a festival charm.
Tenten flicked her wrist.
A senbon shot out and pinned the tag to the kunai midair.
Clean. Precise.
The tag didn't detonate.
It just… stopped. Like it had been embarrassed into behaving.
The kunai thunked into a wooden post, suddenly harmless.
Tenten yanked a wire and dragged it aside before it could become someone else's problem.
"Try again," she called, voice sharp enough to cut through screaming.
The Sound shinobi blinked like physics had betrayed him personally.
He threw another.
Pinned.
Another.
Pinned.
Another.
Pinned.
Her shoulder started to burn—not injury yet, not the sharp warning of torn muscle, but that deep stupid ache that came from your body asking how many times you expected it to be perfect before it got to complain.
Behind her, Lee sat on a bench with crutches propped against him like an insult.
Bandaged.
Sweat on his hairline.
Furious in complete silence because he was trying to be good about it and failing.
"Let me—" Lee started, voice shaking on the edge of begging.
"No," Gai said instantly.
Not soft.
Not cruel.
Final.
Lee's fists clenched so hard his knuckles went white beneath bandages.
Tenten didn't look at him too long.
If she looked too long, she'd start thinking about what it meant to be benched while your home burned.
She'd start thinking about why the word "hospital" didn't mean safe.
A Sound shinobi rushed her—finally, sick of throwing and missing.
Close range.
Blade and grin and eyes that said he enjoyed the part where people begged.
Tenten stepped down the stairs to meet him like she was clocking in.
Her scroll snapped wider.
Steel spilled into the air—kunai, shuriken, weighted wire—released with the lazy confidence of someone who'd trained her whole life for exactly this kind of ugly.
The Sound shinobi slashed.
Tenten's wire caught his wrist and yanked.
He stumbled—
—and she kicked his knee sideways.
Not pretty.
Effective.
He hit the ground with a grunt and tried to roll.
Tenten planted her foot near his shoulder and set a kunai at his throat, close enough he could feel the cold without her needing to draw blood.
"Stay away from the hospital," she said.
He spat, red flecking his teeth, and grinned anyway. "You think this matters?"
Tenten felt her stomach tighten.
He meant: you're guarding a door while the real monster walks away.
He meant: you're late to the story.
Tenten leaned in, breathing hard. "I think you're about to become somebody's practice stitch."
His grin twitched.
Down the street, something exploded.
The shockwave rattled the hospital windows. Dust sifted from the eaves like the building flinched.
Gai moved.
Not fast like a blur.
Fast like inevitability.
One step. One strike.
The second Sound shinobi—trying to slip past while Tenten pinned the first—went airborne, hit cobblestone, and stayed there.
Gai didn't look at him after.
He looked at the doors. At the med-nin. At the civilians trying to drag the injured inside without tripping over their own terror.
Then, briefly—at Lee.
"You're doing well," Gai said.
The words hit Lee harder than any kick.
Lee's jaw clenched so tight it looked painful.
Tenten's arms shook.
Not fear.
Burnout.
Her hands started to feel like they belonged to someone else, like she was borrowing them from the future and the interest was coming due.
Another explosive kunai came in.
Tenten pinned it.
Another.
Pinned.
Her breath got ragged. Her shoulder screamed.
She didn't stop.
Stopping meant the next one went through.
Stopping meant somebody died on these steps, right under that stupid red cross symbol everybody pretended meant something.
Inside, a medic-nin shouted again, voice cracking. "We need more hands—!"
Tenten swallowed, throat dry as sand.
She didn't have more hands.
She had two.
So she kept throwing metal into the air and forcing it to obey her.
A Sound shinobi on the fence line hissed, frustrated. "This isn't your fight!"
Tenten laughed once.
It came out ugly.
"It's my hospital," she snapped back. "So it's my fight."
And she pinned another tag out of the air like she was stapling the war to a wall.
Ino sat with her hands flat on the table so nobody could see them shake.
She hated that she had to do that.
She hated that shaking felt like weakness.
She hated that her body kept trying to be honest.
The relay room was cramped—low light, paper maps pinned everywhere, ink lines and grid marks and numbers. All the quiet tools adults used to pretend chaos could be organized.
Inoichi stood near the wall like a post that had decided to become a person.
Calm in that adult way that meant: terrified, but functional.
The network pulsed around him.
Not voices. Not words.
Pressure. Taste. Emotion wrapped around information like barbed wire.
Ino pushed her chakra out and touched the web—
—and Konoha hit her all at once.
Smoke.
Fear.
Blood.
A chūnin's panic scraped across her mind like jagged wire. A medic-nin's exhaustion—sticky, dull, desperate. A civilian's terror so bright it almost turned white.
Ino's throat tightened.
She clenched her teeth and forced it into shape.
Not feelings.
Data.
North lane—three Sand, one Sound, pushing in.
Redirect civilians to Shelter C.
Hospital route pressured—holding.
Bug wall stable.
Inuzuka line stable.
Holding.
That word again.
Holding meant not collapsing.
Holding meant buying seconds with your own skin.
Ino sent the packet.
Her father caught it and flung it outward, mind to mind, faster than any runner. Somewhere else in the village, a Nara formation shifted. Akimichi bodies repositioned. A squad moved because an arrow on a mental map told them where to be.
Ino swallowed hard.
She could feel herself listening to Konoha scream without being allowed to scream back.
Her fingers twitched.
She forced them still.
Another pulse came in, sharper—professional. Tight.
Hospital steps defended. Gai present. Tenten holding.
Ino exhaled a breath she hadn't realized she'd stolen.
Then another thread hit—fainter, strange, like information being carried through pain:
Poison exposure—roofline—Aburame trail marked. Pursuit continues.
Aburame trail marked.
Ino's chest tightened because there was a missing name in that sentence that her brain refused not to notice.
Shino.
Her mind tried to reach for him through the web like a hand in the dark.
For a half-second, she felt something—thin and distant and stubborn—then it slipped away like a bug diving under soil.
Not dead.
Not here.
Not reachable.
Ino's stomach rolled with anger so sharp it tasted like copper.
A new pulse hit—pursuit-level, not street-level. Wrong room, wrong scale, but too urgent to ignore:
Sand siblings extracting. Gaara moving. Uchiha pursuing.
Ino's skin prickled.
Sasuke. Of course Sasuke. Of course the boy with the haunted eyes sprinted straight toward something worse because that's what he did when he didn't know what to do with his own pain.
Then the network flickered again—messier under the words, like someone forcing themselves to report while staring at a nightmare:
Gaara breathing wrong. Sand clumping—wet—cocoon behavior escalating. Temari stalling.
Ino's mouth went dry.
She could almost see it without seeing it—sand behaving like it wanted to be flesh, a boy's breath turning into a warning.
Fear didn't get to vote.
Ino shoved the report into the network anyway.
Her father's attention snapped to her for half a heartbeat.
No softness. No time for softness.
Just acknowledgement.
Good. You didn't freeze.
Ino heard herself speak, voice low and steady even though her insides were trying to crawl out of her skin.
"This isn't an exam anymore."
Inoichi didn't argue.
He put his hand on her shoulder—brief, grounding, real—and then pushed the relay harder.
Ino stayed in the web.
Kept catching people's terror like it was a job.
Kept turning it into arrows on a map.
Kept being the kind of useful that didn't get a statue.
Outside, the village fought.
Inside, the network held.
One street.
One formation.
One thought shoved into the right mind at the right second.
Ino kept listening to Konoha crack—
—and refused, stubbornly, to let it split.