While they had gone to the Hyuuga house a few times to meet up with Hinata and such, neither Kiba nor Shino had met up with Hanabi outside of that. It’d feel awkward to suddenly go and ask her to consult with them about wedding gifts. Plus, like Kiba said, if they involved her family members, then there was the chance that the talk of wedding presents would reach Hinata’s ears.
“Hmm, you’re right…” Kurenai crossed her arms and thought.
In the meantime, Kiba finally laid his hands on the beef jerky, chewing on it furiously while muttering “The feeling when you chew it is really important…the feeling…” like it was a magic spell.
There was another reason for Kiba to get so upset when the subject of Hanabi was mentioned. Shino knew a little bit about it. The incident had happened on the day when they’d been told that unbelievable news about the moon possibly falling.
The memories of those days when meteorites were raining down on the Earth and it really felt like the last days of their existence were still fresh in Shino’s mind. Most of the village had been repaired by now, but if you took one step outside the village, you’d see the leftover scars from that time still remaining. No matter how many months or years passed, you still wouldn’t be able to perfectly restore all the trees that had been moved down by the meteors, or the meteor craters left behind.
Shinobi had gathered to protect the village from the meteors raining down on them, and in the midst of this a team had been assembled to rescue Hanabi, who had been kidnapped by the mastermind behind the occurrence.
It was a team assembled to find the hideout of the mastermind as well as rescue Hanabi.
A mission like that was Kiba’s specialty, since he was a ninja dog user with his own keen sense of smell. He’d been brimming with confidence, saying how likely it was that he’d be picked due to his connection to Hinata via Team Eight.
But, Kiba’s name hadn’t been on the list of those selected for the mission.
Kiba had become incredibly depressed about that matter.
“What aren’t I on it…? If it was me, I could find where Hanabi was straight away…I could definitely help out…I really wanted to find the creep’s hideout and whoop his ass with my new jutsu…I wanted to help stop the moon from falling…”
Even now, Shino could clearly remember Kiba’s endless grumbling about the subject.
“It’s over, it’s over…” Kiba had murmured in despair, and Shino remembered telling him, “Well, the whole world may be over soon…”
Why did he remember that? Probably because Kiba had ignored it.
But, Shino thought that Kakashi-sensei had chosen the right teams for the right occasions.
Kakashi-sensei was the Rokudaime Hokage, and he had to make his decision while thinking of saving everyone’s lives, so instead of putting Kiba on the team that was sent to rescue Hanabi, he put him on the life-saving team in the village. Kiba’s mission had been to quickly find and save the people who were buried under the rubble of buildings that had collapsed after the meteors hit.
It was an important mission that was only possible precisely because of Kiba and Akamaru’s keen senses of smell.
And Shino had also been sent out as part of the life-saving team along with Kiba. It was because his bugs were able to slip into small cracks in the rubble that people and dogs couldn’t go through. As Shino and Kiba hurried around the village while riding on Akamaru’s back, they had managed to save many people who hadn’t managed to escape before the meteors crashed.
And furthermore Kiba hadn’t taken refuge in the shelters, instead staying outside to help the people who still believed that tomorrow was going to come, the village shinobi as well as ramen Ichiraku’s owner Teuchi who was preparing ingredients for tomorrow’s ramen. H even boasted about how it any meteorite came falling towards the store, he’d destroy it with his new jutsu. He’d put a stunning amount of effort into his activities.
Kiba’s stroke of bad luck was that the only one to see his efforts had been Shino who was constantly beside him. And
Shino hadn’t ever told anyone about what happened that day. Shino thought that good deeds like that weren’t the kind that should be displayed to the world.
Shino was intently watching Kiba jerkily tearing into his beef jerky.
Shino thought it was likely that Kiba’s bitter memory of not being picked for the Hanabi Rescue Team had resurfaced when he heard her name.
However, Shino knew.
He knew that when push came to shove, Kiba was a reliable man. He knew that Kiba had gone running around the village with Akamaru and saved many people's’ lives. He knew Kiba had even protected Ichiraku Ramen while he was at it.
Only Shino knew those things.
Wasn’t that just fine?
Although Shino hadn’t really been able to hear the name of Kiba’s new jutsu when he used it since the sound of the meteorite being destroyed had been too loud, but still, it was just fine to leave things that way, wasn’t it?
