Disclaimer: Ha! I'm just a poor student whose parents are paying her way through college. Like I'd own Naruto.

Notes: Ugh. Hardest part to write. Anyway, this is the final part. (Edited 6/16/10 to fix errors and a few other things.)

Kiba

The first thing that hits him when he wakes up is the sickeningly clean smell of everything around him. Kiba knows he's not home even before he opens his eyes, and groans.

He finds that he can only open one of his eyes; the other is bandaged shut. He head hurts and he can still taste blood. He can't feel some parts of his body but he thinks that it's probably just painkillers making him numb.

Hana is sitting next to his bed, a book in one hand, the other buried in the fur of the smallest Haimaru Triplet. The others are on the floor next to her feet, heads on their paws, resting but not sleeping.

The scene is familiar but Kiba can't put his finger on why at first. Akamaru is lying in a large bed next to his (but he has bandages on all of his paws and up his back legs and he's much, much bigger than before); he's wrapped in bandages too (but they're covering most of his body this time; when he flexes his fingers he feels the rough texture of them against his fingertips); there are dogs in the room again (but many, many more this time, it seems; he can smell them but he can't see them).

Uchiha Sasuke. The name flashes in his head and he remembers being twelve and in the same place, and he barks a laugh before it dissolves into coughing. Funny how the few times he has gotten seriously injured, it has had to do with the Uchiha.

Hana looks up from her book at the noise and frowns at Kiba, who is on his side, hacking coughs wracking his body. She picks up a glass of water from the side table, hauls him up so he's sitting, and puts the glass to his lips, holding the back of his neck to keep him in check.

Kiba swallows and drags the back of his hand over his mouth after Hana takes the glass away. "I'm not a dog, Hana," Kiba grumbles, but doesn't push away the hand on the back of his neck. It's rubbing at the tense muscles there and it's very, very nice.

"You used to eat dog food," Hana reminds him, setting down the glass of water and bringing her now free hand to brush his hair out of his face. Her fingers catch on a snarl and he whines. Her hand on the back of her neck squeezes a bit harder and he relaxes again.

"That was a long time ago." Kiba tries to scowl up he's so relaxed by her gentle touch that he can't. A one-eyed glare only makes Hana smile, but her expression hardens quickly.

"I told you to be careful," Hana says softly, her tone slightly scolding. "Don't you remember?"

Kiba does remember. Sound attacked silently and suddenly. They were sent in different directions and Hana had told him that and leaned over to kiss his forehead. He hated to think that she would worry about him and leapt away without saying anything to her. He was a good ninja, didn't she know that? There was nothing to worry about; of course he would be careful, right?

But Kiba hadn't really been careful. He jumped at the first Sound ninja he saw, ignoring Shino's frantic movements behind to him stop and wait. Even as a kikaichuu bit his neck, he launched himself on top of the enemy, Akamaru a step behind him.

And perhaps he really hadn't thought it out when the other ninja summoned snakes straight off, and he wasn't able to do anything to stop them. Somehow, in the end, he is alive and in the hospital, his sister holding his neck; Akamaru, asleep in the bed next to him, is looking rather tense himself.

Kiba's thrown roughly back to the present when Akamaru moves and whimpers in his sleep. Hana lets go of him and moves over to Akamaru's bed. Kiba is surprised and falls back on the bed, wincing and trying not to groan in pain. The medicine they gave him must be wearing off already.

"Sorry," Hana says shortly, placing a hand on Akamaru's head and lifting up one of his paws with the other. "The antivemon is still working. Those snakes that were summoned by the Sound nin were poisonous, and I needed to do research before I could administer it to Akamaru."

They lapse into silence, and Kiba shuts his eye. Hana shuffles around the room and Akamaru mewls here and there.

"You don't have to worry about me, Hana," Kiba mutters. Hana looks up and frowns at him. He opens his eye again. She looks like she's about to say something but he cuts her off. "I'm a good ninja. You know that. Everyone knows that!" (He knows that that's not exactly true, but, really, everyone should know.) "So you shouldn't worry."

Hana opens her mouth but Akamaru whines and, like Kiba, opens one eye to look at her (though he has no bandages over the other; he must be doing it because he can't open both eyes). She returns to tending to him before giving Kiba a hard look.

"Will he be okay?" Kiba asks, almost belatedly. His head is still foggy from the painkillers and the pain that's slowly coming back, but he makes no indication that he's really starting to feel anything. He can handle the pain. He knows Akamaru can too. They're a team and they'll make it through this.

"He will," she says vaguely, rubbing one of his back legs. Akamaru has shut his eye again, and he seems to be enjoying her ministrations. It appears that she's momentarily forgotten his words from before, but then she lets go of Akamaru's leg and turns to Kiba. "You know, Kiba, I have every right to be worried about you. Look what happened to you. You're so bandaged up, and the medical ninjas say you might not be back on your feet for awhile. You need to be more careful."

"No I don't," he grumbles, trying to turn on his side. He can't move his arm very well, though, and it hurts to lie on it, so he rolls onto his back again. "Anyway, isn't it a ninja supposed to put their life on the line for their village?"

"No," a gruff voice says at the door, and the distinctive sound of Kuromaru's claws against the floor interrupt the sudden silence. Tsume doesn't smile or greet Kiba, just stares at him, frowning like Hana is. "It's your job to protect the village, not die for it. If that happens, all you'll be is a name on that stone."

"I thought it was an honor," Kiba says, remembering that his father's name is on it. "That's what you said when Dad died." Tsume smiles crookedly, walks over to his bed, and leans against the wall next to it.

"It is for your father," Tsume replies, and Kiba finds it all very confusing. Maybe it's just the pain. His bandaged eye is really starting to hurt. He wants to go back to sleep. "He was a great man," she muses, looking out the window on the other side of the room. "He loved you two very much. And he died courageously.

"I heard from your teammate, Aburame, that you just jumped into a battle without thinking. You know you should keep your head in battle. That's part of being a ninja."

Kiba shuts his eye and grimaces. "Maybe I was," he mutters, flexing his toes and wincing again. "But I was just trying to help protect Konoha."

"You can better protect it when you're alive. And when you're not all bandaged up and in a hospital bed," Tsume responds. "If you weren't already all bandaged up I might have smacked you. But, considering all the pain you must be in, I'll refrain."

"Thanks," he says softly, opening one eye to look at Akamaru. He's asleep again, Hana lightly stroking his fur. "Are you sure he'll be okay?" He asks her again, and this time, she nods and looks very sure. It doesn't quite occur to him that she might just be humoring him.

"I'll go get a nurse to come and give you something to knock you out again," Tsume says, and she pats his cheek lightly before walking out.

A nurse arrives shortly and gives him an injection that soothes him almost right away, and he dozes off with his mother by his side and his sister by Akamaru's.

Kiba knows they're right, and thinks in his sleep that maybe it's better that they do worry about him, rather than not caring at all.