Introducting the Dog

(Discord inside joke seen in title)

I had this one a few days ago but I sorta barraged the Beta with a lot of stuff all at once and, well that's sort of on me. They think it looked fine though, just a cute, lighthearted bit about the dog and Sakura and the family.

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Sakura waves at Kiba as she enters the Inuzuka compound. She’s come to meet with Tsume and pick up her dog, but by the way the boy is standing near the gates she’s pretty sure the woman is busy today and made her son take her place. The behemoth is at his side, and she can’t help but giggle when she sees Akamaru standing on top of its head. “Glad he likes the summon.” It’s adorable and she’s not afraid to appreciate it.

“He feels like any other Inuzuka ninken,” Kiba explains, “the dogs love him, from what they can tell the only difference is that he’s very big.”

He is big, he’s really big. Fluffy - through great effort -, thick, his limbs are like trunks and his body is scaled to insane portions. They had to use three corpses to make the form, it was the only way they could get three souls to function without overwhelming it and somehow two souls were just never working no matter how hard she tried. Thing is, they were not pups, they were fully grown dogs the size of wolves. Which means Sakura’s summon is less like a pup and more like a giant brick Akamaru is using as a mobile home. “I didn’t think of this before but how is he going to fit in my house?”

“He won’t, we’ll build a doghouse outside in the yard.” Kiba explains without missing a beat, as if he planned for that question. He probably did, Tsume probably pre-empted their entire conversation and told him what might come up. She plans a lot for someone so instinctual she glomped her in public the first time they met.

“... Okay.” ‘We’ll build a doghouse’ means she will build a doghouse while Kiba watches, but she’s up for emotional support while she crafts so she doesn’t argue with him. So much of her time is spent crafting without any woos or yips at all. Maybe that’s over now that she has a dog? “Yip for me.” She orders.

“Gllrrmmmnnnn-” The low rumble that comes from his stomach is truly awe inspiring.

“He cannot yip on command,” Sakura notes, “that is one strike against having his memories.” She says he but she’s not actually sure, one of the souls and bodies used was a girl, who knows how that worked out.

“To be fair, you’re not any of his original three owners and ‘yip for me’ isn’t a normal command we teach.” Kiba points out, “baby steps.” He pats the beast, rubbing his fingers through its fur. “Even if the memories are in there, it might take some time for them to come out.”

“Right, well, it’ll follow me right?” She asks, taking a step away from the bear thing and watching its paw move towards her. She expects a sound effect like a mech moving in a game but it’s tame and there’s not even a crack, clank, or squeak.

“I’ll get the wood and nails, you head back to your house.” Kiba waves, and Sakura ventures the oh so wonderful journey of walking home while her first true summon follows her. Sure, there’s been the odd squirrel but she’s never intended to keep them and she dispells them almost instantly. This is a cumulation of weeks of effort, her first true success. Now she’s going to have to build it a small house.

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Pound

Pound

Thwack

Thwack

Ding- That’s the sound of Kiba hitting a bell he brought with him for no reason, while she hammers in some of the final nails.

It’s with a big sweaty forehead that she takes a few steps back to look at her creation and slides her arm over her face to sweep the salty fluid away. Taking up a good portion of their yard on the east side is a big black ‘dog house’. It stands taller than her, wider than her team including Kakashi standing side by side, and even has a very comfortable and large fluffy round bed inside it.

That is until Kiba lifts the instruction manual pamphlet from in front of her face, and she finds she could have stayed in the illusion a bit longer. She did an okay job for a young girl on one of her first crafts with zero help and only about two hours to go at it, but she’d love it if there weren’t so many nails sticking out. She’ll have to fix this up as her skills get better.

Thud

That is the sound of one of the boards from the roof falling over and landing in her yard.

“I think you did great.” Kiba palms his hip and gives her his best ‘you go girl’ snap combo, which she finds a lot more effective at making her giggle than she’d expect. “Couldn’t have done it better myself.”

“I wish you could, and did.” She allows herself a playful growl. “At least the dog likes it.”

“Muuurrrllll!” Those are happy dog sounds, surely. He’s bouncing around in there. A part of her is worried it might collapse but it seems to be holding up to his weight well. It helps it’s grounded to the dirt, and the only part that seems truly sketchy is the roof. She’ll fix that before it rains. At least they bought the dog bed so that’s as shown in the pamphlet.

“Sakura, what is that?” Turning to her side, she can’t help but blink at her father standing in horror in the front yard.

“I got a dog.” She probably should have run this by the family first.

“My people need me.” Is all Kiba says before he hops her fence and takes off running down the street.

“Like, the Inuzuka?” Sakura can’t help but ask the air where the dog boy just was.

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“This is my dog.” Sakura says, stepping to the side and laying out an open palm to make a swishing motion towards it. She doesn’t have to move, it is in fact bigger than her and Neji can see through her, but the effect is important and the very unamused expression on the poke mage’s face does a lot for telling her exactly how awkward this is.

Directly behind him, Haku’s got an icicle in his hand, and looks primed and ready to throw it. “Please don’t attack my dog.”

“First, I’d like you to convince me it’s not going to attack us.” Her streamer demands, hiding behind Neji and peering over his shoulder like a child does their older brother or dad. “And that it’s a dog.”

“It has three hearts, why does it have three hearts?” Neji asks, his magical eyes showing him madness that shouldn’t exist, and yet, somehow, Sakura creating pure nonsense feels more comfortable for him than if it was a normal dog.

“I had to use three hearts, look, it’s a dog, okay? It’s three dogs, it’s dogs plural, but it’s a dog.” She explains.

“And it’ll stay in the yard?” Mebuki’s voice cracks a little, unable to take her eyes off the bear sized monster behind her daughter, “like it won’t try to come inside?”

“I swear if fur gets in my stew.” Haku suddenly realizes another objection.

“It’s not growing fur yet we had to graft most of this on, it’s fake, you know like wig stuff.” Sakura pats the fluffy coat, “it’s actually kind of a rotting mess at the moment, I have to work on changing that.”

“It’s a rotting flesh monster? That’s so cool!” She was not aware Konohamaru was here, but there he is peering over their fence with a Twin clone next to him, taking it all in.

“See? The kid likes it,” Sakura says, “that’s the issue decided.”

“Now wait just one moment, how are we supposed to feed it?” Her father asks.

“I’m not cooking for an undead monster in the yard.” Haku denies her before her eyes can even land on him.

“Well uh, I don’t think it needs food, it’s sort of dead,” Sakura says, “and I already built a home for it.”

“You did not, you built a hazard.” Her father corrects, “we’ll go over it together after dinner I guess.” She finds she’s pretty excited for that, she’s never gotten to build something with her dad before.

“Normal kids bring home a puppy from the Inuzuka kennels,” Mebuki groans, “a puppy would have been nice. I could work with a puppy.”

“Well he was born like a week ago,” Sakura shrugs, “that’s puppy adjacent right?” Her mother’s stare is not amused.