Kiba Inuzuka

**Kiba Inuzuka** is a member of Konohagakure's Inuzuka Clan. He and his canine partner, Akamaru are both members of Team Kurenai.

## Physical Appearance

Kiba's personality and fighting style is further complemented by his wild appearance as while clearly human, he has several physical traits more akin to animals. Like most of his clan, he has messy brown hair, sharp black eyes with vertical slit-like pupils, pronounced canine teeth, and nails that he can change into claws. He also has the distinctive red fang markings of the Inuzuka Clan on his cheeks, as well as an average tall stature and lean physique.

Kiba's attire consist of a nowadays leather, form-fitting black jacket, which zips over the chest and sleeves along with mesh armor underneath, black pants, a pair of black fingerless gloves, and black sandals. He also wears a black, Konoha forehead protector around his forehead.

## Personality

Kiba is often short-tempered, headstrong and impulsive (in stark contrast to his teammates Shino and Hinata), and can be prone to making mistakes when he becomes agitated in battle. He also enjoys combat even when facing particularly strong opponents, and never backs down from a fight. He cares deeply for Akamaru, and is willing to do whatever is necessary to protect him. And, despite his rather gruff attitude, many of Kiba's actions reveal that he is very close to his older sister, Hana, and remains fiercely loyal to his clan and has great pride in it.

Kiba often argues with Shino over what course of action the group should take, particularly when Shino advises caution. Kiba often sees himself as the group leader, and becomes offended at any of Shino's actions that he perceives as challenging his leadership. It seems that there was a contest for leadership of Team 8 during the Chūnin Exams, as Kiba said Hinata voted for him. Despite his disagreements with Shino, he considers Shino a friend, and respects his fighting capabilities. Kiba has became very close to Hinata and acts brotherly toward her, but tends to worry about her, urging her to be strong before the second phase of the exam, and to forfeit rather than face a dangerous opponent. Kiba likes to playfully tease Hinata about her affections for Naruto Uzumaki. This usually includes telling her that Naruto is nearby, or just mentioning her reactions to him to other people, much to her embarrassment. Despite this, they have a strong friendship.

In the *Naruto/Naruto Shippūden*filler arcs, Kiba is shown to also get along well with Naruto, despite their arguments. This seems to be proven when it was shown that Kiba, Akamaru, Naruto, Choji, and Shikamaru skipped classes together and play in the park. Those three seem to be some of the first true friends he made in the village. They also have somewhat of a rivalry that stems from childhood. He was shown to have become frustrated with Naruto's growth and is determined to surpass him. He even showed admiration towards Naruto, stating that he wanted to become like him.

## Abilities

**Highly Enhanced Senses**: As a member of the Inuzuka Clan, Kiba possesses enhanced canine-related human skills such as his sense of smell. His most powerful sense, and weapon, is his sense of smell. By concentrating his chakra in his nose, Kiba can make his sense of smell a thousand times more sensitive than average; making it easy for him to distinguish people by their scent, as seen during his fight against Naruto. At the age of sixteen, Kiba stated that his sense of smell was stronger than that of a ninja hound - a feat that impressed Kakashi after he located Sasuke, noting that the Inuzuka clan must be proud of him. His sense of smell can clearly determine the physical condition of an individual, even from a considerable distance. Naturally, Kiba is the ideal choice to be included in all reconnaissance and tracking missions. Not only is able to actively keep track of targets, his keen senses allow him to identify traps that others would miss, whilst also being an excellent lookout by detecting any approaching enemy shinobi. Despite his nose being a great advantage, his powerful sense of smell was like a double-edged sword, rendering him vulnerable to strong odors. For example, during his fight against Naruto in the preliminary round of the Chūnin Exams, Naruto farted in Kiba's face - a smell that was greatly enhanced due to Kiba's sensitive nose, causing Kiba to be stunned and eventually lose the fight. During his two-headed wolf transformation, his revolution speed is so fast that he cannot see anything but he is able to target his enemy with his sense of smell after Akamaru uses Dynamic Marking.

**Taijutsu Expert**: Because of his practiced fighting style and the use of his clan's Four Legs Technique, Kiba has a quick reaction time, honed reflexes, increased physical strength, and is also very fast. Using this fighting-style, he practices his clan's famed "hit-and-run" tactics where he delivers powerful attacks to the opponent, moving at speeds that they can hardly keep up with.

* **Immense Speed and Reflexes**: As shown from his fighting style from using the Four Legs Technique, this was most prominently seen during his battle with Naruto in Part I, who noted that it was very hard to land an attack on Kiba because he could barely keep up with him. In *Naruto Shippuden*, during his fight against Tobi, not only was Kiba the only one able to discover where Tobi had teleported to, he was even fast enough to surprise Tobi and attack him from behind, without anyone noticing the attack.
* **Enhanced Strength**: Kiba has shown impressive strength during the Fourth Shinobi World War, being able to take out a disguised White Zetsu Army clone, which is extremely durable, with only a couple blows.
* **Enhanced Agility**: Coupled with his amazing speed and reflexes is his agility, able to be quick and nimble in dire situations and can easily jump over high buildings alongside Akamaru without effort.
* **Enhanced Durability**: Kiba is quite durable in combat, able to take powerful blows from his opponents and still continued to fight, even if he's against a foe above his level of strength.

**High Chakra Power**: As a member of the Inuzuka Clan, Kiba boasts a high amount of chakra energy.

**Expert Tracker**: Using his keen nose and sense of smell, Kiba is an excellent tracker, able to hunt down his targets by following their scent and using that to his advantage.

### Ninjutsu Prowess

**Ninjutsu Expert**: Kiba's mostly relies on the use of his clan's ninjutsu during battle. He has also, however, shown skill with the use of the Shadow Clone Technique, which he learned in order to use his clan's more powerful techniques. Kiba is also proficient with the Transformation Technique; first displaying this by using the technique to change his canine partner Akamaru into a full-body clone of himself (Beast Human Clone), and through use of the more advanced Combination Transformation, merge himself with Akamaru (and optionally, a shadow clone) to become a giant multi-headed dog capable of more powerful attacks.

* **Inuzuka Clan Techniques**: He is proficient in several canine-based techniques. His battle style is usually a combination of taijutsu enhanced by his special clan techniques. He fights and attacks with the ferocity of a beast, utilizing his sharp claws and other beast-like abilities that he gains from his Four Legs Technique (*Shikyaku no Jutsu*; *English TV*: Ninja Art of Beast Mimicry: All-Fours Jutsu). Despite his pride as an individual fighter, he usually performs tag-team tactics with Akamaru. Together, they can attack at high speed with excellent coordination, as Kiba can turn Akamaru into an identical clone of himself. In dire circumstances, they can transform together and use the Human Beast Combination Transformation: Double-Headed Wolf, and then attack by using the Fang Wolf Fang, which is almost impossible to avoid, let alone block. In the anime, during the Fourth Shinobi World War, he developed a stronger version of the technique called the Super Fang Wolf Fang which could pierce through three Rashōmon gates without losing its power. Later, during the face-off against the Ten-Tails, Kiba is shown to have learned the Shadow Clone Technique. By combining himself, his shadow clone, and Akamaru, they can use the Human Beast Mixture Transformation — Three-Headed Wolf and attack using the Tail Chasing Fang Fang Rotating Fang.