While the nerd squad was busy hugging trees, whispering sweet nothings to bugs, and concocting poison perfumes, Naruto and Kiba had other priorities.
Namely: recruiting dinosaurs.
Because why not? You're stranded in a deathtrap prehistoric island, you're surrounded by monsters the size of office buildings, and your first thought is, "Can I adopt it?"—that's peak Naruto energy right there.
"I'm just saying," Kiba said as he strolled beside Naruto, arms behind his head like this was a casual walk in the park and not a journey through a jungle that literally tried to eat people, "we've got a ship, a crew, and an Ino who screams at bugs. What we're missing is a power-flex pet. Something big. Something fearsome. Something that can pull off sunglasses."
Naruto nodded solemnly, like they were discussing strategic war assets. "Exactly. I've got Kurama in my soul, but what if I had something cool beside me too? Like, a T-Rex. That breathes fire. And knows how to fist bump."
"Now you're thinking like a Hokage."
According to the Giants, this island hosted a few apex creatures that even they didn't mess with casually. There was a giant T-Rex, the king of all chompers. A triceratops that could bulldoze boulders. And a spinosaurus that basically moonlighted as a sea monster.
"So," Naruto asked, hands on hips as they stood in a clearing with actual thunder echoing in the distance, "do we fight them… or interview them?"
Kiba grinned. "Interview. You don't want a pet with poor communication skills. Plus, Akamaru told me diplomacy is underrated."
Naruto blinked. "He barked, Kiba."
"Yeah. And I listened."
So began The Great Dino Interview of Doom.
First up: T-Rex.
Big teeth. Bigger attitude. Stomped into the clearing with the kind of swagger that said, I've eaten bigger than you for lunch. It roared so hard a tree exploded.
"Okay, okay," Naruto said, waving a hand. "Love the energy. Big entrance. Very… alpha. But, uh, do you do tricks?"
The T-Rex roared again.
"Right. You're more of a 'crush now, questions later' type. Noted."
T-Rex got a 'maybe' and a half-eaten boar leg as a thank-you gift.
Next was the triceratops, who charged in like a tank on steroids and nearly flattened Kiba.
"Very protective," Kiba gasped from under a bush. "Family type, I can feel it."
But it ignored all commands, tried to eat Naruto's ramen stash, and stepped on Kiba's foot. Twice.
"Okay… not hired."
The spinosaurus didn't even show up for the interview. Just waved a tail fin from a swamp and disappeared into the mist like a diva.
And then came the unexpected contender.
They weren't ready for him.
A giant ancient gorilla, like King Kong's buff uncle, stepped out of the trees with the calm, quiet menace of someone who could bench press a mountain and still find time for tea.
He didn't roar.
He didn't charge.
He just sat down, scratched his side, and looked Naruto dead in the eye.
"...Is it just me," Naruto said slowly, "or does he have… Hokage energy?"
Akamaru barked. Kiba translated. "He says, 'This guy's got leadership qualities.'"
Naruto stepped forward, and the gorilla just stared, unmoving. Then—slowly—he offered a fist.
Naruto's eyes widened.
Naruto. Fist-bumped. A gorilla. The size of a small castle.
Thunder cracked. Somewhere in the distance, a choir probably sang.
"That's it," Naruto said. "You're hired."
--------------
So here's the thing about giant gorillas—sometimes, they fist bump you. Other times, they declare you their disciple.
Naruto thought he had made a new friend.
What he actually got was a monkey overlord who thought Naruto was joining his cult.
Kiba figured it out first. Probably because Akamaru barked a series of tones that sounded suspiciously like ancient jungle gorilla dialect. (Kiba said it was a talent. We all agreed it was weird.)
"Uh, Naruto," Kiba said, pointing at the massive gorilla now sitting like he was about to deliver a TED talk on bananas and world domination, "he thinks you're his follower."
Naruto blinked. "Follower?"
"Yeah. You just got promoted to Royal Banana Bearer of Monkey Island."
Naruto's eye twitched. "Oh heck no."
Because see, Naruto Uzumaki was many things—knucklehead ninja, ramen addict, accidental chaos magnet—but he wasn't about to play sidekick to a sentient wall of fur with a superiority complex.
So naturally, he went full Sage Mode.
The gorilla—whom Kiba nicknamed Kong-Jiji—barely had time to react before Naruto appeared on his shoulder, crouching like a thunder immortal.
With a single pulse of chakra-enhanced pressure, Naruto slammed so much weight down through his feet that Kong Jiji's knees buckled. The massive primate dropped to one hand like a gorilla doing a reluctant yoga pose.
The jungle went silent. Birds stopped chirping. Somewhere in the distance, a triceratops decided today's not the day and walked away.
"I'm not your follower," Naruto said, voice echoing with that cool, scary Sage Mode reverb. "You're mine."
Kiba let out a low whistle. "Oh man, this is gonna go down in history as either the coolest moment ever or the beginning of Monkey War I."
But Kong Jiji wasn't just any oversized ape with abs. He was proud. Defiant. Built like a mountain and twice as stubborn.
He looked up at Naruto with eyes that basically screamed, I'm still not convinced, Blondie.
So Naruto changed tactics.
He let up the pressure and placed a hand on Kong's massive neck. "Fine. You want proof I'm worth following?"
Then he poured his chakra in.
It wasn't just raw energy—it was a golden warmth, like sunrise wrapped in lightning. The gorilla shuddered. His muscles twitched. His eyes widened as the energy surged through him like rocket fuel mixed with espresso and thunder.
Kong Jiji rose, body glowing faintly from the inside.
His chest puffed up.
He beat it once.
Twice.
Then let out a roar that cracked a few trees.
And then…
He bowed.
Naruto smirked. "That's more like it."
Kiba gave a slow clap. "Congrats. You just made King Kong your sidekick."
Akamaru barked approvingly. Kiba translated. "He says: Don't let him ride shotgun until he learns not to scratch his butt while walking."
Naruto shrugged. "Fair."
And that's how Naruto became the new Monkey King of Little Garden—with a prehistoric gorilla bodyguard, a reputation for animal cruelty (it was self-defense, okay?), and a potential new crew member with enough power to flatten a building and still look huggable.
---------------
Let's get one thing straight: when Shino Aburame asked to go alone, nobody argued.
It wasn't because we didn't care.
It was because the guy talked like a meditation app crossed with a haunted voicemail and had an army of bugs under his cloak. Nobody wanted to end up accidentally squishing one of his precious "companions" and waking up cocooned to a tree.
So when Shino announced he was heading into the deepest, most insect-infested part of Little Garden, the group response was a chorus of: "Cool. Have fun. Don't bring any parasites home."
Which, of course, he did anyway.
**
Shino's adventure began in a misty clearing where the trees looked like broccoli that had been working out. The air buzzed with energy—and possibly radiation. His insects, nestled under his coat, twitched in delight.
"There is much to learn," Shino murmured, adjusting his glasses like a man who just found a buffet and realized he forgot his wallet.
First came the Ancient Hornet.
It was roughly the size of a hawk. Its wings sounded like a blender full of nightmares, and its stinger looked like it could poke through steel. Shino observed it from the safety of a tree as it soloed a dinosaur the size of a building. The dino screamed, staggered, and dropped dead in under twenty seconds.
The hornet sipped something from the corpse and zipped off, leaving behind a bone pile and existential dread.
"Extremely venomous," Shino noted. "Effective for targeted takedowns."
One hornet. Acquired.
Next up: Flying Centipedes.
That name should've been illegal.
They were crimson, three meters long, and somehow had both wings and jaws like bear traps. A whole colony swarmed a grove and turned the trees into mulch in five minutes. Shino stared, utterly fascinated, as they cracked trunks like toothpicks and snapped the leg of a passing dino like it was made of breadsticks.
"Their mandibular strength is extraordinary," Shino whispered, awestruck. "They will adapt well to my hive."
The centipedes hissed in unison. Shino nodded politely. He would leave an offering of fermented tree sap later.
One colony. Acquired.
Finally came the Royal Honey Bees.
They were beautiful. Imagine golden fireflies crossed with hummingbirds, then give them the ability to hover while creating honey that glowed faintly with chakra.
Shino had no intention of collecting them at first—until he witnessed what their honey did.
A wounded herbivore dinosaur limped into their grove. The bees swarmed, not to attack, but to coat its wounds in honey. Within minutes, the cuts began to close, and the creature even stood straighter, eyes clearer. Then, for some reason, it smiled. A dinosaur. Smiling.
Shino blinked behind his glasses.
He sampled a drop of the honey (with proper permission, of course—he wasn't a savage), and felt his chakra replenish like he'd just finished meditating and eaten three bowls of curry.
He said one word:
"…Acquired."
**
By the time Shino returned to camp, his coat was buzzing softly like a refrigerator full of doom.
Everyone stared.
"What… is that sound?" Ino asked, visibly disturbed.
"New friends," Shino said calmly.
Naruto peered under the coat, turned pale, and backed away. "Nope. Nope. You do you, bug guy."
-----------------
Shino returned to his room with all the enthusiasm of a mad scientist who just got a government grant and clearance to break natural laws.
His room wasn't a room anymore. It was a containment zone. A cross between a greenhouse, a lab, and the kind of place where sci-fi protagonists scream "Shut it down!" a little too late.
In one corner sat two massive insect jars. And when I say jars, I mean they were the size of upright freezers and hummed with chakra seals and containment spells. They looked like they could hold a tornado—or, in this case, prehistoric nightmares with wings.
Shino knelt before them like a monk about to do bug prayer.
"This is where you shall evolve," he whispered to the hornet and centipede colonies, gently guiding them into their respective jars.
The hornets hissed.
The centipedes clicked.
Shino smiled behind his collar. "Meet your new siblings."
From the shadows of the jars emerged his old partners—his chakra insects. They weren't big, but they were smart, deadly, and had the loyalty of a ninja hound with six legs and a bad attitude.
Then came the chaos.
A few hornets stung first.
A chakra beetle exploded in response.
A centipede tried to dominate the others.
A swarm of chakra wasps fought back like a school gang turf war.
Shino sat calmly, his hands in a meditative pose. "Adaptation through conflict. Those who survive will become part of the hive. Stronger. Faster. Mine."
Inside the jars, evolution was being speedrun.
The hornets became sharper. The centipedes began to glow faintly with corrupted chakra. Some of his original insects started to mutate—tougher shells, longer wings, faster reproduction.
Shino didn't smile. That would've been weird.
He just nodded. "Progress."
**
Meanwhile, the bees—the sweet, golden-winged angels of regeneration and sugar—had a different fate.
Shino carried them out like a beekeeper on a pilgrimage. With soft humming from their wings and gentle nudges of antennae, they followed him to the garden deck of the ship.
This was Sakura and Ino's pet project—trees that could survive chakra storms, medicinal herbs with leaves like emeralds, and rare flowers that bloomed when you talked to them nicely.
"Here," Shino said, pointing to a sunny grove near the edge. "You'll be safe here."
The bees buzzed in gratitude and settled into the flowering trees, beginning to build hives in perfect little chakra spirals. Already, the plants around them seemed brighter. Healthier. Like the bees were exhaling life itself.
Sakura noticed from the upper deck and gave him a rare smile. "Thanks, Shino. They're perfect."
"They are useful," Shino said flatly, then paused. "And… gentle."
"Gentle?" Ino raised a brow. "Coming from you, that's like a dragon calling something 'a bit toasty.'"
Shino didn't reply. He just turned and walked away—probably to check if his centipedes had started laying radioactive eggs or something.
One set of insects would become monsters.
The other, miracles.
Shino controlled both.
And that's why nobody touches Shino's coat without permission.
---------------------
Let's get one thing straight: Kankuro didn't volunteer to go solo into a dinosaur-infested jungle. He called it "a one-man field trip for puppet upgrades."
Everyone else called it "Kankuro's Poor Life Decisions."
But he was determined. The Little Garden jungle was the kind of place that whispered, Hey, wanna die in seventeen creative ways? But it was also home to ancient trees harder than chakra steel. Perfect material for new puppets. And Kankuro wasn't going to let a few man-eating plants and raptor attacks stop him from scoring premium wood.
He had his best puppet with him: Sasori's old body.
Yeah. That Sasori. The redhead mass-murdering puppet freak. Kankuro kept his body in storage like a demented action figure. "You wanted to be the ultimate puppet?" he muttered to it. "Time to go to work, big guy."
The deeper he went into the jungle, the weirder it got. The trees were massive, with bark so hard Kankuro had to slap it twice just to believe it wasn't metal. He pulled out a chisel and hammer, gave one solid hit—and the chisel snapped.
"Okay," he muttered. "Tree 1, Puppet Boy 0."
Then the ground shook.
You know what's not a great sign when you're alone in a prehistoric jungle?
Stomp. Stomp. Rawrrrrrrr.
A triceratops exploded through the undergrowth, horn-first, looking like it hadn't had a decent meal since the Ice Age and had just discovered puppeteers taste like chicken.
"Uh… Sasori, buddy. Showtime!"
He launched his puppet, which flipped into action like a mechanical death ballerina. Sasori's puppet form stabbed forward—and got yeeted into a tree.
Kankuro blinked. "Right. This might be harder than I thought."
What followed was thirty minutes of the worst wrestling match in history. Kankuro had to use every trick in the book: chakra threads, poison gas, exploding kunai, and at one point—he swore this happened—he bribed a bug swarm by throwing honey.
Eventually, the triceratops went down.
And Kankuro sat on its side, panting, with leaves in his hair, wondering what his life had become. "I could've been a chef," he muttered. "A really emo chef. But no, I had to be a murder-puppet ninja."
But the real win? That triceratops had crashed into the perfect tree—its bark splintered just enough to see the golden-red wood inside.
"Bingo."
Kankuro chopped a piece off for samples and grinned. Then he grinned wider. The puppet gears in his head were turning.
Back on the ship, Kankuro went full mad scientist.
First came the Triceratops Puppet. With built-in battering ram horns and retractable drills. It walked like a tank, roared like a concert speaker, and was basically a wooden bulldozer.
Then the T-Rex Puppet. Bigger, meaner, with chakra-powered jaws and tail whips that could crush boulders. Also, for reasons Kankuro would not elaborate on, it had flamethrowers in its nostrils.
Next, the Pterosaur Puppet. Because what's a puppet collection without a dinosaur that flies and shoots poisoned feathers?
The crew thought that was it.
Nope.
Kankuro fused them all.
Like some cursed chakra version of a Transformer, he combined the three dinosaur puppets into one giant, terrifying monstrosity: the Dragon King Puppet. It had wings. It had fangs. It had a spinning tail blade and two chakra canons on its shoulders. Because why not?
Naruto passed by during the test run and muttered, "What is that?"
Kankuro beamed. "A weapon of love."
"…That thing just ate a tree."
"Passionately."
---------------
Let's take a moment to appreciate the pure, unfiltered genius of Kankuro. He turned three dinosaurs into a puppet Voltron that looked like Bolmeteus the Steel Dragon if it went on a chakra-powered gym spree and dipped itself in sci-fi war paint.
The Dragon King Puppet wasn't just big.
It was everything.
Blue and white. Sleek and deadly. Built from wood that could snap kunai in half and reinforced with chakra metal forged by Naruto himself. The thing had metallic wings, thruster boosters, drill horns, and a spinning tail blade that sounded like a blender having an existential crisis.
"It can breathe fire," Kankuro bragged to Tenten. "Melt stone in seconds. Shoot poison like a grumpy cobra. Also—lasers. Mountain-busting chakra lasers."
Tenten blinked. "You made a dragon with lasers?"
"Two lasers."
"And you gave it Naruto's chakra."
Kankuro puffed up like a smug cat. "Five chakra cores, fully infused. It barely needs my chakra anymore. It's self-sustaining."
Tenten was already regretting saying yes to this.
Testing began.
In the middle of an open field (because they weren't completely stupid), the Dragon King Puppet roared to life.
With a burst of lightning-fast boosters, it shot into the sky like a screaming missile and divebombed a stone cliff. The impact shattered the rock into glitter. Then it did a barrel roll. Then it transformed into humanoid mode, went ninja-running across the grass, and launched fireballs like it was playing FPS tag with volcanoes.
Tenten was scribbling furiously on her clipboard, drenched in sweat, muttering, "This is brilliant. This is insane. I love it. I hate it. He's going to die."
Kankuro, standing on a control pad, was cackling like a mad scientist. "Witness me, Tenten! I AM A PUPPET immortal!"
But then... the puppet stuttered.
It twitched.
It screeched.
Its wings flared out of sync. The chakra canons spun without firing. The barrier popped up, collapsed, and then it sneezed poison—directly at a boulder, which melted like ice cream in a microwave.
Kankuro's smile faded. "Uh-oh."
The puppet froze midair, sparks flying.
Tenten looked up. "Is it supposed to hum like that?"
"Nope."
"Is it supposed to GLOW PURPLE?"
"Oh no."
A massive explosion lit up the field. Chakra fire erupted in every direction as the Dragon King Puppet—elegant, deadly, majestic—turned into high-speed puppet confetti. Pieces of it landed in trees. One landed in the ship's garden. Another almost took off Kiba's sandwich.
Silence.
Smoke.
Tenten exhaled and calmly wrote on her clipboard:
Observation: Remember to install seals to handle high-density chakra storage. Also, never let Kankuro be in charge of nuclear puppet cores. Ever again.
Kankuro face-planted in the sand. "Why… why didn't I add chakra seals?!"
"You got too excited playing immortalzilla: Puppet Edition."
"I was gonna name it Fluffy…"
-------------
Later that night, as he picked puppet parts out of his hair, Kankuro whispered to the stars, "Don't worry. Dragon King 2.0 will rise."
Tenten from behind a tree: "With seals this time."