It was just before eight o'clock on a thursday night when Sasuke came back from a particularly late patrol and found that he both had nothing to occupy himself, and that his mind was still far too busy to go to sleep. So, quickly making up his mind. . . and stomach, as he had yet to eat, he picked up food from a nearby Akimichi owned restaurant and made his way over to the Hokage tower, and from there, the Intelligence wing.

"Is Nara, Shikako in?" Sasuke asked as he opened the door to an intake office , holding up the boxes of food and showing them to the chunin at the desk responsible for guarding the actual door to to the Intelligence department just beside the desk.

"Uh, yeah, she's in, let me figure out where, though. I think they changed her post this week. Just sign the visitor book over there. I'm Arata Daichi." the chunin confirmed, dragging a file with Shikako's name on it out of a drawer and flicking it open. "She's in the Aviary right now, I hope for your sake that's not bar-b-que. Those damn birds beg like dogs and thieve like rats." He said with a wry grin as he got up from the desk. "Come on, you have to have an escort behind that door. I'll take you back." He opened the door and held it open for Sasuke to follow.

"You know, we don't get visitors like this often, especially not this late. You ever thought about where you're going to do your three month stint?" the chunin asked as he led Sasuke down a set of halls.

"I'm grounded in the village right now, until I'm not, I've been assigned to patrol with the Special Jounin." Sasuke answered in an annoyed tone. The chunin responded with a confused look, and Sasuke beat him to the punch. "Orochimaru wants to possess my body for my Sharingan, so until otherwise told, I can't leave the village without someone of Special Jounin rank or above." he elaborated in a disgusted tone.

Arata blanched visibly. "Well, it's a good thing you came up now instead of later. We usually break for dinner about this time anyway. So we'll check the break room first before heading up to the Aviary." He said, clearly trying to steer the conversation toward a less unsavory topic. The chunin opened a door and stuck his head in before closing the door. "Not in there, up to the Aviary then." He said gesturing onwards.

When they found her, Shikako had a hawk twice the size of her head perched on her forearm that she was feeding scraps of meat under the supervision of a man in a chunin vest and dark sunglasses.

"Shikako, you have a visitor." Arata announced, stepping out of the way so Sasuke could enter. The hawk immediately switched its attention to the newcomer and the boxes in his arms as though it was precision guided, and only Shikako waving another chunk of meat in front of it's head distracted it long enough for her to get it back into its kennel. "Mind if I pass him on?" The chunin asked.

The man with the sunglasses nodded. "Go ahead. She'll make sure he won't go anywhere he shouldn't. Hold that door open." He strode over to the open door. "I'm going down for dinner. Don't give the birds anything, Kami knows they're spoiled enough already." One of the raptors squawked as though to protest. "Oh shut up." he shot back before descending the stairs.

Sasuke held out one of the boxes. "Looks like you're having fun."

Shikako accepted the box and led him over to the broad shelf in the opening for the hawks to leave the Aviary. "We were doing fine before you came in and stole their hearts." She said, lightly teasing as she gestured at the twenty-some raptors who seemed to be attempting to be boring holes in him with the intensity of their big golden eyes. Shikako hopped up to sit on the ledge.

Sasuke rolled his eyes "Oh just wonderful." he responded, returning the birds' stares as he opened his boxed eel donburi with tomatoes and cracked apart the disposable chopsticks. The hawks hunched their shoulders and opened their beaks slightly as the smell of the meat hit their senses.

"Now you're just taunting them Sasuke." Shikako scolded, tapping his shoulder with the back of her hand. "Then they'll take it out on me when I get them out again. Come on, what have you been up to? Kakashi said you were working on something."

He gave the birds one final glare before answering. "Yeah, I got an idea for the chidori from your raijin no ken," he gestured broadly with his hands "I want to figure out a way to increase the range somehow, extend the blade or something."

Shikako seemed to think for a moment before replying as she opened her gyudon. "Well, it's just an idea, but you could make some sort of high powered electrical current out of it. It might be easier, just to get used to manipulating the shape of it, right? Or you could try channeling it up your sword. That Chakra Saber is supposed to be receptive to channeling chakra down the blade."

Sasuke considered this for a moment before replying thoughtfully. "Chidori Nagashi, that could work. I'll ask Kakashi about it. Also, speaking of swords, I talked to Tenten about getting copies of mom's made. So she referred me to a guy she knew, and he had an idea to fix that issue of the saber being so fragile and just combine the chakra conductive metal in the saber into the copy of mom's sword." He explained, taking a bite.

Shikako looked surprised. "Kakashi didn't mind?"

Sasuke shrugged. "He said if it suited me better, I should go for it." he shifted before asking, "Enough about me though, what've you been doing up here?"

Shikako seemed to tense up over her food before relaxing, "Ibiki asked me to join T&I." She admitted almost guiltily. "I refused though."

Sasuke frowned "Did he say why? You aren't exactly known for interrogation."

Shikako rubbed her hands over her face and began to tell him of a mission in the Land of Stone and combining the shadow paralysis ninjutsu with killing intent to make a not so innocent civvie shit his pants in fear and spill his darkest secrets. "And now I'm in the Iwa Bingo Book as an interrogation specialist and that's how Ibiki found out."

"Well at least you found out something new…..did I make a Bingo Book?" Sasuke asked hopefully.

Shikako gave a little grin in amusement. "Yeah, you're wanted in Kumo's and Iwa's, and you already know about Iwa's bunker."

"So you're really liking it here."
Shikako shrugged. "Office politics suck, and it's really busy, but it's a different kind of busy than what we used to to. It's…." She gestured with her chopsticks in her search for a word that fit. " routine, but not in a bad way. It's not as exciting but I think it's kind of making me slow down. Which is a good thing, right now?I guess?" She said, somewhat conflicted. "I'm definitely not staying here forever obviously, but for three months, I think I'll be better off in the long run. I'm being slowed down in training just enough it seems for me to still make some progress on the things I want to, but still not be going so fast that I get burned out." She paused and took a bite. "I don't necessarily like it, but I like the pace it's forcing me to, if that makes any sense." she finished thoughtfully. "You?"

"Being stuck in the village like this sucks, but I'm getting a lot done with training. Kurenai-sensei is helping me go over mom's genjutsu notes. Hayate is furthering my kenjutsu from where Kakashi left off. I was able to copy a few techniques from the Kusa chunin exams and I'm working on getting ahold of them. I guess it's the same, I'm getting a lot done, I just wish I was out of the village more."

"Aoba says that next week we might do some field work, I'll see if I can get you able to tag along." Shikako offered. "No promises, but -." Shikako spread her hands apologetically.

"Thanks, that would be great." They finished eating and threw away the garbage. "You know, I know you said to not tell anyone, but do you mind if I tell Kiba about the whole picture with Akatsuki? The kidnapping attempt in Kusa was the last straw for him and he's been getting more and more pissed about 'his people getting targeted by S-class dicks' since the entire thing with Orochimaru's freak show. He's more livid than I've ever seen him."

Shikako looked surprised "How much time do you spend with team eight?"

Sasuke rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I got the full earful on the way back from Kusa, but yeah, I've been spending a good bit of time with them. As I said, Kurenai is helping me with my genjutsu so in payment I've been helping Kiba learn a few ninjutsu. Besides, don't we need all the help we can get? Nine rookies, nine Akatsuki."

"Not including Gai's team?" Shikako questioned, a little grin beginning to form.

"The other Hyuuga's a jackass." Sasuke responded, annoyed.

Shikako rolled her eyes. "I meant to not tell anyone about the Sasori file." She said after taking a moment to carefully scan the area for any chakra sensors. "Akatsuki's fair game if you think the others would want to know, though I don't think Tsunade would approve."

"We're not doing anything reckless, Tsunade doesn't have a good reason to tell us to shove off. Not when all we're doing is training to be ready for them." Sasuke replied.


AN: Yeah, so as of now this thing is definitely going to be going more AU. Obviously it isn't DOS canon, but I do try my hardest to follow and keep this story in compliance with how DOS pans out as much as possible. What with the thing about the Iwa bunker in the last chapter, it's sort of bringing in a new arc that I don't know the ending to, so I'm having to guess.

I'm not really all that happy with this chapter, I knew what I wanted to get said, but I didn't really get any of the bursts of inspiration that I had writing the last two chapters, and that kind of leaves me feeling that it's not as good as it could be, but it's probably the best I can get it right now.

Thank you for your reviews and please continue doing so, it really helps me out.