Three days later, the platoon had acquainted themselves with each other, training in formations and discussing knowledge gathered on Kabuto, Orochimaru, and previous tactics. They were all up early, prepared to go, and at the east gate, waiting for Naruto to come and give them whatever information he'd been concealing for the past three days. Even Shikamaru was there, watching the clouds while the Konohamaru Corps chatted, gangly, red-haired Kaito occasionally joining in. Kiba and Ino were having a heated debate, Akamaru occasionally chipping in with insults similar to Kiba's, watching Shino collect bugs out of the corner of his eye. Just when Shikamaru was hoping he would fall asleep, there was a loud bang and everyone started.

A cloud of smoke announced Naruto's arrival, quite loudly.

The Hokage looked around at the assembled shinobi as they formed a semicircle around him. Seeing that all eight, plus Akamaru, were there, he cleared his throat. "Yakushi Kabuto has used white snakes to attack people encroaching on the area. That's actually what tipped us off to his presence- Orochimaru used to use them. These snakes have a poison that slowly immobilizes you. I don't know the details, but Moegi and Kaito MUST be kept safely out of their reach. There is one antidote for each of you, including you, Akamaru-" the nin-ken nodded "-but the catch is, each antidote is only activated by Moegi's or Kaito's medical chakra. It's a rather new thing, actually, we're seeing how well it works. The immobilization works slowly, except for where it hits you. That area is almost immediately cut off from your chakra network and immobilized. I'm deadly serious when I say that if say, your hands are hit by it, someone could put them in a guillotine and cut them off, and if you were blindfolded, you wouldn't feel a thing. So don't get poisoned. They hide. An ANBU team discovered their weak spot. You have to get them in the head. A hole blown straight through will kill them. They said that they were strange but they couldn't put a finger on it." Naruto paused, waiting for questions. He was quickly met with one from Konohamaru.

"Nee-san, where do they hide?"

He shrugged. "We don't know, we haven't found connections. There don't seem to be any. Not that there aren't any." The blond jinchūriki shifted his weight and closed his eyes. "You're going to be close to the zone where all the Found Ones are, and therefore near the squad that Sai's leading. You'll stop there before going in, and you'll rest there before returning." The squad nodded. Naruto held up a hand, opening his eyes, and an ANBU that probably only Akamaru had known was there appeared from a tree somewhere behind Naruto. He handed a bag to Naruto and backed away silently. The Hokage reached inside the pouch and pulled out a handful of capped syringes with a red fluid inside them. "This is the antidote for the venom. It'll turn into a greenish brown when it's activated. You have to inject it where the venom was, or else it won't work. Got it, everyone?" The shinobi nodded.

Naruto passed the syringes to Moegi and Kaito, and described the route they would take. They would pass through the area that Sai and his team were stationed, and were to stay a night there before and after going to the hideout. With a final check and farewell, the platoon of shinobi was on their way to the Land of Rice Paddies.

The team stopped at the makeshift hospital-dojo-house that the team of elite shinobi consisting of Sai, Yamato, Yoni, a Yamanaka clan member, and Tema, a civilian ninja, like Sakura. The twelve of them had a long conversation, only sending the genins to sleep and the young chuunins an hour or so later. The jonins quickly switched the conversation to darker topics concerning the next day and the Found Ones. Shikamaru and Ino were told that there weren't any new Jane or John Does with their clan's powers. No people had shown up with the traits of the Inuzuka or Aburame clans. The six jonin formed a circle around a small oil lamp in the center of a room and made sure that it was secure from any prying eyes or ears.

Sai sat down last. "The thing about Yakushi Kabuto's laboratory is that it's protected. I ran into one of the things protecting it yesterday, and it's a white snake. Naruto told you?" The shinobi nodded. "Has it reached him as to what it is yet?" Heads were shaken. "It's rice." Dubious looks were shared among the shinobi as they pondered this fact.

"How the hell are we supposed to defeat animated rice?" Shino had to ask. "You expect my bugs to eat it or something?" Akamaru lifted his head and sniffed at Shino's shoulder, probably hearing the bugs inside him buzz with contempt. Kiba glanced at Akamaru, before turning to Sai.

"What kind of rice? Does it reanimate itself if you 'kill' it?" He seemed to be taking this seriously, which was kind of surprising. Sai shook his head, his dark hair flopping over his eyes.

"Shino, I think you ought to keep your bugs away from it. It actually ate my ink chimeras. And Kiba, it's made of white rice, and it was hiding in a rice paddy, and afterward, I noticed that the plants in it were gone. I think that it came from the rice plant and was fresh. I didn't see it come back alive, but I left right after I killed it." He paused to take a breath, and a thump was heard in a corner of the room, from the other side of the door. Akamaru and Kiba snapped to attention, facing the corner, Akamaru's fur bristling along his spine. Sai merely glanced in that direction. "Yamato-taichou, could you please check that?" The older shinobi obligingly got up and went to the door and slid it open. He stepped inside, sliding it shut behind him.

Shikamaru exchanged a look with Ino. "You don't seem very worried, Sai. What's in there?" He folded his hands together, resting his elbows on his thighs, and his chin on his hands.

The pale man froze, and emotion crossing his face, before resuming his usual indifferent and emotionless semblance. "Patients," he said nonchalantly, waving it off. "One of them probably had a nightmare or something." Shikamaru and Ino shared another doubtful look, but neither asked anything more. "Anyway," he continued as Yamato re-entered, "The only way you can kill it is by getting a straight shot all the way through the snake, head to tail. It's pretty damned hard to do, given how they like staying coiled up pretty much always." He laughed wryly. "Took me an hour to get it straight. I ended up slapping an explosive tag on its head, and after the explosion, it just sat there for about two minutes, straight as a board. Good thing, too, because it had bitten me and I could only move one arm," he said, gesturing to the bandage on his left arm. "Damn snake probably knew I'm left-handed."

This drew laughter from the shinobi around him, and he blushed.

"Don't worry, man, I bet you'll be okay after a drink," Kiba laughed, slapping an arm around Sai's shoulder. Ino rolled her eyes.

"Sai's not really a drinking sort of guy, remember?" Ino reminded the group. "We figured that one out a couple years ago at a New Year's party."

Shikamaru smiled, remembering it. They'd invited the whole rookie nine (Minus Sasuke, thank Senju he was dead), Kakashi, and Yamato, plus Sai. They'd intended Sai and Sakura to get together, and that was why they'd done it. They'd gotten Sai drunk and told Sakura the wrong time, so that it would seem that she had come to his rescue. Which she did. She'd come in the door to Naruto's house and seen Sai hopelessly drunk, and he'd said without hesitation, 'Oh, look guys, my beautiful Sakura-chan is here,' then hiccupped. Loudly. She'd blushed scarlet, then said, 'And you're drunk, Sai. Come on, you're going home.' She'd then proceeded to take his arm around her shoulder, making him stand up, and walked him home, having issues since he couldn't put one foot in front of the other. They'd gone on their first date the next day. It worked pretty well, for one of Ino's plans, he thought. Besides the fact that she'd come back over and hit all of them over the head. All but Hinata, because she hadn't had a say in it that Sakura knew of. She'd actually been the biggest supporter of the plan. Nobody had ratted on her because of her Juuken and that she was perfectly willing to use it.

"And Sakura would probably kill him if we got him to drink again," Shikamaru laughed. "She was close enough to killing us." The other ninja laughed with him, and Sai joined in.

"You're right; she probably would kill me, even if I wasn't drunk at all!" Sai said jokingly.

Yamato sobered the room by saying, "Too bad Tsunade-sama couldn't have been there. She would have enjoyed it, despite Jiraiya-sama's death." The ninja in the room respectfully quieted down at the mention of the two late respected Sannin. A few minutes passed, and then Sai stood up and faced the corner where the thump had sounded from previously.

"You guys have to go to the base tomorrow?" Shikamaru nodded. "We should probably all get some sleep then, huh." The four jonin-and one ninken- stood and nodded, silently heading off to where the platoon was sleeping for the night.

Shikamaru lingered, however. "Sai."

The ninja turned to the Nara. "Shikamaru."

"Why won't you tell us who are really in there?"

"Because they wish to remain hidden."

"And they are?"

In response, the sliding door slammed open and a child came barreling out toward Shikamaru. It wrapped its arms around his leg and simply stood there, saying nothing. He stood there, not knowing what to do, and then peeled the kid's arms away from him, holding its small hands in his tenderly. Kneeling down, he looked at the kid, who was, in fact, a girl, and said quietly and gently, "Hi there, what's your name?" The girl flushed, and her brown eyes widened when she saw him. She shook her head, pink lips pressed together, and her short, short brown hair waved back and forth. Her ears were already pierced and had small silver loop earrings in them. She was wearing a dirty and battered cream (or some color like it under the dirt) shirt and a pair of brown shorts. She was barefoot, and she seemed to be fine with it.

"She doesn't talk much," Sai said, and he crossed his arms exasperatedly. "But apparently she likes you more than your dad. And your mom hasn't been out here, so she hasn't met your mom yet. She's a Jane Doe, but she seems to be Nara."

The little Jane Doe got up on her tiptoes and put her lips next to Shikamaru's ear conspiratorially. "I like flowers," she whispered, then giggled as she got down on the flat of her feet again.

He smiled, taking on a whole new personality and leaning in to her, and whispered equally conspiratorially, "I like deer." She giggled and turned to Sai.

"I like him, Mister Sai! He's nice." She chirped happily. "Can I go with him?"

Sai shrugged. "That depends on him." She rounded on the genius, and he shrugged too.

"I'm not going home tomorrow, you know. I have a job to do, Jane," he said apologetically. "But on my way back, maybe, okay?" She stuck out her bottom lip, and crossed her arms, reminding him of Sabaku no Temari when she was impersonating some small child. He smiled. "I'll at least come back for a while; you can count on that, okay?"

That seemed to cheer her up, because she smiled triumphantly and nodded, and darted back to the room where she'd been. Sai followed after her, waving over his shoulder. He paused for a moment. "She's got you wrapped around her finger now, Shikamaru." Then he continued into the other room, shutting the door behind him.

"What a drag." He turned and left the room.

Shikamaru didn't see the Jane Doe the next morning when they left for the base. He shrugged it off and without a backward glance, the platoon left.

There were no bumps, no dilemmas, and the group reached the clearing outside the base with dignity and in silence, kunai and shuriken at the ready. With hand signals, the plan was made clear; Moegi and Udon were to make their way around the side of the clearing to the right and wait outside the door of the underground lab (because it was clearly one of Orochimaru's old ones), Konohamaru and Kaito to the left, and Shino above, while Shikamaru, Ino, Kiba, and Akamaru were to stay in front. There was no rice paddy in front, so the jonin had no issue.

Suddenly, there was a loud explosion, and Moegi screamed. Udon was halfway across the clearing, down in the mud, and through the smoke and dust, a large figure of something quite flexible was silhouetted, and holding something squirmy and probably female. "Moegi!" Udon shouted.

"Snaaaaake!"

A/N: I decided that my story won't work if everything's entirely canon, so Shikamaru's a bit nicer and more open, Sai's not so cryptic, just stubborn, and well, Konohamaru's... Konohamaru. xD

Review please!