Shikamaru felt a migraine coming on. The rest of the circus employees were not as hostile as Ryoichi's mother, but they weren't friendly either. Perhaps it was because he was an outsider, or maybe because they were busy setting up for tonight. Once the customers had started filing in, he pretty much had given up hope on interviewing anyone else. About the only thing of interest he had learned was that Ryoichi wasn't considered particularly talented as acrobats went.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by a loud slurping sound and glanced over at Takara. "It's empty."

"I like the sound."She replied, slurping again.

Deciding it wasn't worth an argument, he let it go. There was a burst of static in his ear quickly followed by Ino's voice. "I think we have something. She just left by the front entrance and her first performance is in an hour."

Shikamaru responded, "I'm on my way." Takara rose as he stood. "Stay here, I'll be back within the hour."

"Fine."She snapped, plopping back down on the bench.

He started to push his way through the growing crowd, trying to draw as little suspicion towards himself as he could. Flipping his radio back on, he said. "Ino, what's going on."

Ino's voice came over the radio barely above a whisper. "Yeah, she's running. Well, not literally but definitely picking up the pace and she keeps looking behind herself. I'm in the woods now so am pretty sure she hasn't seen me."

"I'll come up from behind. We need to stop her, but let's try to keep our distance."

Ino acknowledged and Shikamaru broke into a run.

As he left the circus he could just see her on the horizon walking towards the nearby village. He started after her, allowing her to get a little further away from the circus. When he was within 20 paces of her, Ino stepped out in front of her. The woman stopped in her tracks, went to turn around, and saw him.

Shikamaru was ready to grab her with his shadow, but she just looked between the two of them and let out a curse before breaking into tears.

"What do you want from me! Why won't you leave me alone!"

When interrogating someone sometimes it was best to be nice, it was easier on them and yourself. However, sometimes it's not the best course. Being mean, cruel, even is sometimes the best way. Shikamaru knew it would be a lot harder on him, but someone filled with anger needed a direction for it.

"You're lying to us. You know who took your son, that's why you're running away now."

The woman's eyes brimmed with hatred as she stared at Shikamaru "He was wearing a mask. I never saw his face he just kept asking questions. I couldn't lie, I couldn't do anything."

"What were the questions you were asked?"

"They were about Ryoichi. I knew they were taking him, I couldn't stop them."

"Them? How many?"

Her shoulder slumped. "Two, maybe three. One of them did all the talking. I could hear another one of them whispering sometimes, and sometimes it was like they were listening to something. Like they had a radio."

"I see." Shikamaru didn't think she was lying. She seemed exhausted, emotionally wrung out. "We are going. Go back to your family, if they didn't kill you then, they're not going to now."

Without saying a word, he turned back around and went back to the circus. Ino fell into step beside him. It was a moment before she spoke. "Bit harsh."

Shikamaru let out a long sigh. "She was angry and scared. I gave her a target."

Ino was silent until they were about to reenter the circus, "Well, at least something good might come from that."

Sunagakure was by far the most difficult of the hidden villages to travel to. Over the years, Shikamaru had traveled to all the major villages and most of the minor ones on some business or another. None were as inaccessible as Sunagakure. It was the most secured hidden village, but the cost of running it was higher and it made it more difficult on any potential clients. In recent years they had actually opened an office in a more accessible village and then forwarded the information to the Sunagakure.

They still ran a convoy out to the village for those who wanted to travel to the village but were wary of crossing the desert alone. If it had just been himself and Ino, he would have foregone the convoy and headed directly to the village. Takara was with them, though, and she wasn't up to a demanding trip like that yet. The extra two days traveling in convoy was not much of a delay, but Takara was in a sour mood because of the heat.

If he had been asked, Shikamaru would have acknowledged that taking her on this trip was not one of his better decisions, but the young girl certainly wouldn't be any happier if he had left her back in the village. She really was troublesome. In the end, though, they had arrived at their destination safely and now they were just waiting outside of the Kazekage's door for nearly an hour.

The door opened loudly, hinges squeaking and pulling everyone's attention towards it. Three men walked out followed by Kankuro. He had changed his facial painting again. The man's eyes flicked over the small group before obviously resting next to him, on Takara, Shikamaru remembered his general dislike for kids.

"Sorry for the wait. Come on in."

Gaara was standing by a window overlooking the village and turned to acknowledge them as they entered. "Shikamaru, I understand I owe you thanks for saving my friend's life."

"I was just in the right spot at the right time."

"Yes, I was hoping you could elaborate though. I received a message summarizing what happened and that you would be requesting information from us. By necessity, the message was sparse on details."

Shikamaru nodded, having expected this. "The assassin was a 12-year-old boy with no ninja training. We believe he slipped into the village and the convoy. The weapon he attempted to stab Naruto with was coated with a poison that could very well have killed him."

Gaara nodded. "What exactly was the poison?"

Shikamaru waited for Ino to answer that. "It doesn't seem to be any one specialty. All the ingredients are fairly common at least for ninja."

"Did you bring a sample?" Kankuro asked. "If it was specially made even from common ingredients we might be able to figure out who made it."

"I brought a sample, but I'm pretty sure you won't have much better luck than us."

Even without turning his head, Shikamaru could tell Ino was wearing a false smile. Their villages may be close allies, but professional pride knew no loyalties. "There is also one other thing we would appreciate your assistance with." He paused for half of a second, wishing he was a diplomat. "We only found traces of whatever was controlling the kid. It's eerily close, at least in action, to a technique that Sasori used. He never participated in any of the research efforts here-"

"You're not accusing us of being involved, are you?" Kankuro interjected.

Shikamaru smiled. "We don't believe your village was involved in any way. We just think the technique was similar and it might give us something to look for. Parallel development, I think it's called."

Gaara was silent for a long moment. "I admit, I know of no particular project off the top of my head. For a brief time I had a fascination with Sasori, but he left our village far too soon to be involved in any research projects. Still, I will ask our archivists. Why don't the three of you join me for dinner tonight? I should have information for you by then. Kankuro, I'm sure you'll handle the sample."

"Thank you, Kazekage." He said.

Taking as the end of their meeting, Ino handed the sample over to Kankuro and they made their way out the door. When they were about halfway back to their assigned quarters, Takara broke her silence.

"That guy is dangerous."

Shikamaru looked down at her, slightly amused. "So, that's why you were so quiet? He's one of the strongest ninjas you've ever met, but as long as you're not a threat to him or anything he cares about, he is completely harmless."

Takara was silent for a moment. "Still sends a shiver up my spine."

One of the things that Shikamaru didn't like about Sunagakure was that it didn't allow him to indulge in his favorite pastime of cloud watching. The sky remained an unrelenting blue with not even a wisp of water vapor to wrap one's imagination around. With Ino in the lab with the sample, he was left alone with Takara. He spent part of that time telling her about Gaara, hoping to replace her fear with understanding, but decided that was a failure. Instead, he turned the conversation to history, most notably Sunagakure, which seem to be a tad more interesting to her.

A messenger came to collect them for dinner. Takara chose, unsurprisingly, to tag along. With Ino still in the lab, it would just be the two of them. Most ninjas preferred to be informal when given the chance. Even though he was meeting a head of the village on business, the room they were led to was fairly small and Gaara was already there. He rose to greet them.

"Shikamaru, I had people digging through the archives and I might have found something that might be of use to you."

"Thank you," Shikamaru said, taking the offered seat.

A moment later, the door opened and a woman pushing a cart entered and placed salads in front of them. She had a considerable limp and Shikamaru wondered if it was from an old injury.

"Kankuro won't be joining us?" Shikamaru asked.

"No, he's still in the lab with Ino."

Shikamaru waited for the woman to leave. "So, what did you find out?"

Gaara uncapped a bottle of salad dressing and poured it liberally over his salad. "About 30 years ago, there was a project." He started spearing some of his food. "The project was called Rainbow, and like all codenames, it had nothing whatsoever to do with the project. Its purpose was to create human puppets."

"Human puppets?" Takara asked.

Gaara nodded. "It's the best way to describe the goal."

"You remember what I told you about how they use puppets, Takara, right? They use them to fight, but I'm not exactly sure I see the advantage unless we are talking about sleeper agents here?" Shikamaru said, glancing at Gaara questioningly.

"Yes, that was exactly it. Quite disturbingly close to Sasori's technique. Of course, he wasn't ever attached to the project, this was after he left. It was rather distasteful work but I could see the reasoning behind it. You capture someone, then either set them free or have them escape and then you have an assassin that can get close to your target and..." Gaara gave a little shrug as he took another bite of his food.

Shikamaru could imagine. You capture an enemy ninja and then arrange for him to escape. Who would suspect? It didn't even have to be a ninja. It could be a government official or even a family member. "How long would it take to," he paused not sure of the right word to use. "For it to be effective?"

Gaara finished chewing before shaking his head. "They were still in the early stages of research and development. Some thought they could get it down to a few days but most thought it would always take months."

"I think you could kidnap someone, do what you need to do, and then send them back to do the assassination. Double pay!" Takara blurted out.

Shikamaru glanced at his young apprentice, a little concerned. Her idea wasn't technically impossible, but the fact she had come up with it so quickly was not the most comforting thought.

Gaara coughed. "Yes, I believe that was one of their ideas. The project was canceled within the same year it was created, so there really isn't much on it."

"Why was it canceled?" Takara asked.

Perhaps he shouldn't have tried to get her over her fear of Gaara, Shikamaru thought to himself.

"Budget cuts," Gaara said, with just the corners of his mouth rising.

Shikamaru found himself smiling. It was an old problem and one he had never really quite appreciated until he had been reluctantly given more responsibility. Money was not an infinite commodity, but few chose to acknowledge that fact.

Gaara coughed again and Shikamaru frowned. "Are you okay?"

Gaara nodded. "There's just something caught in my throat."

His voice sounded a bit strange, but when he raised his glass of water to drink he coughed again and several specks of blood stained the clean water. Everyone froze for a second before Gaara coughed more violently this time. Gaara had raised his hand to cover his mouth, but blood dripped out through his fingers.

Shikamaru stood and was at Gaara's side as he doubled over in a coughing fit. "Takara, get one of the guards."

Takara jumped out of her chair and darted towards the door, disappearing in the blink of an eye leaving and Shikamaru with a coughing Gaara. There was little he could do except to hold the former jinchuriki in his chair so he wouldn't fall to the floor. A moment later, two ninjas rushed into the room, one obviously a medical-nin. Shikamaru pushed his back against the wall to give them room. In their haste to move Gaara to the hallway where there would be more room to work, they knocked over the plate Gaara had been eating from.

It was only after they were in the hallway that Shikamaru thought to look down at the ruined meal and noticed something odd. There was something catching the light that didn't look right. Bending down, he put a finger in the salad dressing and felt something hard and small. He pulled it free of the multicolored liquid and then raised it on his fingertip. It was a tiny sliver of glass. The plate was ceramic and no glass had been broken.

He was just about to shout what he had found when there was an explosion somewhere far away that sent a small shockwaves through the building.

Shikamaru was all too aware of his situation. He was a foreign ninja who had been alone with the Kazekage when he had almost been assassinated. In a different time and place, he wouldn't be sitting in the guest quarters with Ino and Takara.

"So what exactly happened?" Takara asked all of a sudden. "I mean you told me, but glass?"

Shikamaru glanced at Ino, who smiled. "Well, Takara. What seems to have happened is someone tried to poison Gaara. They put ground-up glass in his salad dressing. It's a very unusual way to try to assassinate someone, but not unheard of. Trouble is they didn't grind it fine enough, and instead of it going through the entire digestive system, it started cutting up his esophagus. When you swallow, you see, your esophagus pushes the food down. If it was done properly it would've only done slight damage there, not enough to be noticed."

"Someone really tried it before?" Shikamaru jumped into the conversation.

Ino leaned back in her chair. "There's this book on unusual poisonings. It's strongly suggested reading for most medical-nin, at least from our village. They mentioned an example of it. A wife of a daimyo used it to kill her husband about 50 years ago using the method. She ground-up glass very finely and sprinkled it on his food. The next morning, though, he was in great pain and was bleeding from just about everywhere. They weren't sure what was wrong with him until an autopsy revealed numerous small cuts throughout his entire digestive system. The woman received a pardon by her son, by the way."

"Nice family," Shikamaru muttered. "So, what do you think went wrong here then?"

Ino shrugged. "They were probably hoping to do more damage in the digestive system. Once it got to that stage, even an expert would have trouble trying to save him."

Shikamaru was just about to ask how that was possible when there was a knock at the door. Being the closest, he stood to answer it. The ninja standing there was obviously a Jonin and looked to be in his late 50s.

"Shikamaru, I have some questions for you."

Forcing a smile, he glanced behind himself before stepping into the hallway and closing the door behind him. "How can I be of assistance?"

"Assistance?" The man said not introducing himself. "Yes, well I would like to hear what you think happened."

Shikamaru realized he had to tread lightly. The way the question was worded alone told him this man thought he had something to do with it.

"My apprentice and I were having a dinner meeting with the Kazekage. He was relaying some information to us as he ate his salad. He coughed as he related some of the information. At first, I thought he was just having a little food stuck in his throat, but it got worse until he coughed up blood. I told my apprentice to get help while I tried to steady him."

The man nodded. "The person who brought in the food, did you notice anything odd about her?"

Shikamaru thought trying to remember. "She had a limp, but that was really the only thing I noticed about her. Did she have something to do with that explosion?"

The man's expression remained completely neutral as he went on. "So, how did you find the glass again?"

It took considerable effort on Shikamaru's part not to sigh. Being the one interrogated was troublesome. "The plate was knocked to the floor, and once Gaara was being tended to, I noticed a piece catch the light."

"Convenient," the man said in a flat tone. "It's a very peculiar way of assassination. I only found two such references to it. Both times it was fatal, though, the people who ingested it died days afterwards."

Shikamaru weighed the pros and cons of telling the man Ino's theory about it not being ground fine enough, but would that make him look more guilty or innocent? It occurred to him that he might be being set up. Blame the outsider was a common enough reaction. He was saved from answering by the arrival of a third person.

"Ouga, what business do you have here?"

Both men turned their heads to see Temari walking down the hallway. She was covered in dirt and looked exhausted but sill carried herself with a confident air. Her oversized fan that was usually attached to her back was noticeably absent.

"I could ask the same of you," the man Shikamaru now knew as Ouga replied.

"I have been tasked by two Council members to get this man's statement. Orders, I'm positive, you do not have."

From the corner of his eye, Shikamaru could see the slip of Ouga's mask of calm for only a fraction of a second before he recovered. "With my immediate superior incapacitated, I am authorized to act on my own."

Temari smiled as she came to a stop in front of them. "My brother woke up a few minutes ago. Perhaps you should see what his official orders might be for you."

Without excusing himself, Ouga glanced at Shikamaru and walked down the hallway. Shikamaru and Temari watched him until he disappeared around the corner. Then Shikamaru turned towards Temari. "I thought I wouldn't be seeing you this trip."

"I just got back an hour ago. I heard the news about my brother and rushed here, then heard about you." She let out a small sigh. "It is so strange to see him hurt. I know he doesn't have the protection like he used to, but still."

"I know. Someone tried to attack Naruto and almost succeeded."

"What? I didn't hear about that." Temari snapped.

Shikamaru remembered she had been out on a mission and filled her in on the last few days of his activities. Temari nodded when he was finished.

"So there's a connection. One current Kage and a future Kage. Both times the assassins at least tried to kill themselves afterwards."

"I'm sorry, what? I haven't heard anything about that, you know who tried to kill Gaara?"

Temari blinked at him from moment. "Yes, once everyone realized there was a poisoning, or that's what the alert said, everyone who was involved with the preparation of food was detained. Mikka, the person who brought him his food, blew herself up when they tried to detain her."

So that was the explosion he had heard. A few exploding tags under her clothing perhaps? It was more effective than diving off of a building.

"Anyway," Temari continued. "I should go get the authority I just claimed I had. Be careful what you say around Ouga. He's an Old Guard type.

Shikamaru nodded. "What is he exactly?"

"Ouga is the Chief Investigator of Interesting Events and People."

authors note :Sorry for the long delay